Dude

If so I have a few questions about my diet that I am confused about and I was wanting to get your advise.


Please help!!!


-Dude

Istanbul_Tea

My wife is a RN here in NYC... perhaps she could answer your question(s) and if not she certainly can get an answer for you at work tomorrow.

Ask away

jchet

My wife is a Dietician and one of the best. She has managed my diet for years and at 43 and 9% body fat she knows what she is doing. Go to SimplyGoodNutrition.Com, tell her what you have in mind and see what she can do for you.

Croak

Yeah, what's the prob?

Dude

Last year I went in for my physical and I was told first to lose some weight "he put me on a diet" and that my triglycerides are 181. In that year I have lost 35 pounds and changed my eating habits a lot. I was having problems with energy levels dropping off too fast so he told me to take Niacin to process the food better. That worked and it brought my energy level up. After some time I started to plateau in my weight management so I changed my diet after discussing this with my doctor and saw more weight loss but I have plateaued again and still need to lose 10 more pounds. I have not gotten the results back from this year.

I take on a daily basis:
100 mg Niacin
400 I.U. Vitamin E
500 mg Evening Primrose Oil
1260 mg Calcium Citrate
1000 mg Vitamin C
2000 mg Fish Oil Omega 3
Multi Vitamin.

I eat breakfast "whole grain toast or Yogurt and Granola". Two to four hours later I have a pear or an apple. A salad for lunch or a meal from the evening before. Two hours later an apple. Two hours after that I workout by either going to the gym or riding. I then come home and make dinner of substance but proportional. In this time frame I am drinking water or a sports drink of some sort while working out.

I workout five to six times a week so this should have a positive effect on my triglycerides but it seems to me that I am not processing the glucose correctly. What should I be looking for in my diet that will have a positive effect on burning my glucose more efficiently as I feel that I am storing this as fat or am I way off base with this?

I would say that I am a mesomorph body type being of Scandinavian heritage.


Thanks

Croak

I'm just heading out to a symposium, I'll give you an answer tonight.

Croak

Okey doke, let's get down to it.

The first thing that sticks out here is that you say you only have 10lbs to lose. If this is the case, you would be starting to be pretty lean which makes losing fat much more difficult (law of dimishing returns). To lose this last 10lbs your diet will have to be spot on combined with a dialed in workout program supplemented with adequate cardio. It gets pretty tough from here! You really have to decide if you want to go the extra distance, which goes from comfortable dieting to a little obsessive.

I would like to see you hittting the gym in the morning rather than the evening. There are a plethora of reasons for this, not the least for the added energy it will give you through the day. Nutritionally it makes a lot of sense too.

First thing, wake up, consume a protein/glucose drink (some protein powder mixed with a Gatorade is handy) and your vitamin C and E then hit the gym. Spend no more than 1 hour in the gym, lifting only, no cardio in the gym. Stick to compound movements. Give me an indication of your experience in the gym and I can elaborate further. Also, go to the gym 4 days a week max. No more, more is not always better!

So come home and have breakfast and multivitamin. Lose the bread. Bread is convenient, but it is not optimum when talking body composition. Also, lose the granola. Instead, go for a 100% natural rolled oat (cook it in to oatmeal), not the instant kind! It has a much better glycemic index and load (or insulin index of you are being pedantic). It also contains a fair amount of fibre. Eat it natural, no milk or sweeteners etc. The yoghurt is ok, make sure it is plain, not the sweet kind. An apple or some other piece of fruit would be a good idea too. Make breakfast the biggest meal of your day.

From here on it gets pretty easy. General idea, slowly taper your food intake off throughout the day, especially carbs. As you are hitting the gym in the morning, there are no need for carbs at night. Eat another 4 meals (rather than 2 meals and 2 snacks) of equal size. Each should contain a small amount of good quality protein (to blunt insulin response), a good serving of vegetables and some good fats (small amount of nuts, olive oil, fish oil caps etc). Up your fish oil to 5g a day, making sure you have a concentrated EPA/DHA variety. At night, make your meals contain no (or as little as humanly possible) carbs, rather replace the calories with good fats from those sources listed. Salmon is fantastic, as is most fatty fish.

No butter, magarine, toppings, spreads, sweeteners, condiments etc. These usually contain high fructose corn syrup, which will turn directly to fat, it has no where else to go. No carbonated or sweetened drinks. No alcohol. No packaged foods, if it wasn't in the produce section, you can't eat it. Lower your sodium, up your potassium. Up your vitamin E.

Start drinking green tea and water (at least 1.5 gallons/6L a day).

When cycling, consume one good quality sports drink during the ride (~500ml). Water all the rest of the way.

I think the biggest change will be the timing of foods, rather than the actual foods themselves. Eat big in the morning, taper if off. Hit the gym in the morning to coincide with the nutrients flooding the body. Also, stick to it. If you are consistant, you will get results. If you cheat every other day, you may aswell give up.

Things like bodyfat%, age, weight, height, sex etc would be able to make this more specific.

Good luck, tell us how it goes.

Guest

Dood- I'm not crazy- I would NEVER counsel you as to what you should or shouldn't be eating UNLESS I was a licensed nutritionist or dietitian. What I am interested in is your percent bodyfat and your triglyceride levels. Are your triglyceride levels low now, or are you still having problems? Is your bodyfat so high that it's unhealthy? Do you seem to gain bodyfat around the middle? These are the questions I feel most comfortable asking, as to give out advice like this that is related to your health without having the proper background would expose me to possible legal problems should I try to advise you and something happens to you healthwise.

If you're having problems with what your doctor prescribed, I would either seek the opinion of a new doctor, or I would call your doctor and ask for a referral for a nutritionist. If I knew where you were, I could talk to this woman I know who is a very fameous nutritionist (licensed, and has appeared on CNN and other talk shows, plus debated Dr. Atkins on Larry King Live) and she could refer you to someone. At the same time, I'd check my health insurance if I were you and see what the policy covers for a nutritionist, as this seems to be a problem related to your health, so I would think they would reimburse you for the visits.

Koffee

Dude

Koffee,

I know you aren't crazy and neither am I, well some might have other opinions. My BFI is 17% ( I would like to see it lower ) and I haven't gotten this years results back on the triglycerides, I think I should get them some time this week. I do seem to gain the weight around the middle and some in my face.

The funny thing is I have spoken to two doctors and both say well a dietician is just going to tell you to eat something from all the food groups we can attack this... I just laugh at them and think, it's about the money isn't it??

I will check with my insurance coverage and see how that works but I thought I would throw it out on the board and see what type of information I could gather.

Just to answer some of the other questions that Croak asked....

As for the gym I have been doing that for a long time. I switched over from a mass building workout "hence a lot of the weight change" To a Anatomical Adaptation type workout. Hi reps 20-30 with sets ranging from 2-5 @ about 40-60% max 2-3 times a week, 9 exercises. The other times I am either doing yoga or bike specific workouts. I commute sometimes during the week and that is 40 miles round trip about 3-4 times.

I do drink green tea everyday about 32 oz but I don't think that increasing the E is a good idea like Croak suggested since E is very toxic, I make up for the remainder in natural food. The fish oil I take is EPA/DHA concentrate so that is a good thing.

What are some of your suggestions??

jchet

Did you go onto the Simplygoodnutrition.com web site?

I have learned a lot about the Dietition profession being married to one. Yes, some might tell you to eat foods from all the food groups. What you need to understand is an RD is a very highly educated health professional. They have a 4 year degree in science, in my wife's case a Masters. They have more education about nutrition then Doctors, or any other health professionals.

A good Dietition can make a huge difference if you listen, do what they say and have the dedication to make it happen. It's much more involved then you think. Another source is moniqueryan.com who is also an MSRD. She is a leading sports nutritionist and writes for Velo News. If you really want professional advise and are willing to pay for it these two sources are the best in the business. If you want free advise then we will try to do the best we can with our laymen knowledge.

RWTD

If you are within 10 lbs of your bodyweight goals like Croak said the game starts getting tougher to lose the remaining fat because the body starts trying to hang on to it for historical survival purposes.It you are on a very low calorie or unbalanced diet to lose weight at a rapid pace at this point it is not uncommon to hit a plateau where your metabolism slows and you break down more muscle for energy sparing increasingly(for survival)valuable bodyfat.So I think you may not be having so much a problem of glucose processing and it turning to fat but more one of running out readily available glucose and now your body attempting to assess muscle for energy sparing remaining bodyfat.
The solution is to balance out the diet at this point to a sustainable long term diet upping the carbs to match a high activity level and creating only a modest calorie deficit say around 500 calories and lose the remaining bodyfat at a more modest but sustainable level.
As Croak has given you an excellent plan for this (losing the remaining fat while maintaining muscle)I will not add to it and I'm not a dietician anyway.I will agree that oatmeal is also my personal favorite complex carb to use in this situation and brown rice works for me as well.

KHS_Flite_1000

From my experience it sounds like you're consuming a little too many carbs. I'm not an advocate of the Atkins diet but my wife is trying the South Beach diet and she's having some good results. She's not into working out but I am and I tried switching from a diet with a higher concentration of calories coming from carbs to a diet containing more proteins and I lost about 5 pounds. Give that a try. I'm definitely NOT a fan of the low or no carb diet. Please don't misunderstand my comments!

Dude

Jchet,

Yes I did take a look at the site. I was going to put somethings together to ask your wife after I got the results from the Doc. I 200% agree with you about Dietitions knowing more than docs regarding nutrition. Thank you for all the help...

Croak

Vitamin E is said to be toxic because it is fat soluble, not water, therefore your body can not flush it as easily as it could say vitamin C, which is water soluble. The point is, if you are taking in that much fish oil and working out you will need the extra fat-soluble anti-oxidant. You are no where near the toxic levels which is fairly high (unlike vitamin A, which should be watched closely). If you are still concerned about the vit E, I would suggest taking some r-ALA, it is both water and fat soluble and has strong anti-oxidant properties.

Without knowing more about the gym program, it seems it is not ideally suited to fat loss. Whether you want to change that or not is your decision, but gearing it towards fat loss will help that particular goal obviously.

Oh and by the way, there is a big difference between a nutritionist, a dietician and a doctor. I'll let you work out which is which

Dude

Croak,

Thank you for your input I hope you didn't misunderstand what I was saying. Granted I don't know your background but I do understand the differences between the three classifications of professionals.

My understanding of the vitamin E levels is that is shouldn't exceed 1000 IU's in a day. The multi I take adds another 60 then from foods I eat, like spinach, mangos, broccoli and mixed nuts as snacks sometimes this should makeup for some of the difference, granted not to the higher end of the spectrum but more than most.

The gym program is mixed with cardio as the resting period is 1 - 1:30 minutes between sets. The movements are squats, lat pulldowns, leg press, push-ups, seated rows, standing hamstring curl, upward rows, donkey calf raises, sit-ups and 30-45 minutes of stretching. These are controlled reps with a 5% weight increase per week not exceeding 60% max lift. The target heart rate is within the fat burning range for me. I also do on the bike specific workouts during the week to add more strength and endurance.


-Dude

cbhungry

SO TRUE.


NOT TRUE,

Just basic ignorance on their part about the capabilities of dieticians or nutritionists. Let me guess, were they male docs? For some reason they are less inclined to refer to dieticians than female docs from my experience.

jacob

Quote:
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The funny thing is I have spoken to two doctors and both say well a dietician is just going to tell you to eat something from all the food groups we can attack this... I just laugh at them and think, it's about the money isn't it??

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I don't know where money comes into this, because I don't have that much of it.
However, I can not eat vegetables.

Jacob

Dude

cbhungry,

YES YES YES.....Both are male, why is that the trend or perception?? heheheheh.....

My money reference was made because I am their/ his patient and in my experience with most "not" all the doctors in my area they are reluctant to let you go. My assumption is "yes I know that is wrong" they want to exhaust all their options first then if things don't get better they will refer you. I have an EPO that needs a referral, but I did take Koffee's advise and I have a call into the insurance company to see what the coverage's are regarding things of this nature.