My current diet; Am I lacking in something? Critiques appreciated.

[arcgremlin]

Hi, I am new here, I have been reading for a while and trying to get my diet and excercise program together.
I am 19, 5'10 165
I bike for 30 minutes every morning, I run for 30 minutes every night and swim for 45.
I work out every weekday afternoon for 45 minutes in the gym.
And I do pushups/situps/pullups through out the day between classes to stay awake and better focused.
Basically, my current daily diet is as such:


2 cans of tuna
2 cups of cottage cheese
banana
4 hard boiled eggs
2 cups oatmeal
2 cups wheat noodles
3 tb spoons of peanut butter
Protien shake
2 cups of cheddar cheese
2 cups of spinach
1 cup nonfat yogurt
100oz water
40oz orange juice

Fitday calculates this as
Protein: 281
Carbs: 343
Fat: 105
Calories: 3563

I take:
a daily vitiman tablet
2 tabs of fish oil
and I am considering adding some creatine after I get everything else into order.
I have been working out for the past 6 months.
With this diet and the amount of work+cardio I do, I have been staying at the same weight. So I plan on upping it by a little bit as suggested by most everything I have read.

This is spread over 4 meals.

That seems like a lot more protien than I need. Am I eating too much?
It just seems like something is wrong when I compare to others I've found with the search function.

Thank you for any, and/or all help.

[Holto]

My current diet; Am I lacking in something?


I would start with some of these:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/2002/smithsquat2.jpg

Then perhaps of few of these:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8c/Bench_press.gif/350px-Bench_press.gif


Don't forget to get a few of these in each week:

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~capo/profiles/pro_2/Me%20-%20327.5kg%20deadlift.JPG

Then you could eat a little less protein and a little more healthy fats, other than that the diet is solid. If your goal is to gain weight eat more, but you won't gain much muscle just doing push-ups.

[Built]

Why all the cardio, out of curiosity? Nothing wrong with your protein if you LIKE it that high. I have about 115 lbs LBM, and I regularly eat more than 200g protein daily, but you might do better simply by increasing your fats.

[gator]

Why all the cardio, out of curiosity? Nothing wrong with your protein if you LIKE it that high. I have about 115 lbs LBM, and I regularly eat more than 200g protein daily, but you might do better simply by increasing your fats.

Not to question your theories, because I follow most of your suggestions regarding high fat intake, but most places say carbs are more anabolic than fats are.

[Built]

You may be right. I'm more concerned with the cardio, to be truthful.

[arcgremlin]

I do lift every day as I said, for about 45 minutes each day.
That seems to be a good amount of time to get tired, and hit everywhere I need to hit.
Although I'll be posting elsewhere on these forums about that once I get my diet down.

As for the cardio, my job will require me to be able to run/sprint/walk a lot after I finish my training. And I just really enjoy swimming, so I do that as well.
Am I doing cardio so much that it is bad for me?
Or... Is it the factor that is making my strength gains so slow?

I have been finding it hard to gain muscle, I assume due to my time spent with cardio. Will I be able to do better in that department keeping my cardio and just increasing the food I eat? And what would you offer that I increase?

As for healthy fats, about how much more would you suggest.

And for my large amount of protein, I just like to eat, that amount of protein is not intentionally that large, that is just how I eat, I can reduce it however, as I see you all seem to think maybe I should not be eating quite so much of it.

It seems from your responses though, that I've finally put together a decent diet. I know lately since eating like this, I have been feeling a lot better. And recovering faster.

Thankyou for your replies btw.

[Built]

I personally don't see anything wrong with your diet. I like my protein high, too. You need more calories at your current activity level to gain weight - if you aren't gaining, eat more. Add an extra 500 cals to your days - see what happens then. You may find it easiest to do this by adding fats, since they add up so quickly, but carbs would be fine, too.

Cardio can be quite catabolic, so eating more and focussing on the heavy lifts will certainly do a great deal to bring you into a more anabolic state.

Does this help?

[arcgremlin]

Yes it does, thankyou.
I think I've finished discovering my diet needs thanks to you all. (Not to say I couldn't still use more knowledge in the area =P)
Now to go to the body building section, and get myself all squared away there.

=P