Make me less fat.

Zach Boring · February 2015

At a high weight for the past 4 years. Am beginning to finally work out consistently again and want to shed some weight.

Background: former fat kid in high school. Triathlon stopped that bad slope. Started real world in may and have been putting on the pounds since Jan. 2014 with the increased stress/reduction in training of my Senior project in school.

I generally know foods that are good for me (generally). But I am a plan/routine guy and just haven't been on a plan for a while. So I'm looking for help/meal ideas and a breakdown of when I should eat in a day. Just doing typical off season work with 45 min to 2 hours of workouts a day. up to 3 on weekends.

Help me out! Also open to new ideas and trends. I am curious about upping healthy fat intake if someone has some experience/science about that.

Thanks! Need to look good for the budgie smuggler for Toughman NY

_MurMan · February 2015

Are both Captains rocking the Budgie Smuggler for our Championship race? If so I too need to get my shit together so I can win best in show! but more in a "stop being so slow" kinda way! @zachboring

Zach Boring · February 2015

no, I just like to imagine all this in something that revealing..... I might though we shall see

morganstyer · February 2015

I dropped from 215 lbs. at Labor Day '14 to 185 lbs. by Thanksgiving. For me, it was all about calorie tracking. I logged every morsel via My Fitness Pal. To set my target daily intake I set my goals as 1.5 lbs. per week and a sedentary lifestyle. I figured that any exercise I did was a bonus calorie burn.

Following that method, you quickly figure out which foods give you the most energy for a given number of calories. I could eat 3 Oreos and still be hungry, or eat a cup of carrots and a big glob of hummus for the same calories.

I'm using the same method to get down to around 170 by race season.

kevinschummer · February 2015

@zachboring Are you looking for something specific or just basic information? Do you want examples of people's diet or just ideas of foods to eat?

Simply put, it gets worse with age and increase of stress levels. You just left the easiest part of your life (for weight maintenance), and you're entering the 'ah, fuck me' zone whenever you step on the scale.

As far as healthy fats, what's your concern? The term 'low fat' on foods is a load of horseshit. Generally speaking, you need fat, but you have have to be careful not to overdue it. Almonds (or some nut), tuna, salmon, etc. should be parts of your diet.

GentlemanJerseyDave · February 2015

You are putting up those times while overweight? Shit, I'm hopeless.

Zach - I'm a highly undisciplined eater. I fall into the "If it's on my plate I'll eat it camp". Two years back I was a solidly flabby 213 now I'm a definitionless 175. I preach portion control in addition to healthy eating. I am also a creature of convenience like most. To help I always carry water with me. I stock my house and office with healthy snacks. I keep apples and healthy snacks on the shelf above my desk. My fridge is filled with Carrots and Celery. At home I stash all the sugary shit my wife buys in the back closet. I am the typical shopper - supermarkets put nasty things at the ends of aisles knowing I am going to walk by and sweep a shelf of em into my basket. So my tip is lifestyle change. Observe where you are handling things poorly in your diet and make it convenient to make a new choice. I battle to keep my weight where it is but I totally hit the right rhythms most of the time and have sustained the weight loss.

Good luck.

Zach Boring · February 2015

Ideally I would like a sample plan for a day. with a calorie breakdown per "feeding" to aim for.

idk what I truly want, besides to loose weight. I did it once before but it was "easy" then while in school.

Zach Boring · February 2015

Is there an optimal blend of carbs/protein/far for weight loss. I'm not looking for a magic bullet. Just a way to get started

GentlemanJerseyDave · February 2015

I did calorie counting and accountability for a couple months. Get a free app to your phone, put in your goal and then honestly track what you are eating. It will help you understand every little thing you put in your body. It will also absolutely ruin 99% of food for you. Once you open the calorie counting box there is no looking back.

Zach Boring · February 2015

I guess it's relative. At IMAZ I was 200. Now at 210. Needs to go the other way. Fat is fast when everything is flat

I was 170-175 up until summer/fall when I burnt out and got off track for whatever reasons.

I will also do that. I'm going to recruit me soon to be fiancé to portion. My food and give it to me. Otherwise I could fill a plate like none other, eat it, and go back again.

Also, would love some simple and healthy ideas for dinners. Breakfast and lunch I'm a boss. I eat clean until I get home after work. Then shift falls to the ground as I put on my stretchy pants. I get lazy and think "hey, chipotle is healthy right? let's go there" this isn't everyday, just when busy.

kevinschummer · February 2015

I totally concur with @MorganStyer; use the MyFitnessPal app (or something similar) to keep yourself honest. Conscious consumption is super important. Log it all, including alcohol because that's the real kick in the nuts. Know the foods you are eating and what their caloric content is. Create deficits if you're trying to lose weight. Lean how your body reacts to certain foods. I don't handle dairy particularly well so I rarely eat cheese and I never drink milk. It's a lot of tinkering to figure out what works for you to fuel your lifestyle and workouts.

I agree with @GentlemanJerseyDave; surround yourself with good food decisions. Get the sugary shit away. My office has oatmeal, almonds & tuna at all times. I eat those everyday. My weekday diet is completely boring and repetitive; my wife wonders how I do it. But it's consistent as all hell. Same thing from breakfast through lunch and two snacks (there's the 'plan' for you). Drink copious amounts of water; to the point that your urine is clear. The yellower it is, the more water you need to drink.

GentlemanJerseyDave · February 2015

Oh, and when you plan to diet hard always allow a cheat day. This doesn't mean four Big Macs but totally bend. I found it very helpful. I like seeing how no one here has suggested to stay away from alcohol, ha ha.

Zach Boring · February 2015

This may surprise the shit out of everyone, but I really don't drink that mUch. One or two a week. Though that has gone up since joinING this team. Thanks guys, you are all contributing to my un healthy lifestyle.

Scheck48 · February 2015

zachboring said:
Ideally I would like a sample plan for a day. with a calorie breakdown per "feeding" to aim for.

idk what I truly want, besides to loose weight. I did it once before but it was "easy" then while in school.

Check out the Racing Weight plan by Matt Fitzgerald. It is a very simple points based plan that you try to score the best each day. There are + and - food items, and as long as your honest with yourself, it works great. 29 is a perfect score, but even at my best, mid 20's is about as good as I get. There's more that he discusses in the book, but the simple scoring method for eating is the most important. Here's a spread sheet that I made for easy use.

Theo · February 2015

I am NOT going to be speaking from experience here as I've weighed the same, +/- 7lbs for the past 15 yrs or so, and muscle definition/accumulation seems to come naturally for me. That said, because I end up being very fit compared to the general population, and because I spend way too much time reading stuff and learning about training techniques, I've had many people approach me regarding diet/weight loss questions.

At the end of the day it's "Calories in vs. Calories out" to figure out which way your weight is going to change. For most people, that means they need to actually start exercising as they live a completely sedentary life, but in your case it seems like you're already doing a solid amount of base work. The problem with base work (and Z1-Z2 stuff in general), is that it's really easy to not actually work that hard while doing this, especially if you're coming from a highly trained background.

My suggestion would be to change it up on your body, start getting sore, and basically increase your "non-exercising calorie burn rate". Not sure what the correct term for this is, but this is what you would burn if you just "did nothing" all day. By stressing and intensely stimulating your body, you can increase that rate for many hours after your workout has ended = increased "Calories out" beyond your 90min workout session expenditure. No need to go all Crossfit and shit, but just throw in some TRX workouts to destroy your core/legs/arms and make you cry for mercy if you want off-season strength stuff, or hit the track or hills for hard intervals (running or biking). Start off with once a week and eventually move up to 2x a week. This doesn't sound like much, but if you're doing it right, it will take you easily 2-3 days to no longer be sore from this type of work.

Zach Boring · February 2015

Serious questions, does working out fasted really promote fat consumption for energy? I am horrbile about waking up early, but am trying to make the change. Just always curious if fasted workouts really work for you or against you. This is non-intensity work. Just a morning run, or easy ride/swim

Aaron Webstey · February 2015

Be careful with cal in/cal out. It's not necessarily that simple. Had a friend who logged his calories meticulously for years, did the math, and it just didn't work for him. He was a pro triathlete and a Harvard grad - he knew his body very well and was extremely smart, so he wasn't just fucking it up. There are so many variables (accuracy of food content estimation, how much you actually burn, etc etc) that you can end up very frustrated if you expect too much from that formula.

Scheck48 · February 2015

@AaronWebstey that's why I'm a fan of "Racing Weight" nothing meticulous about it. I've also found the amount of food you eat earning a high score is way more than I would have imagined.

trsradio69 · February 2015

There's a lot of fat shaming going on in this thread.

Let me school you...

Having a nice round belly is a status symbol, like a Gorilla having a silver back. It tells the world that you are successful and can afford to eat and drink whatever the hell you want.

kevinschummer · February 2015

@AaronWebstey I agree with that. I should clarify that, for me, its accountability and educating myself about what I'm putting in. You really start to see where you're wasting calories. I recommend it to others for that same reason.

From what I get on calories in, I always assume it's higher than posted. For burned calories, I always assume it's lower. It'll never be accurate, but at least you can have a better idea.

ItsShug · February 2015

@zachboring I came down from 271 at my heaviest down to 199 in about 6 months or so. I did it with moderate exercise. Mostly it was the p90x program. I didn't have the idea that I could do anything triathlon until later. I used Weight Watchers and I loved it. If you're a guy like me that has struggled with weight for a long time WW really teaches a balance of the food you want to eat and the food you need to eat for weight loss. The mobile apps and data on the web make it extremely easy to use the program. There is a stigma, I think, of guys using the program. But it was invaluable to me and actually getting the weight off after struggling with it for 4 years.

ItsShug · February 2015

Also I was losing on average 2.5-4 pounds a week with it, averaging 4-5 1 hour work outs a week.

Steve Halewski · February 2015

I went from about 190 to about 145 - 150 in about six months after getting out of school. One of the big things for me, like a few others have mentioned, was I used a calorie counter app for a while. It really helped to give me a good understanding of how much I really was eating. And while it may sound kinda like overkill, one of the most useful things for me was a basic food scale. Yea, so maybe it was a little OCD, but it helped me actually figure out portion sizes, because, as it turned out, I was juuuuust a bit off with eyeballing it.

Other than that I did the insanity program for the first two months, and then started tri training.

yournotunique · February 2015

@SteveHalewski same. Not that it's quite on the same level as others, but percentage wise it's close, but I went from 135-175. Then started actually measuring my food. Like, holy shit - a cup of cereal and cup of milk are infinitesimally small! That plus working out again and I dropped that weight pretty quickly.

Now, if I see I'm putting on a few pounds (gained 15 over the holidays plus having a baby), it's easy enough to know what to do to lose it: eat the recommended serving sizes. To clarify; it's easy to *know* what to do, not necessarily easy to do it...

HSeeley14 · February 2015

I have tried that Fitness Pal thing and personally I just find it too much of a hassle to waste time punching shit in all the time. I find that keeping it as simple as possible makes me stick to it better. I keep a basic food log, but like some others have mentioned I spent some time figuring out what proper portions were. A book that I found really helpful, gulp, I am about to mention a total cliche....The Paleo Diet for Athletes. Not to follow the crazy neanderthal diet, but to get good nutrition information as it relates to being active and then make my own decisions. Like, adding protein to every meal (breakfast is protein powder in a smoothie, or greek yogurt with granola, lunch is chicken and salad, etc..) and fats each day (avocados and nuts in salads, coconut oil in smoothies). Eating 3 meals a day (but not gigantic) and snacking in between is the best method I have found. That being said, while IM training I found that my entire day was one big snack. I don't know what foods you like and don't like, but here is an example from last week for me (yes I am a chick and have a different metabolism, but am not far off in body weight from you guys thanks to fucking crossfit):

5:30 am (or whenever the fuck you get up): kale and coconut milk smoothie with protein powder
9:00 am greek yogurt (fat free), granola and raspberries
12:30: 1/4 cup peanuts and a banana
1-2 - workout
2:30 butternut squash soup (non dairy) and Vega Recovery
4:00 apple and 2 rice cakes
8:00 chicken breast (baked) with lemon pepper sauce, brown rice and spinach salad.

I don't count calories, I just try to fill up on good carbs like veggies/fruits in between meals and use things like recovery and pre-workout products to get through workouts. This is just an example and people can pick it apart all they want, but it's mostly about what works for you and keeps you full without using processed foods too much if at all. Drink TONS of water. Like more than 2 litres a day if you don't already.

It gets harder with age of course, so the sooner you get into a solid habit that works for you the better you will feel and hopefully the easier it will be to stick to whatever is a comfortable weight for you.

Well shit. All this talk about food has made me hungry. Poutine anyone?

DHansenTri · February 2015

I'll second the thoughts above regarding the complexities of nutrition. I really fucked myself up last year trying to manage weight for racing at my best. In short, I was training 18 to 24 hours per week, eating "right" - lots of veggies, fruit, protein, carbs before big workouts, etc. After a while I just could not keep at race weight no matter what I did. Then I noticed I started smelling ammonia in sweat. The wife thought I might be eating too much protein - I wasn't sure exactly. I had some blood work done and found my creatinine levels were off the charts to the extent the doctor thought I was on the verge of kidney failure, only one kidney struggling to working, etc - serious shit.

In the end I still don't know wtf happened, or if I even fixed the issue for good. I think I wasn't eating enough and my body needed more so it was eating muscle. Then I was building the muscle back and the cycle would continue. I think my body was trying to regulate itself too, which is why I was always right between 160 and 162. It got to the point where I felt like my body wasn't even burning the carbohydrates I was taking in.

Definitely some complicated shit... don't do what I just explained.

ADRBilly · February 2015

I think it was stated already in another thread, but crystal meth is always an option...

HMkrplunkit · February 2015

Eat some celery and peanut butter. Its good

oldmanchad · February 2015

@zachboring, Coach, Ball Bearings Its all Ball Bearings Now Adays.

danimal · February 2015

Can only tell you what works for me:
- MyFitnessPal sync'd with Garmin Connect (new feature, used to have to do manually)
- Shoot for a weight loss rate that isn't going to be leaving you hungry and bitchy all the time (a 3K calorie / 1lb per week seems to be fine for me)
- Discipline
- Only match calories on the day you burned them (ie no carry over days of eating because you kicked ass day before)

Now, my diet:
Breakfast: ~ 400kcal
Oatmeal w/ Almonds, splash of milk & brown sugar OR Whole Wheat Toast x 2 slices with Peanut Butter

Lunch: ~ 750kcal
Keep it balanced but follow the 30%/20%/50% (Protein/Fat/Carbs) as advocated by "Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes by Monique Ryan"

Dinner: ~850kcal
I try to leave more in dinner than lunch because usually my wife cooks and I end up eating more because of the whole "I made it, you better eat it" guilt trip.

Since this is baseline, I will make up the difference aka "top up" with higher protein snack options to make up for those dig deep work out days. (22mi on Sunday... grazed like a fat cow to make up fro the 2500kcal burn)

I tend to use 1/2 cup of icecream to satisfy my sweet tooth on work out days.

May/may not work for you... I lost 40lbs over the course of 14months this way. It came in fits and spurts but was always down hill. I've found the tougher part than losing is the goal of maintaining a lower weight. Now that I've lost my binge drinking in my 20s figure, I use Body Fat % as my maintenance goal instead of weight because of the effect that training has w.r.t. increasing my body weight.

My diatribe is complete.

Brinz · February 2015

Good thread here. Sitting down right now having a little pasta to go along with my butter while I read this.

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