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Asklemmy @lemmy.ml
sarah2653 @lemmy.ml

what's the best diet to follow if you're starting to jog and work out?

weeks ago I found out I'm getting a bit fatter and I don't like that. I started running and working out 2 hours a day a week ago.

My diet so far: on a budget, but without extras like artificial sauces or ready to eat meals. I usually eat lots of whole bread without anything on it (I used to mix it with cheese or butter, but Iḿ cutting that out), lots of turkey breasts to prepare stews with tofu, veggies like cabbage, carrot and cauliflower, no pastries, no alcohol. No coffee but tea.

I invariably have to eat bread with my meals, because otherwise I won't feel full, but I also eat bread at night and apparently, carbohydrates are not supposed to be ingested that late. What could I substitute bread with?

I run before having breakfast, but I don't know if I should dinner less and reduce my bread intake at dinner. OTOH going to bed feeling hungry seems to be a bad idea, or am I supposed to go to sleep feeling hungry? Is there any advantage to doing this?

I may eat a cheese sandwich while at work if I have nothing else at hand.

What works for you?

9 comments

  • If your goal is to get generally healthy, exercise is brilliant. Don’t be afraid to walk on your runs at first to allow you to recover and keep running.

    If your goal is to lose weight, diet control is the most important thing. Exercise can actually make things worse if you aren’t careful, because your body will instinctively want to eat more. You’ll probably need to make sure that you don’t eat more kilojoules after starting exercise than you already eat now. But also as the other reply said, cut your carbs, add more protein (necessary to help your body repair itself after the damage that exercise causes) and veggies. Lots of leafy greens especially.

    And what carbs you are eating would be better as whole meal and/or multigrain, rather than white bread/rice and plain pasta.

  • My advice: don’t change anything else right now.

    The temptation is high to pack it all in at once; make all the big changes.

    2 hours a day is a lot. Not too much, just a lot. So, since you asked, don’t change your diet yet. Get into the groove of building this new thing into some level of consistency. Once you’re 90 days in, start modifying something else. Diet. Sleep. Intensity.

    Work on one routine at a time.

    Now if you’re going too far into calorie deficit then you can think about what your energy needs are but keep the other changes to bare necessity.

    • 2 hours a day is pretty crazy, depending on the intensity. I’m a dedicated amateur athlete and would have been under 10 hours a week training for a marathon, and woulda been barely over that even when doing my most intense triathlon training.

      But a light run/walk most days with a harder gym session or run 3 or 4 times a week is a very different question.

  • 2 hours each day?? Goddamn that is incredibly intense. I don't know how you keep that up.

    I don't have a weight loss tip, but an exercise tip. In March, I challenged myself to start running. I used a free app to follow a milestone guide (on Android it's called Just Run). Well, the app suggested that you have at least one rest day in between runs to let your body rest and repair. At first, I wasn't going to listen to it and I was going to skip some rest days.

    But then I realized that having rest days mentally helps me so much more. I had tried to pick up exercising in the past, but it never stuck because I was trying to go every day and I hated it. Letting myself have one to two rest days (but ideally no more) in between each workout day helps me mentally stick with it and keep going. I've never been as consistent at something like this. Allowing myself to rest...both physically AND mentally has helped me to both stick with it and prepare for the workout days. I would encourage you to think about this.

    My goal wasn't weight loss though so I can't help so much with that part. They do say you can't exercise away a bad diet though, so don't go into exercising expecting to lose weight. In fact, exercising has actually made me want to eat more not less. The basic idea is just calories in = calories out...but some types of foods are more filling and energy efficient than others...proteins and veggies are better than bread and other carbs (but bread is delicious so I feel you).

    Good luck, man.

  • Reduce carb portions and replace with larger veggie portions, and understand that corn and potatoes and other starch vegetables are just carbs (but it seems like you already know that). You may need larger protein portions in your meals to feel more full, and that's fine if your choosing lean proteins, which it seems like you already are.

    Don't be afraid of having fat in your diet, just avoid overly greasy stuff like too much fried food.

    Overall, you'll probably be fine to do what you're doing, but stop insisting on having a ton of bread. Just control your portions, limit bread, and be conscious of how much sugar you're actually eating in a day because that shit is in pretty much everything. If you're rarely eating out and rarely eating processed crap like TV dinners and rarely drinking calories and rarely reaching for sweets and snacks, then you're gonna do great! It takes a shitload of jogging to undo even a modest treat. Having two double stuff oreos sets you back 140 calories, which will probably take you about a mile and a half to work off. If you ask me, oreos just ain't fucking worth it lol.

  • 2 hours a day?! Go you, you fucking beast.

    I run 25k a week and do about 100 crunches a day, maybe some pushups and resistance bands if I remember to. I tend to just listen to my body. 2 meals a day, usually a big meal in the evening and a small breakfast/lunch.

    Protein post workout and a good mix of carbs, fibre and protein all the rest of the time.

9 comments