Hey all, long time lurker first time poster etc etc.

This isn't so much of a question, as opposed to just getting thoughts from people. My issue is the rigourous sticking to and tracking my diet requirements.. now before everyone goes 'Well that's willpower for you!', hear me out. :) I'd love to look like John, however I know that I can't dedicate myself to that way of life, not solely through willpower but also by choice. I enjoy certain types of food and am prepared to accept they don't fit the plan which would cut myself down to the levels required to look trim and muscular.

However, I don't eat *badly* (Badly being defined as grossly unhealthy) which is where my question lies. I eat a cereral breakfast, drink a lot of water throughout the day. I'll have a Chicken or Tuna sandwich for lunch, then something normal for tea. Maybe pasta, low fat curry, sausages and mash.. that kind of thing, normal sized portions too, not supersize. Nothing stupid, which is the main thing. I like a drink, and I'll pick up the odd chocolate bar throughout the week, maybe a takeout or a McD's. I certainly don't binge or gorge myself.

For those of you doing it, I have the utmost respect for your dedication and John's site has given me the motivation to follow an exercise plan and weight regieme, however I would be really interested to know where I can expect to 'end up' by doing this. I know mentally and physically what I'm doing is good for my body, but I have a hard time believing that it's utterly wasted if I don't change my diet from normal, to 'very healthy'.

I don't think it is as much about what you eat is it is about how much of what you eat...

I used to be pretty similar to you...
didn't eat total crap all the time - enjoyed good food (fish/rice, etc) but I also ate a fair amount of crap - fast food, sweets, etc.
I didn't track or think about it at all.

now that I have learned more about this, I can see that I wasn't eating enough in total, and I wasn't eating enough of the good stuff.

my goal right now is to gain some lean muscle, and ever since I started tracking my diet, I have seen results.
I had tried weight lifting before, but never took the diet part seriously...

regardles of your goals, (cutting, bulking, or maintaining) 80% of your success is diet based; the best gym routine will lead minimal results if your diet is all over the place.

it really isn't that hard to track - after a couple weeks, you learn what you should be eating, and it gets to be second nature!

try this site:

www.fitday.com

:gl:

I know a few people like yourself and I can understand you not wanting to go to the extent John did.

I think it comes down to how much you exercise. I've got two types of friends that eat like you. One group doesnt exercise, isnt fat but isnt exactly trim either. And the other group play a lot of sport and exercise a lot and they look really fit and healthy. They dont eat terribly but they do drink and eat out a lot but they balance it out by exercising at least 5 times a week.

Start a fitness regime without going all 'Nazi' on the diet and see how you go :bb:

Marcus :tucool:

I would suggest you at least keep a food log while starting your excercise program, even if you don't change anything. That way you'll be able to see it if things get out of hand, like they did for me a several years back when I first started lifting weights.

I got really good instructions on how to do the excercises and was given an excercise program where I did one bodypart a day, with one weeks rest in between, heavy weights and 6-8 reps a set (much like MAX-OT), but nobody told me what to eat, except "lots of protein and lots of eggs".

Because of my increased metabolism I got more hungry, and I started eating like crazy, which in turn made me bigger and bigger. Sure, some of it was muscle, but a lot more of it was fat. When I stopped training a year later (lost motivation) I kept eating the same amounts, and kept gaining weight.

In about three years I think I gained 50 pounds, and now I'm working to lose some of them again. I was way to skinny when I first started, so I don't need to lose everything, but it would sure be nice to turn some of that weight into muscle! :flex:

Anyway, If I'd kept more careful track of my eating habits back then I might have been able to avoid turning fat in the first place. I've always eaten a varied diet with lots of vegetables, fish and whole grained food, so I thought I was eating pretty healthy, but I was just adding too much butter, cream sauce and sugars here and there, and it was all adding up.

Welcome!

I think you know in your heart whether or not what you're eating is working for you. It just seems to me that you wouldn't be on this website if you weren't interested in improving. It's true that 90% of the battle is your diet. This doesn't mean cutting out all junk food, but at least being more aware of what you eat. You might try tracking what you eat for a couple of days (making sure to measure accurately) on www.fitday.com and see what you come up with. Only then can you judge how "bad" your diet is. It is quite easy to delude oneself into thinking one's diet isn't that bad until you see the caloric and macronutrient breakdown. You might track your diet for a couple of days and then evaluate it. Maybe you are happy with 30% fat or 50% carbs. Maybe you are not. But you owe it to yourself to find out what you are actually eating, rather than what you believe you are eating.

Take care!

I think that the ultimate key is to just be reasonable in all your expectations. Of course it is possible to gain fitness and muscle while eating "normal" foods. If this is the route you choose, just don't expect amazing results.
As a side note, I think many people in this forum have simply re-defined what "normal food" is. Normal is simply a relative term. Eating tons of veggies, fruits, lean meats, etc. seems to be the normal diet of most people who are the healthiest and happiest. Certainly making such changes in dietary habbits are not without growing pains, but the results speak for themselves.

Thanks for the replies all.. and to be honest, I was impressed with the refreshing attitude everyone has :)

I know it all stems back to willpower, as I've mentioned, sticking to this routine just wouldn't sit right with me. It's not a matter of control, or even failure, I just wouldn't have the drive to do it. Also I would find it hard to impose a different way of eating on my wife who handles the cooking :)

I do 'calorie and fat' watch my food, I don't pick anything up without reading the label and doing a quick bit of mental arithmetic to see how I'm doing throughout the day.. as to whether I could take notes, maybe it's worth a shot.

I guess seeing as I can get fit and bulky first, then do the cutting may reveal the extra willpower I need to change my diet.. I suppose we'll see what I'm writing in 6 months!

Thanks all.

You're in pretty much the position I was in up until about a week or so ago. I started focusing more on my diet and going to the gymon Jan 10, started MAXOT two weeks ago, and started counting calories this week.

Basically I've gained weight since counting calories (about half a pound, but a week long leveling of my weight loss is more annoying). This could be because I'm adding muscle, have stopped the initial easy drop (what that was only five pounds for me?), or I was eating too little earlier or I'm eating too much now, or my diet was inconsistent before, not consistent enough now.

So basically I'm really annoyed with the initial results of counting calories and wasting several hours setting up and maintaining a food log. I was basically like you, I tend to eat healthy and relatively clean, always keeping in mind nutritional levels, ratios and totals as a rough idea in my head as to what was right. So I've gone from eating four fruits a day down to two (because we can't have evil mr carbs fucking our carb ratio/number/total when we have to get a ton of of protein everyday), and sandwiches on extremely good orowheat whole grain breads to weird breads and or wraps which I like a helluva lot less.

Okay so I"m bitter at discovering there is no protein in anything and nothing but carbs in everything (exaggeration). Still I feel I was doing a lot better not doing the calorie counting nonsense. But I'll stick with it until the maxot cycle is up, and see the long term results, this is still the first week. (and hey after a few weeks of counting calories maybe I"ll have added back those initial five pounds of fat!). I've read AST and here and other places extensively and feel like I've got timing meals and number of calories pretty well down (new goal is to hit about 1/3 of daily calories in the 3 hours post workout). But counting calories and macronutrients has only frustrated me and temporarily negated the positive attitude I was building up from the progress I'd made.

And my experience may not reflect anyone else's here, but I've been in the same position as you only a few weeks ago, and I"m not all that happy with deciding to count. Still, I am gathering very useful data and awareness about what I eat and where I can improve things (I've already decided to fuck carbs and eat my four fruit, and either cereal/oatmeal or sandwiches each day, because it worked very well before). :p

I do have a much better understanding of what and how I eat now, and a much more heightened awareness of the all evil carb. ;) And the bottom line is I wish I had food log data on my first four weeks so I could compare my diet then and now. I may have been eating too few calories and was depleting muscle mass, whereas with maxot I'm adding lean and cutting fat. with hopefully minimal/no muscle loss.


It's your decision, and take this as a warning that things may not work out positively right away from deciding to count everything (and it's distinctly possibly you maybe just don't want to know you're wrong on how okay your diet really is--which was part of my problem). There's a positive and negative side to counting for me.


Adam

Damn, I hate you all.. I've been tracking my nutrition on fitday.com and already I've started packet watching to ensure I'm getting things in the right amounts. :o :tu:

I've decided I'm going to start with the subtle changes here and there and see how we go. I've already swapped my Chicken Mayo lunctime sandwich for a Tuna and Cucumber (that was the easy part) and the snickers for a banana/apple.

One thing I've noticed which Adam_S points out is that there's not much protein in many of the foods I'm picking up, even when I go for the low fat option (In fact, if I had to do a split I'm probably 50:30:20 on Carbs, Fat and Protein).. would it be worth going for a protein suppliment at this early stage? I intend to begin the weights this weekend, when I go and buy some! :db:

We all start out by sitting on the couch eating potato chips and thinking "Gee, I need to get in shape". I was in that stage for about 10 years. One day, you actually decide to start the transformation and at that point, half the battle is already won! From there, it's only a matter of deciding how far you want to go. If you're lucky, you'll get addicted to physical fitness, it will become a hobby, and everyone knows you'll do anything to pursue a hobby. It won't be a matter of willpower, it will be something you want to do.

I started in late October with nothing but a clean diet consisting of lean proteing, low GI carbohydrates, and good fats (olive oil, Omega3, etc). I didn't intend to do any more than that, and frankly, I wasn't sure I'd stick with it. As the weight began to fall off, I got more enthused and decided I could get there faster with cardio. Sure enough, it worked, and a month later still, I decided to take up weight training again. I was gradually being sucked into this phyisical fitness thing. The better I got, the more I wanted.

I still don't count calories and I have no idea of my exact nutrient ratio. I hate paperwork with a passion and I just can't bring myself to do all of that. I have recently started tracking BF% and body measurements to make certain that I am actually making positive gains. After 50 lbs of weight loss, I'm still losing 1 lb per week and my measurements/BF% indicate that I'm headed in the right direction. I know that I'll eventually hit a plateau and when I do, I'll have to decide if all that counting is worth the effort. Right now, I dread the thought of it, but I'm willing to bet that I'll wind up doing just that. I'm addicted to this!

As has been mentioned a zillion times before, canned tuna is a great source of protein and makes for a pretty good snack by itself. You can mix many things with it and it's easy to carry.

Tuna's great, unfortunately I can only eat so much before I'm sick of it. :)

If you're lucky, you'll get addicted to physical fitness, it will become a hobby, and everyone knows you'll do anything to pursue a hobby. It won't be a matter of willpower, it will be something you want to do.

I started in late October with nothing but a clean diet consisting of lean proteing, low GI carbohydrates, and good fats (olive oil, Omega3, etc). I didn't intend to do any more than that, and frankly, I wasn't sure I'd stick with it. As the weight began to fall off, I got more enthused and decided I could get there faster with cardio. Sure enough, it worked, and a month later still, I decided to take up weight training again. I was gradually being sucked into this phyisical fitness thing. The better I got, the more I wanted.



Yep. I can relate. Back in September I lost maybe five or ten pounds due to stress. However, I decided that I liked the leaner me, so I decided to modify my diet to maintain it. From there, I decided I could look and feel EVEN BETTER if I increased my exercise as well. I was doing aerobics three times a week, which I increased to five, and added another two days of weight training on to my schedule as well.

I haven't given up alcohol, though I indulge less frequently, and I still go to McDonald's once in a while. But the thought of gaining that weight back keeps me where I am.

I heard someone say once (paraphrasing) "anyone can lose weight- it's the people who are willing to do what it takes no matter what the cost that do lose it".

To me that translated into either committing to go all the way or giving up on weight loss- so I went all the way. One month later I am 13 lbs lighter.

For what it is worth I had the "but my diet is pretty good" attitude for about 6 months and didn't lose an ounce until I got real and realized that only a good diet, not a pretty good one, teamed up with regular exercise would work and it does.

IMO opinion you should figure out if you want to do it or not and go full steam from there never looking back.

To me that translated into either committing to go all the way or giving up on weight loss-Ok, being devils advocate for a moment.. (I've also got the sudden panic people might think I'm trolling, and I'm not, I'm just genuinely interested in talking about it).

I see people all day who seem to eat the same way as me, they don't eat unhealthily etc.. but they certainly don't do the analysis that's required to lose the weight; and they're not fat, in fact some are actually quite trim. Many have said to me recently, "Oh are you on a diet then?" when they're looking at what I eat, as if I'm the one restricting myself compared to them, and that's before I switch to a very good diet!

Normally I'd put this down to metabolism, however there seems to be too many people who aren't overweight for me to think otherwise.

(As I mentioned above) granted I know that I'll never look like John without his level of commitment, but so long as I put the excercise and weights in whilst continuing to keep my diet reasonable I should be able to achieve something which is considered fit and trim, surely?

Again, this isn't about there being any question with the diet and the dedication involved in following it, I just can't see it as a black and white issue i.e. if you eat crap, you look crap, if you eat brilliant you look brilliant therefore if you eat pretty good you should be able to look pretty good.

Ok, being devils advocate for a moment.. (I've also got the sudden panic people might think I'm trolling, and I'm not, I'm just genuinely interested in talking about it).

I see people all day who seem to eat the same way as me, they don't eat unhealthily etc.. but they certainly don't do the analysis that's required to lose the weight; and they're not fat, in fact some are actually quite trim. Many have said to me recently, "Oh are you on a diet then?" when they're looking at what I eat, as if I'm the one restricting myself compared to them, and that's before I switch to a very good diet!

Normally I'd put this down to metabolism, however there seems to be too many people who aren't overweight for me to think otherwise.

(As I mentioned above) granted I know that I'll never look like John without his level of commitment, but so long as I put the excercise and weights in whilst continuing to keep my diet reasonable I should be able to achieve something which is considered fit and trim, surely?

Again, this isn't about there being any question with the diet and the dedication involved in following it, I just can't see it as a black and white issue i.e. if you eat crap, you look crap, if you eat brilliant you look brilliant therefore if you eat pretty good you should be able to look pretty good.


If eating pretty-good gives the results you want then great. I simply wanted to share my experience of eating what I thought was pretty good and the total lack of results I saw from it.

For me it came down to "do it or don't...quit being luke-warm" and that brought results.

Different things work for different people. The important thing is find what works for you and do it....don't spend months in denial like I did b/c it just makes getting started harder.

One more thing....you say you don't want to look like john, which I take to mean you don't want to look like john does now. But take a look at his month by month photos. It is absolutely amazing how much he did in just one month of good nutrition and ecercise.

Point is you may not want to look like john after 13 months, but what about john after 2 months or 4 months?

Again...figure out a specific goal, figure out what will get you there, and just do it.