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Sugar in the coffee?
That again could be a hell of a lot added to your diet if you put 2 spoons in every one.
Jesus man, have a tin of tuna, eggs or some nuts* or something, anything!
Do you still have all your teeth? 😀
*preferably not in a fruit and nut bar
Why do you want to get fit ??? (You don't NEED a reason but it might affect HOW)
1/ Be healthier .... FIX the diet. Regardless of the exercise - pretty hard to get worse.
2/ Cycle with others: Slow down expectations... let yourself get to a level before progressing... if you do 2x a week OK then make the 3rd time a very low intensity and gradually build up....
3/ You have a 24hr Marathon to do end of the month ... you're buggered.
Put these 1+2 together and see getting fit as a long term thing not a quick fix.
No point in trying to "get fit" with that diet. He needs to learn how to "be healthy" first, then work on fitness once his body is getting the nutrition to support that.
diet for example.
7am
coffee
honey on toast
coffee
coffee
biscuit x3
coffee
10am
coffee
coffee
coffee
biscuitx3
coffee
biscuit x3
12:30
soup (fish and chips one a week)
1:30
coffee
coffee
choc
coffee
coffee
4pm
choc
choc
coffee
biscuit
dinner (meat + veg)
bed at 10
Holt shit! 13 coffees a day, a shit breakfast and not a great lunch plus chocolate and biscuits? I'd give up cycling and sort that out first.
im starting to get a feeling your all trying to tell me something here.
Im curious what do you guys and gals eat at work and for breakfast?
Breakfast was a bowl of granola with strawberry yoghurt
Lunch was courgette and feta fritters with vegetable rice
Snacks have been dried apricots, a banana, two home made cookies and a packet of multigrain crisps
There's been 3 pints of water over the day
I rode 24 miles to work and will ride the same home. No need for jelly babies on either ride 😉
On a weight loss /health /life change just now my self after a period of working abroad for a couple of years and letting shit slip.
I have a yogurt and an espresso.
18km ride in
9.30am I'll have a stoats porridge bar and a cup of cafetiere coffee
12.00 I'll have lunch which is either left overs from previous nights dinner or a couple of sandwiches with meat and salad in + a yogurt an apple and a banana
Usually followed by a walk around the industrial estate.
14.00 another banana or similar
16:30 ride 18km home.
Then 2/3 times a week I'll ride the MTB with the guys and go running so I'll have a snack of peanut butter on toast or similar do my activity then come home and have my dinner.
Portion control is everything.
Every 4th week I'll do an easy week.
Seems to be working. In 6 weeks I'm down 2notches on the belt , 6kg on the scales and. I've dropped 5% body fat comparible to previous measurements.
My fitness pal and a Garmin forerunner 735 are tracking my shit and keeping me motivated as I'm seeing the losses. Mfp really was a game changer In the weight loss aspect.
Typical day:
Breakfast: Mackerel fillet with home made pickle and a slice of bread OR cottage cheese and a banana. Weak cup of black tea
Get to work: one black coffee
Lunch: varies but usually something like tuna salad sandwich OR pastie. A cake. Some days it's just fruit.
Tea: A couple of slices of bread either with cheese or maybe jam or honey.
Supper: varies - veg curry, veg and pasta, salad and fish, quiche, occasionally (maybe once a fortnight) a take-away. Will have something sweet after this - this last week I've been making blackberry crumble to make the most of the available fruit.
Drinks at work are either weak black tea (I don't have sugar in either tea or coffee), water or cordial.
I've worked out now why I'm 14st 10
Im curious what do you guys and gals eat at work and for breakfast?
Pint of water and a bowl of porridge with some fruit for breakfast at home if I'm not cycling to work. If I am (15 miles each way), an espresso and the water before I leave the house and then porridge when I get to work.
Couple of coffee's in the morning and lots of water.
Lunch should be a homemade salad but is often a shop bought sarny and some crisps. If I've not cycled in I'll do a 5k lunch run, always before I've eaten lunch
Sometimes chocolate will be taken mid afternoon, maybe twice per week, otherwise an apple or a banana
No coffee after 12pm unless I'm really flagging. Lots of water.
Normal, normally low-carb evening meal.
If i'm still peckish after dinner then I'll grab an apple or a small bag of popcorn.
Im curious what do you guys and gals eat at work and for breakfast?
Muesli (no sugar apart from in any dried fruit) for breakfast, another bowl of cereal (usually shredded wheat and cornflakes) when I get in (cycle in so can't always manage to have a big bowl before I leave, but need it to keep me going). Savoury snack (nuts or crisps - usually crisps tbh) mid morning most mornings. Lunch depends how hungry I am, will allow myself a cake or similar for afters msot days. Sometimes another bowl of cereal in the afternoon. Proper meal in the evening, usually again with dessert. Sometimes followed by a (savoury) munch if I'm still hungry. 2 (very occasionally 3) coffees and sometimes 1 or 2 cups of tea with that.
I'm not going full wholefoods, but even with 100-150 miles a week on the bike, cutting out sweet biscuits at the desk has saved me about 5kg. On club ride night I will stuff my backpack with doughnuts or cookies or something, and will eat them all by the time I get home, but that's very much an exception (as I don't manage to get a proper meal before I go out). I might get a snack at the chippy too...
In an ideal world, I'd eat an omelette and probably some bread and fruit for breakfast, no mid morning snack would be needed and a proper meal for lunch and dinner meaning far less extensive snacking. Except perhaps post club ride!
Too much coffee would make me shakey. If you're not on decaf, I'm not surprised you need the sugary snacks and get the shakes.
Generally...
Green tea just after I wake up, taken back to bed.
Toast (home made bread so no extra crap in there) or porridge with fresh coffee with milk, no sugar
another coffee about an hour later, milk, no sugar
Dinner is either leftovers from the previous night's tea or something nice that OH has cobbled up
snacks in the afternoon tend to be nuts or a slice of toast with peanut butter (the good stuff, ie no sugar or palm oil)
tea is usually something nice that my OH has made, sometimes we have a lazy fish fingers and oven chips with a buttered slice which is ace 🙂
We tend to eat veggie meals mostly (curries, daals, bean chili) with fish a couple of times a week. We don't eat any crap or processed shit if we can help it. No caffiene (for me) after that second coffee in the morning either. It's not about trying to be a saint or owt, it's just about thinking about what you're putting in your body and spending a bit of time reading the packets of stuff in the shops.
OH makes a brill savoury bread and butter pud that's great for snacking on rides. Just hoy some buttered bread in an oven dischwith some kale or spinach or whatever between the slices and cover the whole thing in beaten eggs and bake it for a bit until it's cooked. It's lush 🙂 I appreciate that that's hardly a recipe of Bake Off standards but it works and it's really tasty, plus you can make a massive one to portion up. Add chili to taste 🙂
Today I've had 6 scoops of Torq Recovery after riding in, a veggie pizza for lunch from Tescos bargain shelf, a Torq Gel on the way home and a leek and mushroom risotto when I got in 🙂
Im curious what do you guys and gals eat at work and for breakfast?
Today's food:
* Breakfast: black coffee with a bowl of porridge (made with soy milk, a handful of dried apricots and raisins and a drizzle of maple syrup;
* One morning coffee at work;
* Dinner: leftovers from last night's tea - veggie bolognaise with chickpeas
* One afternoon coffee;
* Cup of tea and some biscuits when I got in from work;
* Tea: fajitas - mixed veg, refried beans, guacamole with a pint of water;
* Can of Brooklyn Summer Ale, can of Punk IPA
Google Fit says I moved for 133 minutes today, which included my short (7km total) bike commute, on my feet at work and a dog walk.
Im curious what do you guys and gals eat at work and for breakfast?
Standard day at work I'll eat as follows:
Breakfast is either weetabix and skimmed milk or porridge wade with water and a dollop of honey
Snacks couple of bits of fruit (apple/orange/pear/banana) occasionally a handful of cashews.
Lunch is either rice and fish, a chicken roll or left overs from the night before
Dinner tends to be something pretty standard meat/fish and veg maybe a pasta meal once a week, we're trying to get the carbs down so not too much potato or pasta at present...
Drinks: through the day I'll maybe have a couple of herbal teas, at least 2L of water and like you OP I like coffee so probably 5-6 cups, black without sugar, brewed from grounds in a cafetiere, not instant.
Over the course of a week I'll allow myself a Couple of treats the odd biscuit or cakey thing, today I had a whole mars bar (first one in over two months) say four things between Monday and Sunday? Not ten in a single day! That's like a whole extra meals worth of calories mostly in sugar form...
Weekends we have low fat fry ups and similar main meals.
But honestly, cut the biscuit and choccy intake by ~95% and you'll be a good chunk of the way there fella...
Oh and I heartily recommend using MFP Crosslinked with strava (other fitness/diet tracking apps are available) it counts your calories against your weight goals and will factor in proportionate extra calories for any logged activities...
It's good to know just how much you can eat and not just "reward" yourself for a bit of riding with an excessive scoff session...
Cut the caffeine out of your day from 1pm. Drink hot Ribena instaed, you will suffer caffeine withdrawl headaches but they will decrease daily. By 930pm you will be nodding off and heading for bed.
Diet wise most days for me.-
Breakfast 0600 Granola / Musli + Yoghurt
0900 Tea + Bagel
1230 Sandwhich , Toms, Mini pork pie, apple, peach+ belvita biccys
1600 Banana on way home , or apple
1800 Dinner . Low carb , meat veg /salad or fish + peas and sweetcorn
2000 Hot choc + biccy
2130 bed
5ft 11 - 74kg - 32" waist -49yr old. No racer but can knock out 4 -5 hr rides on road or mtb without too much drama
You need to reduce the simple sugars for complex carbs initially , then reduce complex carbs to protein ( meat and fish ) plus veg that grows above ground in a very simplistic way .
I reckon you are hypo glycemic / diabetic . Do you get headaches , tunnel vision , echoy hearing and shivers ?
How much alcohol do you drink ?
Once you get over 30 years old alcohol will wipe out any fitness gains quicker than you build them . in my tiny mind 1 unit = 1 hour extra riding neccessary to make 'gains' so 10+ units a week you will be going backwards. plus the junk carbs , slowing down of metabolic rate , hungover lethargy , associated with drinking . Was a program on the tele where 1 guy drank every night and his body reacted like it was fighting off a cold , raised red blood cells maybe .
Then if you are run down every virus is able to get a foothold and kick you in the nuts . I lose my voice if I combine long hard hours at work with drinking and then many hours of sports on top , well not so much now as I jacked in the long hours job for more time for me.
Im curious what do you guys and gals eat at work and for breakfast?
Almost anything is going to be better ....
At least cut down on coffee/cut out after lunch.... and get rid of the sugar snacks ...
You can either do a incremental type replacement healthier diet or follow a specific "ideal" diet... whichever works best for you. Either way if you don't have the stuff to hand unhealthy stuff is always easier to get. It's much easier to open a lunchbox or fridge and have only healthier stuff than having to prepare something at that point.
If you're hungry you're just going to eat what's available... so buying in some stuff like nuts and peeling (or not) a few carrots for example means they are available ...
Basically just try and think of the nutritional value of what you eat every time you eat....
Eat way more stuff with nutritional value than negative .... and to do this you need to BUY it... then have it to hand.
Given the amount of snacks I'd say you need more than a soup at lunch.... if you are going to start off by just getting rid of unhealthy...
If you follow a sensible "pre-prepared diet" where you follow a "published diet" then that might work better for some people . (By work better I meanly mean you stick to it rather than the merits of various diets)
Preparation is the key for me, whilst making dinner I'll make lunch and snacks for the next couple of days, if you have healthy stuff available you're far less likely to make a poor choice.
There's lots of good advice in this thread, but a lot of stuff that may scare you a bit too, I don't think you need to go full racing diet, tbh a simple change to eating healthier yet tasty food will make a vast difference to how you feel and how you perform when exerting yourself.
Drink less coffee
Drink more water
Eat less biscuits
Eat better food
Is about the size of it.
The alcohol point is a very good one. I was drinking a beer most evenings and a few at the weekends. I didn't think it was doing any harm until I stopped. I'm almost a month without alcohol and my riding has improved noticeably. It's almost enough to make me go teetotal permanently. Almost...
I'm also rather too fond of my biscuits etc and found that the only way to cut down was simply not to have them in the house. Willpower is not my strong suit.
A normal day for me is porridge made with water with a small amount of raisins, one fairly strong coffee with double cream instead of milk. Lunch is soup and brown bread. Tea is meat/eggs + a variety of veggies (I don't normally eat potatoes/pasta/rice, maybe some brown rice or roasted sweet potato if I need to fuel for a longer ride the day before).
Virtually no alcohol. Don't enjoy it as much as some, so wasn't hard to give up.
I'll have an instant coffee occasionally and maybe a cup of tea a day.
For rides, I probably take a tiny square of flapjack and eat this an hour into a 2 hour hard-paced loop, not strictly required though. For longer rides I normally have the same at 1.5 hour intervals. I try not to eat shite post-ride, not always successfully.
I had a blitz using a low-carb diet earlier this year and dropped a fair bit of weight. Will probably have another month or so on it when the weather turns.
To the OP - I found that having a hot drink also led to me needing/wanting a biscuit to go with it. So I cut down on the cups of tea and replaced them with a glass of water. You may find that cutting down on the coffee first will eventually help you with the sugar craving.
The sugar thing is self perpetuating the more you have the more you want. It actually only takes a few days to get off the roller coaster. I can quite happily not have any cake when people bring it into the office. However if I have one piece you can bet I will want another in an hours time. Also if i had piece today and more came tomorrow it would be harder to say no.
After a few days though the sugar cravings go and its pretty easy.
For me my weight and fitness go hand in hand. I was looking at my race times (bad triathlete) and even 3KG extra blunted my run performance a fair bit. Its the same climbing hills on the bike. Increasing the w/KG its generally easier to lose weight than gain 20w
i must stress that when a diets this bad it may not be prudent to do a hard (br)exit and change everything to wholefoods as itll feel like a short term diet, this needs to become a lifestyle change and i find that moving over gradually while seeing the differences each stage makes means folk are more likely to stick with it
While going wholesale will make a dramatic difference i think you will hate it .
there are a few big ticket items that will make a huge difference which you can capitalise on and see the change for motivation to concentrate on the small change.
Cut the caffiene , cut the sugar. Eat more veg/fibre.
once you have done and maxed out on the gains(losses) then its worth worry about shit like cutting carbs out and other such nonsense.
- put on an old canvas belt ive not worn since about march today .... theres a 2 inch gap between the belt and my waist now. - when i worked in africa i was existing on stimulants and sugars much like you due to lack of sensible alternatives so i feel your pain. since i came home ive followed the advice ive detailed above and
in 7 weeks since i got home I've dropped now 7kg and moved up comfortably 2 notches on my normal leather belt + fit in my kilt again.
I don't think it's been mentioned yet but it's worth thinking about your rides "backwards" and look at what you are going to eat at the end of a ride before you head out. Rather than rely on highly processed snacks make something nutritious that you like. Doesn't really matter what it is so long as it's not high in sugar, etc. Then when you finish your ride it's there ready and waiting.
For "in-ride" snacks get the Feed Zone Portables book, plenty of tasty options there.
For your work snacks - head to the shops and buy a fruit bowl and fill it with lots of fresh fruit then instead of a biscuit grab an apple/banana/pear/whatever.
You don't have to live like a monk just watch and think about what you eat.
Actually it's still a bit of a conundrum to me knowing what to take with you on a longer ride for snacks/meals on the go:
Rides up to 2hrs I tend to take nothing and accept that I might be bonking towards the end if I've been pushing.
For rides over two hours I'll maybe take an apple, some homemade flapjack, a soreen mini loaf thing, some cashews perhaps, I did discover some mini Jaffa cake packs (3 in a pack) in the cupboard the other day and that was quite good.
It now gets Carried in a bar mounted feedbag just stuff you can grab and handful of and scoff on the move, stopping to eat isn't my preference, although I have been having a few Blackberries from the hedgerows lately as they're in season, I'll start having snacks after an hour or so and try to eat something every half hour or so as I go... but I'm not totally sure this "Strategy" is the best.
For trail food I have a Stem Cell/Feed bag with plastic bag of trail mix of nuts and raisins plus anything else that takes my fancy. Sometimes I'll end up with savoury and sweet in there, a bit odd getting salted peanuts and chocolate in the same mouthful. Grab a handful as and when really, going through a gate is a good opportunity for example.
If you're a meat eater then those small pork pies you see in supermarkets will fit in the feed bag.
A little and often is fine as a strategy as you aren't stressing the digestive system and you won't end up with that bloated feeling after a bigger meal.
i (mostly)use the paleo and raw bars from aldi .
\cheap ,easy to store and easy to eat and no shit in them . pretty much cold pressed nuts and fruits.
I must stress that when a diets this bad it may not be prudent to do a hard (br)exit and change everything to wholefoods as itll feel like a short term diet, this needs to become a lifestyle change and i find that moving over gradually while seeing the differences each stage makes means folk are more likely to stick with it
While going wholesale will make a dramatic difference i think you will hate it .
You may or may not hate it... but if you do then you end back where you started except with a discouraging failure.
Even if you do you also run the risk as trail rat say's of viewing his lie an extreme ... you'll do for so many weeks
You can also have a diet completely in someones definition of healthy (such as a supermarket) or "whole foods" and still have a crap diet. There is lots of crap dressed up as healthy... (especially if like me you have to shop the free from section)
It might work.... but look at this long term unless you are the sort of person who want's/likes to do a complete change. (Some people do...)
Massive sportsdirect mug of earl grey (black)
Pepperami
Coronation chicken sammich on seeded batch bread.
A mars bar
a pint of coke zero.
Packet of milkybar buttons.
Might even get out of bed and have lunch soon.
Maybe a bit of research into basic nutrition would be helpful as it seems that you clearly lack any knowledge on the subject (no offence intended). You have been given a lot of great advice here and with a little bit of planning and will power, you will be on the right track in no time. You only "need" all of the sugar because you eat the sugar in the first place. Kick starting your day with a sugary breakfast and the vicious cycle starts. Fixing your shocking diet will transform the way you feel, and your rides and recovery will be much better. Good luck with it.
I (mostly)use the paleo and raw bars from aldi .
The ones from Lidl are nice too, the orange & cacao ones are lush.
Even the people describing there "better" diets on here are including cereals, which are almost all awful processed sugar-hits.
Same with bread. It contains calories, yes, but 99% of british bread is nutritionally defunct.
It's actually quite hard to eat well in blighty - proper nutrition is expensive.
thats because in a balanced diet theres absolutely no need to cut out all of anything.
except supermarket bread cause its shit.
we make our own.
"It’s actually quite hard to eat well in blighty – proper nutrition is expensive."
not really - can suggest a number of places i have lived where even basic nutrition is much more expensive which is why i ended up 2 stone heavier than i want to be.
Define your "balanced diet" there rat? (bit much for a forum I know).
But if you're buying in supermarkets, then just cutting out the bread is woefully inadequate. Processed foodstuffs are the stuff of nightmares - and there's no surprise that as the fattest country in Europe we also eat the most processed food. - and that includes our "breakfast cereals".
You can get all the carbs, proteins and fats you need from meat + fish + vegetables (inc. nuts beans and pulses) + real fruit.
If you're getting your calories in from other non-real-food sources you're replacing real nutrition with "replacement calorie" intake.
You don't have to cut anything out other than the shit. But it's defining what's shit that's hard... (well, not actually hard, but people will whine...)
@chevychase - I haven't recommended breakfast cereals in part because I don't eat them as I don't like milk. I'll have porridge on occasion without milk but with some sugar on top.
Supermarket bread, even the "artisan" stuff is pretty dire TBH. We've a breadmaker machine and while the result isn't as good as oven baked bread it doesn't have that clarty, stick to the top of your mouth texture of supermarket bread.
It's perfectly possible to eat well in blighty on a budget - you just have to cook it yourself from scratch rather than buy prepared or "value added" (to the supermarket) foodstuffs.
Im curious what do you guys and gals eat at work and for breakfast?
[+/- a bit depending on whether I do my 50mile round trip commute on the bike, I aim for that 3x per week, plus one night ride on the MTB, plus one road ride of 60miles, but only manages that maybe once a month, most weeks I'm happy with 3-4 days riding]
Breakfast:
Tea (milk no sugar)
Toast x2
Lunch:
Supermarket ready meal, chickpea dall, or something like that. General about 400 calories, 20g protein and as little sugar as possible.
Dinner:
Whatever I fancy as long as I stick to the rule of having 2 veg on the plate.
Snacks:
Whey protein shake (250ml milk, 500ml water, 50g diet whey)
Fruit (more so on riding days to keep the calorie deficit sensible)
Cheese and crackers
raw carrot or cucumber + hummus or salsa
Quite a lot of tea.
My diet isn't particularly great (and goes through periods of being much worse which is why I'm overweight), I'd like to think it's average in the sense it has everything in moderation including moderation rather than those people who claim you can only be healthy once you eliminate certain stuff like th poster on the last page who rather condescending said "Meat n veg at dinner. Ok. But I bet those veg include carby veg (potatoes?)." . I personally don't think that's helpful because it give the impression that potatoes are in some way something he needs to worry about, in reality they're fine (in moderation) and a long way down the list of changes he could be making!
And to pick up on something you said "what do you guys and gals eat at work". Unless you're doing some sort of manual labour, and I don't mean just walking up and down the stairs rather than taking the lift, the answer should be nothing. If you want to lose weigh then there's no easy way to avoid being hungry. You can minimise the types of hunger by:
a) avoiding sugar which causes highs and lows which makes you crave more
b) avoid quickly processed foods like soup which go straight through your stomach leaving you with an empty stomach.
c) plenty of fibre and protein which fill the gut up and absorb slowly or not at all.
There's more than one way to be hungry. The problem with chocolate and biscuits is they only solve the first one, and only very short term (often so short it doesn't kick in until you're half a packet in and finishes 30 min later!). Also:
d) drink lots of water (the two signals to your brain are quite similar), if your thirsty you brain will also want food.