So I've found I gained a bit of weight due to the all you can eat college dorm food. There's just so much food, and so many sweets, that I end up reaching for them and justifying it by saying that I'm "getting my money's worth." Anyway, I could look to lose 5-10 pounds for track. Anyone have any good ideas on diets for a college student who has dorm food? Should I eat a salad for every meal? Should I try to avoid sweets as much as possible?
Cut your carbs way back.
Stop eating dessert every night. Only get one plate per meal - no going back for seconds. And break your rules on eating one day a week
Why not try the dining hall?
Yes dorm food = dining hall.
Putting on weight is a good excuse to up your mileage. At 90 plus miles a week getting your 600 calories every two hours is a bigger concern. Most runners don't eat nearly as often as they should and don't recover as well as a result.
Eat more often. Run more.
I'm basically in the same position as you. Recently i've been getting a big plate of salad (spinach, green peppers, fat free dressing, mushrooms etc) and a bowl of cereal (bran flakes plus a little sugary cereal added in). Then i'll get either a cookie or two or a small ice cream cone. It seems to be working decently well for me so far.
Also be careful about how much cheese you eat. a single thick slice can have like 4 grams sat fat in it...
try using 1% milk or water
There's nothing wrong with saturated fat... Anyway, you should cut back on your carbs and especially your sugar if you want to lean out a bit. Have most of your carbs following your run and limit them from the other meals. The best way to do this is by avoiding grains (most importantly wheat). Is there a way you can have more natural carb sources, such as sweet potatoes/squash/potatoes or even rice?
Basically if you eat real food your weight should manage itself. Eat when you're hungry, and eat enough that you're not hungry an hour later.
IllinoisMaster wrote:
Cut your carbs way back.
Amen.
EAT: seafood, meat, eggs, vegetables, some fruits and some nuts.
AVOID: industrial foods, sugar, grains, and vegetable oil.
It's nice to see someone else here who knows what's good to eat, "lol lol lol lol". Veggies, meat, fish, eggs, some nuts and fruit. Butter, lard, coconut oil, olive oil.
Unless the guy is eating nothing but carbs, cutting your carbs WAY back isn't a good idea. Low carb diets lead to heart failure. This is because certain tissues in your body, particularly your brain (which can require as much as 60% of all ATP produced in your body) can burn ONLY carbs. Red blood cells also can only burn carbs. (The two can also burn ketone bodies from FA oxidation, but high levels of ketones should be avoided, especially for an endurance athlete). Anyway, if your diet is low in carbs, your body starts converting proteins into carbs, and the first and main source it uses is cardiac tissue, so obviously you can see why low carb diets aren't a healthy long term approach to dieting, which also explains why Dr. Atkins died of heart failure.
Dietary fat is important as well, thus it's good to eat a balanced diet.
The main thing here is going to be portion control. Don't try to "get your money's worth." I know how difficult that is, but don't keep going back for more. Try to get in a lot of fruits and especially veggies. Have a big salad before your meal, and top it with all kinds of veggies you can. Avoid drenching it in a ton of cheese and dressing. For the main course, avoid loading up on a bunch of fried stuff. Go for poultry and fish if/when they have them. Red meat is fine too but understand any burger they serve is going to be very low quality and will have tons of fat in it, which translates into a lot of calories. For dessert, try to skip it altogether, but if you can't, limit yourself to one small icecream cone or two cookies with milk or something. Understand that that is the crap that is going to get you. You should try to avoid anything high in sugar, other than fruits.
If you changed nothing at all but cut out dessert you would almost surely lose weight relatively quickly.
Dr Atkins slipped on an icy sidewalk and died of the resulting head trauma. he did not die of heart failure.
some people have benefitted from his diet theories. Gary Taubes has written similar theories that saturated fat is not the big threat to health - it is too much sugars and starches triggering insulin overload.
The brain burns carbs only if you eat a lot of carbs. It can adapt when eating low carb.
Anyway, I don't remember ever saying to eat a low carb diet. In my opinion, >50 carbs would be low. I eat about 100-150 carbs daily just from natural carb sources. It doesn't make sense that people need to eat these processed foods (grains) to be healthy. I don't understand why people can't grasp that real food is the best for you body.
real food wrote:
The brain burns carbs only if you eat a lot of carbs. It can adapt when eating low carb.
lol. I seriously doubt you understand the biochemistry of energy metabolism in the central nervous system.
Kat, eat lot's of Kat.
Guppy wrote:
Unless the guy is eating nothing but carbs, cutting your carbs WAY back isn't a good idea. Low carb diets lead to heart failure. This is because certain tissues in your body, particularly your brain (which can require as much as 60% of all ATP produced in your body) can burn ONLY carbs. Red blood cells also can only burn carbs. (The two can also burn ketone bodies from FA oxidation, but high levels of ketones should be avoided, especially for an endurance athlete). Anyway, if your diet is low in carbs, your body starts converting proteins into carbs, and the first and main source it uses is cardiac tissue
I assume you are a troll, but in any case,
1)A low carb diet does not cause "heart failure" and is far healthier for heart health than a high-carb diet, and
2) Re: the laughable claim that "the first and main source it uses [for glucose] is cardiac tissue" here's a fun little video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2YXwgxZk48lol lol lol lol wrote:
I assume you are a troll, but in any case,
1)A low carb diet does not cause "heart failure" and is far healthier for heart health than a high-carb diet, and
2) Re: the laughable claim that "the first and main source it uses [for glucose] is cardiac tissue" here's a fun little video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2YXwgxZk48
Actually I will soon graduate with a BS in Physiology, and I could bring you to a paper showing cardiac tissue is one of the first sources for gluconeogenesis if I cared that much about proving you wrong.
Also, I never advocated a high carb diet. I said a no to very low carb diet is not healthy, which has also been shown repeatedly, particularly in one meta analysis paper I read last year on various diet strategies. Ketosis isn't exactly conducive to superior health and performance either.
Thanks for the link to the youtube video. I'll be sure to bring it up for discussion in my Biochemistry seminar class. I'm sure everyone will be so impressed.
Just use common sense, avoid sweets and fats and you will slim down in no time. That means no ice cream, candy, etc. Get your fats from unsalted peanuts, not butter. Make the correct substitutions. Stuff like pizza, fried foods, alot of meats, have alot of fat, and the combination of those and sugars all in excess, will cause unheathy weight gain. Just because you run don't buy into the trend that you can eat whatever you want. In fact, the more you run, the more a better diet is beneficial. A heathy diet will make you feel, look, and perform better, you don't have to starve yourself to lose weight. basically....
eat the correct amount of carbs, eat whole grains, whoever suggested not to is a dimwit
eat alot of fruits and vegetables
cut out things like dips, sauces, fried foods, lots of cheeses, dressings, etc. high fat foods.
eat leaner meats like chicken/fish, instead of a cheesburger
cut out thigns like ice cream, refined sugars, candies, any sodas or beer won't help either
also, try CLIF BARS, delicious, nutritious, and an alternative to candy bars or sweets
don't feel bad if you treat yourself every now and then
if you want to lose weight and be a lean mean fightin machine, just follow those simple rules, I do, believe me its hard but it works, and although I weigh the same as in XC, I am way leaner than I was and feel alot better.
The key is sugar. It isn't carbs in general that are making you gain weight, but an excess of simple carbs (sugar, pizza, beer). I guess you could also be eating too much fat, but that's kind of tough to do unless you're eating fried crap all the time.
I wouldn't change much for a while. Train FAT/race SKINNY!!! Your legs will be much stronger.
Don't worry too much about whether you eat carbs, protein, or fat, just eat a little less of what you have been. We all know what is "healthier" for us and what is not.