am i eating enough..... so tired

Ok so started on monday. want to cut down some fat and am pretty determined this time. diets not the greatest, am kinda sticking to what ive always ate but am cutting out chips or burgers and junk food and sweets.
im finding myself completely down on energy.. like right now i feel super tired. not normally the case when im eating more. im not feeling hungry just tired and during workouts am not feeling to strong.
this is what ive eaten since sunday night ive been recording all i eat.

io drink 3 litres water a day + 1 can of sugar free soft drink each day (sometiems 2)

starting weight monday morning 96.5kg

Sunday night,
8pm... 350gm steak + broccolli
10:30pm 1 scoop whey

Monday
8:30am 2 scoops whey, 30gm oats, banana, 250ml milk, 1 spoon honey
10am Coffee
12pm 180ishgm steak + broccolli and cauliflower , can pepsi max
3:20pm 185gm tuna in oil + carrot
7pm chicken satay thing + broccoli, cauliflower and zucchini + can pepsi max
9:30pm thick slice of cheese + 1 scoop whey with water

tuesday
8:30am 4 eggs
9:30 coffee
12pm 185gm tuna + Bean salad
1:30pm pepsi max
3pm left over chicken from night before wit hbean salad
6pm kipper fillets + 1 thin slice home made bread + sugar free creaming soda drink
9pm 150gm smoked salmon + olives + 30gm parmesan cheese

Wednesday
9am Bacon, egg 2 slices bread + coffee
12pm 5 kangaroo sausages
3pm 4 kanga bangas + cucumber (scheduled to eat)
7pm got roast lamb and vegies to eat.


i know not the greatest diet but after the 2.5 days im feeling a little leaner already. what should i change or add? i could count P , F and C but no time just now to do it.
whats there is pretty much what ill be doing for the next 2 weeks. hopefully i stick with it and have a good go at leaning up. like to get to 12-14% bf currently im probably 17% i think.

Hi Brendon,

I am by no means an expert and will defer to the comments of others here with far more knowledge than I but the first thing that hit me in that diet breakdown was the amount of caffein you are consuming. A coffee and two cans of pepsi max a day will certainly give you mood swings and make you feel tired between hits.

I'll let Fadi and others discuss complex topics I don't understand like the role of carbs and catabolics etc. That seems like a big break between meals from 8:30am and 12:00noon. I have a 7:30am breakfast with a WPC shake if not eggs then a 10:00am 1st lunch and a 1pm 2nd lunch both with steak/chicken/tuna as part. 5pm cottage cheese or wpc before workout then a post workout shake and an 8pm dinner and another wpc shake before bed around 11:00pm. I try and spread my meals evenly about 3 hours apart. But, as I said, I'm not the expert...

Having said all that, I too feel tired at the moment but I think its the intesity of the workouts coupled with the heavy digestion work required. Lift, eat and sleep. Well my body would rather I did that sleeping in the middle of the day too. And, FWIW, I'm working from home today and just went and pulled myself an espresso flat white as I was feeling flat from the lack of caffein hit myself. I'm trying to cut back to one a day mid morning.

Cheers,
Mike

yeah ive thought about the caffeine thing. but ive always had coffee, went off caffeine cmpletely a few months ago for 3 weeks and didnt notice any difference. all i got was a headache the 3rd day into it from not having the caffeine. its alwasya 1 coffee in morning then its either a pepsi max or diet lemonade or solo or soemthing like that, not always pepsi. if it ends up being caffeine i will try no caffeine again.

MikeW said:

That seems like a big break between meals from 8:30am and 12:00noon.

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Agreed! That would definitely slow your metabolism.

What training are you doing? Dieting is one thing but being fit and healthy certainly makes a difference to your day. Having said that I consider myself fit and I still get tired during the afternoon, wake up again around 6.

Good luck with your diet!

Gaucheharbor said:

Agreed! That would definitely slow your metabolism.

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Does a higher meal frequency increase metabolism?
3 1/2 hours between meals does not seem extreme?

agreeed its no more that 3.5 hrs between meals... thats ok i though.

training journal here so can see training.
http://ausbb.com/member-training-diaries/9514-brendons-training-log-10.html#post90719

Eating every 3.5 hours would give you a good solid 5 meals per day, nothing wrong with that.

Hi there Brendon,

I see adrenal exhaustion which is not helped by your caffeine intake here. Adrenal glands may take time to get exhausted and instead of helping with their replenishment and their adrenal hormone synthesis, you're just forcing them to release more and more of what they are running short of; adrenaline. And you could be doing that through two avenues one, caffeine which stimulates the adrenal glands to secrete adrenaline (without helping with replenishment) and two, you may be under recovering rather than overtraining, by not taking more time off or the time that you’re taking has no factor of tranquility/quality/relaxing kind of time in it.

I can discuss with you alternatives you can take to boost your adrenaline and help with your stress levels but first you’d have to banish caffeine from your life. Failing to do that would be like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.


Fadi.

thanks for your thoughts fellas.

Fadi
So you really reckon cutting out caffeine completely? could i have decaf coffee or just get rid of it completely? if you could expand on adrenal exhasution that would be pretty cool.
i do agree with the under recovering... on days off ill either go for a ride on dirtbike somewhere or do some other activity.
i like to think im pretty much stress free as well.

decaf coffee contians caffeine..

brendon said:

Fadi
So you really reckon cutting out caffeine completely? could i have decaf coffee or just get rid of it completely?

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Okay Brendon, first thing's first; have a read of my reply to Bobo here please: http://ausbb.com/nutrition-diet/10398-tea-good-bad-ugly.html

Now some people can but most people can not stop caffeine cold turkey. Weaning off it may be the more sensible and better approach as far as you are concerned Brendon. You can start by replacing caffeine with black tea for the first week, then switch over to green tea, and finally come in for a safe landing with the Great White.

Do this first then I'll give you more things to play with and consider. Thank you.


Fadi.

cutting it out ican do.. ive done it before. ill switch to green tea then the white one.. ill give it a crack. thanks fadi

Brendon, am I correct in saying that you drink plenty of water? I vaguely remember (I could be wrong) you saying something to the effect that you drink plenty of water.

If so, please take a look at this and my reasoning for it as explained below: http://ausbb.com/nutrition-diet/10258-adrenal-fix-fatigue-gone.html

Now the way I see it is like this: Aldosterone is an adrenal gland released hormone. When the adrenal glands are not functioning at an optimal level due to been constantly "stressed", then a drop occurs in the sodium/potassium regulating hormone Aldosterone. When that occurs, you can wave goodbye to your sodium. But there's more. Sodium does not like to leave by itself since it gets very lonely that way and insists on dragging some much needed water out with it!

Now we've come to something called dehydration as well as sodium deficiency!

Really?

I told you I won't be politically correct here. We are usually told to drink water and/or have a banana, which is full of that wonderful mineral potassium. Nothing could be worst I say. Why I hear you ask? It's because by doing so, you'd only be rubbing salt into the wound (I wish and no pun intended by the way). The initial problem is low sodium and water. By adding water (without sodium), you might as well be pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it. And to add potassium when sodium is what is needed would only serve to keep the sodium and potassium ratio out of whack even further…prolonging our fatigue and the mean of recovering from it.


Fadi.

I have read on many cutting diets that food every two hours keeps your metabolism ticking over? Is that a myth? Personally 3 1/2 hours without food and I'm ravished!

Another thing Fadi... Doesn't caffeine also restrict the amount of vitamins and minerals your body absorbs?

Gaucheharbor said:

Another thing Fadi... Doesn't caffeine also restrict the amount of vitamins and minerals your body absorbs?

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I'm aware of iron melabsorption rate and some talk about calcium and B6 etc. I was more interested in how it affects our hormones than what is does to our vitamin and minerals. That's a good question you bring to the table Gauche.


Fadi.

You should include some complex carbs in your diet like sweet potato or brown rice if you want long term energy release through your day.

The Hulk said:

Does a higher meal frequency increase metabolism?

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That's the theory, yes. Bugger all evidence for it, though. Meal frequency tends to affect quantity and quality of food, though. People who eat 2-3 meals a day can just buy whatever crap's around, people who eat 5-8 meals a day pretty much have to plan their meals, so they tend to eat better food.

Brendon, try to vary your diet a bit. You're having some vegies, which is great, but try to get a few different types. Basically just for different colours in your vegies. Make a stir-fry with broccoli (green), carrots (orange), capsicum (red), onions (white) and eggplant (purple).

Have some fruit, too - at least one piece at morning and afternoon tea, preferably some for lunch and dinner dessert, too. More beans, and some nuts.

Make sure you get something starchy for breakfast. Eggs are good, but you need some slow-release energy - those oats you had are excellent for that.

The basic foods are fruit, vegies, nuts, beans, meat, fish, dairy & eggs, and then starchy foods (oats, bread, pasta, rice - always wholegrain - and spuds). Think of food in terms of "portions" rather than weighing everything. A "portion" is what can fit in your hand, or a cup for liquids. So that's about 100g for steak, 50g for nuts, etc. A healthy diet might look something like this,

0800 - starch 3, dairy & eggs 3, fruit 1 - eg 1 cups dry oats with milk, 2 eggs scrambled on 2 pieces toast, glass of fruit juice
1000 - fruit 1, nuts 1 - eg banana and handful of nuts
1200 - starch 1, vegies 1, meat 1, fruit 1 - eg bread roll with 100g steak and some roast eggplant, capsicum and tomato, plus a piece of fruit
1400 - fruit 1, nuts 1, dairy 1 - eg apple, handful of almonds, glass milk
1600 - dairy & eggs 4 - workout drink of 500ml milk + 2 eggs
1800 - fish 2, vegies 4, beans 2 - eg 200g portion salmon, 2 cups chopped broccoli, capsicum, garlic, carrots, eggplant, plus 1/2 tin of red kidney beans

So in all you'd be getting fruit 4, vegies 5, nuts 2, beans 2, meat 1, fish 2, and starch 4. If you got tired or hungry you'd eat more vegies, if you got tired and hungry you'd eat more vegies and starchy food.

That's not intended as a meal plan, just an example of a more varied diet.

If you have a more varied diet with more fresh fruit and vegies, nuts and beans, and have a proper breakfast - I think you'll find you don't need caffeine so much. Caffeine gives us an energy boost, but so does an adequate supply of vitamins and minerals, as we get from a varied diet.

ok thanks peoples for all input. ive cut down on coffee have had one coffee in 4 days. and am havign green tea. need to go to shops to get this infamous white tea. had some mad headaches first 2 days with no caffeine. Ive added more vegies to meals and thats helped over come the tiredness. on saturday i had a good carb loading day. i spent the whole day riding on the dirtbike.. lots of energy spent so ate a fair amount of high energy food that day then Ribs and pizza for dinner.. probbaly shouldnt of had it but i needed the excess food to help recover. but sunday andtodya back into the swing of things again.. ill weigh myself next weekend to see if i have dropped any weight.

How are your sleeping patterns, Brendon?