hi, new here, not sure if im posting this in the right place or not....i;m just trying to get some feedback on my eating/exercise routine to make sure im doing something semi-right.....
First off im a 31 yr old male started off at 202 lbs, 5'10....last time i weighed myself i was 194 ( been almost a week ago ) i stopped weighing myself everyday, because the flucuations in water weight and etc were kinda depressing after everything ive been doing.......
ok, onto my diet and exercise.....im just coming off a 3rd shift job so my hours are un-conventional....

noon( my morning )--slim fast shake with organic skim milk--vitamin c 500mg pill...centrum energy multi-vitamin......190 calories

2 p.m-- hard boiled egg ( no salt ) or granola bar.....75-100 calories

4 p.m-- slim fast shake or whey protein shake....same calories 190.....

6 p.m-- hard boiled egg or granola bar or 1 serving baked doritoes....75-120 caolries

8 p.m--( dinner ) either steak or chicken with either white or brown rice or mac and cheese....sometimes with corn or green beans...or a campbells chunky soup.....300-500 calories

10-11 p.m...beef jerky or applesauce or 1 of the other snacks prev listed....100 calories

1-2 a.m-- some days if my calorie intake is a little low i'll eat something mentioned above

3-4 a.m -- go to bed

everyday i brisk walk ( 3.5 mph-4 mph ) 2-3 miles....5 days a week i'll walk/jog/sprint a 9-10 min mile on top of the 2-3 miles.....start off jogging for a 1/4 mile walk to catch my breath, jog etc.....last half mile i mix in 10 second sprints....i'm a smoker, but have been very active my whole life , except for the last yr...i'm confident i'll soon be able to jog a mile without stopping....

my daily calorie intake ranges from 950-1200 or so ( i never feel hungry, unless i look at the clock and see im 30 mins or so past my scheduled time to eat ) my exercise burns around 300-400 calories per day.....i've used 25 different BMR calculators and they say my bmr is between 2000-2500 a day

i use a fitness app on my iphone to keep track of everything ( can scan food labels for nutrition info ) i'm always on the low side of carbs, sodium, potassium, fat....protein is ok, sugar is almost always over , because of the slim-fast

I'm a very picky eater, so pretty much any advice on food changes will be hard for me to do....is there a different shake i should be trying because of the sugar amounts in slim-fast? I guess i just need a little assurance from the pros ( you guys ) that this will help me reach my goal of 175 lbs by july....basically is this an ok diet or ?? .....also thinking about adding some green tea into my schedule

im going to start weighing myself every sunday from now on.... been a week or so since last time i checked...was 194...hoping for 190 or so tomm

also all i drink is water....6-8 16.9 oz bottles a day......maybe 1 day a week i'll have a monster energy drink, just because i love them lol

i'm noticing that this is mostly, if not all, a womans site....in my defense, i havent found any site like this " for men " ......but losing weight is losing weight and google is filled with so much junk its hard to find out "what works ".... so real advice from real people, male or female, is better than most crap you find on the internet....thx for your time

I can't help you on your diet as I'm far from an expert, but I'm sure someone will chime in and help you out. Welcome to the site - guys are always welcome. Like you said, losing weight is losing weight, and this site is wonderful for support and advice!

We do have a men's site see the Men's Corner, but you are welcome to post anywhere you like.
I personally think you are not getting enough calories. The danger of such a low daily calorie count is that you may be robbing yourself of needed nutrients.

Everything you are doing sounds ok but you should probably be eating more. Your net calorie deficit is a little over 1000 calories right now. You will probably lose a significant amount of weight for a few weeks but then your metabolism will start to slow down. If this happens, and it probably will, your weight loss will come to a halt. Eventually you will probably start losing weight again but you will lose weight very inefficiently. Then once you reach your goal and eat the amount your body needs to maintain your new weight, you will actually gain weight until your metabolism get back to the way it was before. This can take a few weeks. This is the reason why people who go on crash diets end up gaining all or more of their weight back once they get off of their diets. Also dieting this way will cause you to lose more muscle than you would normally lose on a less restrictive diet. You should add 500 calories to your diet and also lift weights to prevent the muscle loss, which is a natural side effect of dieting. Adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet is also a good idea.
Good luck and congratulations for the weight you already lost!

Welcome to 3FC OhioGuy! There is a "men's corner" on the site but guys are welcome everywhere here. I think of us all being chicks just hatching out to healthier ways of living.

Your calories seem really really low. They'd be low for 5 foot tall 130 pound woman and for a 30 year old guy they are super low. Yeah, you'll lose weight faster but you'll lose muscle and strength and energy too. And you'll screw up your metabolism in the process, making future weight maintenance (or loss) much much harder.

Any added fruit or veggies (and I'm not counting apple sauce as fruit really although if that's all you can do it's better than nothing bt in that case home made with the peels kept on and no or very limited sweetener would be best) would be excellent. I'm of the school of thought that multivitamins are never a bad idea but they don't take the place of the real thing. Plus veggies and fruit have things you just can't pack into a multivitamin - like fiber and antioxidants.

If you have access to a blender why not try swapping out a smoothie for those slim fast shakes. Some yogurt (or kefir if you can get it), some fruit, a little sweetner, and you can toss in things like spinach or kale and never even know you're getting a veggie! It'll probably be more calories but much healthier and filling. (1 cup kefir, a dozen frozen blueberries, a tablespoon honey, a cup of raw spinach for example).

Right now you're only looking to lose another 20 pounds by July - I'm a 50 year old only very moderately active woman getting a lot more calories and fat in my daily diet and *I* will lose 20 pounds by July so for sure you can. The trick isn't always losing the weight it's doing it in a way that you can maintain both your weight and your health.

Good Luck!

hi - i agree that your calorie intake is too low. i'm on 750cal a day but that's under dr supervision - i have to report every week to the dr's office for weigh-in and blood pressure (i have untreatable labile hypertension) and on monday i have to go in for blood tests - they were supposed to be done every six weeks but bec i'm kind of losing quickly, the dr has stepped up the frequency.

[... thinking i could always reorganize so i'm weighing right after the blood test - lord knows they pull enough!]

slim fast - yuck. i think of it as the mcdonald's of meal replacement shakes. you might want to look into FitSmart Fibre35 - it's what i use. 20gr protein, 10gr fibre mixed with water, 140cal for chocolate, 160cal for strawberry.

the other thing is that you've got "hard boiled egg or granola bar" - they're not dietetically equal. egg is protein, granola bar is fat and carbs. so some days you're getting more carbs and some days you're getting more protein (and granola is pretty high in fat, while granola bars are insanely high in sugar). my own thinking is that you'd want "egg or jerky" and "applesauce or granola bar" bec then the two items are in the same food category.

definitely weigh yourself weekly *at the most* bec, yeah - the fluctuations are mind-bending.

total calories - after typing all this and mulling it over - yeah: you're too low. you're a far cry from obese (i'm five two and a bit, down to 210) so you don't need the extremely low intake. take it up to 1800 but put the extra oomph into the protein.

just an fyi: you know how they say if you take in too few calories you'll lose too much muscle mass? that includes your heart. your heart is not something you want losing weight.

i've thought about adding more calories, but i just dont see how or where i could....with the schedule im on, i just dont really get hungry....i've never had a problem with eating, just the 3rd shift job i had-had me drinking about 4 cans of monster energy drinks a night ( nearly 210 grams of sugar and 800 calories alone in those ) and my pepsi addiction ( hardest thing to quit ) combined with not being able to play basketball ( because of my work schedule ) is why i gained weight....i've avg'd playing about 10-20 hrs ( sometimes more !! )of intense basketball a week for pretty much my entire life... i've just never been a real big eater, so i dont really know how i could make myself add more...maybe i could drink another protein shake after my nightly walk.....i do my run after dinner and brisk walk 3 miles around 11 or 12 at night....

as far as nutrients, i use "myfitness pal " for iphone and an avg day looks like this
my total fitness pal set goal
total fat 30g 66
saturated 9g 23

cholesterol 400 300
sodium 3000 2500
potassium 2200 3500
total carbs 186g 274
dietary fiber 19g 23
sugar 67g 40
protein 131g 74
and of course my vitamin intake is well over the goal set by fitness pal

To be honest, i dont know what these numbers really mean as far as being healthy or not and they fluctuate from day to day a little, but it seems besides carbs ( im usually on the lower end of the set goal ) and sugar ( almost always 25 or so grams over because of the sugar content in slim-fast ) that everything else is on par with the app i'm using......am i just using a crap iphone app or??

Its just hard to know what to go by, as far as numbers....on certain days the app even tells me i may be putting myself into "starvation mode" but then i google starvation mode, and after many, many hours come to the conclusion that it is a myth ( to a point ) mainly because of a site i came across, not sure of the url , about an army "experiment" where they took quite a few men that were already in above-average shape and worked them to death on 1,000-1,500 calorie diets but they were burning 4-6,000 calories per day and were sleep deprived etc.... but their body fat % continued to drop at faster rate than their lean mass %......

its just hard to know right from wrong anymore lol.....long story short, i just dont see how i could add 500 more-healthy-calories....esp with my pickiness....

yeah, i'm definetly going to try a different shake when i'm done with these last 2 cans i've got....They work for me, i actually enjoy the taste, but the sugar is to high for my liking....The whey protein shake i have is the same in calories but alot higher in protein and a little lower in sugar

i'm going to be a blunt instrument here: you need to stop indulging your pickiness.

i just ate a can of frikkin sardines in mustard sauce. i HATE sardines. but it's all i've got left until i can hit the grocery store so i plugged my nose and down them as fast as i could.

as for not eating bec you're not hungry, that's what happens when you take in too few calories - your body shuts down your stomach's hunger cues. i have to use a timer and i eat every three hours whether or not i'm hungry. the day i forget my phone, i'll go easily 7 or 8hrs before i start thinking i could nibble on something.

the reason those guys didn't lose lean mass as much is because - you said it - they were "worked to death". if you're not working to the tune of 4-6 thousand calories a day (or, okay, "really really intensely"), your muscle tissue is superfluous and will be discarded.

Trust me, i've tried to "open myself up to new flavors" before lol, theres just things that i cant eat....fish literally makes me gag, tried to eat salad before, couldnt do it etc....and i'm from new england and eat NO seafood ( yeah i know, weird ) lol

I do eat every 2 hours or so, just dont know if i could eat more....when i said i've never been a big eater, i truely mean i've never been a consistent 2,000 calorie eating type of person...for 2 yrs i worked at a power plant 12 hrs a day....would have an energy drink in the morning, bag of chips and a candy bar throughout the day ( vending machine was all there was ) a few pepsi's, then would go to golden corral or a chinese buffet etc for dinner.....so i've conditioned?? myself to just not eat much i guess

exactly - and conditioning can always be redone; it's not a fixed state.

part of it is state of mind: if you're looking at fish and thinking "oh, gross", well, yeah - you're not going to be able to get it down. if you're looking at salad as a punishment, same thing. you've spent so long eating hyperflavoured junk food (ie, doritos) that salad probably has a bland or sour taste to you. the only way to get rid of it is to get rid of what is really quite a lot of salt in your diet (the doritos, the chunky soup, the mac-and-cheese, the jerky - they're all huge in sodium) and teh sugar (which you already know about).

the whole thing about the "carefree lifestyle" of knocking back junk food all day long is that it's not "Free" - there's a price to pay. it's like shopping at the 7-11 instead of waiting for the grocery store to open up. you can pay more in dollars, or you can pay more in convenience and time. the problem is that when it comes to diet, the currency you're dealing in is your health. you can indulge your taste now but you'll be paying for it later when you're on a strictly measured-out and limited bland diet to get your blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes under control.

i'm 45 yrs old - if i don't lose this weight, get the blood pressure back down, and dodge the diabetes bullet, i'm looking at an artificial hip, a wheelchair, a coma, or a coffin before i'm 50.

stacked against that, sardines in mustard sauce doesn't taste so bad any more.

Its not a myth. I know this from my own experiences.

i actually make my own jerky i dont add any extra salt than whatever the marinade i use has in it.....dont know if that helps or not lol......the mac and cheese was/is just a way to get my carbs and protein up...... but i do appreciate your help, and i will try to get my calories up, i think i can drink an extra protein shake a day- at the least ( they actually have a taste that i wish the slim-fast had ) choclatey but not overly filled with sugar...

When i get my stamina and endurance back up, i'll be playing more basketball and in turn should make me want to eat more.....and i'll be starting the P90x program soon ( just wanted to get back in aerobic shape first by the walking and running )

I'm kind of with threenorns on the "conditioning" issue; you have to open yourself up, whether you like it or not. Always having been a person who has eaten various things, perhaps I can't understand. Two examples from my life might help you, though:

1) My brother. He'd always been a ridiculously-picky eater, only liked hamburgers and stuff like that. Then, he became vegan. Philosophy on not eating meat aside, he has told me that since he began a vegan diet and *having* to try new things out of necessity, his palette has opened up widely. A few years ago, I'd never imagine him eating celery or mushrooms, but nowadays he does all the time.

2) My cat. I got my cat off the cat version of SAD (Standard American Diet) by switching her catfood from a national leading brand with cat-indigestible corn gluten meal as the main ingredient to a food that has chicken and chicken meals as the main ingredients. On the package of the new food, it even says: "Transition Period: Start by feeding your cat 25% of this food with the rest being its original food, and gradually bring up the percent." Sure enough, she wouldn't eat 100% of the new food; I had to gradually bring up the percent. Now she actually pines for it (Though I wouldn't risk changing her mind by introducing the color and artificial flavor-laced original brand; I liken it to KFC or something for humans). Maybe you should attempt a similar approach.

Not saying all this to be lecture-y, but you understand it (from what you say about your worries with the sugars in Slim-Fast). For long-term health, you're gonna have to get off all these supplemental powdered shakes and eat real, nutritive food. Fish is a great example: So many omega 3s to block the plethora of omega 6 fats we get that cause arachidonic acid build-up which itself leads to inflammation, diabetes, and atherosclerosis. I agree with you that the calories-in calories-out deal is a myth (well, not so much a myth as way too simplistic), but I also agree with bargoo in that your calorie deficit is robbing you of much-needed nutrients (and I'm talking vitamins and minerals, not the macronutrients you mentioned). There isn't a number, weight or otherwise, that measures good health.

Also, maybe I missed this or misread or something; but do you work out in any way?