I was hoping that I could get some information on setting up a decent diet. I am currently here in Iraq and the food in the chow halls makes it very difficult to eat a clean healthy diet. Back home I don't have a problem at all, but over here is proving to be hard.
A little background on me might help a little. I'm 35 years old, and have been working out off and on since I was 15. I have always been big (I'm a Meso/Endo) body type, so diet is important for me. I put muscle on fairly easy, but the fat likes to creep up if I don't cardio and eat clean. I suffered a back injury about 6 years ago that really put me in a slump and I went from 215lbs and about 12%bf to 305lbs and right around 38%bf. I got tired of being a slug so I decided to get my ass to the doc and get clearance to workout again (I have 5 disks fused in my back) so I wanted to make sure all was good. I started working out and dieting last year in July and managed to drop down to 265 before I came back over here to Iraq. I have managed to drop down to 245 and around 16.5% bf, but I have been stuck for over 2 months now with no progress at all. My weight did go back up to around 255, but my BF didn't move much, only about .5% so I would say that Muscle is going on. I'm not overly concerned with what I weigh, as long as the fat keeps coming off. I know that you can't gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, but it seems like even when I cut my calories down my body doesn't respond.
I eat 5-6 small meals a day and I know my metabolism is working well because I am always damn hungry. I try to eat what looks or appears to be healthy over here, but obviously it's not working for me.
Here is an example of what I eat for the day:
Breakfast 0600
1.5 cups of plain oatmeal with 1 splenda pack to sweeten
4 hardboiled egg whites
1 whole hardboiled egg
0900-0915
1 can plain tuna
2 hardbolied egg whites
Lunch 1130-1200
Some kind of protein (Usually fish if they have it, or chicken breast)
1 cup of plain white rice
Lots of fresh green veggies from salad bar
Lemons and pepper to flavor, dash of olive oil
1500-1600
1 can of tuna or Protein shake
green leafy salad
.5 cup white rice or plain potato if they have them
Lemons for flavor
Preworkout 1900-1930
Protein Shake
Post workout 2200
I can tuna or Protein shake
The big problem is they don't have plain white fish or chicken breast every day. Sometimes they have Salmon, but it's covered in some kind of sauce. The chow halls over here love to use gravy, cream based sauces and everything else that sucks.
Can plain grits be a substitute for oatmeal? I think grits taste better.
If anyone has any advice as to what to eat at what time, or ways to tweak my diet up it's much appreciated. I would really like to cut down another 4-5% BF so I can start to see some more of the muscle that I have been putting on.
I think one problem I have is that I have been on HRT for over a year now and I think it's got my body all out of whack. On my last blood
test my E2 levels were elevated and my
Test levels are still very surpressed. I was at 24 ng/dl when I started, last
test showed a hair over 180ng/dl with elevated E2. Everything else looked normal according to the Doc.
Need some Dietary assistance... 
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