Hi everyone,
my name is Patrick, I'm from Montreal, Canada but am currently living in Southern California where I am working in computer graphics. I work 10 hours a day and sometimes 6 days a week. This leaves me very little time for a life and activities outside of work. About a month ago I signed back up at the gym. I hadn't been to one since I moved down here, about 4 months ago...and it showed. My weight stayed mostly the same but some muscle weight was substituted by fat. I am 26 years old, 5'11" and currently weight around 227lbs. I have just started using the Calliper and, if I am handling it correctly, I should be around 30%bf.

Below is my goal, workout and eating plan.. any comments and suggestions are most welcome.

The Goal
Well, my goal is to loose as much of the fat as possible which, I think, should take me down to about 180-185lbs.

The Plan
For the last month I've been going to the gym every second day. The muscle groups are split into 3 sessions so, basically I'm working each muscle groups every 5 days.
ie:
Day 1(Monday): chest & arms(biceps and triceps)
Day 2(Wednesday): Legs & abs
Day 3(Friday): shoulders & back
Day 1(Sunday): chest & arms(biceps and triceps)
etc.

In addition to that I have been trying to do cardio every morning. The apartment community where I live has this really small gym room with an eliptical and a trendmill. I use the eliptical as running on the trendmill is very hard on my knees and I can't go past 5 minutes on it. So, as I was saying, I try to run on the eliptical every morning for about 30 minutes, LISS. I do skip it once in a while mostly days after the leg workouts. Those are quite painful.

Food Plan, a.k.a. Diet
I've been trying to do a 40:40:20 split and I thought I was doing well until I finally decided to fill in what I ate today on fitday.com. Here is what I ate and will be eating today. It is obviously wrong in the Fats department, which might explain why I have been having difficulties losing fat lately. I have been aiming for a 2200cal/day but it looks like I'm am around 2300. I will adjust things tomorrow but any suggestions as far as food and calories for maximal weight lost will much appreciated. Also, please keep in mind when you look at this that some choice might not be the best(mostly low maple & brown sugar oatmeal) but it's because what I'm trying to do here is change my way of eating. I don't want it to be a fad diet. So eating something totally bland and tasteless isn't going to work in the long run and is just going to stray me away from the healthiest food choices(pure, instant oatmeal).

Today's food log with mistakes, looks more like 35%C:37%P:28%F

Meal 1, 8:30am:
-Cereals, QUAKER, oatmeal, instant, maple and brown sugar, prepared with water(1packet) : 120c
-Oatmeal, cooked, instant, fat not added in cooking(1packet): 100c
-2 Egg whites + 1 large whole egg: 134c
-2tbs Peanut butter: 190c
-1 Bread, multigrain: 100c
-4 at large nutrition ETS
-3 at large nutrition Thermocin

Pre-workout, 11:30am:
-Apple, raw: 74c

Post-workout meal 2, 1pm
-1 Tortilla, whole wheat: 80c
-5.5oz Turkey or chicken breast, lean, low-fat: 172c
-2slices, Tomatoes, raw: 11c
-2small leaves, Lettuce, raw: 1c
-1 ring Onions, mature, raw: 2c
-3-4 table spoon Mustard: 7c
-12 Almonds, dry roasted, without salt: 85c
-1 serving, At Large Nutrition Nitrean Chocolate Protein powder: 110c

Meal 3, 4:30pm
-1 cup, Yogurt, cherry, lowfat: 230c
-12 Almonds, dry roasted, without salt: 85c

Meal 4, 6:30pm
-3/4 cup, brown Rice, long-grain, cooked: 162c
-4 cups, Broccoli, steamed: 99c
-6oz Chicken, breast, without bone, cooked, skin not eaten: 275c

Meal 5, 10pm
-2 Kiwi fruit, raw: 93c
-3.5 Cheese, Cheddar, lowfat: 172c

Like I said above this, I realise that I have to adjust some stuff. The total in calories right now is 2300c. 241g in Carbs, 209g in Proteins, 65g in Fat.

Here are some pics.
http://www.decaysystem.com/2006_04_26_00002.jpg http://www.decaysystem.com/2006_04_26_00003.jpg

Finally, although I have signed up to this message board only recently, I have been lurking for quite some time. I would like to thank John and everyone who contributes to the forum. I have learned a lot and have been inspired greatly by everyone. Thank you very much for any suggestions and sorry for the very long read!
Patrick

added pictures.

Hi Patrick,

I think your plan is solid and you'll see good gains on it!

What I did with oatmeal when I first started was to have flavored instant oatmeal the first day. The next day I tried a mix with half flavored oatmeal and half regular. That tasted fine for me, so then I tried another mix with even less of the flavored kind. By transitioning slowly and only when I felt ready, it was painless. I don't think you absolutely have to do this, but you could try.

One thing I'm confused about is your implication that pure "instant oatmeal" is the ideal. You'll have to check the labels to verify this, but I'm pretty sure that the instant kind is not as good as the normal non-instant. The right kind has no sugar, lots of fiber, and just oats in it.

Another place you could improve is to replace the Cherry Yogurt with plain yogurt, or even cottage cheese or something on those lines. The Cherry Yogurt probably has a ton of sugar in it.

You don't mention water. You should drink a lot of water! You should probably also take a multivitamin.

Is your weight lifting workout at noon? I'm worried that it's going to be hard to keep your intensity high during the workout, since you only eat an apple between your workout and breakfast which was 3.5+ hours ago. On lifting days you might want to do something as simple as moving the bread from breakfast to the pre-workout meal.

You could also try to get a protein source into every meal.

Don't let the scale play mind games with you. I think you're on the right track, and that you'll do well even if you don't make any changes at all.

:confused: i tried going through that list of foods and no matter what absurd forms of math i came up with i couldn't get over 200g of fat. how did you come up with 628?

:confused: i tried going through that list of foods and no matter what absurd forms of math i came up with i couldn't get over 200g of fat. how did you come up with 628?

oops, I messed up my numbers. That's calories. Not grams. It's about 65 grams actually.


Hi Patrick,

I think your plan is solid and you'll see good gains on it!

What I did with oatmeal when I first started was to have flavored instant oatmeal the first day. The next day I tried a mix with half flavored oatmeal and half regular. That tasted fine for me, so then I tried another mix with even less of the flavored kind. By transitioning slowly and only when I felt ready, it was painless. I don't think you absolutely have to do this, but you could try.

One thing I'm confused about is your implication that pure "instant oatmeal" is the ideal. You'll have to check the labels to verify this, but I'm pretty sure that the instant kind is not as good as the normal non-instant. The right kind has no sugar, lots of fiber, and just oats in it.

Another place you could improve is to replace the Cherry Yogurt with plain yogurt, or even cottage cheese or something on those lines. The Cherry Yogurt probably has a ton of sugar in it.

You don't mention water. You should drink a lot of water! You should probably also take a multivitamin.

Is your weight lifting workout at noon? I'm worried that it's going to be hard to keep your intensity high during the workout, since you only eat an apple between your workout and breakfast which was 3.5+ hours ago. On lifting days you might want to do something as simple as moving the bread from breakfast to the pre-workout meal.

You could also try to get a protein source into every meal.

Don't let the scale play mind games with you. I think you're on the right track, and that you'll do well even if you don't make any changes at all.

I'm actually mixing my oatmeal together at the moment. To be honest, last time I used oatmeal before this was about 15 years ago and I remember I had to put so much brown sugar in there to make it taste good(at least now I know how bad it is). I will look into the natural non instant oatmeal. As for the yogurt. I tried the plain before and didn't like it. I will try the cottage cheese although I'm not much of a fan of cheese, except cheddar.

I drink tons of water. From the time I get to work and to when I leave, I drink almost constantly. For some reason though, I don't drink as much water when I'm home though. But, like I said, I work 10h a day so that's 10h of drinking water.

I realise that my pre-workout meal is pretty small. I will add or move the slice of bread to that meal.

Thank you for taking the time to reply.