What have you eaten today?

[Jon in Sweden]

Sounds good and looks like quite a decent diet . Being a tight .......have always avoided buying stuff like "blueberries" or other "exotic veg", on grounds of cost......had to admit to myself this year, that an expensive piece of specialist fruit, is still no more expensive than a Pain au Chocolate.....

Have made the enhanced effort since start of October and diet, c/w exercise / miles* has been incredible, protein of course, being invaluable. Had a huge collapse in mileage this year, but has already been noticeable the past two weeks that the muscles are propelling the bike by themselves. So one can enjoy seeing the migrating birds and landscape as one glides past (Nb. It is largely flat, wind more of an issue)

The pilsner? Try an an alcohol free regime; I'm on a 8 week session, couldn't help buying a bottle of wine the other night........but buying something at 3-4 times the normal price has helped, as can read about it, the reviews, haven't opened it yet )

It wasn't a great day, but I tend to stray towards a lot of simple carbs and dairy on physically tough days.

As regards berries - I am in the fortunate position of being able to pick berries in industrial quantities here. Blueberries and lingonberries grow like weeds here in the forest. With a purpose-made tool (a combination of a rake and a scoop), you can pick 10-15kg an hour quite easily. So we have 120kg in the freezer. As such, I eat about 300g every day, without fail.

Same with apples - so many incredibly productive trees in the village, and hardly anyone does anything with them. So we have another freezer with another 120kg of stewed apple.

I take your point on the alcohol, but I find alcohol free beer rather sweet, and it's twice the price of the 2.8% stuff (which is 30 pence for 500ml, and is rather pleasant). I'd guess I drink maybe 8-9 cans a week, plus two snifters of Ardbeg single malt, so my consumption is still well below any guidelines.

Nice that you're finding your cycling legs again. Protein will certainly help with recovery. I aim for 250g a day, which for me is about 15% of my calorie intake.

[rjb]

Same with apples - so many incredibly productive trees in the village, and hardly anyone does anything with them. So we have another freezer with another 120kg of stewed apple.

Same here in Somerset. We have a community orchard and several random apple trees planted on new housing estates. Hardly anyone picks them except us. We also forage for Blackberries and have filled the spare small freezer (100Litre) completely with stewed blackberry and apple puree. Enough to keep us in crumble and custard for the whole year. The community orchard have several cob nut trees, plums and pears too the bulk of which either go into apple juice in October when the village have an apple pressing event or squirrel fodder. No plums this year the tree seems to be on a 2 year cycle. Bumper plum harvest last year.
Locals put boxes of apples out at the side of the road for passers by to help themselves. We tried quinces and meddlers too

[Jon in Sweden]

Same here in Somerset. We have a community orchard and several random apple trees planted on new housing estates. Hardly anyone picks them except us. We also forage for Blackberries and have filled the spare small freezer completely with stewed blackberry and apple puree. Enough to keep us in crumble and custard for the whole year. The community orchard have several cob nut trees, plums and pears too the bulk of which either go into apple juice or squirrel fodder. No plums this year the tree seems to be on a 2 year cycle. Bumper plum harvest last year.

I just find it mad not to take advantage of fruit when it's available. We ended up selling about half a tonne of blueberries because it was so quick and easy to pick them. I could have picked tens of tonnes of apples, there were so many.

Like your plums, the apples here seem to have a good year and a bad year. This year was a good year - last year we had to make do with pears.

[gbnz]

[ and dairy on physically tough days....... Protein will certainly help with recovery. I aim for 250g a day, which for me is about 15% of my calorie intake.

Dairy, do you find it a decent protein ? Had nominally been aware of differing "qualities" of protein for twenty years, but cash constraints in 2021 obliged me to ensure protein needs were met, via dairy (Nb. Greek Yoghurt, some incredible deals locally at the time)

Had precisely the same overall protein intake, but the effect of dairy proteins was incredible, muscles notably increasing in size, every other week. Think I had to cut protein intake to compensate (Nb. Think I'd always presumed that a mix of proteins from all sources would balance out, clarified for me that they don't)

Half a ton of berries and personally picked apples in both posts above, is pretty impressive. Have only ever seen 1 No. apple tree locally, am seriously to tempted to ask the owner if I can pick them, before it's too late.

[Jon in Sweden]

Dairy, do you find it a decent protein ? Had nominally been aware of differing "qualities" of protein for twenty years, but cash constraints in 2021 obliged me to ensure protein needs were met, via dairy (Nb. Greek Yoghurt, some incredible deals locally at the time)

Had precisely the same overall protein intake, but the effect of dairy proteins was incredible, muscles notably increasing in size, every other week. Think I had to cut protein intake to compensate (Nb. Think I'd always presumed that a mix of proteins from all sources would balance out, clarified for me that they don't)

Half a ton of berries and personally picked apples in both posts above, is pretty impressive. Have only ever seen 1 No. apple tree locally, am seriously to tempted to ask the owner if I can pick them, before it's too late.

Dairy protein works really well for me. As a kid, I used to consume huge amounts of milk, but not much cheese (I never liked uncooked cheese until moving to Sweden, where the gouda and edam is incredibly mild compared to cheddar). By the time I was a teenager, I'd easily drink 4 pints a day. Maybe why I'm 6ft 8".

But with the limited amount of weight training I do (about 2hrs a week, sometimes 3), I maintain a decent amount of upper body muscle without any effort.

Financial constraints apply to us as well, so I always try to shop as economically as possible. Another excellent locally available food is wild boar. There are loads of them in the forest, they are a nightmare for young tree establishment and are shot as pest control. The locals don't especially care for the meat (which seems mad) and I can buy it for £3.70 a kilo. Half of it comes minced, the other half in lovely, bone free chunks and I have loads in the freezer. Obviously it's fully organic and as ethical as it's possible to be for meat (I was vegan, a long, long time ago, so still try to think about where my food comes from) and cheap as chips.

[rjb]

I see plenty of road kill whilst out on the bike. Squirrels, pheasant's, rabbits the occasional fox, badger and deer.
Anyone here scraped them up for supper.

[gbnz]

I see plenty of road kill whilst out on the bike. Squirrels, pheasant's, rabbits the occasional fox, badger and deer.
Anyone here scraped them up for supper.

Never scraped such up for food. Think we'd have to a Putin nuclear war, before doing so

Primarily grey squirrels, don't know if they're outcompeting red squirrels, which were the dominant local squirrel until recently (Nb. thankfully not many as road kill, normally could be seen in the broadleaved tree's). Otherwise primarily pheasants, especially on the inland roads, rabbits, deer, hedgehogs very rare to see as roadkill.

Mkt town 19 miles up the road, has huge hedgehog population - had 4 No. 1-3am rides back past 14pcm, don't know if hedgehogs give punctures, but even on the A Road, they need to be looked out for at night (Nb. Walking across / down the road )

[pjclinch]

I see plenty of road kill whilst out on the bike. Squirrels, pheasant's, rabbits the occasional fox, badger and deer.
Anyone here scraped them up for supper.

Not on a bike tour, but pals living in the country not too far from here have a freezer very well stocked with roadkill venison and pheasant.

Pete.

[Jon in Sweden]

You don't see much roadkill here really. Very little traffic and everyone was stadium intensity supplementary lighting on the fronts of their cars, so you can see 1/2 mile ahead at night. On the biggest roads, you have stock fencing both sides. Smaller main roads are often built up to be slightly higher than the surrounding forest and then the trees are cut back for 10m from the side of the road. All helps with not hitting animals.

That said, I was cycling home the other night from work and a sodding badger ran out infront of me. Once it crossed my path, it decided to run alongside me on the left, literally 10cm from my left foot. Did that for a few seconds, the stupid creature.

[briansnail]

Carrots,Broccoli,Hazelnuts,Walnuts and Tomatoes.

(ok so I very slightly lied.Its cold so 2 cream cakes and a chocolate bar to fuel my 30 km ride)

[djnotts]

3 weetabix, cold whole milk and honey.
Rye bread with marmalade.
5 or 6 plain sweet biscuits.
Beef stew, dumplings, mashed potatoes and cabbage.
Easy exercise day - just 10 miles on basic turbo trainer because of GP appt and snow.
BMI 19.

[cyclop]

Porrage,Jaffa cakes,chocolate,dates......scrambled eggs for tea.Mind you ,I do have the excuse that my false nashers are in for repair

[Manc33]

Luckily I keep track of it all so I can tell you the exact details

Food:
72g Mackerel with 83g brown rice (325 calories)
3 Dates (60 calories)
71g Mackerel with 83g brown rice (322 calories)

Drinks:
Coffee (38 calories)
Tea (38 calories)
Tea (38 calories)
Glass of homemade wine 12.53% ABV, 227ml (157 calories)

TOTAL: 977 calories.

Yes I had the same meal twice. I don't like leaving open packets of fish in the fridge.

My maintenance calories is 1,990 at the moment and I'm aiming at a 1,000 calorie per day deficit. The reality (since starting this diet on March 8th 2024) is I'm only cutting 236 calories per day on average, off maintenance.

I'm 12st 6lb and want to get down to around 10st 7lb.

No doubt that that 1 glass of wine will turn into 2 or 3 as usual and this is why I still weigh 12st 6lbs not 10st 7lbs.

Drinking is a double whammy where I start eating things like crisps and Peperami sticks, then before I know it I've added 500 calories of wine and 500 calories of junk food I wouldn't have had if I had just not had that first wine. It is what it is. Sue me.

EDIT: Pouring my 2nd glass all disgusted with myself.

[simonineaston]

New Fun… take nice ciabatta, buttered, to Ikea. Buy plate of tomato, mozarella & smoked salmon, bypassing queue for hot food, assemble roll at table & enjoy free filter coffee via Family card.

[Jon in Sweden]

My maintenance calories is 1,990 at the moment and I'm aiming at a 1,000 calorie per day deficit. The reality (since starting this diet on March 8th 2024) is I'm only cutting 236 calories per day on average, off maintenance.

I'm 12st 6lb and want to get down to around 10st 7lb.

1000kcal a day deficit is too much, especially given your already resting metabolic rate.

12kg is a fair amount of weight to lose, but it still won't take a long time at a 3-500kcal deficit. Eating so little each day is going to leave you protein deficient, and it's going to be tricky to hit all your numbers for macro and micro nutrients.

At an average 400kcal deficit, your 12kg will take around 240 days. Better to lose it more slowly and keep it off as well as minimising lean tissue loss.