Nutrition Log

[basketballfan22]

Well I was recommended to start a log of my nutrition. I have been avoiding this because I am still disappointed about the lack of progress I witnessed the last time I kept track of every single calorie and macronutrient (macro). I started a new workout routine, and I love it. I dialed down my original workout because I was spending far too much time in the gym. Now I think it is time to REALLY focus on my diet again. I will be keeping track of what I eat throughout today, and I will post it when I decide to go to bed.

Even though I love my workout routine, I have not experienced much weight gains; so I know it is time to adjust my diet. I will post some information about me for those that have not read anything about me yet. I will be 24 next month, and I have been lifting for 5 years (not intelligently the entire time). I am 6'0 and weigh 178.5 pounds as of this morning. I have a very fast metabolism, and I have a body type that can fluctuate in weight in short periods of time. I can look rather big one day, and the next I can look a lot smaller if I wasn't on top of my diet. My goals as of now are to be 200 pounds with around 10% body fat. I am currently around 11% (approximation from a fellow member here).

One last thing. Although I attempted to calculate every calorie the last time I tried this (before I became a member), one thing I find difficult is calculating my dinners. I have a rather monotonous diet in the morning and afternoon, as I eat almost the same thing everyday. Dinners are where I have more diversity. I live with my sister who cooks for us both, and I use the MyFitnessPal app on my iPhone to calculate the macros of all of the ingredients she uses. I have to approximate the amounts I eat though. For example, if she were to cook a pot of stew, I would compile the entire recipe; then I would approximate the portion that I eat (e.g. 2 bowls = 1/5 of the whole recipe). I assume that all of the ingredients are equally distributed, and I simply multiply the whole recipe by my approximated ratio. There are also some nutritional information that varies in the MyFitnessPal app. Most of the time I can simply scan the barcodes on the food items, but sometimes there are no barcodes and I simply have to trust that the information stored on MyFitnessPal's database is accurate. I also eat some food from the restaurant my mom works at, and I have NO CLUE what their recipe is. I just hope when I type in roast beef sandwich in my app that the nutritional information is close to the actual nutritional profile of the sandwich I am eating. Anyway, I will keep you updated.

[--->>405<<---]

good deal bball..

at 178.5lbs 11%bf u have 158.87lbs LBM

158.87 x 15 = 2383cals (call it 2400 rough maintenance)

the fact that u have a high metabolism makes the likelihood of this formula being incorrect very good. i wanted to post it here just for reference. ill be interested to see what ur diet looks like as well as ur total cals and macros.. more than likely u will have to make some revisions of some of ur food choices and u will most definitely have to increase the quantity of food u eat.

eating at ur moms restaurant may require some extra thought but personally for awhile i would suggest only eating food u can be sure of the nutritional content of this way we can figure out ur caloric needs. if u constantly have unknown variables in the equation, itll be very difficult to find the errors.

[basketballfan22]

Thanks 405. What is really ****ing weird is that I was consistently eating 3200 - 4000 calories the last time I was very careful about keeping track of my diet! I had approximately a 40%:25%:35% carbohydrates to fat to protein ratio. Maybe I really messed up somewhere when I calculated my calories, but I was pretty careful. I weighed even the protein scoops I took because I didn't trust the scooper enough. Anyway, I will try and forget about the past and do this again. I know I should be eating around 500 calories over my maintenance if I want to put on 1 pound of lean muscle mass every week.

[basketballfan22]

Now here is how my diet looked today. I weighed my protein scoops and even my almonds and found the average almond weighs around 1.3 grams (based on a sample size of 10 almonds). I will list the calories for the meal followed by a macro split where "a/b/c" means "a grams of carbohydrates, b grams of fat, and c grams of protein." For the most part, this is what my diet has looked like for a long time almost everyday. My dinner is always different, but the rest of the day is pretty much the same.

10:00: 28 grams of whey protein isolate = 105 (1/0/25).
11:00: 6 ounces of blueberries, 8 ounces of Simply Orange orange juice, 1 fish oil tablet, 1 Opti-Men multivitamin, 14 ounces of nonfat milk, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 80 grams (1 cup) of Quaker oats = 623 (114/7/28).
11:30: 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil = 120 (0/14/0).
13:00: 28 grams of whey protein isolate = 105 (1/0/25).
15:00: 1 tablespoon of honey, 1 cup of nonfat greek yogurt = 190 (26/0/23).
16:30: 3.5 Russet potatoes = 385 (91/0/7). This is an estimate of some chili fries I had at a restaurant. I was starving after playing basketball, and my friend and I ate at a restaurant. This is not normal though.
17:00: 2 slices of multi-grain bread, 4 ounces (1 container) of light tuna, 5 grams (2 teaspoons) of yellow mustard = 280 (36/3/34).
18:00: 1 cup of nonfat milk, 28 grams of whey protein isolate, 1 fish oil tablet, 1 Opti-Men multivitamin = 205 (14/1/33).
20:00: 1/5 of Thai noodles meal. The whole meal consists of 14 ounces of whole grain linguine, 1920 mL of beef broth, 1/3 container of chunky peanut butter, 1 red bell pepper, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 6 teaspoons of ginger, 4 ounces of edamame, 1 ounce of green onions, 6 teaspoons of Sriracha hot sauce, 22.2 ounces of lean stew meat = 713 (72/27/47).
22:00: 35 grams (1.25 ounces) of whole natural almonds = 202.5 (7.5/17.5/7.5).
23:00: 1 cup of nonfat milk, 32 grams of micellar casein, 1 fish oil tablet, 1 Opti-Men multivitamin = 220 (17/2/32).

Total: 3149 (380/73/261).

I don't know why the calories don't match up with the macros exactly; but I have noticed on labels that the calories doesn't always equal what it should if you add the carbohydrates, fats, and protein together. If we manually add up my calories, we would get 4*(380 + 261) + 9*73 = 3221.

[--->>405<<---]

ok so u tracked ur cals for yesterday. obviously u are anal about a lot of things as well! LOL.. (averaging weight of almonds for example )

basically IMO what needs to be done is u need to build a diet and follow it. we can then make adjustments based on ur results. since u have not been tracking cals lately now is the time to start. depending how aggressive u want to be will determine where u start.

with your stats i would think 3200-3500cals would be more than enuff for u to gain weight. i weigh 190lbs 9% and gain 2 lbs per week on 3200cals. obviously u are not me but it is a frame of reference for a starting point.

depending how big of a hurry ur in will determine where u start calorically. if u wanna start at 3500 and dont mind potentially gaining fat go for it. we may find 3500 isnt enuff as well but we have to start somewhere.

let me know what u decide. then i suggest u build ur diet and follow it. eliminate guesstimations and unknowns from ur diet.