Sample diet (long)

[qdmcg]

I know that when I started cutting (and was new to weighloss), I had no idea what I should be eating.

Also, this stuff is far from delicious or well prepared but I came at this as a college student living in a dorm room. 90% of this stuff is microwaveable, inexpensive, and quick to make.


7am:
7am for me was post-workout (either cardio or lifting). If this is not the case for you, you can easily shift around the meals.

1 cup skim milk - 90 calories
1 scoop whey protein - 120 calories
1 tablespoon flax seed oil - 120 calories
330 calories total
--You can buy really cheap "shakers" from GNC (<$10) that allow you to not have to use a blender to mix this stuff up. The flaxseed oil doesn't taste great but I've gotten used to it, and its a good fat.

10am:
1/2 cup oatmeal - 150 calories
2 eggs, 2 egg whites. Approx 170 calories
320 calories

The oatmeal is not flavored, its the boring kind you get in the giant tubes with the old man on the front from your grocery store. Make sure to get "100% whole grain," not the instant 1 minute stuff. I flavor it with 1-2 packets of Equal everyday to make it taste decent, but some ppl seem to think Equal causes cancer. If you are one of these people, then suck it up and eat it plain, or add a tsp of sugar (15 calories).

Each egg is approximately 70 calories. Each egg white is approximately 15. I cannot stand egg whites by themselves, so I balance the two for more protein but less fat\calories. This is easily microwaveable, though it tastes better if you can cook it in a skillet.

1pm
1 can of tuna (~150 calories)
2 slices of bread (~180)
mustard (5-10cals)
total ~340 calories

Tuna tastes like [censored] imo, but if you add mustard and suck it up it goes down. Diets are not meant to be fun. Have some motivation for 2-3 months and you will look better, be healthier, and get laid more. I substitute the tuna here for turkey or chicken often because the world is convinced that eating more than 2-3 cans of tuna per week will give you mercury poison. I didn't feel like risking it, though tuna is an amazing protein source and very inexpensive.

4pm
2.5 ounces of whole-wheat pasta - 250 calories
Skinless, boneless chicken - 125 calories
1/2 cup pasta sauce - 50 calories
1 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil - 120 calories
total - 545 calories

This was my grande meal of the day. It is a bit larger than what most people reccomend eating in one small meal, but its kind of like my "cheat meal". Aside from being pretty tasty IMO, it fills you up pretty well. For variation, I add pepper and hotsauce to the pasta sauce.

7pm
200 calories chicken
75 calories carrots (this is about 7 ounces of carrots)
25 or so lettuce
40 calories 1tbsp vinagrette dressing
total 340 calories

This was my last meal and it generally was a salad with a tiny bit of dressing, and chicken mixed it. I find it hard to estimate the calories in a salad but I find that they're almost next to nothing. Do not put cheese or any other crap in your salad. What you can have is lettuce, carrots, onions, mushrooms, tomato, cucumber, etc. No cheese, ranch dressing, etc. I love seeing people eating salads covered in cheese and ranch dressing: these salads run at upwards of 500 calories.

Daily total 1875 calories

This leaves us at about 1900 calories. I generally shot for 2100 calories per day, so this was basically an estimate of what I ate. I would throw in apples, strawberries, bananas, the occasional lowfat yogurt, protein bar, etc.

Decent substitutes for other meals to kill boredom are

breakfast: cereals (don't buy [censored] sugar cereals, buy stuff like cheerios, special K, kashi, etc.)
lunch: turkey burgers (these are delicious when you're dieting. Throw them on some wheat bread and pretend you're at mcdonalds)
Subway: 6 inch turkey sandwhich is supposedly 280 calories. Get it without cheese or mayonnaise, most other things are okay. I don't really believe that its only 280 calories but thats okay.
Lunch: Chicken and "whole-grain" or non-white rice w/ olive oil.
Dinner: lots of fish (non fried) are good, specifically salmon.

This has worked for me. I do not claim to be a health guru but I felt really great while I was on this diet. My cardio was forced 6/7 days a week as I am on a varsity team in college and had to lose 15 lbs to make a weightclass. I lifted 2-3 days a week. I drank a [censored] of water everyday and took a multivitamin.

I cheated on weekends with alcohol (lite beer, liquor). I tried to control eating while drunk but was relatively unsuccessful. I also occasionally cheated on weekends in general as I found myself on much less of a routine schedule. I still lost the weight.

This is certainly a huge lifestyle change and don't recommend it to anyone who doesn't REALLY really want to lose weight. However, if you follow this, you will lose weight. It was hard, but it paid off and I am now apart of a team that is going to be doing very well this season (rowing).

If you do want to seriously start dieting, hold yourself accountable. Keep track of EVERYTHING you eat. Start measuring what you eat (on one of those $3 diet scales) and look at how many calories are in them at www.foodcount.com. Either keep track of your calories on the internet, or wherever. I wrote mine down in a notebook along with my cardio and weightlifting routines.

Don't start tomorrow, start right now.

If anyone has any other questions, let me know.
I hope this helps someone.