From India - Please share your experiences

[guru]

Hi,

Got inspired by this post of Shree.

As I have experienced in my past 5-6 months doing SL, we Indians have specific issues & experiences, especially regarding diet.

I request guys / gals from India to share their experiences / problems etc. in this thread.

[shree]

Thanks Guru. This thread would help everyone as all the information would be complied in on post.

Let me ask first few questions, & tell you what i am doing currently.

How do you ensure you get enough Protein? ( I am a vegetarian except eggs)

I have deliberately started eating eggs/nuts ( Badam/Penuts) more often than earlier. Also trying with idea of eating soaked (urad daal).

Do you take and Protein powder? where do you buy them? I found Proteinex in chemist shop but it's taste is horrible? I saw something in sports shops also.

shree

[guru]

Hi shree,

First let me tell you that I have subscribed to fitness coaching by Mehdi & completed a month of it. As a part of it, I had to make drastic (supposedly) changes to my diet. It was pretty difficult at first. Changing habits of 40 years would naturally be difficult. Anyway, without going into a lot of details, the concepts are as under -

My BW is 130 lbs approx. I needed to get 150+ gms of protein daily. Ideally this should be spread over 6 times during the day.

Till some time back I was not even eating eggs, but started them. Now I do the following -

Morning - Soaked beans (mung, matki, urad etc.), three boiled eggs, some raw veggies like cucumber / tomato / bell pepper (simla mirchi).

Noon lunch - Vegetables, daal, curd etc. No rice or roti here.

Evening lunch - Half litre milk, Rotis, rice, daal, curd. (This is big dinner, since it is post workout)

Prior to bed - Cheese, some fruit. Low fat cottage cheese here is best, but I could not find it anywhere. So I take mozzarella cheese.

In addition to these I eat some nuts & whey protein at around 11 Am & 4 PM. The whey I am currently using is Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard whey. You are likely to get it in sports shops. If you like chocolate flavour, they have Double rich chocolate & Rocky roads. Each scoop of 30 gms will give you 24 gms of protein. Protinex tastes quite awful. Additionally, if you want 24 gm from it each time, you will need to take so much protinex that it's difficult to consume.

You'll notice from above that I am eating carbs & milk only post workout. This is for fat loss & keeping bodyfat in check. This was the most difficult change for me.

[Anand]

hi guys ,

good to see posts here.
am a non-vegetarian. so i dont know much about what works bets on a veg diet ... sorry .

until recently my diet was 2 or 3 meals a day. with no particular concern to protein, carb and fat intake. missed breakfast regularly. junk food was a regular part of diet. (no wonder i am overweight ). now that i have read how to get a better diet on the website, i decided to follow a better regime. It looks something like this

mon-wed-fri (workout days)
7:00am - 1 scoop whey in water, 4 boiled egg whites, (sometimes with one or half egg yoke)
(20g + 15g = 35 g protien)
(at the same time make 2 chicken + tuna sandwich with whole wheat bread)
10:30am sandwich + fruit ( apple/banana)
(~15g protien)
1:30pm sandwich + fruit ( apple/banana)
(~15g protien)
4:15pm 1 scoop whey in water
(20g protien)
5:15pm - 6:15pm workout
6:30pm 1 scoop whey in water
(20g protien)
9:00pm boiled checken + boiled veggies(chopped carrots, beans, sprouts, cabbage, capsicum)
(~30g protien)

on tues and thur (non workout days) i skip the whey intake at 4:15 and 6:30, not sure that will work best here, will think of something
on sat and sun - didn't plan for anything here yet, basic idea is to keep intake low.

i take Whey platinum standard by British nutrition - 1 scoop = 33g contains 20g protein (60%) has essential and branched amino acids, with a decent amount of multi vitamins and minerals content. costs me about 1250 per kg, usually lasts a month, sometime more.

my body weight is 182 lb. overall daily protein intake for day is approx 135g. sometimes what i take for dinner may vary. sometimes i make noodles(rice or atta noodles) with scrambled eggs and chicken pieces and veggies. am going to try and stick to the diet and timings and see how it works out for me. i have to admit though, there are times when i am tempted to try junk food. (junk food = pizzas, burgers, biriyani, oily and fired things etc etc, the list can go on)

guru... i have a questions on the veg diet
- does it give you the amount of protein you are looking for? i always felt(i may be wrong here) that veg foods had relatively low percentage of protein per unit volume.

shree .. nuts and eggs are both sources of good and easily available protein.
try a mix of dry nuts if you can... like cashew nuts, peanuts, almonds, badam, pista, walnuts, apricots, figs. they are a good source of protein and essential fats.
each of these have unique qualities. check out this site for some info
But be careful as to not overdo on nut consumption, you will gain weight.(good if that is what you want to do)

In general This website should give useful info the nutrition content of a lot of products
Eg: Boiled egg nutrition content

[guru]

Hi Anand,

You're right that it is somewhat difficult to get protein on a veg diet, but as I have discovered, it is not impossible at all. Eggs & milk help a lot. I'm currently consuming >150 gms of protein daily. For you, it should be ideally 175 - 200 gms.

As regards your diet, it looks ok timingwise, but 3 sccops of whey is a bit too much imo. More solid food is always advisable. Moreover, I'm surprised that your sandwich is only 15 gm. protein. Are you sure about this?

My suggestion is eat a lot post workout. Body is craving for energy & nutrition at that time. A scoop of whey only is nothing.

[shree]

Guru ,

Thanks for your details reply. I will certainly try for Whey protein. I was searching at wrong place for protein supplement. Proteinex was only thing i could find ( I had not checked in sports shop that time ) After I bought Proteinex I saw the contains and as you correctly said getting enough protein from it is very difficult.

As far as eating every 3-4 hrs is bit difficult I am still trying it lets see.

Also i will try to mix nuts & different beans as of now I am using only urad

[Anand]

guru,

yeah, three scoops of whey a day is a little two much. 1 or 2 scoops a day sounds reasonable. to replace it with solid food would means i have to discover new recipes for cooking, and somehow find the time to do so(kind of difficult to do that). once i become used to the current routine, i might be able to reduce whey consumption and manage to cook some food.

15g on the sandwich is an estimate, i have to look up nutrition data on the products to get a more accurate number.

My suggestion is eat a lot post workout. Body is craving for energy & nutrition at that time. A scoop of whey only is nothing.

i know what you mean... after a workout i feel like all the energy has been vacuumed out of me, and i feel the need to have something solid.
will definitely look at adding solid food post workout.

thanks a lot guru ... appreciate the advice

shree ... good to know that you are trying out whey. I'm sure it'll give you good results.
looking forward for your logs

[guru]

Shree, for whey the brands to be trusted and available are probably Optimum Nutrition, Ultimate Nutrition or British Nutrition. This is as far as I know. Another suggestion - if you have somebody close coming from the US, you could ask them to get a 10 lbs bag. I believe it is cheapest there.

Another thing Anand,

I did look up the British Nutrition whey, but didn't buy it. Don't remember why. You are consuming 2 scoops a day on an average, say 50 scoops a month, but 1 kg will have only 30 scoops. Yet you say 1 kg lasts for a month or more? I couldn't get the maths right here.

[Anand]

guru, those stats were from before i started this diet routine. i was not so frequent on whey then.
with current diet routine it should last me about 3 weeks.

[guru]

guru, those stats were from before i started this diet routine. i was not so frequent on whey then.
with current diet routine it should last me about 3 weeks.

Ok, got it.

[guru]

Shree, Anand,

Have you tried to get bodyfat calipers in India? Are they actually easily available?

[shree]

Nope. But I will check in local sports shops and see if they have it. Will let you know.

[Anand]

same here, haven't tried to get one. will checkout local stores and see if i can buy one.
does anyone know how to properly use them... like how to get accurate measurements, whats locations are the measurements to be made and what formula is to be used in calculating bf%

[Deepak]

Hello everyone.
I am very pleased to see Indians into 5x5 programmes. I have never seen anyone do this at any gym. I used to do routines as mentioned in arnold's encylopedia but unfortunately i didnt gain much. somehow i came upon these strength training methods and this has helped me make some gains. Unfortunately my nutrition is pathetic. I am a student staying in a hostel and you can imagine that its very difficult to get even the required amount of protein. To add to the problems i am not much of a meat eater. Once i finish of my mba i will surely eat perfectly.

once i inquired in some shops in andheri mumbai but i didnt find any fat calipers. its rare in india i think

[shree]

Deepak, Welcome. good to see another Indian following 5 x 5.
As far as your diet you can certainly add banana & milk in your diet. You could also think of whey protein. ( thanks to Guru for this point)