On weeks I know I'm going to be busy (and in the mood to eat healthy), I make big batch of marinara sauce, and precook some pasta, and grill or bake a ton of chicken.

The chicken gets dry, but will taste fine when reheated with sauce. Usually get bored of it by day 3-4 so I'd take time to prepare something before finishing the rest off.

Cool ideas, im gonna read through the recipes thread and write down 1 or 2 to get the stuff for next time i go to the store.

Saturday:

2pm - 2 turkey burgers 1170 cal

9pm - broccoli & cheese 300 cal

total: 1470

notes: felt kinda sick, just sat around and did nothing all day. wasnt really hungry

Sunday:

11am: oatmeal & brown sugar, 1.5 cups - 600 cal

cooked up some pasta
box of whole wheat rotini - 1400 cal
1.5lb chicken breast - 660 cal
2 cans cream of chicken - 350 cal
3/4 cup shredded cheese - 330 cal
total: 2740 cal

broke it into 3 diff servings, eating 2 today and saving the last for a rainy day

4:00 chicken pasta 915 cal

6:00 rice protein shake, just powder and water - 180 cal

8:00 chicken pasta 915 cal

total:
2610 cal

notes:
hungry today prob cus i didnt eat much yesterday and most of my calories, and alot of what i ate went into carbs. still this is pretty good in terms of an average weekend for me. went a little easier on workouts this week though, but still looking forward to the weigh in tomorrow. going to try to start cooking some new stuff this week

monday weigh in:
365.6
-0.8 lbs

gonna go get mcdonalds and drive off a cliff

Are you weighing your food on a scale? Logging everything?

logging everything. I don't weigh my meats by individual servings, just kind of ballpark it based on the size of the total package. I always round up to be safe on estimations. going to be as precise as possible this week and if it still goes poorly by next monday just give up losing weight forever and die of a heart attack at 40.

Buy a $25 scale off of Amazon to help with accuracy. Consistency is more important than accuracy tho, so if you have another zero week lower your target by 500 cal per day and see what happens.

If that fails, which it won't, may I suggest smoking crack as the GOAT self destructive habit.

will i be able to find something like that for a similar price at wal mart or should i just save the trip and order it online?

will try scale, lowering calories, and crack in that order. although i think cutting another 500 a day is going to be really difficult

I get what you're saying, but eating a high carb diet and calorie counting is also not a diet for everyone.

I really strongly feel that if you're on a diet, you should be avoiding carb rich calorie dense foods like pasta.

Sugars are addictive and for a lot of people especially overweight people entirely unsatiating. Sure strict low carb like I am doing isn't for anyone, but reduction in carb intake I think is a good foundation for dieting.

I honestly feel this forum has had a shift. When I first started dieting years ago I do recall in my first log being told of a lot of eating so many carbs. Now every thread seems to be about the calories!

I'm seeing a lot of burgers, pasta and rice on this diet. 600kcal of oatmeal and brown sugar is not a good breakfast for someone on a diet in my opinion, at least don't supplement your foods with additional sugar (just incase you don't know brown sugar/brown pasta/brown rice/brown bread are better than their white counterparts by very very slim margins, just compare the 100g nutritional info on the backs of packs).

I'm not seeing much dark green veg. Eat more veg, eat less of the above.

I hope this isn't discouraging, I want to see people suceed and I know what immense will power is required to even attempt this. But I think a few changes will really help.

http://mobile.walmart.com/m/phoenix;...acity/11090896

Looks fine.

I agree with most of your recommendations, but dieting is also a learning process for everybody. With his calorie intake right now he will be making tremendous progress so he should keep it up as long as possible. He'll surely start craving variety and learn more about cooking nutrition along the way, and that's when keeping a daily log with forum members will help to steer him in the right direction.

Just like with weightlifting he's doing the most important thing which is counting calories, and as that becomes unsatisfying and he needs to do more, he can tweak his diet more and more as it goes along. Jumping from straight unhealthy to worrying about eating more vegetables, proteins, complex carbs while counting calories is a pretty big change.

Compliance with diets and workouts is the number one thing and tweaking a plan so you can comply is the most important thing -- I think most people try to be too efficient or optimal at once and it results in burnout within a short period of time. My brother is dieting heavily right now and when he complains a lot or asks for advice, along with telling him what new foods to try, I have a cheat meal with him that will no doubt slow down his progress in the short term, but I think will keep him on the diet for the long term.

I got one that works great at Target for about $17 iirc. I even tested it with some calibration weights I had at work and it was pretty damn accurate for being so cheap. I'm sure Walmart has something similar/same.

You're down 8 pounds already right? Just keep at it for a while and make sure you log everything.

Also, when you weigh yourself are you doing it in the most consistent manner possible? i.e. - Same day in the morning naked after doing your business? I can be anywhere between 2 to 5 pounds heavier during the day than I am first thing in the morning, and if you add clothing into that it can go from 4 to 8 pounds.

I found plotting weight loss on a graph is a great way to combat variance on the scales, you should see a pretty clear downward trend and it lets you know that variance isn't much to worry about. Jbrochu is right as well, have a routine for your weigh in. Mine was get up, go to the loo, get naked and weigh in. As long as you do the same thing every time it's all good!

As long as your calorie estimates are reasonable you will lose weight in the long term. Keep up the drive and motivation you are doing a great job so far and it will be worth it in the end. To speed up your weight loss eat less processed foods, eat more leafy greens and drink lots of water.

Make sure your getting all of the micronutrients and everything else your body needs as well. If you don't get outside much I bet you're deficient in vitamin D. It doesn't seem like you eat many vegetables or fruits so you might be low in vitamins A, B, and C as well as Magnesium. I would look into incorporating more whole foods that contain these things. Otherwise get a good multivitamin, greens powder or something else that gives your body some nutrition. If you really want to see where you stand get a complete blood panel done by your doctor or http://www.wellnessfx.com/

I agree with nearly all of this, and believe its a well thought out post. The reason I commented on the last post was that it lumped all carbohydrates in together. There was no consideration of the health benefits of each, low versus high glycaemic load and so on.

I have been thinking about this recently. I feel there is a tendency to oversimplify. The basic premise that we can lose weight be consuming less calories than we use up is indeed simple. However, health itself is not so. Really the bit I disagreed with is the suggestion that all carbohydrates are empty calories, which I think could give somebody new to all this the wrong idea.

Still, I can see you have know a lot about nutrition and weight loss from this and other posts and I look forward to your future contributions. Personally I don't eat pasta often at all (guess what, I always seem to end up hungry after a pasta meal! ) but I do have oats now and then (but not with all that added sugar).

OP I wouldn't be too downhearted by the week, it could have been worse! Just look to where you can tighten things up (Gullanian makes some good suggestions above). If you don't get good results next week, then you will indeed deserve a kick up the a**, but I fully expect you to prevail!

I do sometimes find myself slipping into keto propaganda mode in saying they are totally worthless, sorry if that slips out every now and then

I thought OP had lost 0.8lb from the start seems like I misread and it's actually 8lb. That's 4lb a week, definitely firmly in the 'healthy amount to be losing' category. No need to lose faith, that's progress.

In retrospect (not that I think i did ****ty last week) I think i was actually a little carb heavy. Part of that problem is that is the amount of dishes I currently can make are limited, so I kind of end up eating alot of the same stuff. To fix this, I picked out 3 diff ideas for food and I bought some different stuff today shopping. Some more things I'm going to try:
switching the protein powder out for something with better macros, and then adding a vitamineral green supplement to the shake in the morning
buying a head of broccoli and trying to shove it into my routine.
I think after that ****ty week im finally ready to give up my mega unecessary kaiser buns in place of wheat thin ones with less than half the calories.

So my first new thing I tried today was the taco salad idea from the recipes thread. I pretty much copy pasted the directions

20oz 95/5 sirloin - 750 cal
1 tbs evoo - 120 cal
1/3 cup shredded cheese - 140 cal
seasoning packet - 120 cal
salsa - 60 cal
4 taco shells - 220 cal
3 cups head lettuce - 30 cal
total: 1440 cal

split it in half, saving the rest for tomorrow.

Monday:
7:00am
Half ass protein shake (used up the last remaining half serving i had with no greens or fruit) - 170 cal

7:30am workout
treadmill 2.6mph 15 min
box squat 5x115 5x115 5x115
overhead press 5x90 4x90 4x90
treadmill 2.6mph min

back feeling better but skipped deadlifts just in case

2:00 lunch - 467 cal
few girls at work made lunch, so i don't have exact calories but im going to ballpark all of it way on the high end

2 cups spaghetti squash - 62 cal
1 cup pumpkin puree sauce - 80 cal
1 cup chicken chili - 225 cal
1 cup pineapple - 100 cal


4:30 half of leftover pasta from yesterday - 460


6:30 taco salad (breakdown above) - 720 cal

total (so far) : 1847

good job man!!

Tuesday:

7:00am protein shake-
2 scoops - 240 cal
green smoothie blend veggies - 20 cal
1 cup raspberries - 65 cal
1 scoop vitamineral green powder - 32 cal
total: 357 cal

7:30 workout
treadmill 2.6mph 60 min lvl 1 incline

12:00 lunch
smoked beef stick - 110 cal
leftover pasta - 485 cal
1 cup spaghetti squash 31 cal
total: 626 cal

4:00 leftover taco salad - 720 cal

7:30 dinner
8oz turkey sausage - 350 cal
2 cups spaghetti squash - 62 cal
1 cup prego meat sauce - 160 cal
total:
572

day total:
2275 cal

notes:
got a solid nights sleep last night, felt good all day. snacked alot throughout the day but i had a much lighter dinner planned than average so it works out

Wednesday:

7:00am protein shake-
1 scoops - 120 cal
green smoothie blend veggies - 20 cal
1 cup raspberries - 65 cal
1 scoop vitamineral green powder - 32 cal
total: 237 cal

7:30am workout
treadmill 2.6mph 15 min
box squat 5x120 5x120 7x120
bench 5x115 5x115 7x115
pendlay rows 5x100 5x100 6x100

12:00: lunch 505 cal
425 cal muffin
80 cal pear

4:00 leftover squash and turkey sausage - 572

8:00 dinner 940 cal
2 cups cooked brown rice - 450 cal
3 links chicken sausage - 390 cal
2 cups steamed broccoli - 100 cal

day total: 2254

Overall pretty good. If you're not feeling full by what your eating then I would add in more protein for lunch and dinner.

Thursday:
7:00am protein shake-
1 scoops - 120 cal
green smoothie blend veggies - 20 cal
1 cup raspberries - 65 cal
1 scoop vitamineral green powder - 32 cal
total: 237 cal

7:30am workout
treadmill 2.6mph 60 min lvl 1 incline

10:00 leftovers -
1 cup cooked brown rice - 225 cal
1 link chicken sausage - 130 cal
1 cup steamed broccoli - 50 cal
total: 405 cal

6:00 chili: 1057 cal
1 tbsp evoo - 120 cal
15oz red beans - 300 cal
15oz diced tomatoes - 140 cal
1 lb ground bison - 760 cal
chili seasoning - 90 cal
1 cup meat sauce - 160 cal
1570 cal

split into 3 servings, ate 2 tonight saving the other for tomorrow

day total: 1699

Thursday:
7:00am protein shake-
1 scoops - 120 cal
green smoothie blend veggies - 20 cal
1 cup raspberries - 65 cal
1 scoop vitamineral green powder - 32 cal
total: 237 cal

7:30am workout
treadmill 2.6mph 15 min
box squat 120x5 120x5 120x7
bench 115x5 115x5 115x7
power clean 80x5 80x5 80x5

4:00 leftover chili - 513 cal


7:00 chicken on romaine with dressing - 842 cal
1.25 lb chicken breast - 550 cal
4 tbs ranch dressing - 292 cal



day total: 1592