The get fit, stay fit thread

[Thistle_do_nicely]

Porridge is definitely more nutritious. There are better sources of iron; ones which aren't also packed with added sugar and sodium.

I'm not saying that you should never eat Bran Flakes; if you really like them, have them from time to time. They just aren't a 'healthy option', or at least not unless you're comparing them with Coco Pops or something. It isn't a straight choice between cereal and porridge anyway, because you can eat the same things at breakfast time as you would at any other day. It's astonishing how attached people are to this idea that carbs in the morning are an absolute must, or that they 'need them to get themselves going in the morning'.

Duly noted.

One thing I've started buying is tinned fish, often in olive/sunflower oil. Mackerel, sardines, anchovies, tuna... love it all. I can see myself munching through a tin in the morning from time to time, though I'll be sure to use some mouthwash or have a mint afterwards. I'm especially keen on tuna pasta.

From what I've read just about everyone could do with eating more fish, of almost all kinds.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Thistle_do_nicely

[Mak]

Duly noted.

One thing I've started buying is tinned fish, often in olive/sunflower oil. Mackerel, sardines, anchovies, tuna... love it all. I can see myself munching through a tin in the morning from time to time, though I'll be sure to use some mouthwash or have a mint afterwards. I'm especially keen on tuna pasta.

From what I've read just about everyone could do with eating more fish, of almost all kinds.

I love to have either tinned sardines or mackerel with salad for breakfast; one of my favourites! I do prefer fresh fish, but it's pretty expensive so I'll only really have it when I can get it marked down.

Edit: that's for breakfast. I have it much more often as part of my evening meal.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Mak

[11thHour]

Worth a bash. My own diet isn;t too bad just now, at least by previosu standards, but as mhak points out, there's likely always room for improvement

This diet is for a 6ft guy who was 15.5 stone and was aiming for an intake of 1800Kcals a day.

This is the main of the diet from pictures on my phone but im sure I never took a picture of another page which states that for "tea" i.e before bed and after dinner you are allowed two slice of toast as well but I never bothered with this.

The "spread from allowance" is basically butter or jam, it had a certain amount on it but I never stuck to this either. I just buttered/put jam on my toast as I normally would.

Here ye are:

Breakfast - Choose one of the following:

6 tablespoons breakfast cereal/Dry Porridge Oats and 1/3 pint semi skimmed milk

OR

2 slices toast and spread from allowance

OR

2 Weetabix and 1/3 pint semi skimmed milk

OR

1 roll & 2 oz low fat spread cheese

As well as above - 100 mls unsweetened fruit juice

OR

Piece of fruit (e.g. banana)

Mid Morning:

Piece of fruit (e.g. Apple, banana, pear, orange etc)

OR

2 small fruits (2x satsumas or 2x plums (giggety))

Lunch - Choose one of the following:

1 Roll

1 medium baked potato

2 slices of bread

6 crackers

6 tablespoons pasta

4 tablespoons rice

In addition choose one of the following:

2 thin slice of cold meat

OR

2 eggs

OR

5 tablespoons baked beans

OR

Small bow lentil/broth soup

OR

Small tin (150g) tuna in brine

OR

2 grilled sausage

As well as above you can (if you wish) include

Small pot low fat yoghurt (aim 50-70 calories per pot) and include small side salad/piece of fruit/4 tablespoons tinned fruit in own juice

Mid Afternoon - Follow as mid morning

Dinner - Choose one of the following:

6 small boiled potatoes

OR

1 large baked potato

OR

6 tablespoons boiled rice

OR

9 tablespoons pasta

In addition choose one of the following:

2-3 oz lean meat - beef/pork/lamb/mince/chicken/turkey/oily fish

OR

6 oz white fish/tune in brine

In addition choose one of the following:

4 tablespoons vegetables (fresh, frozen or tinned) Can also have 2 tablespoons with meal and small bowl of vegetable soup.

With this diet they recommend no booze, it also says you can have as much tea you want as long as its made with sweeteners and semi skimmed milk. Also as much diluting juice as you would like. All I did was drink water and diluting juice while dieting. Also for dinner I never weighed any of my protein I just had a chicken breast if I was having chicken and just a rough amount for anything else.

[TheScarf]

What are folks thoughts on Quinoa ? I'm thinking of replacing wholegrain rice with it.

[Mak]

What are folks thoughts on Quinoa ? I'm thinking of replacing wholegrain rice with it.

I really like quinoa. It's arguably a better carb than many others because it's also a complete protein source (ie it contains all of the essential amino acids) as well as being broken down slowly. It also tastes good! It is quite expensive, though, and if you've got a separate protein source along with your grain or are mixing it with a pulse then I wouldn't bother too much about the protein.

I don't really get why you'd want to replace rice with it, because it's not like there's actually anything wrong with also having rice. Definitely worth including in your rotation, though: there are a lot of health benefits associated with it and mixing things up will help keep you from getting bored.

Edit: re. hospital diets, they're written up in order for people to be able to stick to them. They aren't necessarily optimal for body composition, and aren't even really supposed to be.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Mak

[~~~]

This diet is for a 6ft guy who was 15.5 stone and was aiming for an intake of 1800Kcals a day.

This is the main of the diet from pictures on my phone but im sure I never took a picture of another page which states that for "tea" i.e before bed and after dinner you are allowed two slice of toast as well but I never bothered with this.

The "spread from allowance" is basically butter or jam, it had a certain amount on it but I never stuck to this either. I just buttered/put jam on my toast as I normally would.

Here ye are:

Breakfast - Choose one of the following:

6 tablespoons breakfast cereal/Dry Porridge Oats and 1/3 pint semi skimmed milk

OR

2 slices toast and spread from allowance

OR

2 Weetabix and 1/3 pint semi skimmed milk

OR

1 roll & 2 oz low fat spread cheese

As well as above - 100 mls unsweetened fruit juice

OR

Piece of fruit (e.g. banana)

Mid Morning:

Piece of fruit (e.g. Apple, banana, pear, orange etc)

OR

2 small fruits (2x satsumas or 2x plums (giggety))

Lunch - Choose one of the following:

1 Roll

1 medium baked potato

2 slices of bread

6 crackers

6 tablespoons pasta

4 tablespoons rice

In addition choose one of the following:

2 thin slice of cold meat

OR

2 eggs

OR

5 tablespoons baked beans

OR

Small bow lentil/broth soup

OR

Small tin (150g) tuna in brine

OR

2 grilled sausage

As well as above you can (if you wish) include

Small pot low fat yoghurt (aim 50-70 calories per pot) and include small side salad/piece of fruit/4 tablespoons tinned fruit in own juice

Mid Afternoon - Follow as mid morning

Dinner - Choose one of the following:

6 small boiled potatoes

OR

1 large baked potato

OR

6 tablespoons boiled rice

OR

9 tablespoons pasta

In addition choose one of the following:

2-3 oz lean meat - beef/pork/lamb/mince/chicken/turkey/oily fish

OR

6 oz white fish/tune in brine

In addition choose one of the following:

4 tablespoons vegetables (fresh, frozen or tinned) Can also have 2 tablespoons with meal and small bowl of vegetable soup.

With this diet they recommend no booze, it also says you can have as much tea you want as long as its made with sweeteners and semi skimmed milk. Also as much diluting juice as you would like. All I did was drink water and diluting juice while dieting. Also for dinner I never weighed any of my protein I just had a chicken breast if I was having chicken and just a rough amount for anything else.

Fantastic,

thanks for sharing, i'll gve this a bash see how it goes!

[Greggy Wallace]

I love to have either tinned sardines or mackerel with salad for breakfast; one of my favourites! I do prefer fresh fish, but it's pretty expensive so I'll only really have it when I can get it marked down.

Edit: that's for breakfast. I have it much more often as part of my evening meal.

That sounds really nice in theory, but I'd be instantly sick if I tried to get that down me in the morning.

[Mak]

That sounds really nice in theory, but I'd be instantly sick if I tried to get that down me in the morning.

Why?

[ICTChris]

People used to eat kippers for breakfast all the time.

In our shop next week I might get some tinned sardines and try it out on toast for breakfast.

[Greggy Wallace]

Why?

A lot of people struggle to eat anything in the morning, never mind fish.

[Fuctifano]

I've definitely made some progress in the last couple of weeks now that I'm getting used to the barbell exercises, although to temper this I've fallen off the nutrional wagon pretty heavily at the weekends of late and this isn't likely to end any time soon.

Scale weight isn't really a concern of mine within reason (although since you ask I'm now 10st 7), my benchmarks are how much I'm lifting and how I look in the mirror, which sounds horribly vain but everyone is like this to a certain extent. I'm still at the stage where I'm adding weight pretty much every workout to my squat / deadlift / bench, I can now do 4 sets of 8 parallel bar dips and a whole 4 pullups (overhand grip) or 8 (underhand). The pullups in particular need worked on but as long as I keep improving. Cardio seems to be getting easier as well, I'm just keeping myself ticking over in that regard though.

When I consider that the last 3 weekends have disappeared in a blizzard of lager, pizza and restorative fry-ups (I blame Thistle's winning start) I think I'm doing alright. The IF plan definitely suits my lifestyle Mon-Fri anyway, and really upping my protein intake- I'm going through 1l of skimmed milk a day- miles beyond what I was doing has probably made the biggest difference in terms of my training.

[Reynard]

Duly noted.

One thing I've started buying is tinned fish, often in olive/sunflower oil. Mackerel, sardines, anchovies, tuna... love it all. I can see myself munching through a tin in the morning from time to time, though I'll be sure to use some mouthwash or have a mint afterwards. I'm especially keen on tuna pasta.

From what I've read just about everyone could do with eating more fish, of almost all kinds.

Definitely, bin the obsession with red meat and processed rubbish and get fish down your necks more often. The only problem then will be the same one the Japs have got in that nobody will fucking die and they end up with too many pensioners arseing about into their hundreds.

[Reynard]

People used to eat kippers for breakfast all the time.

In our shop next week I might get some tinned sardines and try it out on toast for breakfast.

Try the mackerel in tomato chilli sauce. Maybe not for breakfast right enough, but it sort of kills the taste of the fish if you aren't wild about it. I was gutted when Ikea took the herring off their menu. I suppose it is in Glasgow and you didn't get chips with it, so it wouldn't have been a big seller. Probably.

[Mak]

A lot of people struggle to eat anything in the morning, never mind fish.

I just don't get why you'd be fine with something as heavy as porridge but not be okay with fish.

Fish was just one example, though. I like eggs with veg, cheese omelettes, meat (steak for breakfast is another favourite) or a 'grill up' of poached eggs with grilled lean bacon, quorn sausages and grilled tomatoes and large mushroom.

People always assume that they need carbs to 'get them going' in the morning, but most of the time they've never actually tried not having them. Carbs make me drowsy if anything (think of how you feel after a big lunch), so it makes more sense to get them in later in the day. My energy levels are much better since I started doing this.

[philpy]

I'm on a bit a of a health kick just now. I'm. 5'7, and I'm 14stone 11 pounds. I'm over 32% fat as well, which I'm not too chuffed about. I've cut right out the bad stuff, swapped crisps with rice cakes for instance, I've gave up lager and beer for spirits and diet mixers. Heck, I even gave a case of lager away to my neighbour! The other week when I checked I was just over 15 stone, so that's four pounds off in a week. Not mega, but it's a good start. I bought the "hairy dieters" cookbook, and have used some of the recipes. I would strongly advise buying it, as some of the recipes are fantastic. Anyways, I'm aiming to get down to the 12 stone mark, and if i keep within my current mindset, I feel I can achieve it.

[God of War]

I eat faaar to much bread, which i have been told is not a good thing.

[Snake Plissken]

Lidl does some fine tinned fish.

The herring in tomato sauce is my favourite but they do loads of others.

[Dennis Bergkamp]

I've also been on a bit of a health kick. I've been a member of a gym for 4 years and went through phases where I would go a lot for a month or so and then spend the next 6 months doing f**k all. Joined a new gym which has better facilities and give you a personalised training plan to follow. I (drunkenly) signed up for the Edinburgh marathon which takes place in May and i'm doing a 10k race in Edinburgh next month so I have something to work towards whch is probably why the motivation is still strong.

I could barely run 10 minutes a month or so ago and today I completed 5k. Not particularly impressive but I suppose it is all relative to individual fitness levels. Going to do 6k tomorrow which will be the longest i've ran. Sounds fucking pathetic reading that!

As for diet, I tend to eat quite healthily but probably let myself down when it comes to portion sizes. Its like being in America when i'm on the cooking.

[Aufc]

I just don't get why you'd be fine with something as heavy as porridge but not be okay with fish.

Fish was just one example, though. I like eggs with veg, cheese omelettes, meat (steak for breakfast is another favourite) or a 'grill up' of poached eggs with grilled lean bacon, quorn sausages and grilled tomatoes and large mushroom.

People always assume that they need carbs to 'get them going' in the morning, but most of the time they've never actually tried not having them. Carbs make me drowsy if anything (think of how you feel after a big lunch), so it makes more sense to get them in later in the day. My energy levels are much better since I started doing this.

Your info is always good. But what works for you won't necessarily work for other people. Everyone is different.

[footiechick]

Got my body stat done yesterday - although I've not lost a significant amount of weight, I've dropped 10% bodyfat and gained 7% muscle in 8 weeks.

I'm seriously chuffed to bits and will continue with the low Gi eating, PT and spin classes when I get back from holiday :D