thoughts or suggestions on my diet?

After lurking and reading posts here concerning diet, here's what I've come up with for myself...

I'm 6'5', 300 pounds and about 32% bodyfat. I'd like to get to about 235 (my weight in college).

For breakfast I'm having a cup of low fat cottage cheese mixed with a banana, a tablespoon of peanut butter and washing it down with a cup of 1% milk.

I'm having two snacks per day of 1% milk mixed with Optimum Nutrition Whey Protein powder.

Lunch is a foot long chicken breast sandwich. Dinner is grilled chicken and veggies.

If I'm in the mood for an after dinner snack it's usually a handful of almonds and a glass of 1% milk.

After running this through fitday.com, I come up with ~2550 calories, 70 g fat, 245 g carbs, and 267 g protein.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Am I doing ok?

I think 2550 calories per day is unrealistically low for you. At 300 lbs I believe you would gradually lose weight at appox. 3600 calories per day.

Looks fairly decent - as long as you're losing weight on it. You need to have maintenance calories around 3250 a day to lose a pound a week on that diet: which means you'll need to be doing a significant amount of cardio as well as weights, IMO.

If you're losing weight at a rate you consider acceptable, then it's fine. If not, either cut the calories in the diet (the peanut butter would be a good place to start...) or do more exercise.

Does the above make sense to anyone? Can someone explain how you lose a pound a week on maintenance calories?

Guessing at it: I think he's trying to say that the OP needs 'daily calories around 3250' to lose a pound a week' but using 'maintenance' incorrectly.

I was using 'maintenance calories' as number of calories used per day, so that if you eat 'maintenance calories' number of calories you neither gain nor lose weight... the OP reckoned he was eating 2550 cals/day, so he'd need to be burning 3250/day to lose 1 lb/week.

Bob, that was initially entirely obvious until you chose to snip the OP's calorie estimate, thereby making my dodgy use of language show up.

This is a minor point in comparison to your total daily caloric intake, but I know that for me personally, your calorie distribution is a bit lopsided toward lunch and dinner - I myself would want a larger breakfast. But, if you're not terribly hungry by the time you have your first snack, I guess it's fine for you.

Bill - Since I'm a competetive bodybuilder, I'm going to give you the extreme answer. STAY AWAY from milk! It's not the fat or lack of fat but Lactose, which is nothing more than a simple sugar! It make me and MANY people have thick/smooth skin.

Cottage cheese is a woman's food Eat 8 egg whites instead. At your size you should be taking in AT LEAST 400g of 'good' protein. I'd suggest adding some milled flax to your protein drinks. I'd try to target 3000 calories a day. Besides protein and fats mentioned, make up calorie diffrence in 'good complex' carbs like oatmeal, yams and long-grain brown rice. Stay awat from WHITE BREAD!

Now that's the extreme suggestions for extreme results. I'm competing tomorrow and have gotten down to 3.5% BF and am VERY DRY. I've been doon this for many years, so you can take it or leave it - most people leave it because it's TOO HARD.

Since this the third post of yours I've read this morning, and all three contained amazingly crappy advice, you got a link to some jpeg's of yourself, or to some competition results? Not that I necessarily doubt you. In fact, I've known quite a number of competitive bodybuilders who achieved their results in spite of utter ignorance of nutrition, but because of the sharp end of a 1 1/2 inch 21 guage needle. Not that there's anything wrong with that. To each his own. But, really...your knowledge of nutrition is state-of-the-art for a 1980's bodybuilding magazine.

David

Can you explain the physiological process by which this occurs?

Yeah, I hear it's too difficult for men to eat. Sorry bout your luck.

Why egg whites specifically?