Changing my focus

FullOf..IT

Hi,

Ive been pumping the iron for a few weeks now while using a calorie surplus. However i want to change my focus to losing some bodyfat.

My plan is to have a calorie deficit, include cardio x2 week while maintaining my weight lifting routine.

The thing is I have been progressing with regards to the amount of weight i am lifting with each exercise so my question is will i be able to maintain this progression while on a fat buring routine or am i gonna burn myself out / cause injury bla bla bla?

Hanley

Trying to do too many things is ultimately gonna lead to failure in all of them. JAck of all trades... and all that stuff!

You CAN lose (or at least) maintain current levels of bodyfat while getting bigger, but it requires a bit of dedication.

Read this; http://teamtestforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=761

FullOf..IT

Hanley wrote:

You CAN lose (or at least) maintain current levels of bodyfat while getting bigger, but it requires a bit of dedication.

Read this; http://teamtestforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=761

thanks for the reply hanley. Thing is i want to lose bf (25%) without compromising my muscle gains that i have made.

bwt, you is the chap on the first page of the link you provided and how long would it have taken him to get this way? (bloke with bottle of coke?)

Hanley

That's Christian Thibdeau. He's around 28-30 I think. So it woulda taken him abotu 28-30 years. You're not gonna look like him.

g'em

Hanley wrote:

That's Christian Thibdeau. He's around 28-30 I think. So it woulda taken him abotu 28-30 years. You're not gonna look like him.

not necessarily - he did a pretty radical transformation on himself over a 14 week period... http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459236

Hanley

g'em wrote:

not necessarily - he did a pretty radical transformation on himself over a 14 week period... http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459236

You are joking right???

He was already a national caliber olympic weightlifter. Brutally strong, but barely ever trained his upper body. And it did not take 14 weeks to build all that muscle.

g'em

Hanley wrote:

You are joking right???

yes, yes I am. :rolleyes:

But still, radical transformations are entirely possible for *anyone* with the right diet, nutrition, training, dedication, determination, drive and patience

FullOf..IT

Hanley wrote:

That's Christian Thibdeau. He's around 28-30 I think. So it woulda taken him abotu 28-30 years.

Dont know how to reply to this but ill give you the benefit of the d... How long did it take him from when he first start lifting.

Hanley wrote:

You're not gonna look like him.

Why not?

Hanley

FullOf..IT wrote:

Dont know how to reply to this but ill give you the benefit of the d... How long did it take him from when he first start lifting.




Why not?

Wow.... you really have no idea. Re-read what I said to G'em.

Hanley

And since he was a national calibar weightlifter, I would imagine he started training around 15-16.

Dragan

I'd much prefer to see people giving advice than a blanket statement that someone can't ever do something.

It's just rude.

g'em

FullOf..IT wrote:

Hi,

Ive been pumping the iron for a few weeks now while using a calorie surplus. However i want to change my focus to losing some bodyfat.

My plan is to have a calorie deficit, include cardio x2 week while maintaining my weight lifting routine.

The thing is I have been progressing with regards to the amount of weight i am lifting with each exercise so my question is will i be able to maintain this progression while on a fat buring routine or am i gonna burn myself out / cause injury bla bla bla?

I pretty much agree with Hanley here in that you probably want to focus on one thing at a time. It's absolutely possible to increase strength while on a calorie deficit but it generally requires quite a solid knowledge of your personal physiology and how you respond to the time of day you lift, what you eat, when you've had enough, when you can take another beating etc etc.

If you keep lifting heavy you will increase your lean body mass. If you keep your diet clean and at a *slight* deficit it will help your body to use fat stores as the extra energy supply it needs to function. Very often the simple act of cleaning up the diet - taking out fast and processed foods, cutting down alcohol, eating regular protein-rich meals and bucket loads of fresh veg - is enough to help your body composition start to change in itself.

If your body fat is around 25% then it's too high, simple as. I'm quite sure that eating properly at, or slightly above, maintenance will help you shed some of that fat rather quickly and making some small changes will go a long way. Often people think that a radical overhaul is needed to improve their appearance when usually it's only the smallest tweaks that need to be made.

Eat lean protein at every meal, eat a green vegetable at every meal, eat those meals 5-6 times a day, reserve starchy carbs for 2 hours before and 2 hours after your workout, get plenty of good fats and fish oils into you each day.

Put up a sample of your daily diet and we can start from there.

davyjose

Hanley wrote:

You are joking right???

He was already a national caliber olympic weightlifter. Brutally strong, but barely ever trained his upper body. And it did not take 14 weeks to build all that muscle.

I would have thought, having read the article in full last night, that it was quite inspirational, rather than something I could never do. I think the point was that in 14 weeks he got himself into a helluva decent shape compared to how he was before.
OP it's probably unlikely you will look like that in 3 months time, but you can still look pretty darned good. And i certainly don't think it's gonna take you 12-14 years, if you really go for it.

Hanley

davyjose wrote:

I would have thought, having read the article in full last night, that it was quite inspirational, rather than something I could never do. I think the point was that in 14 weeks he got himself into a helluva decent shape compared to how he was before.
OP it's probably unlikely you will look like that in 3 months time, but you can still look pretty darned good. And i certainly don't think it's gonna take you 12-14 years, if you really go for it.

Just to clarify, you think he can look like CT (who I might add is a lifetime drug free guy) sometime in the near future?

davyjose

Hanley wrote:

Just to clarify, you think he can look like CT (who I might add is a lifetime drug free guy) sometime in the near future?

Could you point out exactly where I said that?
I said, he could look a lot better within the same timeframe that CT took to change his body. There is, undoubtedly a massive transformation in the before and after pictures - freakish, and as he said in his article he had a lot going for him in order to be able to do this. So it's unlikely the OP can do this. But, it's proof that very definite improvements can be made in this time.
Also, Thibaudeau makes it very clear that it took him a lifetime to look like the before pictures, not the afters!

tribulus

I believe CT used gear for a short period when he was younger, although he admittedly didn't gain much from it as everything else wasn't in order.

t-ha

That's right trib, and he makes no secret of that (just another reason to admire the guy) though I doubt it has had any bearing on his current physique.

@the OP, what Hanley is rightly trying to tell you is that CT is carrying ALOT of muscle in that picture and he's got it in all the right places. That takes alot of time and effort to build up. That said, if you're 25%BF I wouldn't blame you at all for making fat loss your main goal right now. Once you're a bit leaner you'll be more comfortable eating for muscle gain, and then it's just a case of adding in treadmill work or using the diet that Hanley linked to to keep the flab in order.

FullOf..IT

g'em wrote:

If your body fat is around 25% then it's too high, simple as. I'm quite sure that eating properly at, or slightly above, maintenance will help you shed some of that fat rather quickly and making some small changes will go a long way.

thanks for the constructive reply. What loses can i expect to make per week by this suggestion. I have looked at the velocity diet as i want to shed quite quickly.

BossArky

Warm up well. e.g. 10 minutes on rower setting 3. This should feel easy, but will get the blood flowing and burn approx 100 to 130 calories depending on how hard you go.

Kill yourself once a week with 4 sets of 8 reps on bench, sqauts and dead lift (not all on same day... e.g Bench Monday, Sqauts Wed, Deadlift Saturday)... and fill the rest of the time with a handful of machines, free weights, cardio and eating well.

The heavy 3 will help your body to continue burning calories in your days off recovering. The cardio will burn the day to day calories.

I'm no expert though.

g'em

FullOf..IT wrote:

thanks for the constructive reply. What loses can i expect to make per week by this suggestion. I have looked at the velocity diet as i want to shed quite quickly.

Don't do the V-diet, at least not yet. The V-diet is quickly becoming the t-nation Lipotrim, people are jumping on it as a quick fix and an "easy" way to shed fat quickly. You'll lose it alright, but without the right diet in place you'll put it riiight back on again!! Trust me on that.

I absolutely promise you that implementing a solid basic healthy nutrition plan will stand the test of time much better than the V-diet will. The diet itself is the easy part (and by easy I mean really very hard!!) - it's *keeping* off the weight that's the hard part. Teach yourself how to eat right, how to eat smart, how your body responds to food and to various macronutrient ratios and aim for a 1-2lb loss per week. Sure, it's not as sexy an approach as something as radical as the v-diet, and it'll require more patience, but it works.

Sure, tehre are guys like Dan John who've done brilliantly well on the v-diet and kept the weight off, but lets not forget that he's trained for years, he already had plenty of lean body mass, and he had Chris Shugart on hand (the creator of the diet) to help him every step of the way. Diets like the v-diet and the GSD are great for people who have already built a solid base of muscle and knwo what to eat and how to eat it, but they want to shed bf to show off hard earned musculature.

At the end of the day, the choice is yours, and I know this isn't what you want to hear, but fwiw for LONG TERM fat loss, you can't beat a good old fashioned calorie deficient eating plan. I did the GSD for 8 weeks last autumn very succesfully, and it would have been virtually impossible for me to have stayed as lean as I was. In the run up to a competition I've now put on weight for strength, and in a couple of weeks I'll be starting a plan to lsoe it, but I'll be doing it slowly and in a controlled way - the "quick-fix" diets are just too radical to do all the time.