my diet

Hey guys i need a bit of help with my nutrition

ill give you my weekly schedule of work excercise and eating

Working

5,  8 hour shifts a week, i work in a coffee shop do lots of cleaning, mopping, scrubbing floors, deliveries, etc. I walk about 20 mins to work as well. Out of 5 of these shifts i work 4 night shifts

Excercise

mon - circuits

tues - 8k run

wed - 10k run

thurs - circuits

fri - 8k run

Food

Average day

Breakfast

100g of porridge, dried fruit granola and banana

800 calories

Lunch

100g pasta, boiled vegetables, 180g chicken

900 calories

Dinner

100g rice, 150g prawns or chicken, mixed vegetables, fruit

800 calories

Total calories 2500

I dont drink calorie drinks, i just drink water or tea.

Any advice would be highly appreciated

and what's the problem? Are you trying to lose weight?

im trying to lose body fat and get more defined. Im not fat but i got a little flab that i want to get rid of. But also i dont want to compromise the excercise.

Any help would be appreciated

Your diet is right on the money. Couldn't really be any better.

I had a diet like this but didn't lose weight for two reasons. The first was the quantity, the second was daft things like the milk in all the tea and coffee I got through.

Yeah im not really a guy who likes to eat small meals, i like to be full up. Yeah i drink quite a lot of tea like 3-4 cups a day and sometimes a cup of coffee. So i wouldnt say it was that much milk.

The amount i am eating is sometimes double what other people eat, like i have 100g of porridge and a good portion of granola and banana for breakfast. Which is quite a bit.

Anything you suggest to tweak it?

Cut your 100g portions of whatever down to 90g apart from the loss of bravado () I doubt you'd notice the difference on your plate but you might on your stomach after a few months.

Plus for example you say:

100g of porridge, dried fruit granola and banana

800 calories

Yet you don't state the weight of the granola so I assume you don't weigh it? How do you know how many kcals are in your portion? You could be eating 200+ extra easilly without realising, 100 kcals is one measly little cereal bar.

like the porridge and granola i measure in cup sizes which are 50g each, so i have 2 of porridge and 1 of granola. But also whenever i count how many calories im eating i always go over estimate or round it up. So i know im always eating less than it says

Then you'll just have to measure out less, gradually decresing each week until you strike a weight loss ballance, for me and my lazy life style, this is ~2000 kcals a day to lose weight, if I add 300 more then I flat line, more still I gain. I run ~35 m/pw average.

Either that or do more exercise!

My suspicion is that the food values given to us are an underestimate and that exercise values are an over estimate.

no mention of alcohol there - is that because it doesn't happen?

I know I follow a very healthly plan all week but get to the weekends and all the small (and sometimes not so small) things that sneak in counter it out again.

no i dont drink anytime, dont smoke, no fizzy drinks etc. I do think im quite a healthy person

Granola can sometimes have more sugar than you think in it -- I make my own and I don't sweeten it to the extent that it tastes sweet, but when I'm adding syrup it always seems like a lot. Another factor might be down to how your body processes different foods -- I lost some weight a few years ago by avoiding pasta and having rice, rye and oats instead.

ok do you know how i can find out, what will work for me?

Well, I only know from my own experience, but I worked it out by cutting out most starchy foods for a few weeks and then gradually reintroducing one at a time to see how I'd react to it.You notice the effect more if you haven't had something for a while. I noticed that white or brown rice, rye and oats all made me feel very energetic and bouncy, while bread (white or wholemeal), pasta and potatoes tended to make me more sluggish and a bit bloated, which is probably not unusual. But I think some people can practically live on baked potatoes and still be slim and bouncy, while other people get fat eating rice...

Granola is very high in fat and sugar. You better off increasing the porridge and dropping the gronola.  Check the lable out and see what it says. Usually the very cheap gronalas the the healthest.