Hello, I'm a newbie and am very interested in making fitness a lifestyle. I have been reading through several different boards and have been putting together a diet. It is NOT perfect...it definitely needs a lot of work.

I'm 5'9" (175.26 cm) and 148 pounds (67 kg). According to the BMR formula, my BMR is 1381.26, and I need to consume 1899.24 calories for my activity level. (This diet is nowhere near that.)

Meal 1 (8:00)
- banana
- eggs, scrambled

Meal 2 (10:00 or 10:30)
- 1/2 can of tuna
- 1/2 container of yogurt

Meal 3 (12:00)
- 1 chicken breast
- 1 c. of some kind of veggie

Meal 4 (3:00 or 3:30)
- 1/2 container of yogurt
- 1/2 cup of blueberries

Meal 5 (5:30 or 6:30)
- 1 chicken breast
- 1 c. of spinach
- 1 tbsp. of olive oil
- 1/2 cup of some kind of veggie

Meal 6 (8:30 or 9:00)
- 1 tbsp. of hummus
- 1 small wheat pita


I plugged everything into Fitday.com, and it came out with 1323 calories, 19/50/31 (carbs, protein, fats). I know that's not very well balanced, but my two original diets were even worse than that...so at the moment, I could really use with some outside input.

Thanks! If you have any other questions that you need answered before you can help me, just let me know.

Welcome! I hope we can help.

First, I would check out the thread "suggestions/adivce regarding meal plans" which is just a couple down on this forum.

First of all I would say from my experience, you need WAY more veggies. And you may not know this, but broccoli and other veggies are also great sources of protein. I said this in the other thread, but read Eat To Live. But here are some other thoughts.

1. Make sure you leave out the yokes in your eggs.
2. Yogert has as much sugar as a can of pop. Real fruit is WAY better. I eat at LEAST 7 meals a day, but I try to make my snacks all fruits and veggies. We are almost totally off dairy anyway for a lot of reasons. But try some raw broccoli (maybe dipped in a smidgin' of ranch). Or soybeans (get em frozen-very cheap). Or an apple with a little bit (1 TB) of all natural PB (we make our own, works super). Also almonds are a great source of protien, practially no fat, and not too many calories. Just some other suggestions.
3. Try having a big salad for lunch. Use lots of spinach and other greens. You can add lots of other veggies and nuts and beans (really beans are good) to make it good and intersting. Jsut use a low cal dressing (like 20-70 cal per 2 TB).
4. Drink LOTS of water.

I know some of this sounds hard. I can hardly believe I am saying it myself. I used to have such a wrong concept of what it meant to eat healthy and I bought in to the media's lies. I can't believe I am telling you not to eat yogert and take the yokes out of eggs, but little by little, it can happen. Its amazing the differnce that eating right makes. Anyway, if you need more tips, let me know, but check out that other thread too.

Let me know if you have any other questions! Also, how is your workout schedule?

:moon:

Okay so this butt has nothing to do with anything but I jsut saw it over there and could not resist

Thanks for the welcome!

I have been reading through so many different threads, it's insane...I'm going crazy! I will go back over that thread, though, most definitely.

Even completely plain yogurt is bad? I wasn't talking about getting of the fruit-flavored kind or anything...just bland, plain yogurt. (I say this not having read anything about this in another thread, so I'm sure I'll post and then read the answer to my question!)

My workout schedule needs a lot of work, too. I do get to the gym around three days a week, but I do mostly cardio with light weight training. Once I figure out this diet thing, I'm going to tackle my training split (one baby step at a time, lol).

Thanks for all of the advice. :)

You're doing great. I'm glad to see you're spending so much time on your diet. That's the most important part of fat loss. No need to waste time on exercise until you got your diet worked out. Then, exercise is helpful.

Your calories seem to be in line, that's most important. I'm glad you see that your macronutrients have room to improve. Keep tweaking that diet to be more balanced. Little by little. Small changes are more likely to remain permenant than big ones.

If you're overwhelmed, that's ok. Take a deep breath, take a step back. There's tons of information to learn, but it is easier to steer a moving ship than one in the harbor. So, get started, and tweak your diet slowly as you learn. You've got the basics down, no problem. You're doing just fine.

I would suggest marcus's post, "my guide to nutrition for weight loss" at the top of the Introductions/Beginners Forum. It is the best article for beginners I've ever read. Excellent, very helpful and easy to read.

Hope this helps. Welcome to JSF. Glad you're here.

Meal 1 (8:00)
- banana
- eggs, scrambled

Meal 2 (10:00 or 10:30)
- 1/2 can of tuna
- 1/2 container of yogurt
- 1/2 c. some kind of veggie (I used squash to plug into Fitday, but I like all kinds of vegetables...mainly squash, broccoli, peas)

Meal 3 (12:00)
- 1 chicken breast
- 1 c. of some kind of veggie
- 1 c. spinach leaves


Meal 4 (3:00 or 3:30)
- 1/2 container of yogurt
- 1/2 cup of blueberries

Meal 5 (5:30 or 6:30)
- 1 chicken breast
- 1 c. of spinach
- 1 tbsp. of olive oil
- 1/2 cup of some kind of veggie

Meal 6 (8:30 or 9:00)
- 1 tbsp. of hummus
- 1 small wheat pita

This comes out to 1373 calories, with a 21/49/30 (c/p/f) ratio. I'm still working on replacing the yogurt, which will also hopefully up my calories just a tad bit. I'm thinking to aim for 1500 to start out with...what do you all think?

Y'all have been so sweet! Thanks for all of the advice and for welcoming me!

Yogert has as much sugar as a can of pop. Real fruit is WAY better. I eat at LEAST 7 meals a day, but I try to make my snacks all fruits and veggies. We are almost totally off dairy anyway for a lot of reasons. But try some raw broccoli (maybe dipped in a smidgin' of ranch). Or soybeans (get em frozen-very cheap). Or an apple with a little bit (1 TB) of all natural PB (we make our own, works super). Also almonds are a great source of protien, practially no fat, and not too many calories. Just some other suggestions.


I wouldn't totally count out yogurt. I think it really depends on the kind that you get. A can of pop has around 25-30 grams of sugar, the type of yogurt that I just ate (Dannon Light and Fit) has only 7. Plus it's a great source of calcium. I really don't think that yogurt is all that bad.

The other comment I had, was that almonds are eaten for FAT. They do not have "practically no fat." While they do contain protein, they are mainly a fat source.

I think your meal plan looks great so far, but depending on your activity, I would probably add more calories. Are you set on having 50% of you diet at protein and 30% fat?

Meal 1 seems a little low - although I'm not sure about how many eggs you're eating and if they're whole or just the whites. I'd consider adding in some oatmeal (or other carbohydrate) to this meal. If you have 1/2 C. dry measure (150 cal) it would bring your daily total to around 1500, which is what you said you wanted to start with.

No, I am most definitely not set on that ratio...I want to up the carbs to at least 30, and bump the fats down to 20. I'm still at a bit of a loss as to where to add/take away foods to accomplish this. I haven't had much time in the past two days (school and work, yadda yadda, lol) to mess around with this plan, though I have been (slowly) bringing it into my lifestyle.

I didn't even think about oatmeal...I'll have to go buy some! If I got just the plain oatmeal but dusted a little cinnamon on top, would that be okay?

2. Yogert has as much sugar as a can of pop. Real fruit is WAY better.

I strongly disagree. According to the nutrition label on the yoghurt in my fridge, 100g of yoghurt (at least the one I have to hand) contains 9 grams of protein, 4 grams of carbs, and zero grams of fat. I think yoghurt is a superb food! Regarding fruit - yes, that's also very healthy, but is totally different from yoghurt and neither one is a substitute for the other!

VSPink86, congrats on taking these steps! :) One thing I'd maybe tweak in you diet is to maybe add some oily fish, e.g. mackerel or salmon, from time to time - this contains contains helpful omega-3 fats which you're not getting much of otherwise.

Okay, so I added 1 c. of oatmeal to meal #1, and now my daily calories and ratio looks like this:

1518 calories
29% fat
25% carbohydrates
46% protein

philph - Thanks for the welcome! I usually do eat fish on the weekends, actually. I currently live in a dorm room w/access to a microwave...and that's about it, lol. But I come home on weekends, and get a little bit more variety as to what I eat.

I like the looks of this diet...I'm definitely excited! But I would still like to bump the fat down to 20%. So I'm spending my Saturday night plugging numbers into my calculator and seeing if I can accomplish that, lol.

Thanks for the advice, and keep it coming!!!

I have been following this diet, and even though it hasn't been that long, I do feel better (in general).

I really would like to lower the daily percentage of fat I'm taking in...does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could do that?