New Lightweight Needs Eating Tips

[old] thegbe · Post by **[old] thegbe** » July 14th, 2005, 3:15 pm

I just finished my novice year as a freshman in college. I am pretty happy with myself, as I finished off the year with a 2k of 6:45, however due to my size, 5'9" and 170(ish) pounds, I know that in order to be truly competitive I need to row lightweight. My ultimate goal is to weigh about 155 by next spring. I'm fairly lean, but still have a good amound of flab on me (i'm not sure what my b/f % is, i'd guess between 10-15), so I think losing 15 pounds in a year is a realistic goal for me. I really need to start now though, as I'm not down with crash dieting as a means for making weight. What are some general guide lines I should abide to with regards to making weight? I know not to drink soda and booze or eat ice cream, that seems pretty obvious. What foods should I stay away from that might not be so obvious? What are some good snack foods to munch on for quick nourishment? Anyone have a favorite engery bar (cliffbars, powerbars)? Anything else I should know? Thanks!

LindaM · Post by **LindaM** » July 19th, 2005, 10:44 am

As an athlete and a young man, you need a balanced diet with plenty of protein, and good quality fats and carbohydrates. Try to avoid pre-packaged foods, white flour, white pasta, and sugar added foods. Eat fresh vegetables and fruit, whole grain bread and whole grain pasta, brown or wild rice, barley, couscous. And as for fats and proteins - eat less red meat (some is ok), more fish (especially the oilier varieties), more chicken, when possible choose olive oil over regular vegetable oil. For cereals - oatmeal (slow cook) is best, for cold cereals select the highest fiber and lowest sugar values you can find. Cut back as far as possible on pretzels, chips, baked goods - using sugar and white flour, and fried foods.

[old] Andrew Burrows · Post by **[old] Andrew Burrows** » July 19th, 2005, 12:31 pm

I have had a lot of experience of this recently and have dropped my weight from (an already pretty slim) 13st 10lbs to my 1st race as LWT 2 weeks ago of 11st 6lbs. I only wanted 11st 11lbs but I panicked the night before and starved myself, I wont do that again though. Anyway, to give you some idea this is pretty much what I eat and what times through the day:- 8am - bowl of sultana bran cereal with skimmed milk 10:30am - 2 handfuls of raisins Midday - turkey or chicken slices in 4 slices wholemeal bread with low fat spread 1:30pm - 2 satsumas 3pm - apple 4pm - alpen bar 5:30pm - banana I then train at about 6:30pm for an hour 8pm - stir fry which includes - lean meat (chicken/turkey etc etc), celery, carrots, peppers, garlic, bean sprouts, noodles. I cook this with olive oil and add some soy sauce. Its bloody lovely. Thats it for food. I think thats pretty healthy and balanced. If I do get hungry later in the day I may have another bowl of cereal but thats rare as I find this fills me up nicely. I also drink loads of water throughout the day. This has been a drastic change for me, I sued to eat chocolate, crisps, cakes etc and drink lager most nights, Ive had to cut all this out but once I done this I found that the weight came off me steadily and was not really a problem. I have been a lot more relaxed in the last couple of weeks as I have months before my next race but my weight is only 12st 1lbs at the moment so its not a problem. Hope this helps.

[old] michael · Post by **[old] michael** » July 19th, 2005, 1:09 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(LindaM @ Jul 19 2005, 09:44 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>As an athlete and a young man, you need a balanced diet with plenty of protein, and good quality fats and carbohydrates. Try to avoid pre-packaged foods, white flour, white pasta, and sugar added foods. Eat fresh vegetables and fruit, whole grain bread and whole grain pasta, brown or wild rice, barley, couscous. And as for fats and proteins - eat less red meat (some is ok), more fish (especially the oilier varieties), more chicken, when possible choose olive oil over regular vegetable oil. For cereals - oatmeal (slow cook) is best, for cold cereals select the highest fiber and lowest sugar values you can find. Cut back as far as possible on pretzels, chips, baked goods - using sugar and white flour, and fried foods. </td></tr></table> Good information here, succintly stated. I make a point to eat a large portion of my foods raw with little to no extra ingredients. Fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes in their natural state provide a bounty of vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients, fiber, lignans, anti-oxidants and so much more. I'm a big advocate of consuming foods that, from a historical perspective were highly revered for imbuing the human body with vitality and good health: foods such as flax, quinoa, amaranth, kamut, goji berry, hemp, maca and spelt, to name a few. These are a sample of the many "forgotten" foods that are beginning to make a comeback, all of which have been highly praised since antiquity--and for good reason. Do a google search and read up on the items I listed, and you'll be perplexed as to why a "nutritionally challenged" food like white rice is so omnipresent in our society and yet something like quinoa is virtually absent.

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » July 19th, 2005, 2:08 pm

Micheal, How do you eat your grains raw, without cooking them. I am interested in this. I agree with you, with the exception of the white rice thing. A nutrition guy was telling people on the net how brown rice had so much more nutrition than white and we got into a discussion about it as I disagreed. I showed him the info to which he was surprised, agreed and has modified his approach. There is not much nutrition in brown rice either, nor any of those other grains that you mentioned. I eat jasmine or basmati rice every day, but that's just for the energy not nutrition, as that comes mostly from fresh greens.

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » July 19th, 2005, 2:19 pm

I disagree with the plenty of protein thing, meaning as it does to eat meat. Even if you have a totally vegan diet with only 10% of calories from protein and you're eating say 3000 calories a day, that is 300 calories which is 75 grams of protein, and this is plenty for athletic endeavors. However even in a vegan or vegetarian diet most people would get at least 15% of their calories from protein. So there is no reason to eat unhealthy foods like doped up cow flesh. The best foods are fresh green veggies, along with fruit and grains, legumes etc. I grow purslane in my garden and love it. There is nothing wrong with pasta though I don't eat it much. I would definitely avoid flour foods and bread though. Bread and other baked foods are an easy way to =gain= weight, not lose it. Commercial chicken and meat are very unhealthy foods, full of cancer, bacteria, viruses, growth hormones and drugs. If you ate such foods you would get the same things inside you. Don't use any oil in your food if you are aiming to be healthy and lose weight. Processed oils are high in caloric density, hard to digest and unhealthy. A tablespoon or two of freshly ground flax seeds is high in omega 3 fats, as is fish. Oats are 18% of calories from fat. That's way too high and I don't eat them at all. Jasmine or basmati rice are less then 1% of calories from fat. I went on a rice and fruit diet a dozen years ago and went from 170 to 133 pounds in 4 months.

[old] michael · Post by **[old] michael** » July 20th, 2005, 12:32 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(John Rupp @ Jul 19 2005, 01:08 PM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Micheal, How do you eat your grains raw, without cooking them. I am interested in this. I agree with you, with the exception of the white rice thing. A nutrition guy was telling people on the net how brown rice had so much more nutrition than white and we got into a discussion about it as I disagreed. I showed him the info to which he was surprised, agreed and has modified his approach. There is not much nutrition in brown rice either, nor any of those other grains that you mentioned. I eat jasmine or basmati rice every day, but that's just for the energy not nutrition, as that comes mostly from fresh greens. </td></tr></table> John, I suppose I needed to clarify that fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds constitute the primary raw food portion of my diet. It's true that cooked grains are what I primarily eat within this category. However, I do soak some grains like spelt and make a "milk" out of them with my VitaMix, grind others such as amaranth and flax and blend them with soymilk. I also don't believe brown rice is much better from a nutritional standpoint, considering that white rice is fortified with some B vitamins. However, with the endosperm removed from white rice, all the phytonutrients as well as the Vitamin E has been discarded. My major problem with white rices are their high GI values and their promotion of insulin spiking. You really can't compare rice of any variety with grains like amaranth, quinoa, teff, millet etc. They all have a superior nutritional profile. The World Health Organization has accorded quinoa the top spot of ANY AND ALL food products for protein completeness and quality. Compared with brown rice at 7.5%, quinoa's protein level is 19%. It also contains more calcium than dairy milk--and more importantly, more assimable calcium because it is an alkaline food, not an acidifying one like dairy is. And you know how important alkaline based foods are...

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » July 20th, 2005, 2:33 pm

Hi Micheal, Thanks for the info. White rice doesn't have that much higher, and in some cases the same, GI as brown rice and other grains. There is just not that much difference. On the other hand I have seen high values for Jasmine and Basmati rice, but my experience with them is that this is just not the case. Putting these kinds of rice up with refined sugar, in my opinion, shows the GI tests are not all they are made out to be, and are not all that reliable. Regardless of that, the best a person can do is to try things and see what works and what doesn't. A few years ago I got a blood glucose kit and tested my BG during a hard set of repetitions, poking my finger before, right after hard reps, and again after the session. That was a lot of finger poking! It turned out to be almost impossible to knock my BG out of whack. When it go a bit higher, i.e. right after the hard reps when I was utilizing the energy, then it came right back to normal again with recovery. I never used the kit again after that. By the way, I always rinse the rice thoroughly, so any vitamins etc that were added are probably rinsed off, which is fine with me. I prefer to not have any additives and don't take any vitamins anyway. On another note, I have recently discovered that cooking rice in a crock pot is much more effective and convenient than cooking it on a stove! I use twice the amount of water as rice, put the crockpot outside on the patio, on high for 1 hour then on low for 2 hours. The rice comes out much better this way. Very nice!

[old] michael · Post by **[old] michael** » July 20th, 2005, 5:20 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(John Rupp @ Jul 20 2005, 01:33 PM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>White rice doesn't have that much higher, and in some cases the same, GI as brown rice and other grains. There is just not that much difference. On the other hand I have seen high values for Jasmine and Basmati rice, but my experience with them is that this is just not the case. </td></tr></table> John, The values I got doing a net search: White rice: GI - 87 (high), GL - 36 (high) Brown rice: GI - 50 (low), GL - 16 (medium)

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » July 20th, 2005, 5:41 pm

Micheal, That's exactly the point. A value of 87 is too simplistic, not realistic and not useful. There are thousands of kinds of white rice and many of brown as well. I can find you values for brown rice that are higher than white rice!!! So?? Can you tell me an "ideal" GI for all foods? Hint -- there isn't one.

[old] michael · Post by **[old] michael** » July 21st, 2005, 12:06 pm

John, You must concede that anytime the bran, germ, endosperm, etc. is removed from a grain product you are consequently stripping it of fiber, ergo this will result in a corresponding rise of it's glycemic index value, i.e. the tendency for that product to cause a sharper, more sudden insulin response when consumed. Wouldn't you say the same holds true when comparing white bread (stripped of fiber) with whole wheat/multi-grain bread? This has been all too well documented by now. Perhaps, in your case, little difference in blood sugar levels were seen between consuming one product or the other. In my case, when I purged refined flours and processed grain products from my diet, I saw a great improvement in my blood glucose levels. I think that my experience is more the norm, though. I guess I don't understand why you are so beholden to the notion that a food product that has undergone chemical or mechanical stripping can possibly be of greater benefit than the nature-made whole, unadulterated product...? As far as the GI for all foods, there may or may not be an ideal, I don't know. I think it's safe to safe that the vast majority of what we eat should fall in the low-medium range, that's all.

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » July 21st, 2005, 1:33 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(michael @ Jul 21 2005, 09:06 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>I guess I don't understand why you are so beholden to the notion that a food product that has undergone chemical or mechanical stripping can possibly be of greater benefit than the nature-made whole, unadulterated product...? </td></tr></table> My answer to that is why not just eat the brown rice hard, raw, and uncooked? I'm not convinced all that hard shell, bran, germ, endosperm, etc is all that useful and, to the contrary, that it isn't. You could say the same about other things. Why not eat apricot shells and the pits? Why not eat date pits, mango and papaya seeds and skins, coconut and lobster shells. There would certainly be a lower GI if you did! For meat eaters, why not eat bones and drink blood, etc. Personally I found brown rice hard to digest. I don't care for amaranth or quinoa and don't like alfalfa seeds, though I love purslane from my garden. Thus in my opinion jasmine and basmati rice have a much greater value than those other grains. If you like them fine, but they didn't work well for me. And I think this would be the same for most others.

[old] RowedandRode · Post by **[old] RowedandRode** » August 5th, 2005, 10:27 am

Not that the thread on white vs. brown rice isn't fascinating, but back to the original question. If you want to make lightweight, here's my advice: 1) No refined sugar. No alcohol. No fast food or prepackaged food. No exceptions. 2) Consume more lean protein. You need at least 1 g per lb of body weight per day. This is not negotiable. Forget the pyramids, food guides, etc. You need that protein to repair the body parts that are damaged during every workout. If you get tired of chicken breasts, egg whites, cottage cheese and tuna fish, go buy yourself a low-carbohydrate, low-fat whey or soy protein isolate drink mix. 3) Figure out how many calories you need each day to maintain your current weight given your current activity level (google: "Harris-Benedict Equation"). Then subtract 500 calories. Divide this number by six. That's the number of calories you will eat at each of your six meals per day. Spread your daily protein requirement over these 6 meals as well. It doesn't matter what time you eat, but make sure that no more than 3 hours elapses between meals. Based on this plan, you should be able to lose 1-2 lb per week, depending on how much exercise you get during that week. 4) Eat 1 serving of whole-grain carb once per day, at the second meal after your workout. I personally think that large-flake or stone-ground oats is the best choice. On your rest day (i.e., no workouts) eat no starchy or grain carbs at all. 5) Eat 2-3 cups of mixed grilled vegetables or green salad at each meal. 6) Invest in a heart rate monitor and make sure that you spend the duration of your workouts in your fat loss target zone (except for intervals, during which your HR will be higher). Aim to burn 600-1000 calories each day. 7) Get on the scale and take a baseline measurement. Welcome to Day 1. It's worked for me; I've lost 13 lbs in just over a month. I now weigh less than I did the year I started university. Best of luck, RandR

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