Reasonable/Sustainable Diet and Exercise?

[Choboman]

I've finally gotten tired of slowly turning into a blob of lard, and started dieting. Been at it for about 2 weeks and pretty happy with the incremental progress so far, but realize that it'll get progressively harder and the gains will get smaller and smaller as I [hopefully] get closer to my target weight. I'm looking for advice to see if I'm going about this smartly or setting myself up for burnout/failure.

My typical diet consists of:
Breakfast: Protein of some sort. Either a couple eggs, or half a dinner left over from the night before. Glass of orange juice. Altogether around 400-800 calories.
Lunch: Lots of salad. Almost a half-pound of lettuce, celery, carrots, and tomatoes just to make the stomach feel full. No dressing, cheese, egg, etc. Total 30-70 calories.
Afternoon Snack: Handful of trail mix (Nuts, raisins, couple m&ms) and/or piece of fruit. 100 - 200 calories.
Dinner: Half serving of restaurant meal (eg. 1/2 Chipotle burrito, 1/2 stuffed potato, or 1/2 chicken/broccoli/steamed rice meal) Calories vary between 400 - 800.
I'm trying to cut out sodas and late-night snacks entirely.
Shooting for total calories between 1300 and 1800 per day.
Along with that, I'm trying to exercise 45 min 3 times/week (3 mile warm up at slow pace and 20 min circuit training on nautilus equip.

For the most part, this seems to work for me so far. But I do occasionally get warnings onhttp://www.myfitnesspal.com that not consuming enough calories will put me in 'starvation mode' and make me lose weight slower. I feel like I'm getting enough so far, and don't think I'm losing energy on my workouts. But I don't want to over-do it and then completely over-react in the other direction with binging either. I tend to be an all-or-nothing guy.

Is this a reasonable regime to follow, or will I find it too hard to maintain after another couple weeks? I'm hoping that if I stick with it long enough I'll fall into a pattern and it'll get easier instead of harder. What are your suggestions?

[Nath]

What are your age, sex, height and weight? 1300 seems too low for anybody to healthily sustain long term; 1800 may or may not be reasonable depending on your situation.

[Choboman]

Age: 45
Height: 5'11" (1.80m)
Weight: Currently 220 lbs (99.8kg), at start of diet 231 (104.8kg)
My goal weight is around 170-180. That's was what I wrestled at in college and was fairly lean at that time. But I've lost some muscle mass since then too so ideal would probably be a little lower than that.

I'm using the online calorie counter www.myfitnesspal.com, which tells me that my current level of calories to maintain 220 pounds is around 2390 calories. They suggest a goal of 1890 calories per day (500 cal deficit) to lose around a pound a week.

[Роберт]

I'm using the online calorie counter http://www.myfitnesspal.com, which tells me that my current level of calories to maintain 220 pounds is around 2390 calories. They suggest a goal of 1890 calories per day (500 cal deficit) to lose around a pound a week.

If you've already lost 10 lbs I'd probably suggest shooting for 1 pound a week. That'll get you to your goal in a year.

[Nath]

Yeah, 1900 seems reasonable. Since you seem to have some body composition goals in mind, you should also take into account the muscle that you will lose during weight loss. This could be as much as a pound of muscle for every two or three pounds of fat, especially since you only seem to be doing low-intensity exercise.

[Choboman]

219.

Interestingly, one of the harder changes for me has been in trying to get a larger percentage of my calories in the morning. I've been eating small breakfasts and large dinners for years, and reversing the trend is really counter-intuitive.

[shocklocks]

I have a smoothie for breakfast to get in early calories. It has whey and casein in it for brotein.

[Choboman]

217.

Now shopping around for a good Muay Thai gym in Dulles/Herndon/Tysons, Va area. Used to go to One Spirit Martial Arts under Ajarn Bumrung Prawatsrichai ( Master Danny), but he's moved on now. Interested in anyone's suggestions - doesn't have to be MT, any good, intense standup gym (Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Boxing, Kali, MMA, etc) will do.

[Роберт]

217.

Now shopping around for a good Muay Thai gym in Dulles/Herndon/Tysons, Va area. Used to go to One Spirit Martial Arts under Ajarn Bumrung Prawatsrichai ( Master Danny), but he's moved on now. Interested in anyone's suggestions - doesn't have to be MT, any good, intense standup gym (Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Boxing, Kali, MMA, etc) will do.

Good progress! I have no suggestions for the area but I did some martial arts and it was fun, so good luck!

[Rageous]

Chobo,

First of all, congrats on the effort and success.

A friend of mine was found to be gluten intolerant. After cutting gluten out of his diet, he dropped 30lbs in six weeks. That was the only thing in his life that changed as his exercise level was entirely non-existent. I'm not going to sit here on Al gore's intarwebz and preach to you, but a gluten-free lifestyle is worth investigating.

I did things a little differently and dropped from 40% body fat to 20% in a matter of six months but I drastically changed my activity level and completely revamped my diet. Yes, I was gluten-free and yes, it was challenging, so I do not expect others to readily jump onboard with it.

Just a thought.

[Choboman]

209, but have fallen out of my regular exercise regime while going on vacation. Will have to start back with running and lifting soon or risk losing too much muscle mass.

[freakish777]

I assume you have some sort of desk job? Are you working out after dinner?

I was going to say "You should switch your lunch and dinner calorie intakes around" because generally after dinner people are in their house for the rest of the night (watching TV/reading/helping kids with homework/doing homework/etc), so the food is getting turned into fat while they sleep, but if you've got a desk job and work out after dinner, keep it how you've got it now. If you've got an active job though, and don't work out after dinner, consider having the 800ish calorie meals as breakfast and lunch, and the all vegetable/fruit low calorie meal as dinner.

[Choboman]

It's a reasonable suggestion, but my convenient access to salad bar is in the office cafeteria at lunch, and I want to get a full load of veggies when I can.

My workouts are generally in the mid-afternoon, at the office fitness center, when I've got a break between meetings.

Rate of weight loss has slowed, but not stopped, with my decrease in exercise. Down to 207. Finally starting to see 6-pack!

[Роберт]

Down to 207. Finally starting to see 6-pack!

w00t!

[Choboman]

Been stalled out around 204 for months now, but just started going to a gym (LA Boxing) so I'm hoping the extra workouts will have a positive effect. Place really doesn't do much boxing per se, just lots of aerobics with boxing or kickboxing motifs and heavy bags. Still, it's more fun than a regular fitness class, so if it keeps me showing up it'll be worth it.