Cutting Diet, 8 weeks in, Advice?

I'm trying to do a good cut this summer for the first time and I've come to a point where I'm not sure what to do next. Perhaps you guys can help me out. Here is some info:

Stats Currently I am 6' 193 lbs @ approx 10-12%bf. I've been cutting for 8 weeks now. I started out at 3,000 calories and reduced them every week by approx 300. I am now consuming 1300 cals a day. I eat totally clean 6 days out of the week with 1 cheat day. I started at 200lbs @ ~15%bf. I've attached before and current pics below.

Workout I train using HIT so I work out only every 4th day. I do cardio on my off days for 30-50 mins. Right now it is regular cardio with a steady heartrate around 130, although I am contemplating switching to HIIT cardio.

Diet:My diet follows a pattern like this.

Meal 1: High Carb, Med Protein ex: Egg whites, Oats, Fruit

Meal 2: 50/50 Carb Protein ex:Myoplex Lite Shake

Meal 3: Low Carb, High Protein, Med Fat ex: Chicken, Salad, Flax Seed Oil

Meal 4: Med Card, Med Protein, Low Fat: ex: Chicken, Yams, Brocolli

Workout or Cardio

Meal 5 (post workout): Same as meal 2 except workout days when I have a shake with Sunny Delight, honey, and Whey Protein

Meal 6: Same as Meal 3

Supplements: I take Glutamine and BCAA's in the morning, and pre and post workout. I stopped taking Creatine about 2 weeks ago to prevent water retention. I really don't want to have to take any fat burners, I'd like to be able to cut without them.

My main concern now is that my calories are too low. I don't want my body to start holding onto fat because it fears starvation, nor do I want to start burning muscle. The way I see it now I have three options.

1. Keep my calories where they are 1300 (seems really low)
2. Continue to reduce my calories each week (probably not a good idea right?)
3. Increase my calories (maybe to like 2,000) and then start the process of decreasing them every week over again.
4. Something I haven't thought of?

Suggestions anyone?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fyerstarter

I'm trying to do a good cut this summer for the first time and I've come to a point where I'm not sure what to do next. Perhaps you guys can help me out. Here is some info:

Stats Currently I am 6' 193 lbs @ approx 10-12%bf. I've been cutting for 8 weeks now. I started out at 3,000 calories and reduced them every week by approx 300. I am now consuming 1300 cals a day. I eat totally clean 6 days out of the week with 1 cheat day. I started at 200lbs @ ~15%bf. I've attached before and current pics below.

Workout I train using HIT so I work out only every 4th day. I do cardio on my off days for 30-50 mins. Right now it is regular cardio with a steady heartrate around 130, although I am contemplating switching to HIIT cardio.

Diet:My diet follows a pattern like this.

Meal 1: High Carb, Med Protein ex: Egg whites, Oats, Fruit

Meal 2: 50/50 Carb Protein ex:Myoplex Lite Shake

Meal 3: Low Carb, High Protein, Med Fat ex: Chicken, Salad, Flax Seed Oil

Meal 4: Med Card, Med Protein, Low Fat: ex: Chicken, Yams, Brocolli

Workout or Cardio

Meal 5 (post workout): Same as meal 2 except workout days when I have a shake with Sunny Delight, honey, and Whey Protein

Meal 6: Same as Meal 3

Supplements: I take Glutamine and BCAA's in the morning, and pre and post workout. I stopped taking Creatine about 2 weeks ago to prevent water retention. I really don't want to have to take any fat burners, I'd like to be able to cut without them.

My main concern now is that my calories are too low. I don't want my body to start holding onto fat because it fears starvation, nor do I want to start burning muscle. The way I see it now I have three options.

1. Keep my calories where they are 1300 (seems really low)
2. Continue to reduce my calories each week (probably not a good idea right?)
3. Increase my calories (maybe to like 2,000) and then start the process of decreasing them every week over again.
4. Something I haven't thought of?

Suggestions anyone?

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Up your cardio to 6 days a week for 45 to 60 min.Going from hitt to norm cardio.That includes your weights.

I did pretty much exactly what you did but, even though you seem to be against it, I'd add some ephedra-based product as well as r-ALA to your diet.

Also, and I very strongly suggest this, take 2 days and eat ~3000 cals a day for those days with lots of carbs--good and bad (don't forget the r-ALA!). The rebound effect will crank your leptin levels to superhuman levels for a few days and you'll drop a few more pounds very quickly.

I'd suggest doing that every 10 days or so, in fact, when you're on such a restricted diet--believe me when I say you're burning tons of muscle right now on that few cals plus the cardio and dropping your cals or increasing cardio at this point would probably be a bad idea.

This may not be a concern (it wasn't for me--I just wanted the fat off!) but, if it is, do not drop those cals or up the cardio!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Short_Guy

I did pretty much exactly what you did but, even though you seem to be against it, I'd add some ephedra-based product as well as r-ALA to your diet.

Also, and I very strongly suggest this, take 2 days and eat ~3000 cals a day for those days with lots of carbs--good and bad (don't forget the r-ALA!). The rebound effect will crank your leptin levels to superhuman levels for a few days and you'll drop a few more pounds very quickly.

I'd suggest doing that every 10 days or so, in fact, when you're on such a restricted diet--believe me when I say you're burning tons of muscle right now on that few cals plus the cardio and dropping your cals or increasing cardio at this point would probably be a bad idea.

This may not be a concern (it wasn't for me--I just wanted the fat off!) but, if it is, do not drop those cals or up the cardio!

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I'm not familiar with r-ALA. Can you tell me about how it works or point me to some info on the product? I searched the web and didn't find much.

I don't like the idea of ephedra or other thermogenics because I really don't like any drugs/herbs that make me feel screwy (twitchy, nervous, jittery, increased temperature and heart rate, etc). Recently the doctor prescribed me some pills to fight an allergic skin reaction and those things bugged the hell out of me! Felt like I was floating on cloud 9 all day long, I couldn't sleep or concentrate, and I didn't get anything done at work. I stopped taking the medication the second it cleared up against the doctors recommendation to continue for a couple weeks afterwards. I just couldn't stand it. I'm normally a very relaxed person and anything that gets me climbing the walls bugs me (probably also explains my slow-asss metabolism ;)

On my cheat day once a week I eat at least 3,000 calories and lots of carbs. Usually eat something like pizza or lasagna, and ice cream in addition to some of my regular meals.

http://www.ralapure.com/?s=g&p=rala

This site features lots of info on the benefits of r-ALA supplementation in easy-to-digest amounts :)

You can also do a search on this board and find mountains of posts on it as well.

As for intolerance of ephedra-based products, I'd give it a shot anyway--the nasty side effects generally taper off as you get used to it. I used to get the same 'climbing the wall' effects as you, but now I don't feel a thing ;)

You can buy r-ALA (the kind I, and many others on this board use) at https://www.anabolicfitness.net/ under the brand name Glucorell R: enter the coupon code "afdiscount" to get the price down.

One big key........

doing cardio in the evening after loading up on carbs all day isn't going to do squat for your fat burning efforts. You're merely burning off calories that could be used for repair, and not doing anything for stored bodyfat.

There are far more things I'd change/take out/ etc., but that's a big eyesore I noticed.

~SC~XXL~2K3~

Thanks for the advice SwoleCat. So then cardio in the morning before breakfast is a better right? I'd love to buy one of your diet programs but I think I will wait for next year after I have been able to put on some substancial mass. I feel like I've botched this years efforts through inconsistency (the first pic is after I slacked off for 2 months on diet and workout) so now I'm just trying to throw together a quick "beach body" for the summer even if it means losing some muscle. Then I plan to get back on track this fall and hopefully correct a lot of the mistakes I made this first year.

I will start doing cardio in the mornings 6 days a week and up the time as suggested. I bought a jump rope yesterday and was thinking about doing that a couple days out of the week because the bike and eliptical machine are getting pretty boring. I've also decided to add a couple more chicken breasts into my meal plan throughout the day just to up the calories to around 1500 without extra carbs (right now Im eating about 105g carbs, 135g protein, and 30g fat, and that will bring the protein up to around 200. I'm gonna axe the Sunny D in the postworkout shake because I'm guessing fructose and sugar aren't the best post workout carbs. Instead I bought some Gatorade powder which has dextrose.

Short-Guy; Thanks for the info, I'll read up on r-Ala.

Any other suggestions are welcome.

R-Ala is a god send!

I'm back to report some progress, but very slow progress. I've been dieting down from 15% for nearly four months now and I'm stuck at around 11%. I'm starting to wonder if I will ever see the single digits. I do cardio 3-5 times a week (20 mins high intensity interval on an empty stomach) and I think I've got my diet nailed down pretty well. Maybe it is time to start thiking about adding a fat burner into the mix?

I work out once every four days following a Mentzer style HIT program (which I love and works well for me, although I am on a reduced carb and calorie diet I still have exceeded my personal bests every single time I've stepped foot in the gym since starting the program). On workout days my diet is around 2250 cals with carbs concentrated only around workouts, on non workout days I eat virtually no carbs and around 1550 cals. I am currently around 190 at 11% bf and I wish to get down to 6%. What should I do?

Here is my diet:


Non-Workout Days, low-carb (3 days) 1600 cals

Meal 1: Egg omellette with 1/3 c reduced fat cheese, mushrooms, green peppers, salsa

Meal 2: Protein shake mixed in water(Optimum Pro Complex blend)

Meal 3: 2 chicken breasts, 1c brocolli

Meal 4: Egg omellette with 1/3 c reduced fat cheese

Meal 5: 4oz lean ground beef, 1 slice medium fat cheese, 1 boiled egg

Workout Day, medium carb (1 day) 2250 cals

Meal 1: Egg omellette with 1/3 c reduced fat cheese, mushrooms, green peppers, salsa

Meal 2: Protein shake mixed in water(Optimum Pro Complex)

Meal 3: 1 chicken breast, 1c brocolli, 1.5c brown rice

Meal 4 (pre-workout): 1.5c oats, 1 scoop protein powder (Optimum Pro Complex blend)

Meal 5 (post-workout): 1sc Whey Protein, 2 scoops dextrose

Meal 5.5 (30 mins after workout): 1c lowfat cottage cheese

Meal 6: 4oz lean ground beef, 1 slice medium fat cheese, 1 boiled egg

Hell yeah!

Well I'm finally off my plateau, Using the diet listed above by cutting carbs in three day cycles and also integrating a fat burner I'm back on track. I'm now down to 186 and cruisin :D I've also switched to doing cardio 7 days a week alternating days between 20 mins of high intensity and 45mins of low intensity.

glad to hear things are working out for you brotha

1300 calories seems like too little on a keto...are you noticing any muscle loss?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fyerstarter

Hell yeah!

Well I'm finally off my plateau, Using the diet listed above by cutting carbs in three day cycles and also integrating a fat burner I'm back on track. I'm now down to 186 and cruisin :D I've also switched to doing cardio 7 days a week alternating days between 20 mins of high intensity and 45mins of low intensity.

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186 great job where is the updated picture????
Beach Body and it's still August.

Ya bro, good thing that you upped the cals, 1300 cals a day is not nearly enough. If I did that I would loose muscle like mad. I just had to up my cals to just under 2300 becuase 2050 was making loose weight/muscle way too quick. I also started drinking a single serving protein shake in the morning a half hour before cardio to save any muscle.

I'm now down to 182-183 and the abs and veins are starting to pop out, I'm guessing my bf to be around 8-10% now. I really think I have found the sweet spot for myself as far as calories are concerned with 1600 on non-workout days and 2200 on workout days. Oh yeah, I cut out all cheat days and follow my workout with 20 mins of low intensity cardio (walking on treadmill).

I can't really tell if I've lost actual muscle or not, I know that I am smaller but I've never been down to this low of a bodyfat. One thing I know for sure is that I haven't lost any strength in fact I am still gaining. So if that is any indicator of muscle then I'm doing good.

I hope to get down to about 6% this summer, take some pictures, enjoy it for a month or two and then get started on bulking again and putting on some new mass for next year. I'm really looking forward to bulking, not really because I miss food but because this will be the first full year I'll be able to approach it with all the nutritional knowledge I've gained from reading boards like these.

I'll probably post some new pics in a week or two.

I posted some new pics in the pictures section. http://anabolicreview.com/vbulletin/...788#post581788

I am exactly 180lbs right now. The flourescent light in my office doesn't do a whole lot for definition, but you get the idea. I think this will be the extent of my cutting for now, I've been at it a couple of months and I'm starting to notice some muscle loss, plus I'm really eager to start putting all my newfound knowledge to the test in this next bulking phase.

great job on the progress bro!

Diet looks good but I personally would rearrange the timing of the carbs.

Limit carbs to meal #1, post-workout, and post-post workout. Stick to protein and fat for all else, except meals following intense training. Another thing, I would have the steak pre-workout instead of after training. Stay away from fat after workout, insulin levels are high enough to store the fat as well, FAT.

~US~

Quote:

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Originally Posted by usualsuspect

great job on the progress bro!

Diet looks good but I personally would rearrange the timing of the carbs.

Limit carbs to meal #1, post-workout, and post-post workout. Stick to protein and fat for all else, except meals following intense training. Another thing, I would have the steak pre-workout instead of after training. Stay away from fat after workout, insulin levels are high enough to store the fat as well, FAT.

~US~

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Actually I switched to working out in the mornings recently and re-arranged the order so it's pretty much like you described. Wake up, carbs pre-workout and post workout, and post-post workout with little fat, then the rest like normal. I'm done cutting for now though, today I start bulking again. Woohoo!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fyerstarter

Actually I switched to working out in the mornings recently and re-arranged the order so it's pretty much like you described. Wake up, carbs pre-workout and post workout, and post-post workout with little fat, then the rest like normal. I'm done cutting for now though, today I start bulking again. Woohoo!

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Everytime you try to bulk you just seem to get fat, so why bulk???

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nynsb

Everytime you try to bulk you just seem to get fat, so why bulk???

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I don't think that I get abnormally fat when bulking, the only time that happens is when I stop working out and start eating junk food. Last year when I was bulking I never got above 15% bf. This year I hope to do an even better job.

This is what I have planned for my bulking diet. It's not totally strict but I want to live a little, so there are foods in there that I like even if they may not provide the perfect nutrient ratio/timing. I'll see how it goes for a couple months and make adjustments from there.

BULKING DIET

BREAKFAST 8:00AM
Protein Pancakes

• Oats (1c)
• Eggs (3)
• Protein Powder (1sc)
• Nuts (1/4c)
• Raisons (1/4c)
• Milk (16oz)
• Multivitamin
• BCAA + Glutamine
• Water (20oz)

POST-WORKOUT SHAKE 10:00 AM
Gatorade Protein Shake

• Whey Protein Powder (2sc)
• Gatorade (1 sc)
• Creatine (5g)
• BCAA + Glutamine
• Water (16oz)

MORNING SHAKE 12:00 PM
Protein Shake

• Protein Powder (2 scoops)
• Creatine (5g)
• Water (16oz)
• Flavor
• 1 Piece Fruit (Apple, Banana, Orange)

LUNCH 2:00 PM
Hamburgers

• Hamburger Buns (2)
• Lean Ground Beef (8oz)
• Cheese (1oz)
• Ketchup, Mustard, Pickles, Tomato, Lettuce
• Water (20oz)

AFTERNOON SNACK 3:00 PM
Tuna Casserole

• Tuna (small pk)
• Pasta (1srv)
• Mushroom Soup (1/4c)
• Peas
• 1 Piece Fruit (Apple, Banana, Orange)
• Water (20oz)

DINNER 6:00 PM
Chicken and Rice

• Chicken Breasts (2)
• Brown Rice (1c)
• Vegetables (1c)
• Water (20oz)

PRE-BED 11:00PM
Cottage Cheese

• 1c Cottage Cheese
• Cheese (1oz)
• Nuts (1/4c)
• BCAA + Glutamine
• Water (20oz)