Diet (Fat loss) and SSRI issue

[Beavereater]

Breakfast:

2 x Eggs
2 servings Nitrean

Lunch:
200 grams Boiled Chicken
100 grams Lettuce
1 tbsp Sesame oil
1 cup Salsa

Daytime snack:
1 servings Nitrean

Dinner:
200 grams Boiled Chicken
100 grams Lettuce
1 tbsp Sesame oil
100 grams Cottage Cheese

After-Dinner (About 4 hours before bed)
Canned Salmon calories:256 fat:14.0 carbs:0.6 protein: 31.5
300 grams Sweet Potato Boiled
100 grams Broccoli
10 grams Butter



Fish oil caps
Vitamin Caps
Iron
Zinc

Unfortunately, the SSRI that I take for a mild panic disorder as well as some sleep medication, causes serious sugar cravings at random times at night. Doc says it's a side-effect. While I've tried healthier approaches to this, I have yet to get anything better than the below:

Sweet Snack
Calories: 197
Fat: 11g
Carbs: 21
Protein: 2.4

It's a cereal 'health' bar. I'm sure none of them are good, but anything else just doesn't work. If you could give me a healthy 'sweet' snack, I'd be willing to try anything at all to get off these things (Which during the day I'm not at all into). I have 1 or 2 of these depending on the night and what time I wake up.

Total (With 2 snack bars)

Calories: 2,911

Fat: 120.8

Carbs: 151.1

Protein: 299.0

Liquid is all carbonated water (Perrier). No coffee, no tea. I try diet coke when I get a sugar craving during the day, but that's about it.

ETA: I guess I should share my info to help.

158kgs (Up from 120-30 when I left the gym)
180cm tall (6 ft)
Fat
Unfortunately, I do not know my maintenance calories. I came to the conclusion that I would get back in right away and will go with 3000 per day to start the weight loss and if I don't drop, I will decrease.
http://studiof7.smugmug.com/photos/474881578_SS6Nn-L.jpg

http://studiof7.smugmug.com/photos/474881612_pVi7n-L.jpg

[Tom Mutaffis]

What you are doing in terms of diet appears to be pretty good. All healthy foods and a balanced mixture.

How is your training? Maybe you can tweak things there to help boost metabolism and even perhaps offset some of the depression / cravings.

[jay24k]

For my cravings, I get some yogurt and add honey to it and some blackberries. Honey is one of the rare foods that is a carbohydrate that actually breaks down VERY slow. This makes you feel fuller and doesn't spike your levels like a regular potato would. Not only that, you get the sweetness. Also for some reason, peanut butter kills my sweetness cravings. Get a chocolate protein shake, throw in some peanut butter, and some ice and make a slushly. Tastes really good.

However, to be completely honest, even one of those bars isn't going to hurt you that bad. I would say if you were trying to get a six pack, it would limit you. But if I was you, I'd stick to those calories. Just try to get your heart rate up to burn some fat. Every 10 to 15 pounds you lose, try cutting back 50 to 100 calories. You could drop some serious weight if you eat good like you are and just burn it off with exercise.

Keep it up and try a journal on here. It will motivate you alot. For me, I was about 70 pounds overweight. They are now saying weighing yourself daily is good for you. (They will probably change it again lol). I did it everyday and still do. It keeps me in check because if I go up a pound in the next day (Most likely water weight or food fluctuations), it hits my mind and forces me to bust my butt harder the next day. And my results were great. Went from 279 to 209.

[Beavereater]

My routine WAS Bill Starr's 5x5 and I really liked it. I like the idea of squats everyday. I would prefer deadlifts everyday but apparently that would be too taxing on my CNS. A full-body workout is what I like. In Japan nobody is in power rack and I'm in my own world there. I've signed up at a new gym and my membership starts 1st of March. Until then I plan on doing some basics at home so that I don't die of DOMS the day after my first real day back at the gym.

[Tom Mutaffis]

That makes sense, I also saw your other posts about the hormone levels and they most likely were a contributing factor to some of the weight gain.

You seem like you are really getting things planned out right which is good to see.

Squatting everyday will eventually become hard to recover from but it does burn a lot of calories and recruit a lot of muscle so I like them as long as you don't get carried away with intensity in the begining. Circuit training doing 3 full body workouts on Monday / Wednesday / Friday along with some low intensity cardio in between will work wonders for you. I would say that you can increase your fat loss by 1-2 lbs per week simply with the training being added in.

Good luck with everything and post up any questions that you may have on here... would like to see your progress as well and sure that many others could learn a lot from your journey so maybe a training journal would be a good place to track your workouts and gain motivation - there is a section here at this board for training journals.

[teeroy]

For the late night snacks if you take some protein with it that should help slow the absorption of the carbs and keep your insulin levels down.

I have mixed opinions about weighing yourself every day. I was at 280 and recently was down to 250. The thing is I've recently gone back up to 264 while actually losing 3/4" off my belly at the same time. So I'm currently losing some fat but gaining weight in lean body mass. If I was just going by the scale and weighing myself every day I'd be going insane and probably cutting my calories when I don't need to. So I'd say to not just go by the scale but measure, measure, measure.

[Beavereater]

Thanks.

I will start my journal March 1st since that's when my membership kicks in at the gym. Not a whole lot I can do about that, Japan has a funny way of handling things sometimes.