OK, so I've met with a nutrishonist & am starting with a personal trainer tonight. I wanted to get some opinions as to how you guys think their "plan" will work for me... My exercise routine will consist of 1 hour of weight training and then the following day 1 hour of cardio. I'll alternate days of weight training of & cardio...
The diet the nutrishonish set for me is the following:
breakfast: banana or piece of fruit
mid am snack - 1 plain turkey burger, no bun, no nothing
2nd mid am snack - 1 piece of fruit
lunch - grilled chicken & either a salad or baked potote
Snack - either a can of tuna ( just the tuna, no mayo or anything) or a handful of peanuts
Dinner - 1/4 lbs of haddock or grilled chicken with veggies

What do you guys think of all this? Think it will work? They pointing me in the right direction?

I'd probably add a protein in for the first meal, a banana or fruit is great but personally I like to start the day with something proteiny. Egg? Egg white? Something. Same with the 2:00 snack, add in a bit of cheese or something. At least on the weight training days, yeah.

What are the calories here? Did they outline that? I'm feeling too lazy to add it up. How intense for weights and cardio?

BTW - Glad to see you're back!

The only thoughts that I have (and note - I haven't seen a nutritionist and have lots of food allergies, so my diet is weird) are:

I would probably go for a snack after dinner as opposed to two morning snacks - but I do stay up really late.

I'd likely want a serving or two of healthy dairy a day - probably yogurt or a piece of string cheese.

I might also switch the breakfast and the first snack - have the protein first thing and then a piece of fruit later. There's actually a tangerine sitting on my desk right now...

The first choice he wanted me to eat for breakfast actually was eggs, but I don't eat eggs, I have this thing against eating chicken embryo's, just doesn't sound good to me! I asked about putting cheese on my turkey burger & his response was absolutely not! No Cheese! I'm not quite sure why, I thought the extra protein was good. As far as the intensity, it gets about as intense as I let it. I haven't actually started, but I will not be pushed to the point where I hurt myself. I know the cardio will be fairly low intensity as I am out of shape & do get winded easily on cardio machines. I do much better & feel like I accomplish more with weight training. He told me to completely forget about calories, so he didn't get into the amount of calories I'd be eating a day. I don't really think it's much more then what I have been eating all along, which is between 1300-1700 depending on the day....

Okay, so no eggs - cool on that. I'm sure there's something else you could substitute - by now you know nutrition 101.

I'd have a problem with a nutritionist who gives me 'No, absolutely not' as an answer to cheese or tells me not to worry about calories. For crying out loud! Did he explain why or just say no?

Glancing over the menu quickly, and adding the calories quickly in my head (math is not my forte, but it looks really low, unless you're using oils in cooking method) - it really looks SUPER low calorie - which you worked hard to get away from. Under 1000 calories????

Who is this nutritionist? Gym or doctor referral? Does he know you're working away from extremely low calorie eating? Is he aware you've lost 50 pounds (yay!) on your own?

I've had nutritional counseling in the past but there were a lot more choices for each meal and snack than what you listed. It seems like they are going for the 6 small meals a day plan which seems to work better for a lot of people. My main concern would be are you going to be able to eat like this for an extended period of time? The biggest problem I would have is eating a turkey burger in the middle of the morning. That sounds like a better lunch option. I would be suspicious of someone who is not giving you several choices for each lunch or snack. I don't think many people could stick with eating the same menu every day for more than a week or so.

In my opinion, nutritional counseling is supposed to help you to make good diet choices that will be a life change and not just for a short period of time to lose weight. The menu you listed above seems to be too strict to stay with for very long.

I have not mentioned my issue with calories, cause honestly, it didn't occur to me to mention it! I've kinda gotten away from calorie counting in general, it's kinda become second nature at this point. So even though I am still a cal counter, I am not logging my calories anymore on the dailyplate. I did mention that I had lost 48 lbs on my own because he was doubting my "want to lose". I'm like listen, I've lost 48 lbs on my own I just need to start working out & don't know where to begin, hence, where you guys come in! I kinda thought it was low anyways, but add the working out now on top of it, I'm just afraid that I'm setting myself up for starvation mode again & I certainly don't want to do that! Why can't it be as easy to take the weight off as it was to gain it? :-)

Well, assuming you have paid the nutritionist for the plan, it would be best to follow it the way it's been laid out. Why try to second guess it?

It sounds fine to me. I think the mid-morning turkey burger is enough protein for the morning, and everything else makes sense. Go for it.

I think the exercise plan sounds fine as well.

You know what they say--When all else fails, try following directions.

Jay

Righto, but whether or not you log them on The Daily Plate, you know the importance of getting enough to eat. You certainly still qualify as a calorie counter!

My concern would be that it sounds like you're beginning a fitness regime and cutting the calories all at once. You know how calorie deficits can work against you rather than for you. It sounds like a lot, all at once - and he's trying to fix something that isn't broken.

I do remember that you're a little-ittle bit picky about food so I think getting nutritional ideas for your meals is great. However, it sounds like this plan is sort of 'set in stone', which wouldn't jive well with me.

Where'd you find him anyhow? Imma beat him up! JK.

That was kind of my thought, TMG...seems really restricted. If it was ME, there's not a chance I'd be able to stick with it, unless the person making the menu was physically in my home, giving me the food....

But nothing has failed for her Jay - she started off originally with a VLCD and has recently upped it to a more sound level while still losing. What's new is the addition of exercise and a nutritionist. The nutritionist idea is great, but he's taking her back to where she started from in terms of calories being very low.

OK, I added up everything on that list in FitDay, and it comes out to under 1200 calories. FB is right about that.

So if that's what the nutritionist is telling you to eat every single day, I would disagree with it.

I'm curious about this nutritionist's educational background and licensing. Did you get any information about that? He should have at least a Bachelor's degree...

Was this a situation where he suggested more and different foods initially, but you didn't like the foods? Like eggs. (By the way, they are not chicken embryos.)

None of us here are in any position to tell you what to do, really--myself included. But I'm not sure we have the whole story.

Jay