Losing Some Weight

I am 15 and wrestle for my highschool. Unforunately I do not have the physique to compete at 150lbs. Last year for my first year I was 5’6 128lbs (10% bf)could eat whatever I wanted and stay pretty damn lean. Now I am 5’8 150lbs and tho i have put on a lil muscle ive also put on a fair bit of fat and I’m looking at losing 5-10lbs of mostly fat (all fat if possible) in about 1month. I’m looking at drinking lots of water, eating absolutely no junk, doing some extra cardio on the weekends, maybe weights as well. Spliting up my meals…thing is i did this for a week and after the dismil sight that i did not lose a single lb, not even a tenth of a lb, i kinda got disheartened. now im thinking it was probably just my lack of time. Suggestions? Ideas? Anything. Thanx.

c’mon, you cant come on a site like this and complain about having trouble losing weight. you didnt give any specific information on your diet. ur 15 years old, and with proper nutrition you should be able to do great things regarding body recomposition. look up the 7 keys articles by dr. john berardi, and read t-dawg 2.0 diet. read berardi articles and lonnie lowery posted another great article today. all the information you could possibly want is available to you for FREE on this site, so use the search engine and visit the archives to find it.

8am ish - 2packets of oatmeal or a bowl of cereal or a few eggs

11:15am - Tuna samich on whole wheat no mayo.

2:50pm - Pre-practice - A fruit

5:30pm - Stirfry, chilli, chicken, something healthy with milk

7pm - Fruit

No junk. Lots of water.

I hope you aren’t talking about that flavored oatmeal candy crap?

Search out Berardi’s 7 habits or the latest incarnation of the T-Dawg Diet. The info is all here, just dig around a bit and do some reading.

Yes it WAS the sugary shitty shit…but now ive switched over to the regular kind…
Per packet
120cals, 2g of fat, 21g of carbs, only one gram being from sugar and 4g of protein.

The first thing that jumps out from that is… PACKETS?!

As far as oats go, you want something that comes in a jar. I prefer the least processed ones(steel cut or if I can find them, stone ground) as they provide for a thicker, richer porridge. However, even quick oats would be nutritious, simply thinner due to the further milling involved to make them cook in a minute. Anything in a packet is full of artificial crap. This may not be an issue so far as your diet is concerned, but it is an issue so far as health goes, in my opinion. It plays a part in taste as well.

Now… as for your diet…

Three problems to be addressed right off the bat are metabolism, fat mobilization, and lean body mass.

With the infrequency, and insubstantial nature of your meals, your metabolism is likely average. The low-calorie nature of your overall diet, coupled with the lack of exogenous metabolism boosters would seem to suggest your metabolism will be sinking if it has not already.

I would also note that those infrequent meals contain minimal dietary fat. Like many things in the body, when it comes to fat, the more you put in, the more your body will give up. Right now, with that eating plan, your body will be trying to cling to every ounce of fat it can, lest it should never recieve any more dietary fat.

Lastly, as far as lean body mass goes, you seem to be taking in a sparse amount of protein, the bulk of it focused into a single meal. Being that you want to maintain the muscle, for your sport, for appearance, and for fat burning/metabolic potential, you do not want to be eating a low amount of the macronutrient that will be keeping that muscle built and rebuilt. You need more protein, and you need it spread over the day more evenly and frequently.

Dr. Berardi’s articles here do a great job of laying out a blueprint for a clean balanced diet. I personally like an eating plan with a little less carbs then he suggests(though not as low as traditional low carbs), and sans grains/dairy, but these are personal choices and should not affect your dieting, unless you’re extremely sensitive to carbs.

Considering your age, activity level, and amount of fat to be eliminated, you should do fine with only a slight calorie deficit, and a restructuring of your eating schedule and menu.

Hey, there, Rookie! Even though it was short and sweet, I’d like to see you go with vroom’s advice.

The problems I see are:

  • Juice should be eliminated from your diet, along with milk and dairy.

  • Protein needs to be eaten each and every meal.

  • PWO nutrition should be optimized.

  • Keep a food log so that you can make SMALL adjustments. BIG adjustments result in people losing large amounts of muscle, not large amounts of fat. On any given week that you would not lose weight, you should drop calories by 250 calories per cay.

  • Never eat fruit by itself. Remember, protein every meal.

  • TRY to eat some green veggies or a piece of fruit with every meal. Salads (without the dressing) are your friend! (Actually, you can use lemon juice or apple cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar for your salads.)

  • If you get a handle on nothing else, get a handle on how much protein you’re eating on a daily basis. You need to be eating at LEAST 1g x TBW. And that number needs to be divided by the number of meals you eat per day. Check out www.fitday.com to see how many ounces of chicken or fish or lean ground beef you need to eat to meet your protein requirements.

Keep reading! Learning how to manipulate your body composition (i.e., lose fat, not muscle) is not something you learn overnight. But once you do learn it, it will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life!

Good luck, and if you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Most people here are going to agree that 3 meals a day plus 2 pieces of fruit doesn’t cut it. S

Six, even eight meals.

Protein in every single meal.

Know exactly how many calories you’re getting.

What’s a quick fix for protein? Seeing and I dunno what would be easy to throw together with a few fruits for a meal

Rookie,

A lot of us spend several hours on Sunday putting together foods for the week.

For example, if you were to cook up some chicken breasts or something, you could just have them available for any meal that you can’t do any cooking at.

Another idea, if you have Grow! or something like that around, bring it along dry, and mix it up at meal time.

Cottage cheese is a great source of protein and can go well with some fruits if you can keep your food cold until meal time.

Another idea I’m looking at, when my next pay arrives, is getting a dehydrator so I can make my own jerky. Talk about convenient. I can’t wait!

Nuts, if you watch the combination of fats and carbs, can be a very convenient source of nutrients.

Rookie, in addition to vroom’s always excellent advice, I’d recommend hard boiled eggs, pull-top cans of tuna or the vacuum packed kind. In a pinch, if you’re traveling past a grocery store, you can stop in and get a quarter pound of deli meat. There are always options. But it’s still best to pack things up and take it with you. You get more variety and have a higher level of control that way. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Just get one of those insulated lunch bag type deals.

I would shy away from the deli meat myself. It is notoriously high in salt as well as preservatives.

Tuna, or canned herring is the better option, especially if you pick up some of the low-sodium variety.

Moon Knight, in general I agree, but we’re talking about what to do when you’re in a pinch. Ideally Rookie will start packing up some quality protein and taking it with him.

BTW, check out Boar’s Head deli. It’s not pre-formed deli meat, doesn’t have all the chemical additives I generally try to avoid. It’s real meat. Of course the price reflects that fact, too.

BTW #2? (grin) There’s nothing wrong with salt if you’re drinking enough water and don’t suffer from salt-sensitive hypertension. Sodium levels are quite elegantly and efficiently managed by the body in most people. A little known fact is that salt actually helps with refilling glycogen stores PWO.

At one time when I was doing some hard-core cardio on a daily basis, my water intake was pretty high and my salt intake not high enough. The end result is that I started suffering from arythmias (irregular heart beat). Adding a pinch of salt to my water corrected the problem.

Salt has its place.

Certainly don’t cut salt out, but 1000-1500 mg a day should meet any nutritional need I’d think.

As for postworkout, definately, salt is important, but quantity would be the bone of our contention I suppose.