Nutrition

[Macleod]

Now i'm no mastermind on the nutrition front so I eat what I think is right but what i'm eating doesn't seem to be enough for the amount of excercise i'm doing. Think i've got it into my head that more food is a bad thing and that it will affect my fitness which i'm pretty sure is billy boll*cks. Bear in mind I run around 15 miles a week and do weights and other manual excercises inbetween. So was just wondering what everybody's daily eating plan consisted of, mine is as follows...

(On an average day)

Breakfast

4 X Weetabix
2 X Toast
1 X Banana

Lunch

1 X Tuna Sandwich
1 X Apple

Dinner

1 X Whatever old mother hubbard cooks up (usually pasta or chilli) or full tin of beans on toast

Supper

1 X Tin of tuna
4 X Weetabix

[mr_man_2168]

When you eat is really important as well, not just what you eat. Your body can make the best use of nutrients to rebuild and recover muscle in the first 45 minutes after exercise, so when you get home from your run or finish a weights session, etc, start stuffing your face! Equally important, don't do anything strenuous without getting plenty of energy into your system beforehand, your body will start to digest excess muscle before fat (strange but true!)
Might be a good idea to take a multivitamin tablet with one of your meals too as no amount of calories can keep you going properly if you're not getting the full range of vitamins and minerals you need.
Always make sure you're drinking plenty of water or fruit juice as well, keep hydrated all the time not just around the time you're exercising.
Don't worry about eating too much, as long as what you're eating is quality calories and balanced, i.e not packed with sugars and fat.

[mr_man_2168]

When you say it's not enough do you mean you've got no energy or you're not gaining muscle or what?

[Macleod]

Probably a bit of both. I mean I don't think i'm drastically losing muscle or anything, though I know the running in particular can do that without the right amount of energy being consumed before the run. Maybe I should add some pasta mixed with beans (a delicacy for me) to my lunch and then when I finish work, which is when I do any excercise I will have the energy required and straight after maybe some chicken breast which I know is low in fat and very high in protein. What do you think mate?

[Macleod]

Also I drink around 3-4 litres of water a day so no problem on that front thankfully.

[mr_man_2168]

Probably a bit of both. I mean I don't think i'm drastically losing muscle or anything, though I know the running in particular can do that without the right amount of energy being consumed before the run. Maybe I should add some pasta mixed with beans (a delicacy for me) to my lunch and then when I finish work, which is when I do any excercise I will have the energy required and straight after maybe some chicken breast which I know is low in fat and very high in protein. What do you think mate?

Sounds like a decent strategy to me, you'll probably find the added carbs at lunchtime help a lot with energy, plus there's a fair bit of protein in the beans to add to what you're getting from the tuna sarnies. You're right about chicken breast, if you get sick of that go for stuff like lean beef, cottage cheese, fish, etc. Venison is my personal fave when i fancy a change! It's like steak without the fat. Led to awkward questions from my niece though, didn't fancy telling her i was eating Bambi!

[Macleod]

I think the reason I don't eat enough is also because it's hassle making the decent food and i'm also a bit of a scrooge with the sterling so don't want to be shelling out more than I need to for extra nosh. Better loosen the old purse strings, just hope that it's beneficial.

[rm4392]

well my opinion is you want to be eating carbs carbs and more carbs aim to eat roughly 6-8 grams of carbs to every Kg of your body weight but mix it up a bit cereal, bread, pasta etc. eat fish (not tuna) try cod, salmon, pollock. also for protein eat nuts not kp but mixed plain nuts. before running make your own hypotonic drink use fruit juice salt and sugar look it up on the net for % also dont scoff straight after running you will be sick trust me and dont eat roughly 2hours before (same reason) if you run in the morning eat rice dish at night or evening eat pasta lunche if when you run you need energy try flat coke or pepsi got $hit loads of glucose for you but you want complex sugars preferably
good luck

[Glenn]

rm4392, why not tuna?

[ofens]

rm4392, why not tuna?

I'm guessing he says this because tuna tend to contain mercury which we then end up ingesting.
It's poisonous and you don't really want too much of it!
Tuna is high up the food chain and therefore contain a lot of things (such as heavy metals) that are passed up from all the animals below in the chain (a process called bioaccumulation).

[Stokey_14]

nutrition doesn't have to be a tricky thing, it is all goal dependant really, what you're training aims are will play a huge role in what you should be eating.

A lot of people will say, eat what’s put in front of you, and this may work well for them, but me as someone who takes part in a weight governed sport find it hard to do that as I need to keep a pretty constant weight (around 89 Kg) so I keep a close look on what I’m eating.

I log what I eat and weight my self regularly, if weight goes up, eat less etc I don’t count calories as such but I do know what’s going in me.

I eat six meals a day with roughly 40-50 G of protein in each, breakfast, pre work out and post work out I take on my carbs and get a decent amount of fat with each meal.

For Protein I like to vary it often eating chicken/turkey, stakes, home made beef burgers, tuna, cod, fat free cottage cheese, whey powder (usually only post work out) and sometimes lamb.

Carbs I stick to oats, brown rice and whole meal past or bread

Fats I get natural peanut butter, flax seeds, nuts, cod liver oil (4000 Mg per day) and the fat that comes with animal fat

Also I get fruit and veg in with every meal and find my self snacking on anything from the fruit bowl, I also stuff a banana and blue berries into my blender when making my post work out shake.

I don't watch my fluid intake (apart from days leading up to a fight), just drink plenty of water, 2-3 cups of green tea a day and milk before bed and with my protein shake.

Just be smart, do you feel energy less? Eat more. stay away from sugars and don't over do the protein (you can take on to much!) If you're gaining weight at a rapid rate slack of the food a bit, a steady gain via muscle should hinder you if you're staying on top of conditioning, don't neglect fruits and veggies either as you'll find you work much better with them.

I could go on but I’d probably be babbling! (not that I haven’t been doing that anyway )

All the best (sorry if you knew all this anyways)

Stokey

[ofens]

Nice one Stokey, all sounds good to me there
Make the most of your good diet while you can, once you join up you're fed rubbish four times a day!
(In my opinion not the galley staff's fault, they do a great job)

[dave88]

Protein is a big must (Tuna, Chicken, Turkey)

Also things like nuts and seeds are good protein and fibre!!

Also im not sure from your plan how much fruit and veg you eat? As much as possible would be best!

[BucksBoy]

Hello lads I start my TG course in August and am picking my weight training up a bit as well as the c.v. work I have been doing - do any of you use supplements such as Creatine and protein powder? Any reccomendations?

[adambatley]

Hello lads I start my TG course in August and am picking my weight training up a bit as well as the c.v. work I have been doing - do any of you use supplements such as Creatine and protein powder? Any reccomendations?

If you want to use supplement's start off with Whey Protein. I'm a professional thai-boxer and I use a brand called Peak Body Nutrition www.peakbody.co.uk, their Whey Isolate works for me. But there are hundreds of decent brands out there.
Whatever you do stay away from Maximuscle, its full of sugar and is a load of bollocks.

Make sure you drink a protein shake straight after training, ideally within 5 minutes but upto 20 minutes after.