Diet and Regime critique-approval?!

amg-slurp

Hi all,

Straight to it.
Im a 25 yr old male, 5 11 and currently 81kg with 18.5% body fat.
Down from 21% and 85/kg in the past 2 months, with added muscle.

Was actually expecting to be slightly lower in the bodyfat end of things, but oh well, its progress, and the disappointment will maybe spur me on!

My diet is pretty much as follows (kinda keeping it low carb).

Breakfast: 8.15am Porridge, made with water. With bluberries or strawberries.

11am: Protein Shake Sci Mx Omni Hardcore and maybe a cup of black coffee (no sugar)

1pm: Green salad (lettuce, spring onion, peppers, rocket, spinach etc etc, with grilled or roast chicken breast, or ham.
Fruit, usually orange and/or kiwi

4pm: Fruit as above

6.30pm Steak or chicken or fish, with vegtables (carrots, sweetcorn, green beans and brocolli)

8.30pm Protein Shake as above


Thats basically it! I dont drink a lot these days, used to drink every second saturday night maybe but dont even do that now. I take a break usually for 6-7 weeks at a time, maybe drink for one night and go back off it again.

Training wise,Weights 3 days a week. Started back with cardio today after 2 months off with a sprained ankle.

Monday Pm: Shoulders and arms (Maybe some full squats to finish, along with my ab work)

Wednesday Pm: Legs (and ab work)

Friday Pm: Back and chest (and again, abs and some deadlifts)

As i said, today was first day back doing cardio and god did i feel it!
I was considering doing 2 days cardio in the week, tuesday and saturday or sunday.

Cardio programme i used today;

Rower -Rowed 1500M at Lvl 9 Resistance (machine goes to 10). Took 6 mins or so today!

Then onto the crosstrainer.
Plan was to do 30 mins, i lasted 10.....but i aim to build that up obviously!
2.5 mins at Lvl 12, keeping above 60rpm, then 1 min at same level, but above 90rpm...then back to 60 for another 2.5 mins and so on and so on.
Aiming to do at least 6 sprints within the 30mins when i get that far.

How does all this sound? Aims are to get bodyfat well down, 12 is my big goal, but also want to get a bit bigger muscle wise, which ive succeeded in doing a bit.

Please advise!!
Alan

amg-slurp

111 Views and no reply.....

Red Cortina

Not exactly an expert but here is my 2c:)
You should probably decide to either focus on gaining muscle or else losing fat.
If you want to lose fat have you figured out how many calories you require per day vs how many you are consuming? Are you running a calorie deficit? Or else figure out the amount of calories you require and then figure out how much extra you need to gain muscle. I can't really comment on your program as don't know enough about that!
Best of luck with your goal

Mellor

I imagine he is trying to lose fat based on bf% comments, expecting to be lower.

OP, a few comments, based on trying to get your BF% down.
The protein shakes are generally used when gaining to get extra clean cals in. They could easily wipe out any deficit you are trying to run. Maybe replace with some clean whole food. Liquid calories can really count for a lot.

The meals look fine. As long as portion control is ok. go easy on sauces etc. Maybe add some eggs to brekkie every now and again.


Workout.
I would include squats every monday, actually on weds as its the leg day, same for deadlifts on a friday. These are far more effective than curls, flys and other arm and leg exercises you are likely doing. Include military or should press on monday in place to squats.


Abs everyday??? That's a bit pointless. Doing sit-ups, leg lifts, crunches etc will strength ab muscles, it won't reduce stomach fat. You are likely wasting gym time here. I probably cut them all together in place of some big lifts

Brian?

Lay out your workout in detail. What are you lifting for squat, deadlift and bench?

You might be better off doing a whole body routine rather than a split.

discombobulate

Had a look at that shake your taking. If your having 2 shakes a day thats over 1000 extra calories your taking in!!! I'd ditch these every day if your looking to reduce body fat. Look into something with a much lower calorie count or a low cal food alternative.

If your having 2 of these a day 7 days a week thats over 7000 calories. 3500 calories equates to a pound of lost weight so even if you were to halve the shakes you theoretically should shed an extra pound a week

optimistic_

F*ck me that is a whopper shake!

If you need the extra protien, look for a no carb, low calorie shake.

A full serving of mine (and i only take a half on gym days, after work out) is 162kcal.

amg-slurp

Right, bit of an update.

Been training away the last few months, weights 3 times a week still. Fairly regular too.

Got fitness test today, measured bodyfat, weight, flexibility, blood pressure etc etc.

Bodyfat was 17.5% and weight was 76Kg.
Again, dissapointed that the bodyfat wasnt down more considering the weight had dropped so much, but at least its heading the right direction!

Diet the past 3 weeks has been changed.
Basically low/no carb.

Breakfast @ 8am is:
3 eggs, poached or boiled usually.
Followed by nuts (cashew)

11am : Coffee, black or sometimes with double cream.

1pm: Green salad (peppers, lettuce, spring onion etc), Beetroot, and either Skinless Chicken breast or turkey or ham. The odd time it would be tuna or salmon.

6.30pm Fillet steak or Chicken Breast or Big Als burgers, Veg and/or salad.

Snack on cashew nuts during the day (150g a day maybe), and cashew butter (3-4 spoonfuls a day) and maybe 2 litres of water.

After training only, i take a whey/cassein shake. Only supplement i take other than multivits.

Really wanna get this bodyfat down. 12 is my aim. Feeling a lot better with myself as is, need new jeans tho. 32s hanging on me :pac:

Any advise/recommendations?

*also, Standing Barbell Military Press is tough! Done for first time last night!
:eek:

gonedrinking

Are you continuing to do ab work every training day? If so do you think they helped get your waist size down? Or do you think that was more a result of cutting your carbs?

amg-slurp

gonedrinking wrote: »

Are you continuing to do ab work every training day? If so do you think they helped get your waist size down? Or do you think that was more a result of cutting your carbs?

Dont think the ab work affected that at all really. Mainly losing the weight flattened the belly a bit, and lost the inch or two around the midriff.

Ab work is done in small amounts three times a week still, yes. Might change that to one day, an additional day to my Leg, back and chest, and arms and shoulder day.
Work on abs and core and that maybe along with some more cardio on a saturday or sunday.

amg-slurp

Anybody any advice?

What kind of cardio is best for fatloss and will spare muscle!

amg-slurp

Bummmmp

Brian?

amg-slurp wrote: »

Anybody any advice?

What kind of cardio is best for fatloss and will spare muscle!

Just do cardio, don't worry about burning muscle.

marathonic

Do you not feel drained of energy with no carbs?

I'm just a beginner myself. I started the gym last month and my primary goal was fatloss. I had no muscle because I'd never weight-trained before and have an office job. This made things simple because it was just cardio and calorie deficit you had to worry about.

I added in some weight training (primarily isolation machines so far) and during the past month have dropped from 85kg to 82kg and added muscle (so have lost more than 3kg fat).

However, now that I've added muscle, it add's the complication of trying to maintain muscle whilst losing bodyfat.

Personally, I'm just continuing to lift weights and do cardio whilst making sure I get plenty of protein and maintain a calorie deficit.

I'm going to continue this until the end of November before reassessing. If I'm happy with my bf levels (I've no idea of the current percentage), I'll increase my calories to an excess of 500 calories and concentrate on the weights moreso than the cardio.

It may not be the correct thing to do and I suppose everyones different anyway but I'm happy enough proceeding this way as I'm in no real panic to reach the end goal.

Wonkagirl

amg-slurp wrote: »

Anybody any advice?

What kind of cardio is best for fatloss and will spare muscle!

I would say interval training- on any machine.. or interval running outdoors

Would gaining a bit of lean muscle not increase the rate at which you burn fat though?

Roger Marbles

At 85kg (21% bodyfat) your total bodyfat was 17.85kg

At 81kg (18.5% bodyfat) your total bodyfat was 15kg (so you lost nearly 3kg or 6.6 pounds of bodyfat in 8 weeks = good progress)

Your last reading puts your total bodyfat at 13.3kg which means you've lost about 4 pounds more.

This is good progress

Keep up the training and cardio.

Adjust your maintenance calories diet for your new weight and adjust your calorie deficit based on that.

amg-slurp

When you put it like that, it sounds more impressive! Thanks for that!

See the thing is, i dont understand the whole calories thing too well.
Like i know what a defecit does and so on, and the same for gaining.....but i dont know how many calories i eat! I tried using a site before to work it out but i was a tad confused! :-/

Heres my attempt at using FitDay..
Fat 52%
Protein 34%
Carbs 14%
Total Calories 2081

Roger Marbles

Use this to calculate your maintenance calories:

The Harris-Benedict formula (BMR based on total body weight)
Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) - (6.8 X age in years)

or

Katch-McArdle formula (BMR based on lean body weight)
BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)

Then multiply the BMR with ur activity level

Activity factor
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)

Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)

Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)

Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)

Extr. Active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2 X day training, marathon, football camp, contest, etc.)

Then go 15-20% below it and keep doing what your are doing in other areas.

Mellor

He was looking to calculate the cals he eats, not what he needs.
OP, you just have to count them, that means reading the data on packages, weighing food etc until you get a good idea. Count everything, its easy to underestimate when you just guess.

If you have an ipod touch or iphone I suggest getting myfitnespal, its a free app and is great for counting, even you you still have to manual work a lot of as portion sizes vary.

amg-slurp

Thanks Roger and Mellor!

SanoVitae

amg-slurp wrote: »

Thanks Roger and Mellor!

Roger Melly would give you a great diet and regime critique!:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Mellie