Loosing weight and perhaps gaining some muscle

Dear All,

I am a newbie here so please be gentle.

I would be very greatly appreciative of some advice with the following; I have tried to make this thread as detailed as possible.

In around 2011 I started running outdoors (not on a treadmill) with a view to increasing my fitness levels and slowly loosing some body fat. At the time I was around 38 years old, with a height of 5' 7", weight of around 87Kg and body fat of around 28%, so not in great shape. I was running around 4Km 2-3 times a week but with no real change in diet. Over the years my fitness improved and my weight reduced very gradually until the middle of 2018 where I weighed around 82Kg.

In around 2015 I completed a half marathon in around 2 hours.

From June 2018 I started to look at my diet and the biggest change I made was to reduce the amount of sugar and alchohol in my diet considerably and this has accelerated my weight loss considerably and I now weigh around 77.5Kg. During this last year I have found that I have lost noticeable weight from my stomach area and upper and lower back. I must confess this had made me move around more easily and have almost completely lost my 'love handles'.

My current running reigime is around 3-5Km every other day for two days and then 6-7Km once a week and my diet is as follows:-

2 Litres of filtered water drunk throughout each day

Breakfast weekdays - Large bowl of rolled oats

Breakfast weekends - As above or maybe two fried eggs on wholemeal toast or
Large bowl of scrambled egg

Lunch weekdays - 4 cooked chicken breasts (150g) or
mango and brazil nuts or
250g of mackeral or
shish lamb (100g)

Lunch weekends - two fried eggs on wholemeal toast or
2 x tuna may wholemeal toast sandwiches

Dinner weekdays / weekends - 80g of wholewheat pasta and fried fish or
125g of breaded cod with fried veggies or
125g Salmon (in butter) with fried veggies or
Breaded chicken with fried veggies or
Chicken Curry with basmatti rice or
fishcakes with fried veggies


Evening Meal / Pudding - Large bowl of fresh fruit or
Large bowl of scrambled eggs

Frying is in small quantities of either coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil or rapeseed oil. I eat no cakes, snacks or pizzas but I do have a large handful of mixed nuts (once a day). I drink ocassionally (once every 2 months).

I have two multivitamin tablets a day but do not have any sports supplements.

I feel I still have the capacity to reduce weight further through diet (around a month ago I cut out my once a week Pizza) and running but do not to have a 'saggy skin' or 'skinny fat' look. I have an aim to have a six pack and perhaps put on some muscle however I really want to avoid going to a gym. I would be very thankful if someone could provide their thoughts to assist me with this.

Thank you





Peter

Comments

  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    My thoughts on your diet....

    You need to eat some veg, you're not even making 5 a day of fruit and veg and 5 a day is the amount to avoid malnutrition.   Vitamin tablets don't replace the benefits of eating vegetables.  Increase target to 10 a day and only 2 of those to be fruit, fruit has a lot of sugar.

    Too much fried food, oven cook if you must have breaded food.   Better not to have the breaded at all, unnecessary calories and no nutritional benefit.   I wouldn't fry the veg at all, steam, microwave or stir fry in water.

    You need more variety in your diet too, you eat the same things all the time, that is poor nutrition.   Every week buy different meat/fish/poultry/other protein sources, different fruit/veg and cook different dishes.


    Your mileage is very low, only maximum 10 miles a week, increase that.   Running won't build muscle.  You won't get a six pack from running, you'll need to do strength and conditioning work.
  • @PeterJohnson I think you are doing pretty well!! SHADES has given some pretty good suggestions but to expand on his "strength and conditioning" point... I would say introducing bodyweight training - particularly circuit training (YouTube is a great source to find circuit training workouts) - another suggestion would be callisthenics which is pretty much like circuit training without the High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) aspect i.e. you can rest as much as you want between sets to recover from the muscle fatigue.

    If not the above, why not try CrossFit? It isn't like a traditional gym where you have veiny bodybuilders wearing miniature vests who glare through your soul and make you feel inadequate.....if you know what I mean :lol:
    People who do CrossFit are generally really polite and welcoming - it's just a thought.
    CrossFit is quite taxing so you have the option of keeping your diet the same and losing weight + building muscle through CrossFit. (I'm biased towards CrossFit if you couldn't tell already :blush: )

    Hope that helps.
  • CORRECTION: I should have said... "keeping your diet the same and losing fat while building muscle through CrossFit". Apologies.
  • Hi Mate, what other activities are you doing besides running? It is possible to build some muscle through calisthenics , pullups/pressups variations/squats! Have you tried doing any?
  • I would say that building muscle through weightlifting would really help. Especially if you can do compound movements like squats, deadlifts, bench press, hip thrusts, etc.
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