I know this is a topic that’s heavily discussed on this board, but I’m still very unclear about what I should be doing to reduce my body fat. I lost 3kg in 10 days or so. I was doing weights, and track work, and a bit of swimming to burn up the calories. With this in mind I assume it’s fat that has been used up, because I have been developing muscle in the weights room, and also keeping myself well hydrated (so it can’t be water loss). However, I seem to have plateaued at this weight. I’m eating carefully, or at least what I consider to be careful. How can I burn more fat and get past this stage?
Goose1,
I agree you are more insulin sensitive in the morning, and if possible the majority of your carbs should be eaten at this time.
However, I work full time and train in the evening.
So how do I get around this?
Basically, if the workout is intense even (speed or weights), then I will have a protein and carb drink immediately after the workout, then about 90-120 minutes later, I will have another protein and carb meal but from food, then I will go to bed an hour or so after that.
I queried my concerns with John Berardi, and he advised me that I have to recover, therefore, I should follow the above plan.
He has answered this in his Q & A column at t-mag - appetite for construction.
Think about it on a hormonal leval. Your body’s levals of growth hormone and testosterone greatly influance how much fat you wil burn over every 24HOUR period. In this respect, lots of short training sessions rather than several long sessions would be good at helping you stay in a more ideal hormonal leval for fat loss/muscle gain. Remnember that once your training session lasts longer than 40/45 minutes your levals of growth hormone and testosterone will deplete to eventually lower levals than even before the session began. If one of your training sessions requires 2.5 hours for example, then do 40mins, rest 30/35 mins, train 40mins, rest 30/35 mins, do another 40min session etc. till you’ve don all the training you need. The only problem with this style of training is it can just take up more time. It’s nothing new either. Bulgarian weightlifters terminate their sessions after 45mins, then they’ll usually rest 30mins then do another session. They may do between 4 and 8 of these sessions a day. Greek sprint champ Konstadinos Kederis will rest 30mins between each 200meter rep in training. just watch you don’t get bored with this style though if you use it.
Don’t make the fat levals of your nutrition program to low. You need a reasonable amount of fat in your nutrition to keep testosterone and growth hormone levals up. Better sources of fat include cooking oils, nuts, olives (even the odd chocolate once in a while!). Try to avoid egg yolks, the skin of poultry, and if you eat red meat, try to trim it.
OK. So instead of spending saying 1.5 hours in the gym, I do 2 45 min sessions instead? Thanks, I’ll do my best to try and incorporate that principle into my training.
What is your typical diet as of now? Did you make sudden changes with the 3kg loss?
first of all the 3kg you lost in 10 days probably wasn’t fat, almost all of it was most certainly water weight, and being well hydrated doesn’t mean you cannot lose water, its actually quite the opposite. as goose says, you must eat fat, but stick to the “good” fats. the thing that everyone has failed to mention is, carbs are what make you fat. what kind of carbs are you eating? rule of thumb, stick to complex carbs, stay way from simple (except post workout). if you post your diet, i can go more into detail.
what i have done is front load my carbs ( i train first thing in the morning) pump in alot of carbs post workout (in the form of surge!!! recovery drink) then only veggiesplain slow cooked oats and some fruit until 3:00pm.
john berardi www.johnberardi.com has talked about combining either protein and carbs or protein and fat at your meals. and if you can to eat the pro/carb meals eariler in the day.
ive gotten a bunch of u2u’s in the past week asking how i get into “fight club” shape, and when i get a chance ill post the complete program in including all supplements and whole food.
nightmare,
Look forward to reading that.
Who ate all the pies Wullie 
At the moment I am trying hard to cut back on carbs, but it’s not that easy, as they appear to be everywhere. A rough idea of what I eat is as follows:
Protein shake and some sort of fruit for breakfast.
Can of beans or possibly some eggs and some more fruit for lunch.
Some form of meat (normally beef or chicken, and I trim all the visible fat off) with vegetables and/or salad and/or rice for dinner. (I may also have some more fruit as a form of desert)
Later in the evening if I’m hungry I may have some fruit, or a museli bar, or I’m particularly hungry I may have a sandwich, putting some shaved slices of chicken in it.
The thing I have cut back on mainly is soft drinks. I have maybe 2-3 cans of coke a week now, instead of a lot more (I wouldn’t like to guess how many, but loads - I recently came from England to this warm climate in Australia, and I started drinking a lot of fluid in the form of coke). However, I’m not allowing myself chocolate, proper deserts, potato chips. I’m trying hard to eat sensibly etc. Can anyone see where I’m going wrong?
I forgot to mention, that after every weights and track workout I have half a litre of gatorade, and after every weights session I have a protein shake. I am thinking of having a protein shake just before I go to tbed instead of for breakfast. What’s everyone’s opinion on that?
Have you tried protein bars in between meals. HPLC bars are pretty good or even the Musashi bars. These taste great and have over 40g of protein with low carbs.
Also, if you are hungry after dinner then go to bed, cut out your meal after dinner altogether, don’t even go near the fridge. It makes a big difference.
One thing that I believe is a good thing is the cravings that you get. If your body is screaming out to you for some carbs then it probably means that your body is being forced into using fat as energy. Your body will fight you all the way and keep telling you “just eat it, it will be alright, it’s just one meal, it doesn’t make a difference”. If you think of cravings as a positive thing it can be used as motivation to continue. Just make sure you keep the protein intake high (2g per kg daily)
Thanks, I’ll look into the protein bars. As I said, I’m on protein shakes. I need to keep carbs to a minimum then yea? I’ve been trying to do that, I can’t believe how hard it is, they’re everywhere?
Does it appear that what I’m eating is ok, other than the snack after dinner?
Certainly looks interesting -
What’s the most reliable site to order this from - I’m in the UK ?
Ta
I’m currently on chapter 20. Guys, listen to Kyle and get the book.
If your body is screaming out to you for some carbs then it probably means that your body is being forced into using fat as energy.
my take on this is that if i dont give my body enough carbs post workout (9am) by 4:30 pm i am dying for heavy carbs (ie potaote chips, pizza, sandwich with triple bread). i found that pounding in extra carbs(surge or endurox R4 then slow cooked oats about an hour later) RIGHT after training, helps me lay off carbs later in the day.
I’m quite irritated by the carb discussion. So many athletes and coaches in here (and I assume most of them are connected to sprinting) appear to be obsessed by a low carbohydrate intake.
For sprinters carbs are generally the main energy source due to their relatively high volume of anaerobic running. If you don’t refill your carb stores, your performance will drop. The hint is to stay away from high GI carbs (except for maybe a post workout meal). Besides this, don’t forget that insulin drives the macronutrients to their respective stores. Thus: if you don’t produce enough insulin, you won’t be able to use the calories as energy.
For every meal, you also want to have a good amount of protein, so as to stimulate glucagon in order to keep your blood sugar levels in a decent zone.
Charlie said that his athletes ate a lot of complex carbs, and that BB dude who once had a body fat percentage of 2.4 on his website states that carbs are not fattening. Why should they be wrong?
It seems to me that the carbs issue is often oversimplified- people have to believe that carbs are either “good” or “bad” for you without much respect to types and amounts of carbohydrate foods consumed. I’ve read almost all of the most popular nutrition books, and while I don’t claim to have the answers, I personally think the nutritional protocol recommended by Barry Sears in The Zone makes the most sense and has worked very well for me personally. Adequate (but not high) low-fat protien, moderate low-glycemic carbs, and low to moderate unsaturated fats. Furthermore, I believe the claim that the distinction between “simple” and “complex” carbs is meaningless, and that it is bad advice to say that we should try to eat lots of “complex” carbs because this encourages people to stuff themselves full of high-glycemic grain products and potatoes. Futhermore, to say that we should avoid simple carbs is equivelant to saying that we should avoid fruits and vegetables, the only digestible carbs in which are simple (cellulose is complex but indigestible). Hopefully the concept of glycemic index (measurement of how fast a carbohydrate food breaks down into glucose and enters the bloodstream) will replace the concept of simple/complex carbs.
Maris, get the coke out of your diet (I can hardly think of anything less conducive to improvement in body composition) and get rid of the the products made from white flour such as white bread, white pasta, cereal, etc. and sucrose sugar as well. Also, be careful with the protien bars and shakes… your body can’t store extra protien, so anything that cannot be immediately used gets converted into fat. Stick to lean protien sources like chicken/turkey breast, egg whites, lean (<7% fat) beef, and seafood and avoid fattier meats like dark poultry (legs, wings, etc.) and red meat. I could go on, but I don’t wanna try to be the authority here
Thanks everyone foe the feedback, I do appreciate it. I have never read the zone, but I understand it is what Mo bases his diet on, so it obviously is a well respected source of information.
I have cut out the coke completely now, which was the hardest thing, cos I really do like it. As for the protein shakes, I only have one or two a day, depending on the ttraining day. For example, I’ll have one at breakfast, and then after a weights routine, but not after a track workout.
I am doing my best to cut out white bread etc, so I think I have just about everything under control.
Having said all that, any further information will be gratefully recieved.