Hello,
I'm a 6' 2'' 245 lbs. male looking to make a lifestyle change regarding my eating habits. I've worked with my friends and colleagues to develop the following diet, and was wondering what your thoughts were esp. relating to sodium content. I'm extremely new to this, and feel like where I've gone low in calories, I've upped sodium.
Breakfast: 1/2 container of egg beaters w/ hot Sauce & a 1 slice of double fiber toast with Omega-3 enriched spread. Coffee.
Lunch: Tuna fish and 2 tbsps of Fat Free Cottage Chesse on a bed of spinach with an occasional dill pickle. Diet soda.
Dinner: Can of healthy choice vegetable soup (80 calories/serving) and slice of double fiber toast with cottage cheese.
I'm doing ~30 minutes of strength (push-ups, leg lifts, etc.) and aerobic (jogging) work-out/day and constantly drinking water.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
It sounds like you've taken some time to begin planning how to approach changing your eating habits - that's an excellent start! It takes time and isn't something that can effectively happen overnight or with a 'cold turkey' style approach.
Based on what I'm seeing in your post, it looks like you've got the activity/exercise component covered. I would just make sure that after warming up, you're performing the exercises in a fashion that that allows your heart rate to be elevated for that 30min period of time.
Regarding the dietary changes, be sure to ease into them! It can be tough to go from a traditional American style diet to a high quality, precision diet. I would absolutely recommend increasing the number of times you eat during the day. A bare minimum of five seperate 'feedings' should be a daily occurence. Meal and portion sizing is key in this regard. Keep your portions down but meal frequency up and your metabolism will thank you for it.
I enjoy writing extensively about this items at www.dietforadollar.com Feel free to stop by and see if any of the information there can be helpful to you.
Best of luck to you with your goals!
Thanks for the reply/feedback. So far I've been sticking to my plan pretty precisely. I agree with the concept of increasing meals, and will work on incorporating a healthy snack between smaller proportioned meals.
That's great that you've been able to consistently keep to the diet plan you have. Taking those steps to make it habitual is absolutely key to long term success. I just noticed that you also asked about sodium intake based on the foods you're eating. While the soup and cottage cheese will probably carry the bulk of the sodium intake during the day, it doesn't look like you have a whole lot to worry about unless of course you're trying to restrict further due to a medical condition. If everything is fine medically, that sodium intake shouldn't be cause for concern for someone your size. Plus, you mention you consume a decent amount of water daily along with consistently sticking to your exercise schedule which are both positives that can counter excessive sodium consumption (which I wouldn't say you're consuming excessive amounts).
The only other concern I would have would be regarding your total daily caloric intake. Do you know how much you're consuming? Do you know what your BMR is based on your current body stats? For example, I'm 5'10" and have had stretches where I ate similarly to what you have listed (albeit across more meals) and was only taking in around 1,600 - 1,800 calories per day. I lost a lot of weight quickly from about 170lbs to 163lbs or so and really could've stood to consume more during the day. I put a post together a little while back talking about how to calculate your current BMR and an approximate goal weight BMR to determine a daily calorie range over at www.dietforadollar.com It can be very easy to consume both too much or too little depending on your goals. Right now I'm consistently in the 2,200 calories/day range and have increased activity to slowly bring my weight down without sacrificing as much muscle as I did previously. It is a very fine balance and like anything else, when done slowly and precisely the results are typically better than those found with a quick and dirty approach.
Keep up the good work! A quick and easy tip for those between meal snacks: 1 serving of a high quality whey protein. They usually only have about 100cals per serving and 24g protein with little to no carbs/fat. You'll be getting a high quality protein, your body will be working more throughout the day digesting, repairing, etc and your caloric intake will only rise slightly.
Take care~
I too would like to commend you on your efforts to change your lifestyle. You will be rewarded in many ways that you never even considered!
In review this string of posts I like that the conversation is inching toward learning about a healthy calorie deficit (you can learn more about this in my recent shared posts). I say that because I see references to things like BMR, Calorie Intake, ect...
I wanted to give you another resource from a friend/colleague of mine that will help you better understand your relationship between you and the food you eat. The resource is called Body By Eats and it was created by Leigh Peele. Here is a link for you to check it out:
http://tinyurl.com/ykwp3ah
I hope this helps!
Jason Chiero, CPT