Blonde will make thin ....Here we go again !

[EvilPie]

7th April: Weight 15st 13lb. Waist 37" to 38.5"

14th April: Weight 15st 11 1/4lb. Waist 36.75" to 38.25"

21st April: Weight 15st 7 3/4lb. Waist 36.5" to 38"

28th April: Weight 15st 4 3/4lb. Waist 36.25" to 37.75"

5th May: Weight 15st 6lb. Waist 36" to 37.25"

12th May: Weight 15st 4lb. Waist 35.75" to 36.75"

19th May: Weight 15st 5 3/4lb. Waist 36" to 37.25"

Massive sigh!!!! Can't believe my waist has got a bit bigger!!! The weight isn't an issue but I'm really not happy about adding to my waist.

Rather than get all upset I just need to figure out why? I'm still being healthy in general, I'm training hard and eating well so what's changed over the last week to set me back this way?

Rather than a single tl;dr type post I'll analyse the possible causes separately........ It'll make it easier for people to reply with their thoughts on each area as well because I think some feedback and personal thoughts and experiences would be useful.

[EvilPie]

Any one off bad things......

I've had two bad meals which I wouldn't have on a normal week. Sausage, bacon and egg cob on Friday and then a fried breakfast on Sunday. Now this obviously isn't great but they were meals replacing what I would've had otherwise so it's only the extra calories that matter. The breakfast was a 'good' fried breakfast with no fried bread, buttered toast or any of those sort of things.

I really wasn't too worried about the couple of unplanned slips. I've had one most weeks usually involving lots of beer so as I've not drank this weekend I wasn't expecting the two slips to cause a problem.

One offs shouldn't really be a problem anyway to be honest. It's sustained changes that are likely to make a difference so they need to be looked in to.

[EvilPie]

Sustained changes........

I've increased my carb intake in general through an extra pitta at lunch and also had pitta + rice in the evening whereas before I was having one or the other. I felt I needed to do this though as I was feeling very tired and needed a bit more fuel for training especially as I'm now training twice a day one of which is a pretty intense cardio workout.

Anything else........

Well I guess there has to be and I think as strange as it sounds I may have found my culprit..... Nuts!!!

Now nuts are incredibly healthy but they have to be treated with caution as they are very fatty and full of calories. The fat isn't a problem as it's healthy fat but the calories could be.

My NutriBullet smoothy maker suggests that you add a handful of nuts to your shake for the benefit of the healthy fats. I've been doing this for the last week or so and found that they add a nice bit of flavour. However, it had occurred to me that I was having nuts twice per day in my shake and also grabbing a few out the bag to munch on as well.

So to check exactly how many nuts I've been having I've weighed out 10 handfuls of each type of nut I have and added 20 individual nuts to give me an average daily intake of nuts over the last week.

Basically I've been having 35g of cashews and 35g of walnuts every single day for the last week on top of what I had last week.

So what does this mean in terms of calories? Well having checked the packets it means a f**king lot!!!! 205 calories for the cashews and 245 calories for the walnuts. A whopping 450 calories per day just from nuts!!!!!

If you add in the couple of pitta breads at 130 calories each that's an extra 700 calories per day, 5000 calories per week or the equivalent of 1.5lbs!!!!! Makes that one off sausage, bacon and egg cob seem like nothing doesn't it!?!?

So now that I've found my likely culprit I can easily do something about it and that is simply to moderate the intake of nuts. Starting tomorrow I'll remove the nuts completely from my morning shake and only have 20g total in the evening which will be weighed to make sure I don't go over. Also obviously no snacking on nuts!!!

This will result in 130 calories per day from nuts which is a reduction of 320 per day or 2240 per week. Hopefully this will get me back on track for next week.

Hope these last couple of posts have been interesting and given a few people some food for thought (see what I did there......)

[EvilPie]

Maybe the brief analysis above shows people how important it is to weigh your food and know exactly what you're consuming if you want to take weight loss (or gain) seriously rather than just play at it.

You don't have to weigh it forever, just long enough to realise what it's actually doing to you. As I'd never been a nut eater before (no puns thank you .....) I hadn't realised just how bad those seemingly insignificant handfuls might be.

I know quite a lot about diet and training but I've made a simple slip that has set me back a week or 2. Luckily I spotted it quickly or I could've been back where I started without knowing it.

Lesson learnt

[EvilPie]

4th May 2015:  15st 3lb
11th May 2015:  15st 2lb
18th May 2015:  15st 2lb

Total loss :  1lb

Had a good week on the exercise front, was expecting a loss.

Have you been eating nuts by any chance

[vegaslover]

4th May 2015:  15st 3lb
11th May 2015:  15st 2lb
18th May 2015:  15st 2lb

Total loss :  1lb

Had a good week on the exercise front, was expecting a loss.

Have you been eating nuts by any chance

Did have a few cashews at the start of the week as it happens. Reading your posts has made me hungry for more..lol

I'm putting it down to muscle gain

[EvilPie]

Following the shocker with the nuts in my 'healthy' drinks I thought I'd check exactly what's going in them and keep tabs for anything untoward that I need to be cautious with. I never weigh the ingredients as it's all supposedly healthy so no real need but I've weighed everything today to see what's really in there.

30g mixed salad
140g pear
50g grapes
30g blueberries
5g chia seeds
16g cashew nuts

Totals:

Calories - 240
Protein - 5.6g
Carbohydrate - 38g
Fat - 10g

Macro 11, 71, 18

Interestingly if you take out the 10 cashew nuts and the teaspoon of seeds you end up with the following:

Calories - 126
Protein - 1.9g
Carbohydrate - 30g
Fat - 1.2g

Macro 6, 91, 3

Surprising how much is in such a small quantity of nuts and seeds.

[Kmac84]

I genuinley believe that counting carbs/fat/protein etc is fine for someone who is doing body building or for an elite athlete.  For us mere mortals I don't think it matters so much. 

The key to a good diet imo is variety, that way it saves you getting bored and no doubt turning to the bad foods. 

I am currently following a portion size diet and overall its calorie controlled, I am allowed 2700 ckals a day, and that is broken down in portions of 13 carbs (eg 1 slice of bread would be 2 carbs), 12 Fruits and Veg (eg 1 medium banana would count as 2 fruits), 4 fats (eg 10g of butter would count as 1 fat), 4 Dairy (i low fat yogurt would be one dairy) and 3 protein (a small steak would be 1 protein)  I have managed well with this still trying to get my head around many of the measurements and what constitutes what.   But this insures i never go hungry.   

A typical day for me would be:

Breakfast - 2 weetabix with milk (2 carbs, 1 dairy) and a Banana (1 fruit and veg)
Morning Snack - Yogurt (1 dairy)
Lunch - Chicken Salad (1 protein, 2 fruit and veg)
Afternoon Snack - Portion of grapes (2 handfuls - 2 fruits and veg)
Dinner - Chicken pasta (1 or 2 protein depending on size of serving, 3 carbs, I can fit in 3 or 4 veg here with Onion, Tomatoes, Garlic, Chilli, Peppers.  (1 fat I use olive oil)
Desert - Handful of strawberries and yogurt (1 fruit & veg/ 1 dairy)
Supper (2 x toast and butter 4 carbs, 1 fat)

As you can see from that I have a bit or riggle room to have a bigger portion of someting, I drink plenty of water and generally feel full most of the time.   By increasing the fruit and veg in my diet and cutting out a few carbs I certainly feel brighter and less tired. 

I also have 320 ckals build in per day for something bad so if I fancy a bit of chocolate or a pint etc I can do that.  I can even save my bad ckals up as long as i am balanced for the rest of the week for a few beers or whatever. 

[leethefish]

 

[arbboy]

Lee tell me you are 14 stone!! 

[leethefish]

Lee tell me you are 14 stone!! 

I'd love to mark but just a tad under at 13/10 ;-)

[arbboy]

Lee tell me you are 14 stone!! 

I'd love to mark but just a tad under at 13/10 ;-)

lolz.  Would love to believe you!  Post a pic!

[GreekStein]

Have no idea of my weight as haven't weighed myself but I'm really in the swing of the gym. Yesterday I even went twice!

The paleo food that I'm ordering is great, the portions are perfect and I don't feel like I'm suffering the same way I do when I try to alter my diet by myself. Definitely money well spent so far.

One question for the fitness experts - how often should I use a sauna/steam room? There is one in my building and every few days after a workout I tend to go for a swim and then to the sauna/steam room.

[muckthenuts]

Just checking in to say i'm underway with Stronglifts. I haven't gotten round to counting calories yet but been eating clean and eating lots, which is working well because i've been too full by the time i get home to just want to shove the nearest chocolate bar into my mouth like i used to. Hopefully i can keep this up!

[EvilPie]

Have no idea of my weight as haven't weighed myself but I'm really in the swing of the gym. Yesterday I even went twice!

The paleo food that I'm ordering is great, the portions are perfect and I don't feel like I'm suffering the same way I do when I try to alter my diet by myself. Definitely money well spent so far.

One question for the fitness experts - how often should I use a sauna/steam room? There is one in my building and every few days after a workout I tend to go for a swim and then to the sauna/steam room.

I used to go in a steam room pretty much every day for about 2 years when I was training hard.

No idea about how often I should or shouldn't have been in there but who gives a f**k? It was lovely!!!!