The Giant Diet

[nick_123 0]

I lost 15 pounds within 45 days by doing intense HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). Unfortunately a lot of that lost weight was muscle. 5 pounds isn't gonna make you that much faster. Instead, try gaining more muscle, not cutting down fat.

[willy0314 0]

After reading the thread, basicly what you want is to loose some weight, so you can get faster at hockey, as fast as possible right? I don't want to be a dick but you aren't going to see any sort of a major difference within anything short of a month. Also, unless you are seriously overweight, loosing the weight (BODY FAT ONLY- you dont want to drop muscle of water weight) isn't going to make you all that much faster.

Lifting weights to get stronger/faster takes time...alot of time. Like wise, so dose exercise to loose weight.

Im not sure how much you are skating, so this would vary depending on your situation, but lets say you are skating 2-3 times a week (practice and a game on saturday). If you are really dedicated, you could do cardio 4 times a week. Monday-thursday, game on saturday, rest sunday. The cardio you do should be HIIT. It is the best form of cardio for hockey. If you can't do that much, just do cardio on weekdays you dont practice, and leave a little rest before a game.

As far as lifting goes, its the middle of winter and you shouldn't be lifting any more then to maintain what you already have. You could get away with 2 workouts a week, upper/lower split. Squats, lunges, and situps are what you want the most of. You don't want to be lifting as much weight as you possibly can either, you need to train for power, not strength.

Sorry for the lack of detail but its late. There are some other guys on here with a good training background that could help you out, but what I posted is a good basework.

1)there is no quick fix

2)Do as much HIIT as you and your body can handle

3)Lift for power, not to be a body builder or strong man.

4)fix your diet, lots of water, lots of sleep and lots of streching

[Snipes_25 0]

In the morning eat some oatmeal(1 lil bag) or cheerios normal portion, in the after noon if you go to school for lunch eat one sandwhich and for diner make yourself a big sald and eat it with steak,fish or chicken no pork.No juices only freshly made orange juice 3 times a week in the morning so u get ur vitamins.Do not eat any sweets and don't eat after 6 in the after-noon.Stay on this diet for 14 days and you will loose up to 5-7kg so around 10-15 pounds if followed correctly.You must also drink a low of 2L of water a day and after 6 try to drink tea as it makes u go to the bathroom more often(do not add sugar or honey only a peace of a fresh lemon).Keep this diet and you will loose weight only if you allow it correctly.

[biff44 0]

What the coach probably meant to say is:

1) you have too much % body fat for your weight

2) he would like you to lower your % body fat by converting it into muscle

He would want you to do that as fat is like a backpack of stones on your back, it does nothing to help and in fact acts like an insulator and lets you overheat too quickly.

So, assuming you are serious about it, you have to get onto a healthy regimen--meaning a significant lifestyle change. If you are up to it, I would suggest an experienced personal trainer to develop an exercise and nutrition program specific to you.

In general, here are the things you need to do (at least until you are down to 7% body fat of so):

Get your body fat tested. A lot of health clubs will do that for you for free or a small fee.

Throw away any junk food you have: candy, chips and dips, sugar based soda, ice cream, hot pockets, pretty much any fast food.

Vow to not let anything fried touch your lips for 3 months. No french fries, chicken fingers, (no fish and chips for those trying to lose a "stone" or two), no bangers and mash, etc.

Stock up the kitchen with fresh fruits, just about any berry would be great (strawberry, blueberry, etc), vegetables that have bright colors (Deep green, bright reds, yellows, orange colors).

Get a water bottle and a case of V8 juice. When you feel thirsty, either take some water or V8.

Get a multivitamin and take it every day (make sure there is little or no iron in the pill). Get a mineral supplement with at magnesium and calcium in it and take it every day.

You will need protein. Get eggs! Get some small sandwich steaks. Have a couple of eggs and a sandwich steak for breakfast. For lunch, have vegies and a couple chicken breasts. For supper have veggies and chicken breasts. For snacks, vegies and fruits. Once or twice a day, you need to drink a (ugh!) protein shake.

No Macdonalds, pizza hut, or Taco bell!!!

Why are you doing all this? because you need to build muscle and shed fat. You need the vitamins and minerals to help your body chemistry to do that. You need the right balance of foods to make it easy to build muscle and to encourage burning fat.

Exercise:

You also need to work out! You need to lift weights. You need to lift fairly heavy weights to make your muscle scream in pain and start to build themselves up. You also need some aerobics to burn off the carbs, and help use up that fat. Aerobics need to be performed at a high heart rate to burn fat. But, in the balance of things, it is more the weightlifting than the aerobics that you need to concentrate on. Lifting weights will build new muscle, which will increase your resting metabolism, which will burn off the fat.

Drink lots of water, since burning fat generates all sorts of nasty stuff.

Get psyched, and no junk food!

After your % body fat is lowered near your goal, you change over from muscle building type exercise to speed building stuff, like plyometrics, etc. But that is for later, come back then and get some more guidance from the board.

[--notorious 0]

I dont know this might sound stupid but the more you #2 does it make a difference in terms of what you lose? because I knew a kid who was a toothpick and could eat like 6 big macs and he would just crap it all out later

[ThePurpleCobra 0]

all of these ideas are great, but alittle over powering haha, the season is over now and for next year im really looking to loose alot of weight, because yes for my size my % of fat is to high, im trying to get a strong core and be in the best shape of my life come next year, my parents have offered to pay for a personal trainer to get on track, should i take advantage of that offer?

[biff44 0]

No question. A personal trainer (who is good, not just a local jamoke) will make all the difference in the world! He will evaluate you first to see what your shape is like. You might have fine muscles already under that belly fat, but have a couple of small imbalances, like in back muscles, etc. He will design a plan of diet, aerobics, weight training, recuperation from the season, and balancing of muscle masses that will make you a pretty fearson player next fall.

You can start the general losing fat thing right away, although many caution around a 4 week "recovery phase" after a rough hockey season to let the various bits mend properly before serious weight training/plyo work.

[Jarick 5]

Check out:

www.bodybuilding.com

and

www.bodyforlife.com

The former for pretty much everything you need to know for diet and exercise, the latter for free recipes and a decent beginners workout program.

Big things are eating the right amount of food (not too much or little), eat the right kinds of food, eating every 2-3 hours, getting some cardio and getting some resistance training.

[hockeyherb 1]

I'm surprised no one has suggested a low carb diet (at least I didn't see it in my quick glance through the posts.)

I did the South Beach diet a little while ago and the first two weeks are amazing! You end up losing at least about 10 lbs by the end of it, and the thing is you don't starve. I was eating lots of steaks and other meats as well as vegetables. The big thing is staying away from pretty much ANY carbs the first two weeks. After that you can start to introduce good carbs again.

The science behind it is, in my opinion, pretty solid too. We eat so much refined carbs that our body can no longer process it so the first two weeks of this diet gives your body a break. Once you start to introduce good carbs again (ie whole wheat, proper vegetables and fruit, NO white bread or anything made from refined flour) you can easily keep the weight off.

Anyway, I suggest buying/borrowing the book and reading it because it all makes sense. I know a personal trainer that uses a low carb diet on occassion if he has to drop a few pounds and he also swears by it. The only people I find who don't keep the weight off after using this diet are the ones who slide back into their old eating habits.

[willy0314 0]

the reason people dont suggest that diet, is because it is bad for you. Any diet that allows you to eat chickenwings, but not a turkey sandwich or orange juice, should be questioned.

Controling your carbs is a good thing, eliminating them is not. You shuold be eating the correct carbs at the right times of the day. If you want to take that a step further, you can cycle carbs, which is basicly High carb, medium carb, and low carb days. That keeps your body guessing.

[hockeyherb 1]

the reason people dont suggest that diet, is because it is bad for you. Any diet that allows you to eat chickenwings, but not a turkey sandwich or orange juice, should be questioned.

Controling your carbs is a good thing, eliminating them is not. You shuold be eating the correct carbs at the right times of the day. If you want to take that a step further, you can cycle carbs, which is basicly High carb, medium carb, and low carb days. That keeps your body guessing.

I can tell that you've never read the book just based on your first comment. The diet doesn't give you the green light to eat chickenwings, which I know is a common misconception with low carb diets. Also, if you had read the book, you'd know that orange juice is mostly sugar and that it doesn't give you anywhere close to the nutritional value of actually eating an orange. Again though, a common misconception because OJ is marketed as a healthy drink. And what is wrong with just eating the turkey, cheese, lettuce and mustard of the sandwich minus the bread? How does that qualify as 'bad for you'?

Eliminating carbs from your diet very strictly for 2 weeks is not going to hurt anyone. You can never eliminate carbs 100% anyway so it's not really that drastic. After two weeks you can start introducing carbs again. You could enjoy that turkey sandwich again including some whole wheat bread.

As I said before for anyone interested, read the book. The diet did fantastic things for me and many other people I know. I'm sure half the benefit is that it makes you focus on a lot of hidden carbs you sneak into your diet without even knowing it, but there must be something else at work when I was able to lose 10 lbs in 2 weeks and yet my activity level and caloric intake remained pretty much the same.

[willy0314 0]

actually I understand how the diet works. I was just making a point. By controling your carb intake, you are controling your blood sugar. (stay away from high GI carbs right? that means stay away from high sugar foods.) By keeping your blood sugar low, your body ends up taping into other sources of energy.

All im saying, is that I personally dont feel that the diet is all that healty for you. You shouldn't take what the book says as total fact, because its written from a bias perspective. Things like that happen all the time in the Diet / body building / health community. Just take a look at the side of a jug of protine powder at GNC or something. Most everything out there is over marketed, over priced crap, with a picture of some dude who looks like the hulk, telling you drink this and you'll experiance "HUGE GAINS", or some ultra skinny person telling you how thin this crap is going to make you.

I guess if it worked for you, good for you. But there are no good shortcuts when it comes to your body, and thats all that wonder diets really are.

[Jordan 13]

Stay away from fad diets...they destroy muscle mass. By the way, when someone tells you that "well, I lost 30 pounds on South Beach, Atkins, grapefruit diet, food combining, etc"; they didn't lose weight because of what they ate, they lost weight because they reduces the number of calories consumed to less than the number of calories they expended.

If you want to learn about the chemistry of food read the following and go to this site: Hussman fitness

How Calories Work

By John P. Hussman, Ph.D.

All rights reserved and actively enforced.

The next several paragraphs are going to look like 7th grade math. And the reason is, they're 7th grade math. I know. Ugh. As David Letterman says, 50% of Americans are mathematically illiterate, and the other two-thirds aren't much better. Bear with me. And grab your calculator.

A pound of fat is 3500 calories. And though the late-night ads for Ab-thumpers and mylar spacesuits may try to convince you otherwise, nobody has repealed the First Law of Thermodynamics - energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form to another. What that means for you is that to burn a pound of fat, you have to metabolize as energy 3500 calories more than you take in. That difference between energy use and intake is called a "caloric deficit". Now here's where it gets tricky - severe caloric restriction triggers a fasting state that slows your metabolism down, and also causes muscle loss. Moreover, it causes your body to increase the level of "fat storing" enzymes (lipoprotein lipase) in the body. Exactly what you don't want.

Studies show that fat loss is generally smaller than would be predicted by a given increase in physical activity, because people too often counter the extra activity by increasing their food intake ("Wow! Great workout. Let's get a beer"). In short, as you lose weight, your body subtly tries to gain it back. The only way you're going to counter that is by increasing muscle mass, intentionally maintaining muscular activity (through cardio and weight training) while you lose fat, properly setting your portions, and being careful to avoid sitting around all day after your workouts. Extreme caloric restriction (e.g. less than 1000 calories a day) doesn't work because it ignores the body's tendency to "survive" by shedding muscle, increasing fat storage efficiency, and slowing metabolic activity. So you can't succeed at a fitness program while severely restricting your calories.

The way to lose fat, very simply, is to FOCUS ON THE DEFICIT. You won't lose fat by exercising more if you let your caloric intake creep higher. You won't lose fat by restricting your calories if you're skipping workouts. The goal is to create a deliberate and well-controlled caloric deficit between the energy you take in and the energy that you burn. You do that by planning carefully, keeping accurate records, and maintaining discipline.

Your daily "caloric deficit" depends on all sorts of factors, including your height, weight, lean mass, gender, workout intensity, and portion sizes. It's unlikely for anybody to get the deficit beyond about 1500 calories a day by working out harder or eating less, because you'll either interfere with proper recovery, or throw yourself into a fasting state. If you're following effective workouts and specifically targeting fat loss and muscle tone/gain, it is not unreasonable to target fat loss of as much as 1 to 2 lbs a week for women, and as much as 2 - 3 lbs a week for men. Unless you score basketball points by throwing the ball downward, it's very difficult (and generally unadvisable) to lose more than about 3 pounds of fat per week.

When you're eating 5 or 6 times a day instead of 3, your portions had better be much smaller than they used to be. As a rule of thumb, it's generally advised to target between 8-10 calories per pound of desired weight, if you're shooting for fat loss, and up to 15 calories per pound of desired weight if you're shooting for muscle gain. The problem is that fat itself is metabolically inactive, so it's better to base your intake on lean weight rather than scale weight. If you want a quick rule of thumb, I prefer the following: shoot for 9-11 calories per pound of lean weight if your main goal is fat loss, and about 15-17 calories per pound of lean weight if your main goal is muscle gain without fat loss. Now, 9 calories per lean pound is almost certainly below your Base Metabolic Rate (see below), so you shouldn't go with much less than 9 even if you're aggressively targeting fat loss. [Example: If you weigh 180 pounds and are at 20% bodyfat, your fat weighs .20 x 180 = 36 pounds, so your lean weight is 180 - 36 = 144 pounds. So you might target 1300-1600 calories daily to achieve a fat loss goal].

Want the perfect number of calories? There is no perfect number. Your body is extremely efficient at adjusting its activity level in response to moderate changes in caloric intake, and all of that takes place unconsciously and involuntarily. That's why the portion rule is useful - it's simple, and excessively fine-tuning your calories is useless. Just keep your portions relatively small if you want to lose fat. The frequency of the rations, and the balance of high-quality protein and carbohydrate are the most essential aspects of your nutrition plan.

Still, some people want a more scientific number. Alright, technically, your body needs a certain amount of intake to support your "Base Metabolic Rate" or BMR. Unless you're a Munchkin, your BMR is rarely less than 1100 calories a day. So let's estimate your BMR. I've replaced my original section with the Java-based calculator below, with the eventual goal - as in the Dilbert cartoon - of making this website into a complete Broadway musical.

CLICK HERE TO CALCULATE YOUR BMR.

To lose 1 pound of fat a week, you have to generate a weekly caloric deficit of 3500 calories, or a deficit of 500 calories per day. On a workout day you'll burn about 1.5 times BMR. On a free day, you'll burn about 1.3 times BMR (If you've got a sedentary job or think your metabolism is slow, just use multipliers of 1.4 for workout days and 1.2 for free days). When you look over the entire week (including a free day if you take one), you should be able to say that you ate fewer calories than you burned. But don't restrict your calories dramatically below BMR. About 9 calories per lean pound of bodyweight is about as far under BMR as you should go. As long as your intake on any given day is in the ballpark, you can set your portion sizes with confidence that your goal is in reach.

As a sidenote, BMR is regulated by the thyroid gland. For most of you, the calculation I've just given you is accurate. But if you have an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) and are undiagnosed and untreated, your BMR may be about 10% lower than this estimate. This is only a problem for about 5% of you, but before you yell at me about these BMR calculations, some of you may want to have your thyroid checked (simple blood test). See the thyroid section of my Q&A page for more on this. People who have emaciated muscles can have an even lower BMR, but since they also have very low lean weight, the BMR calculation (as my calculator computes it) will pick this up.

Look. If your thyroid is normal (true for most of you) and these calculations still seem like way too many or too few calories, you're probably lousy at counting calories. So focus on good food choices, eat a lot of vegetables and low-fat soups, and use your common sense. Many of you who have lost weight successfully have told me things like "I tried never to be hungry and never to be full." If adjusting your calories doesn't work, keep it simple and adjust your portions.

Portion size, and the choices you make about foods (particularly lean meats and unprocessed fruits and vegetables) are far more important than rigidly counting calories. Remember this: small and frequent rations for fat loss (an apple and a chicken breast is a perfectly acceptable ration), larger and frequent meals for muscle gain.

As noted above, you can take in as much as 1.5 times your BMR if your fat loss goals are less aggressive or if you are focusing on muscle gain. Beyond about 1.8 times BMR, you'll gain fat, with little additional increase in muscle growth.

Want to see more about caloric deficits? See my Caloric Deficit Page, which includes some actual data using your faithful lab mouse - me.

Related Articles

Caloric Deficits

If you accumulate persistent caloric deficits day after day, you'll lose fat.

BMR Calculator

Estimate your base metabolic rate. This is only an estimate, but it can help keep you on track.

[biff44 0]

I'm surprised no one has suggested a low carb diet (at least I didn't see it in my quick glance through the posts.)

I did the South Beach diet.

I think he was refering to the Atkins diet, which can work but is very rough on your system and NOT good for a hard working player.

Maybe you can give us a quick rundown on what a south beach diet menu plan looks like.

One thing you have to remember is that to build muscle, you need protein. But, the body can only handle a little protein at a time, the rest trickles down the urinal. So you need to be eating good protein maybe 5 to 7 times a day. Any "diet" that does not do that is not going to efficiently turn fat into muscle (although it might be good to generally lose weight while the muscle atrophies).

[Vishi05 0]

The diet I'm on right now isn't even that much of a diet for me. Before I would eat two big meals a day of crap food (taco bell, pizza, Mcdonalds) and now what I do is drink about 3 special protein shakes a day (100-150 calories each) and eat two smaller meals. In a week and a half I've already dropped 10 lbs.

[ThePurpleCobra 0]

what do you usually eat for small meals

[hockeyherb 1]

I'm surprised no one has suggested a low carb diet (at least I didn't see it in my quick glance through the posts.)

I did the South Beach diet.

I think he was refering to the Atkins diet, which can work but is very rough on your system and NOT good for a hard working player.

Maybe you can give us a quick rundown on what a south beach diet menu plan looks like.

You are correct about Atikins - it gave Low Carb diets a bad name. Go here and check out South Beach:

South Beach Diet

If you click around you can find some sample recipes from each phase. I certainly didn't follow his recipes to a T - I made up my own just based on the principles of what he teaches in the book so that it would fit into my lifestyle. I think his suggested recipes are ok for women but not for active guys.

As to the people that say stay away from fad diets - sure, that's a great idea. But let's be realistic, if you need to lose 5-10 lbs in a short time frame, most people aren't able to do that without doing something drastically different. And this is a much healthier alternative to an 'All tofu' or 'All grapefruit' diet for example. If you stayed on South Beach right through Phase 3 you'd just be eating a healthy balanced diet - nothing faddish.

[Jarick 5]

I've dropped 10 pounds without hitting the gym (due to a respiratory infection and being lazy) in the last month. I ate more food than before. Hell, on the weekends I've been out drinking as well.

The long post above was right; you need to run a calorie deficit. Go to Bodybuilding.com and check out their RMR (resting metabolic rate) calculator to figure out how many calories you NEED to eat every day. Then cut calories a bit below it.

Also, you need to eat every 2-3 hours. If you don't, your metabolism will slow way down and your blood sugar will drop. Eating six meals a day over three will allow you to burn 10 to 20% more calories.

I eat a 40/40/20 ratio of carbs/protein/fat. Eat complex carbs (higher in fiber and protein), eat lean proteins (especially chicken and fish), eat healthy fats (EFA's).

And then drink a lot of water. I shoot for 100 ounces a day.

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Problem with losing weight is you don't want to lose muscle. If you don't eat enough calories and don't eat enough protein, you WILL lose muscle. This slows your metabolism and sets you up for weight gain in the future. I've been there, and a lot of my family has as well. I lost 50 pounds doing a low-calorie low-carb diet, and five years later I gained 70 pounds. Now I've lost 30 pounds, but my body fat is almost as low as it was when I was "skinny". Meaning that I have 30 pounds more muscle than I did when I was "skinny"...which means (yep) I'm a hell of a lot stronger and better looking and my metabolism is MUCH higher.

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Check out Bodybuilding.com for a TON of free information and good forums about bodybuilding. Bodyforlife.com has a huge databse of free recipes.

And if you've got a little extra cash, there's an eBook called "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" which goes into a lot more detail. All the info can be found on the Bodybuilding website but I found it to be worth the $30 or whatever.

[nni 0]

low carb diets are not smart. complex carbs are excellent for your body and should not be avoided at all, simple and refined carbs however should be avoided. calories in have to be less that calories out for you to lose weight, simply put you have to be calorie deficient. eating smart is better than eliminating an entire class of food any day. if you are in the off season, i would probably lean towards a recomp over months of dieting. it you are dieting putting on muscle will be difficult so there is a trade off. as said previously eat every 2-3 hours. eat whole wheats and grains, avoid anything with high fructose corn syrup, anything that says partially hydrogenated and try and avoid enriched flours. this should stand as permanent diet restrictions whether you are dieting, bulking or just at stasis, this is more of a health choice.

adjust your diet and train hard and you will see results. lifting weight will burn some calories, but circuit style training that includes compund lifts, sprints, resistance running/skating etc. will definetely help.

bottom line atkins and south beach is great for inactive people who want to lose a lot of weight and then gain it all back when they get off the diet, it is not for an athlete at all. carbs are too important to any performance athlete. restricting calories is much more important than restricting carbs.

[hockeyherb 1]

bottom line atkins and south beach is great for inactive people who want to lose a lot of weight and then gain it all back when they get off the diet, it is not for an athlete at all. carbs are too important to any performance athlete. restricting calories is much more important than restricting carbs.

Saying that low carb diets are for people that want to gain all the weight back makes the assumption that someone will only do this short term and then go back to their poor eating habits. What would happen if someone follows your great idea of 'restricting calories' and then they stop doing that?

In most cases restricting carbs IS restricting calories. They restrict BAD carbs, not ALL carbs after the first two weeks (and there is a good reason to restrict all carbs the first two weeks). Like I said, once someone is on Phase 3 of South Beach I'd like to see where you think they're eating unhealthy.

OK, I've said enough about this. I didn't intend to defend low carb diets but I wanted to make sure people actually do some research and not just buy into the fashionable low-carb bashing.

[nni 0]

i know exactly how both diets work. i also know that unless you permanently stay on atkins, you will gain it back. the did a poll, and found that most people on atkins lose a lot, then gain it back simply because it is a lifestyle change, not a diet and people fail to understand that.

i would never advise and athlete to go on either diet.

as for you questioning stopping a calorie deficient diet, you would then enter your maintenance level. at that level you don't gain or lose weight. ;)

[ThePurpleCobra 0]

ok say this is my new typical week:

-Eat breakfast-Cherios with strawberries & Bananas

-go to school(turkey sandwich for lunch)

-get home: run (personal trainer tuesday and thursdays)

-on days without personal trainer: Run, Bowflex, Pushups and Situps...

-Dinner low calorie dinner usually with salad

lets just say i do that with consistancy every week, how long would it take to see results (noticable) in the core area, and drop some fat lbs?

[nni 0]

ok say this is my new typical week:

-Eat breakfast-Cherios with strawberries & Bananas

-go to school(turkey sandwich for lunch)

-get home: run (personal trainer tuesday and thursdays)

-on days without personal trainer: Run, Bowflex, Pushups and Situps...

-Dinner low calorie dinner usually with salad

lets just say i do that with consistancy every week, how long would it take to see results (noticable) in the core area, and drop some fat lbs?

everyone is different so noone can tell you that answer. you are eating 3 meals a day. 6-7 small meals is ideal, keeps your metabolism running all day.

[AnthonyJTa 0]

ok say this is my new typical week:

-Eat breakfast-Cherios with strawberries & Bananas

-go to school(turkey sandwich for lunch)

-get home: run (personal trainer tuesday and thursdays)

-on days without personal trainer: Run, Bowflex, Pushups and Situps...

-Dinner low calorie dinner usually with salad

lets just say i do that with consistancy every week, how long would it take to see results (noticable) in the core area, and drop some fat lbs?

I would break up some of your meals... as mentioned above, you want to be eating 6 smaller meals to keep your metabolism going. Try eating every 2 to 2 and a half hours. If space is provided, I would recommend picking up a swiss ball, and a medium weight medicine ball for core strength.

[Jarick 5]

What those guys said, and unless you weigh 80 pounds or less, that's way to little food.

You need to eat every 2-3 hours, eat a lot of protein, and watch the calories.