smyth

Hello everyone, i've posted on BF before but never in this subcat, although i have read a lot on here. Anyway hello everyone again.
Okay i ride generally atleast 15-20 miles per day not counting my commute which is 4.5 miles each way. my main issue is that when i hop(no literally) on the scale i am basically staying at the same weight(almost to the 10th of a lb), i weigh myself weekly. Now i know i'm progressing because the nifty body fat percentage function on my scale saying that i'm decreasing that by a pretty consitant and decent amount. However my goal yes is to get healthier which i do seem to be accomplishing, but also to lose weight, right now i'm about 264, at the begining of spring i was 265. I've changed my diet and even cut down on drinking the beers so often, which is going well for me as i do feel better, but i don't care if i'm at .001% body fat, i don't want to be 265 lbs, haha.

Any help in some training tips or diet tips would be great, like i said i've changed my diet and to be honest i actually consume less calories per day than i burn, but i need to know how to make my body stop building muscle.


Thanks everyone,
Kyle


P.S.- I did search on the forums for help with this but didnt' find anything although admittedly i didn't read every post or thread, but i did try, so if there is one on here that you know of please save the sass and just post a link to it. thanks

KingTermite 

Welcome to Clyde/Athena forum, Kyle.

Are your clothes getting bigger on you? Sounds like you are just being a little impatient. You will build muscle at times, but your body will catch up and begin losing weight once the muscle is built. Diet wise, eat a LOT more vegetables and a lot less meats and fat foods.

Tom Stormcrowe

Well, you're going to build muscle, no matter what. What will happen initially, is you'll lose size without losing a bunch of mass, after the initial water weight loss.

Muscle mass is good though because it requires more calories burned to support it than fat does. Fat is storage tissue and muscle is a dynamic tissue.

Here's the way to burn a greater percentage of fat though: Ride in the zone where you are running at 65-70% Max HR. You will burn a greater percentage of fat relative to protein than if you go anaerobic. If you run in the higher HR zones, you will actually start breaking down your muscle tissue, which will stimulate larger muscle mass during the repair process. You also will burn less fat relative to the caloric expenditure. Help any?

smyth

Thanks both of you, it definitely helped. I've been riding to lose weight for about 2 years now and when I started I actually weighed about 250. kind of weird. I'm not sure it so much impatience on my part than it is frustration at this point. haha. thanks both of you, after reading the posts I think i do have too much protein in my diet, although not usually from red meat. I know about the whole going anaerobic, however this does confirm the fact that I really do need to invest in a HRM instead of guessing at where my body is at a given part of a ride. well looks like i know what I'll be picking up at the lbs after work today. And yeah it does make more sense that as my body fat goes down eventually so will my weight, so I'll keep pedaling and see what happens. atleast the hrm should make my current rides more productive and informative.
Thanks for the help and the welcome, any more advice is definitely welcome.

Kyle

smyth

A bit in the stomach area of shirts and the thigh area of pants (for obvious reasons), not by a lot but definitely noticeable.

Again, thank you,

Kyle

KingTermite 

If you want to get truly serious about your diet, then I recommend the book "Eat To Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It will change the way think about food and what is healthy and what is not.

www.drfuhrman.com

Scummer

I'd suggest to look at the kind of food you're eating. If you eat your sandwiches with mayo, substitute the mayo with mustard and eat a tomato on the side to keep the sandwich juicy. Mayo is a killer in calories.
Also soda/pop is useless. Lot's of useless calories which do your body no good whatsoever. Drink water instead, lots of water.
Keep yourself satisfied with fruit and veggies between breakfast, lunch and dinner. And only one warm meal per day, either at lunch or at dinner time. Also throw a few nuts into your diet like a handful of almonds for example.
And most importantly, don't go for seconds just because the food tastes good. If you go for seconds most of the times you are already satisfied and now you're starting to stuff yourself.

Oh.. and fast food? Avoid that like the pest.

Seamus

It sounds like the exercise is helping, but I wonder if you're being honest about your diet. Search some of the threads here and on the nutrition forum, and you'll get a lot of good ideas. Some basics that work for me and my wife:

No fast food. Ever. (OK, once a month or so, when you get close to your target weight).
No processed snack foods (chips, candy, etc.).
No soda or 'fruit punch'.
Only light or lowfat cheeses and salad dressings/condiments.
Limited meat - lots of fish, chicken, and ground turkey.
Fruits and vegetables in abundance.
Not too much rice and pasta (this one is tough, as we love Italian, Chinese, and sushi).
Easy on the beer and wine (another tough one ).
Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and Corn Syrup Solids. This stuff is insidious, and has the deadly combination of being nutritionally empty and carrying a high glycemic index. Check food labels; it's in everything.

If you can adopt some or most of these rules, and replace high-fat, high-calorie foods with more nutritionally dense alternatives, you should see the weight start to come off, your energy level rise, and you'll continue to feel better each day.

Jim

BeckyW

Lean meat doesn't have to mean chicken/fish all the time. This is from calorieking.com

Calories in...
3 oz roast chicken breast (meat only): 142
3 oz extra lean ground beef (95% lean), pan-broiled: 139
3 oz boneless pork loin chop (lean only), broiled: 141

smyth

Thanks both of you for the tips, to answer a few of the questions though I do not eat fast food pretty much ever since I don't particularly like any of it, same goes for the soda/candy/snacks.
to be 100% honest from reading these posts and thinking more and more about my diet I realize I didn't lie about what I eat or don't eat I think my main problem is that I don't consume enough food in general. Like scummer said about a handful of nuts, generally that would be about all I consume throughout a day with a lot of water/sports drink during the ride (if it’s a long ride some GU) then maybe, possibly dinner, a couple beers and then bed. Which consuming only that much food cannot be good for me especially my metabolism. I think I'm going to start actually planning my food intake instead of just staying away from unhealthy food, since apparently I now realize that I've pretty much just avoided all food too much.

Thanks,
Kyle

Tom Stormcrowe

Sounds like your body is in famine mode.......

You're right, up the calories to about 500 less than you need a day for maintenance. You'll lose a steady pound a week that way. There are 3500 calories in a pound of human fat and if you have a 3500 calorie deficit, weekly, you won't drop into famine mode and you'll burn off of the fat.

You do need to drink LOTS of water though, minimum of 64 oz a day.

JoeMetal

I'm sure you know this already, but beer also has a ton of calories, and empty calories at that.

smyth

thanks for the help. I do drink that much water atleast, I suppose my problem too is the coffee and beer, since those 2 things dehydrate me I'm sure it's cancelling out a good portion of the water I drink. although I have cut down a lot on the beer and coffee, although with the amount I used to consume even though I cut that amount to less than 1/2 I'm still sure it's too much


unfortunately I do know that. I know it sounds stupid but i figured since I was 265ish lbs when i drank heavily if I drank less than 1/2 that I would lose some weight, but like I said in a previous post its becoming a bit obviousl that my current consumption level is still too high. Ans the other bad part is that I don't usually drink light beers, I am aware that no beer is a healthy beer but it would cut out some of the calories (although I drink Guinness Stout which is a bit high in calories and carbs (per pint 170 cals, 5.7g carbs) but isn't too far off of a beer like miller lite(per pint 128 cals, 4.27g carbs), it also has more protein)... And yes that was an extremely sad attempt at justifying what I do, no need to make fun of it, i already know it was a horrible attempt.

Thanks again everyone.




thanks!!! I know i didn't mention this before but part of the reason I don't generally eat dinner is because I don't have an oven... well I have one but i need to get the 220 outlet installed before it's functional, right now it's more of a countertop extension. Once that gets hooked up though it'll be easier to make dinner a more consistant part of my day, until then though i'll have hit the store for some foods that dont' need to be heated or can be microwaved or can fit into my 1 square inch toaster oven(it obviously is bigger than that but trust me, it's tiny) Haha.
I know i keep saying it, but thanks to everyone!!!!







Originally these were 3 different posts, but for the sake of easier reading and making myself not look like an idiot I just edited them into 1.

Scummer

Also your non-functioning oven leads me to believe that you eat alot of processed food which you just throw into the microwave. Those are equally as bad as fast food. Well, maybe not as bad, but pretty damn close.
Get your oven hooked up and start cooking meals from fresh ingredients! Your taste buds and your stomach will thank you a thousand times over. Processed food is gross!

BeckyW

Yeah.. processed convenience food is generally pretty bad (Kashi makes some good dinners, though!). My toaster oven came with a baking sheet (but I sometimes just use a piece of foil), and it works pretty well as a broiler. So.. what can one cook without an oven or stove....*thinking*

-broiled/baked lean meats/fish, baked potato and veggies in the microwave
-couscous (nuke broth, add couscous, let stand), poached fish (in microwave), roasted veggies (in toaster)
-pita pizza (whole wheat pita, no-sugar sauce, veggies, cheese) - bake in toaster @ 425 for 15 mins.

Of course, if you're cooking for more than one person, things become a little more difficult...
Hope that helps you get started. If you want to make your diet healthier, you can do it, and those pounds WILL come off!

smyth

haha i completely agree I do need to get my oven hooked up. I don't really use the microwave unless it's to heat up leftovers, since like fast food I don't really like things that come out of the microwave either. But yeah the fact that I don't eat much is as bad if not worse than eating things that are bad for me. I'm working on getting an electritian in to hook up the stove, then it'll be easier to make food that is good for me instead of just foregoing dinner all together.

Seamus

Sounds like you're on the right track. Becky had some really good suggestions how to utilize that toaster oven.

And I also enjoy the 'liquid bread'. Just try to keep it to one or two a night, notwithstanding special occasions.

Jim

smyth

THANKS SO MUCH!!!!! For whatever reason when I posted my last one and hit refresh it didn't show your post. well Thanks Again. I'm only cooking for 1 person, that is one of the reasons I usually don't make or get dinner, seems like too much of a hassle for 1 person sometimes. haha. i'll definitely give these tips a whirl though.

smyth

I know what you mean, my problem I think is the fact that:
Sunday sucks because the weekend is almost over= it's a speciall occasion
Monday sucks because... it's monday= a special occasion
Tuesday sucks because it's only Tuesday= a specail occasion(one of the least special of the week though)
Wednesday is a celebration because more than 1/2 the work week is over at the end of the day
Thursday sucks because it isn't Friday= special occasion
Friday and Saturday are great because they're Friday and Saturday= Very Special Occasion.
Any other holiday(Christmas Eve, Christmas, Thanksgiving Eve, Thanksgiving, Columbus Day, Earth Day, Arbor Day, etc, etc) that lands on one of these days just adds to how special they are.


HAHAHAHA


although there is some truth buried in there I really don't drink all that much, I used to, now I keep it to 3-4 maximum on weeknights but it's usually more like 2. I now try to save my partying for the weekends, and I'm pretty good with it. A year or so I didn't have to be at work till 2pm so pretty much every night was like a weekend.

And tonight is friday+in about an hour I'll have an HRM to figure out+I'm happy about all the good advice= Tonight is a very, very special occasion. HAHA

Thanks again, and again,
Kyle

deraltekluge

You need to figure out where you are...keep an accurate and honest list of what you eat for a while and add up the calories that you consume while maintaining your weight. Then, start eating about 500 calories/day less than that, while keeping up the same level of exercise. You should lose about a pound a week.

s0rcerer13

I think you should start slowly increasing your calorie intake because it seems to me that the more exercise you do + eating less = lowering your metabolism. I would probably try to calculate how many calories your are consuming now, and then increase it slowly to what your daily recommended value(-500kcal). That way you can slowly increase your metabolism without making it confused.

abbynemmy

Since you don't have an oven I would look into getting a George Foreman grill. You can get one for around $15. I use mine everyday to cook either chicken breast, sirloin burgers, pork chops etc. Then you can cook fresh veggies in the microwave.

I have been dieting for around a month now and the pounds are coming off very quickly. my average day consists of the following.

A protein shake for breakfast.
2 scoops vanilla protein powder
16oz skim milk
one banana
1/2 cup uncooked oatmeal
blended together

Tunafish w/ fatfree mayo on wholegrain bread for lunch

One large chicken breast and cooked broccoli for dinner

Fruit and fresh veggies in between meals
Fresh califlower and broccoli is great for making you feel full with very little calories.

twobikes

This may not be a new thought. Take some thin friends to lunch. Observe what and how they eat. Learn to copy their habits.

smyth

thanks for all the tips.
i used to have a george foreman grill, however i'm not sure what happened to it, come to think of it i haven't seen it in literally a couple years. probably still at my moms house or something.

think i'll have to observe other skinny people though, my skinny friends eat every meal like it's their last, for instance last week i was at my dad's for a bbq and my brother ate 4 racks of ribs, he's 19 years old 6'1" and about 145 lbs. It was actually pretty amazing since i know i wouldn't have been able to do that if i tried, and he was actually going to eat more by my dad stopped him because there were only 2 racks left to feed 5 more people.

kyle


shift button is sticking, sorry for the lack of caps

Scummer

At the teenager age level I was able to indulge like it was my last supper as well. It is amazing how high your metabolism can be when you are that young and active.
But once I hit 25 and I got an office job instead of pulling huge cables as an electrician, my weight shot up by 20lbs in one year. And another 20lbs the next year.

So you need to observe people who have the same lifestyle and age like you and are skinny.

Thomas