New Member History and Diet Questions

Hi all. My name is Andy, this is my first post on these forums. I have been hanging around the last few weeks and really enjoyed what I have read and learned from these boards.

I guess this post could have been in any number of the forums since I will introduce myself and give a breif of my history -where I've was, where I went, how I got to where I am, and where I want to be fitness wise. I chose this 'Losing Fat' forum because I have some nutrition and diet questions I would like to have answered.

First, a little about me (for anyone who cares - otherwise feel free to skip to my sample diet and questions). I'm a 27 year old married male software engineer living in Dallas, Texas. I hope to someday get back to my real home of Tulsa, Oklahoma after my wife finishes medical school - we'll see. Without going into too many details of my personal life lets just say I'm your typical guy. I'm a sports fan especailly football and hockey. I like southern rock music (try and guess my favorite band), beer, hot wings and video games.

About my heath history. Before I started college and during my first couple years I led a fairly active and healthy lifestyle. I worked out 3 or 4 times a week and had a fairly good diet (not as good as I thought - I've learned from these forums I was actually doing less then ideal practices, but I was at least trying). I'd drink occasionaly on the weekends, but not too often. I was fairly lean even though I never got my body fat quiet as low as I had wanted. I was pretty strong and, while not huge, you could tell by looking at me that I definitly trained with weights. Everything was going great until my addiction that would ultimately put me in the worst physical shape of my life.

I have always had an addictive personality. When I get into something I get into it hardcore and have trouble balancing it with other things in my life. I have found this to be both a positive and negative trait, depending on where I direct my focus. For example, during my first few years of college I was 100% into making sure I had the best grades I possibly could and learn as much as possible. I studied a lot and obviously that paid off.

Addictive personalities is characteristic that has run in my family for years. I have more than a few family members rehabbing from drug and alcohol addictions. I have cousins that treat jails like Buddy the Elf (Will Ferrel) treats revolving doors in NYC.

After mentioning that, my addiction may sound trivial or even silly to some, but it wasn't to me. I was not addicted to drugs, alcohol or nicatine. I was addicted to a video game. A MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) to be percise. Final Fantasy XI.

How bad can that be? People have different opinions on how much free time can be spent on lesiurly activities and still be healthy: 30min - 1 hr a day, 3hr, 4 hr.... I can't tell you the exact amount of hours I spent per day, but it was roughly 90% of the time I wasn't at work, school or asleep. And when I was finally drug away somewhere for the other 10% I was not happy. I wanted to be back playing.

There are obvious consequences of this behavior. My grades in school started going down as I studied less and quite often (about half the time) skipped class altogether. My relationship with my wife was sketchy. I started playing shortly before we got married. On our wedding day, my mother had to turn off my playstation because I was about to be late for my own wedding. After a while, my wife started visiting help forums for other wives married to online gaming addicts (I'm not the only one). Also, my list of friends became shorter (unless you count all my new friends I met in game but never met in real life). I never wanted to go out. I blew people off.

I also started wasting real life money on the game. See China has work camps where tons of people doing nothing but earn virtual currency by doing various things in the game. These workers obviously got paid very little and worked very long hours to make this currency and sell it on the Internet. While, I would have never admitted to any of my gaming buddies I often purchased this currency. It was looked down upon in the gaming community. However, while no one admitted to purchasing this currency, it was quite obvious that at least 50% of the players did so. I would guess that during my time I spent close to $1000 on this virtual currency. I also started 2 other characters so I could have an advantage, so instead of my subscription fee of $14 a month, I was paying over $40). Oh and of course my tv could do split screen, but not 3 screens, so I purchased a second tv (and two other game systems and copies of the game).

A few times I managed to "quit" the game. At least, I told myself I quit. I never erased my characters though. I kept paying the monthly fee. I kept reminding myself I need to log on and erase them, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I put sooooo much "work" into my characters. Eventually, a month or 3 down the line, the desire to play would hit me again and I told myself, 'I can do this. Its just a game. I've learned my lesson. This time I'll just play it every once in a while. It won't rule my life.' By day two, I forgot my promise and was consumed on finding how I could squeeze more game playing time in.

The last negative consequence of all this is the entire reason I posted all that on these forums. Try to imagine what doing quite literally nothing does to your health. I basically did three things in those 3 years of play time:
1) Went to work, sitting in a chair doing software development
2) Played Final Fantasy XI
3) Slept

Hell I even found myself turning down sex with my beautiful wife quite often because I was either too tired or doing something "really important" in game. Add on top of all that I was eating like crap. I didn't care. Chocolate zingers or twinkees for breakfast. Lunch was almost always either a pizza buffet or McDonald's (super sized of course). Luckily, my dinners weren't too bad since my wife cooked and forced me to eat fairly healthy for those. I'd usually have snacks too - snickers or more zingers. I honestly don't know what the hell I was thinking.

My weight slowly went up. I was around 160-170 when I logged on to this game. When I logged off for the last time about 1 month ago I was 245. Easily the most out of shape I have ever been in. I had trouble breathing often. I constantly had heart burn. Oh and best of all (I can't believe I'm telling this) I develped hymroids from sitting on my ass all day.

I didn't feel like myself. I wasn't myself. I use to be so outgoing. I always wanted to go out with friends, play roller hockey, etc. I strove to be the best at everything I did - work, school, etc. I missed that old self.

Then finally one day out of the blue, while I was taking a shower, it hit me hard.... I wanted out. I wanted to be healthy. I wanted to enjoy regular life again. I wanted to see girls that drive by me to take a second look (don't tell my wife that!).

So I quit. The only way I know how, cold turkey. This was late at night. I was so excited, I couldn't sleep. I went to work in the middle of the night. The next day I purcahsed a bodybuilding book. I started planning healthier foods to eat. I made plans with friends I hadn't seen in a while for the weekend.

And here I am. I don't plan on going anywhere. I am glad to be apart of this community. From what I've read the last few weeks on this forum everyone seems to really care for the health and well-being of everyone else.

These last four weeks I have been working out in the mornings. Upper body Monday and Thursday, Lower body (which I never trained before) Tuesday and Friday, Cardio and Abs Wednesday and Saturday. Sunday off.

I've been eating healthy. Five meals a day. I've gone from 245 to 230. I'm actually that may be a little too much for four weeks - I don't want to sacrifice muscle. But, I also hear the more you have to lose the faster the first pounds come off.

Anyway, glad to be here. This has turned into a longer post than I first intended, so for seperation sake I will post my planned diet below. I modeled it around what I have read from many of Dan's posts. If he could critique it, that would be awesome, but I'd be happy to hear from any of you. Like I mentioned before, when I doing something, I want to do it the best I can. Let me know what you think of the diet plan (and the exercise plan I listed about - I've been following a guide laid out in the bood 'The Bodybuilding Bible for Men').

My Planned Diet for next week:
 
Meal #1 (7:00)
30g Whey Protein Shake (110 cal, 2.5 g Fat, 5g Carb, 20g Prot) w/ 8 oz Skim Milk(90 cal, 0g Fat, 13g Carb, 8g Prot) (Protein)
1/2 cup Oatmeal (150 cal, Fat 3g, 27g Carb, 5g Prot) (Starchy Carb)
2 Egg Whites (34 cal, 0g Fat, .5g Carb, 3.6g Prot) (Protein)
1 Full Egg (72 cal, 4.5 g Fat, 1g Carb, 4g Prot) (Protein)
 
Meal Totals: Calories: 456, Fat: 11g, Carbs: 47g, Protein: 41g
 
Meal #2 (10:15)
1 Full Plain Potato (278 cal, 0g Fat, 63.2g Carb, 7.5g Prot) (Starchy Carb)
Celery (10 cal, 0g Fat, 2g Carb, 0g Prot)(Fibrous Carb) with 2 tsp Peanut Butter (188 cal, 16g Fat, 6g Carb, 8g Prot) (Protein)
 
Meal Totals: Calories: 476, Fat: 16g, Carbs: 71g, Protein: 16g
 
Meal #3 (1:00)
Subway Roasted Chicken Wrap (Chicken = Protein, Tomato and Wrap = Starchy Carb, other veggies = Fibrous Carb)
 
Meal Totals: Calories: 290, Fat: 7g, Carbs: 38g, Protein: 23g
 
Meal #4 (4:00)
3 oz Shrimp (84 cal, 1g Fat, 0g Carb, 18g Prot) (Protein)
Tomato Slices (26 cal, 0g Fat, 6g Carb, 1g Prot) (Starchy Carb)
1 oz Boiled Onion (12 cal, 0g Fat, 3g Carb, 0g Prot) (Fibrous Carb)
 
Meal Totals: Calories: 122, Fat: 1g, Carbs: 9g, Protein: 19g
 
Meal #5 (7:00)
4oz Salmon (140 cal, 4.5g Fat, 0g Carb, 23g Prot) (Protein)
1 cup Brown Rice (218 cal, 2g Fat, 46g Carb, 5g Prot) (Starchy Carb)
Red Pepper Strips (38 cal, 0g Fat, 9g Carb, 1gProt) (Fibrous Carb)
 
Meal Totals: Calories: 396, Fat: 7g, Carbs: 55g, Protein: 29g
 
 
Day Total: Calories: 1740, Fat: 42g, Carbs: 220g, Protein: 128g
 

your third meal sounds good just let me ask u this u still in school and they sell subway there right

I've been out of school for about a year and a half. I went to school at Oklahoma (OU), we didn't have a SubWay on campus, but there was one close by. Right now there is one across the street from where I work.