I have about a month or so until my first track meet and I want to be slightly leaner then I am now. im 5-8 155lbs and around 8-10 % bf (i can see my top abbs) my diet looks like this
Pick one for breakfast
French toast
Mancakes (whey protien pancakes)
oatmeal w/ whey protien added
4 egg white 2 yolks with peice of ww bread.
Lunch: Salad or in form of sandwich of somesort w/ ww bread. usually a banana orange or apple too…
Dinner: 8oz of meat. White rice or potatoe, and vegitable (usualy corn green beans or peas)
I usually eat fruit or vegis for snacks (carrots celary w/ peanut butter apples oranges melon bananas or a berry of some sort when theyre in season…)
I think my diet is fairly clean i guess. The only way i have been able to lean out is pretty much not eat in general. Any Sugestions?
get rid of all the starchy carbs and just eat meat and veges, plus gallons (literally) of ice cold water - sorted
get 1.5g of protein per pound of lean body mass, and eat as many veges as you want ontop of that. But you still want to create a calorie deficit, but the lower insulin levels will help put you in fat burning mode.
you can “carb” up after training though. And every 3-4 days carb up to 300-500g of clean carbs. Keep the fat intake down to 50g or lower
This is the general approach I took this summer to prepare for my annual holiday (vain i know). Its just about consistancy over a period of time.
I took a 6 week time zone. Cleaned my diet up for the first 2 weeks. Then increased my flax oil, fish oil intake and added CLA for the next 4 weeks. 3 weeks in I added a protein shake with fibre every afternoon + some Musashi Loose It slices as another snack. The final 2 weeks I used a thermo supplement 5 days a week. It cost me in all about $100 and worked very well. I was actually in my best shape 3-5 days after I finished this routine.
Setting a time frame is key so you have a goal to aim for. Also planning what you are going to do works great and changing it up a little really works.
Once you are lean it is a lot easier to stay that way. I have maintained about 95% of my gains since September despite dropping all of the supplementation except fish oil.
Good advice. I would also suggest you keep an “eating log”, kinda like a training log, write down everything you eat. And weigh yourself regularly (upon waking several times per week). Your documented weight changes vs food intake will provide you with great information about how much you need to be eating. Once you get used to it, you may be able to just remember everything you ate during the day then record everything in the evening in Excel or something.
I do the above and I went from 198 to 181 in about 2 months. I am easily able to stay at around 180 because I know approx. how many calories my body needs based on my logs.
I wouldn’t drop the carbs too low because if you don’t get enough carbs, you’ll start to feel like crap. I’m not a fan of any ketosis diet.
Thats some more good advice. Personally I wouoldn’t weight myself, i just use a before photo to stay motivated. Getting lean literally takes time and once you are there you don’t necessarily remember where you came from. Perhsonally, i like to be surprised so don’t take any measurements or anything as i progress but its all individual. Food log can be a good idea but don’t get too hung up on calories…
I count the amount of protein-carbs- and fats i take in instead of counting calories. I do this because it’s easier and I am fat too lazy to count the claories of everything I eat really.
“And every 3-4 days carb up to 300-500g of clean carbs”
i like that piece of advice. every 5 days, perferably on a low volume day when i only train early in the am, i will carb up eating whatever i want from 5pm til bed time. this helps stimulate the thyroid and pervents it from downregulating, which with a consistantly lower calorie eating plan, it will tend to do. keep in mind i am almost at race weight, (maybe another 3 or 4 lbs before indoor starts someitme in dec) but as i was trimming down i kept the carb up alot cleaner.
I eat as much as i can practically but what i eat is more important. Most importantly animal protein (because of superior amino acid composition) at every meal, only veggies and fruit as carbs (more carbs at morning and post workout) and some nuts etc to get lots of vitamins, minerals, fiber and to balance my acid-base balance. And of course fish oil. I’ve not lost many pounds, instead i’ve gained a lot of lean body mass and lost fat.
Do you mean ‘Low Volume’ - as in ‘Low Volume & Hi Intensity’ so that the insulin response and Protein sysnthesis are maxmised and fat accumulation is negigible?
I guess though that at 5 days no/low carb this is irrelevent anyway.
I’ve started to reccomend a before photo for ‘after the diet’.
Many people rebound dramactically after a low Carb diet and binge, even almost subconciously. The before photo on the fridge makes them proud of wehat they are and encourages them not to return to that shape.
Ketosis is overrated IMO.
Veggies are vital for health and also for avoiding gout - a very painful sideeffect of no-carbing.
Don’t bother weighing as it will give a false sense of readings - in a week I could lose 6lbs going low-carb - but is that fat loss as a result of low carb or simply water weight due to carbs not drawing water into muscles? So just be careful with the scales.
I still thing you can carb up after intense wgt trg, but keep the carbs reasonable and stop the carb intake after 3 - 4 hrs PWO - in other words don’t pig out on carbs.
Nightmare, I’d be very interested if you’d post your current diet and training, I’d be particularyly interested in your use of carbs and proteins post endurance exercise.
I’m not sure if you have the time, but I’d (and I’m sure many others too would) appreciate it if you could.
IMHO carb and calorie cycling dependent upon the days energy needs is more practical for athletes than low carb. The best plan though is long term rather than a ‘diet’.
milk, bananas, and oranges are still fairly high in fast carbs
and all fruits and rice etc
stick to proteins and green veges and you can’t go wrong. Eating like this will keep insulin levels low.
Especially the real heavy chewy veges. Eat as many of them as you like to keep full. Some of them consume more energy to digest than what they give…
and cycle your carbs, just stick to the principals and tinker with the amount of proteins and calories for yourself you will be right
fast carbs are fine after training. Then every few days, 4 or so, you can carb up big and eat 2x mainatenance, to get your body back into anabolic mode. And yet you will still be burning fat during this time. You get an over shoot effect. Dual factor dieting
I’ve been going meat and veges for 4 days (with fast carbs after training) then have a big carb up on day 5 - lots of calories here, get the anabolic hormones clicking. Day 6 is more moderate in carbs and maintenance, then day 7 is slightly below maintenance with medium-low carbs. And repeat
Now if you put a high rep, long distance tempo type day on day 4 then it works even better - as you deplete the glycogen stores. The start carbing up after the last session and continue it on day 5. I find with this approach you can actually lose fat, gain muscle and strength at the same time!
Bodyweight and water levels go all over the place though…
make sure it is ice cold water, since the body has to heat the water up to body temp. Or the body has to fight to keep the body temp from dropping when you drink lots of cold water
That takes energy to do. I read it takes 8 calories per glass of ice cold water, so when you drink a few gallons of this stuff, you can imagine the effects - 50 glasses = 400 calories!
sorry i took so long to reply…here is the answer to this question you asked above
“Do you mean ‘Low Volume’ - as in ‘Low Volume & Hi Intensity’ so that the insulin response and Protein sysnthesis are maxmised and fat accumulation is negigible?”
actually my bad i should have been clearer and as i re-read my post it was pretty vague. first, my life as an endurance athlete ended last summer (long story) but i am now back in the mix as a masters sprinter (indoor 60m and maybe long jump) and will be playing football again this winter (indoors) and A division flag again in the spring (more on this story in another thread) so my training is different than it was in previous posts.
as for the above statement it usually applys to off days. there are 2 things that really prime your metabolism, training and eating, so on off days the goal is to carb up and stimulate the thyroid at the same time with the after 5pm carb fest. for me, i do something, as far as training goes, almost everyday. whether it be intense weights, easy weights (just arms , external rotators etc) track work, pilates, core or short cardio and stretching, i am at the gym almost everyday.
so on my short days (easy days) ie only pilates, light weights, core work or the occasional day off, i will carb feast after 5pm. when the concept was throw at me from my strength and conditioning coach james fitzgerald i thought the same thing you did, metabolic pathways open to maximize glyco storage and minimize fat storage so didnt get why he had me doing it on “off” days. once he explained it, it made a lot of sense and has worked well for me over the last few months. as a note, this is something that will work best for those that keep a consistant and clean diet and with bodyfat under 10%.
As you said I work only with carbs post workout and maximise the PWO window etc.
I understand what you’re saying - and as a maintenance program/diet I can see the value, but for someone tryint to drop weight I can’t see how it can be better than a “Low-Carb execpt PWO” diet?
I’m going to sit down tonight and think this one thru’ - (you’re not getting away with that short explanation )
I will get back to you with a few questions if you have the time.
To loose body fat we have to drop calories - basically Cals in vs cals out.
We increase cals out by exercising - specifically strength training to preseve muscle mass.
We have to take in cals to survive and train and we have to take in carbs too.
Now we can optimise this by eating carbs post WO.
This way our carbs are diverted to the muscles rather than as fat
What I don’t undertand is how overeating on an easy day will result in carbs being diverted to the muscle rather than to excess gylcogen?
I understand we are in cal deficit so thyroid is an issue as is leptin as time progresses, but - does overeating in PWO not do avoid this?
Overeating on LI days would IMO lead to greater fat storage?
All this is theory of course I haven’t tried it …
