My "diet" philosophy (Page 2)

fyi..average calorie burn for a run is 100 calories per mile...but everyone is different-diff. pace, diff. metabolism, diff. weight and height.  this is a ball park. 

Hi there Thanks for the reply,  I was thinking the same sort of things as you in regards to if my HR is high during exercise and I can carry on exercising at that rate for 60 minutes or so, then my metabloism should be pretty high, unfortunatley for me it doesn't seem to be the case, I put weight on easily and have a hard job losing it, might just cut back on the extrra calories I eat if I have been exercising but not cut them back too much and see how that goes over the next month or so,

Thanks

Kelly

Here is  a link to FDA mercury list.

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehg.html

I have a nutritionalist who also advises against eating albacore tuna because of mercury concerns.  She says that the chuck, light, packed in water tuna is fine to eat.

TH3_FRB - 2005-07-27 12:58 PM Thanks for the link.  Chunck light may be a better choice as far as mercury goes but it tastes like poo IMHO

I agree.  Have you tried the starkist tuna in the packet.  Much better than canned and doesn't taste like poo.

Thanks for the link.  Chunck light may be a better choice as far as mercury goes but it tastes like poo IMHO

Sheesh!  Don't be dissin' my chunk light in water!  I love that stuff. 

Now the stuff packed in oil on the other hand...

Wow! This is great info! I can't believe it hasn't been stickied yet. Therefore, I bump!

Your phylosophy is the same as mine. About 7-8 years ago I was just nuts about learning as much as I could about nutrition in regards to weight training and exercise. I did the CDK diet as well as various other Diets-O-the-Month and their variants. Ultimately I took an overview of everything I've read and learned from my self-experiementation and settled on precisely what you've prescribed.

While I'm not near as strict as I use to be (or should probably be) I do try to eat whole foods with a focus on good sources of protein, low glycemic carbs and good fats. And, like you, I don't limit myself in regard to what others would label as "cheating" and often indulge in treats while remembering to tailor the rest of my daily intake to reflect my transgressions. If I've learned anything about diet during my weight lifting days it is that if I was required to be too anal about my intake for an extended period of time I would invariably lose motivation to follow the plan. Any diet must be liveable and this one certainly is.

Further, diet plans that are overly restrictive, while effective in the short term, probably aren't optimal in the long term. As Joel described, he uses CKD in short periods to meet a specific goal. His training program is manipulated around the goal of the diet. Its a big picture folks. Thankfully Joel has waded through all the muck and chaos and provided an easy outline that is easy to follow.

The guidlines described in this thread are "doable" by anyone on a year-round basis and can easily be tailored to fit training periodization and the requirements it may demand. Great Job!

Ugh! I really need to pay more attention to my diet.

Great info on this thread.  Thanks for taking the time!  It's really difficult for me to get past the "fat is bad" mentality.  I've slowly increased my fat intake to 15-20% of macronutrients, but still maintain a high bf%.  Started out at only 5-10% of calories from fat. Sounds like I still need to go with a higher percent of good fats.  I currently eat ~ Carbs 50-55 Protein 25-30 Fat 15-20.  I'll try 50-25-25 for the next couple of weeks and see if that makes a difference.  

I’ve lost ~ 60 pounds over the past couple of years, but have shifted my focus to body composition changes.  I only need to lose 8 pounds to reach my goal, but in reality that equates to losing 16 lbs of fat and gaining 8 lbs of muscle.  Any thoughts in fine tuning would be GREATLY appreciated.

I've logged my food for so long that it's just a habit with me now - it's really helpful to look through the last year and be able to see what has and hasn't worked so well.  I whine a lot about not being able to lose the fat and keep the muscle mass, but the bottom line is that I'm not as disciplined as I should be. 

A couple of plugs:  I bought the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle ebook by Tom Venuto.  Really great info that covers everything from the mental aspect to eating properly, cardio, and weight training.  Good stuff!  I use Diet Power to log my food intake and workouts.  At the end of the day, I print out a nutrient summary and enter the info as a custom food in BT - That allows me to also have a daily overall view on this site and play with the graphs!

Thanks everyone for sharing your input, especially you Joel for writing such a great article.

Fat is definitely NOT bad.  In fact, eating the right fats will help you lose body fat.  I haven't been logging my dialy diet for a few weeks (going easy on myself through the holidays) but I'd guess that I currently eat 30-40% fat, 30% prot, and 30-40% carbs.  Most of my fat comes from olive oil, flax oil, fish oil, almonds, walnuts, and peanut butter.  If you aren't currently using flax and fish oil supplements I suggest you look into it.  I just picked up 600 fish oil caps at Sam's Club for $18...that will last me almost 2 months at 12 caps/day.  I've cut back significantly on carbs (cereals, grains, and pasta) since my hard training ended back in early November.  This time of year most of my carbs come from fruits and veggies.  I've been reading a book called the Paleo Diet for Athletes and it's starting to adjust my view on the high carb diet for athletes...but it doesn't advocate a low carb diet.  Carbs are definitely necessary for proper fueling and recovery so what they are basically suggesting is that your intake of sugars (aside from fruits), breads, pasta, and grains be centered around your training sessions beginning an hour before and continuing through a recovery period lasting about 3 hours after.  Outside of this window you want to focus mostly on lean protein, healthy fats, and fruits/veggies.  It's a bit more complex than this but I'll be writing up a more detailed review of the Paleo Diet when I finish the book.  Another book I have but haven't started to read yet deals with timing of  specific nutrient intake to optimize your diet.  I allume it follows some of the concepts of the Paleo Diet in that there are times when you body needs carbs more than others and eating specific things at specific points in your day an have a big impact even if you don't change the total daily breakdown of macronutrients...just shifting where things are concentrated with respect to your training and recovery.  The biggest change I've made for the "off-season" is dropping the rice/pasta from my dinner.  My typical dinner plate this time of year is 1/3 meat and 2/3 veggies.  I like fresh steamed veggies but now that I eat such a big pile every night I've found that Sam's Club has a big bag of fresh frozen Asian mix that is very good.  You can microwave them but I prefer to sautee them up in a big pan with a little olive oil and some garlic powder.  I also typically have a huge spinach salad with dinner.  I use a 2Qt mixing bowl   Baby spinach, red onion, lots of mushrooms, tomato, green olives, a little feta, EVOO, and balsamic vinegar. 

Okay, more to come as I keep educating myself

Joel, I can't believe it only took me 5 months to find this thread. Great thread, BTW. I think I am going to look into the CKD diet as I would like to drop a few quick lbs before I start IM training next month.

Thanks again

Tom

I'd be happy to help you get set up with a CKD plan if you are interested.  It's certainly not for everyone and isn't well suited to endurance training in general, but as a means to reduce body fat fairly quickly in the off season when training volume is lower it is worth at least considering.  To be effective you really need to follow a very specific daily plan.  Have you every tried Atkins or South Beach?  Some folks don't deal well with low/no carb diets so CKD wouldn't be for them...even short-term.

I would love some help with ths diet plan. I have tried a modified Atkins plan a few years ago. I stopped because I couldn't get past the idea that the burger patty, bacon, cheese and mayo were "good" and the bun, tomato and lettuce were "bad"

The biggest problem I have is I have no imagination when it comes to menus. Also I don't do well with Gram portions. If you tell me to eat 50g of protein, I will eventually get tired of trying to find food with exactly 50 g of protein. If you tell me to eat a half of chicken breast and steamed artichokes I would/could eat that every day until the plan ends.

I am definitely ready to shed some of these post IM super long offseason pounds

Thanks again

Tom