Hi,

I'm a 33 year old guy, im 5'10" and weigh 86kg. Shortly before the birth of my daughter i quit smoking and put on a lot of weight. That was 3 years ago and i have finally decided to do something about it.

Heres what i've done so far and what i plan to do, i'd like some guidance on whether this will be effective.

Cereal and soya milk for breakfast
egg/tuna etc. salad for lunch + fruit
Large evening meal - pasta, rice, jacket potatoe etc.

Black decaffeinated coffee/water throughout the day.

I started my new regime on sunday and have managed to exercise every evening for around 45 minutes. I like to skateboard so i go to my local miniramp, i get hot and sweated, but not heavily out of breath. Afterwards my legs ache a lot and i feel it the next day. I intend to continue this maybe increasing the duration slightly.

My initial goal is to lose the weight, i have a lot of excess fat around my torso. I also hope to become fitter and generally more healthy, perhaps better toned too?

This is my fifth day, i'm not sure if there has been any improvement to my body shape yet, maybe my tummy has shrunk a little, maybe its wishful thinking? How long would it normally take to see an improvement?

Should i be weighing/measuring myself regularly?

Am i doing the right things? Thanks in advance for any help

Steve

p.s. sorry if this is in the wrong place.

hello, anyone?

Hi and welcome - can I recommend having 5 smaller meals a day than 3 medium/large sized ones?

Keeps the metabolism up

You probably only want to weight yourself once a week or so, but weight is not a very good indicator of progress, body fat percentage is a much better measure. And most recommend you only measure body fat percentage once a month. Remember the goal is lifestyle change and long term loss of an average of 1 pound a week. There is little benefit to a binge diet plan where you loose a lot of weight in a short time and then gian it all back when you stop the diet.

how can i measure my body fat percentage?

There are estimates possible via websites, such as http://www.linear-software.com/online.html

but calipers are the only way of truely being accurate

any1 tried a body fat monitor?

you can get them built into a set of scales...