Out of shape and getting back to it, please advice

Read, learn. You're not ready to be told what to eat and when to eat it yet - you've got to have a basic understanding of nutrition. Once you review the info compiled below, you'll be ready to post a diet that, given some tweaking, will yield the results you want. I'd rather that than simply throw you a fish. It's always better to teach a man how.

Also, you should lift weights really hard!

Part 1 - The basics

If you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. If you burn less, you will gain weight (via muscle, fat, or both depending on the food choices and planning). Period. There are 3500 stored calories in one pound of body fat. 3500 negative calories equals one pound of fat loss. So let’s break it down a little further, based on our individual statistics and goals.

Stats – BMR and TDEE are the two figures that can tell us a lot about how we should be eating based on our goals.

Let’s start with BMR. This is your Basal Metabolic Rate. AKA – how many calories you burn each day by just sitting on your ass. In order to figure out your BMR, you need to know what your lean body mass is. In turn, you need to know what your body fat percentage is.

If you don’t know your body fat percentage, remind me to test it for you before we proceed. If you’d rather not do a caliper test, just tell me and I’ll give you a pretty good visual estimate.

With your bf % in hand, here’s the formula:

BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)

Total weight x bf % in decimal form = total bf weight

Total weight - total bf weight = total lean body mass

For example:

I am 6'1 210 lbs at 10% body fat... so I would multiply 210 by .10 (converted from percent to decimal) = 21 lbs

210 – 21 = 189 lbs lean body weight

189 / 2.2 = 86.0 lean mass in kg

370 + (21.6 x 86) = 2227.6 BMR (this is high for the average person)

Now that we have a BMR figure, we can move on to TDEE. Total Daily Energy Expenditure. This is how many calories we actually use during the day via our BMR and activities such as work, exercise and various tasks. We can figure this number out with simple math but be honest because this figure is to be the cornerstone of your diet and healthy lifestyle. We need to determine your activity level. We’ll choose from a few levels:

1 If you are sedentary (little or no exercise): Calorie - Calculation = BMR x 1.2
2 If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week): Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
3 If you are moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week): Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
4 If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week): Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
5 If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training): Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9

For example:

I train with weights 5 days for 90 minutes per week. I play hockey three times per week
for 90 minutes. I do 60 minutes of cardio training 5 times per week as well. In addition to games, I also practice my sport 3 times per week for 90 minutes. Either via skating or puck/shooting drills. All are high-intensity. I am between very and extra active. Let’s say BMR x 1.8. My TDEE is 4010.

This is how many calories you can eat and still break even. To lose weight, we must eat below this number. To gain, we must eat above it. 1000 calories below your TDEE daily, will result in negative 7000 calories per week. Remember, 3500 calories is one pound of fat loss; so you’re losing two pounds per week. And that’s with just diet alone. Now, let’s factor in additional caloric deficit via cardio. Say, you also run for 45 minutes in the morning and burn 600 calories in the process. That puts you at negative 1600 calories per day. Now we’re talking four pounds per week. Imagine (and I don’t recommend this) if you ate 1500 below your TDEE and ran for 2 hours per day, burning 1600 calories in the process, putting you at negative 3200 calories daily. Now we’re talking about a pound per day. You could be at your goal weight in a matter of weeks. However, this would destroy your BMR and make you gain weight back quickly if you started eating normally again without a gradual increase in calories over several months. The most appropriate course of action with regard to sustainable results and metabolic health is to be as patient as possible and do more cardio while maintaining a minimal deficit to ensure your body is as nourished as possible while on a fat loss regiment.

Part 2 – Exercise.

I’ll keep this part short and sweet because we’ll do the real work in this area during our sessions in the gym. There are only two major types of exercise that will help you realize your goals.

1 Resistance training: AKA – lifting weights. In doing this, we shred our muscle tissue and force our body to rebuild it, bigger, stronger, and leaner than it was before. This is our body responding to the strain, becoming better prepared to handle it next time around. In rebuilding muscle tissue, our bodies require lots more nutrients and calories. For example, if you work out hard and feel sore the next day, your body is, at this point, a calorie burning machine. Some experts say we burn as much as 30% more calories in a sedentary state in the days following strong workouts. Basically add 30% to your BMR if you lift weights. Ya dig?

2 Cardiovascular training: There are many types and ways to employ this type of training. At a high body fat percentage; high intensity cardio is going to be most effective. This means keeping your heart rate highly elevated (about 80% of max) for more than 20 minutes at a time, usually via running. Our bodies burn calories at an incredible rate when doing this and unless we have tons of carbohydrates and stored glycogen in our body (we’ll get into carbs later) – will have no choice but to burn some fat for energy in this state as well. At a low body fat percentage when the goal is to preserve muscle and gradually shed that last bit of stubborn fat, I recommend low intensity cardio. This involves longer sessions at fewer heart beats per minute (65% of max heart rate). The calorie burn is not equivalent to interval or high intensity cardio but in this heart rate range; fat is targeted, while lean tissue and muscle glycogen are spared. Anyway, enough said, right? Do cardio, create a caloric deficit, burn body fat, lose water weight by sweating, which makes you feel thin. It’s huge.

Part 3 – Diet - Macronutrients:

I love analogies. Let’s use a good one. Think of your perfect body as a house that you must build. You’ve figured out your BMR and TDEE, so you know the exact specs of the property you have to work with. I’ve told you how exercise affects weight loss and how much of a caloric deficit we must create to lose said weight; so you know how to build - you understand architecture. You also know the pace you intend on losing weight at based on these other factors, so you know it will be harder to get your house built in weeks as opposed to months. The only thing left is the tools/building material you must use and because you don’t know how to eat, you still can’t build anything. At least, not well. Sure, you can starve yourself for a few months but you’ll just gain all the weight back in 2-nights of binge drinking – you’re house will fall down!

So, let’s talk tools baby. Let’s talk food. First off, there are only 3 types of foods/macronutrients. Protein. Carbohydrates. Fat. That’s it.

Protein – 4 calories per gram - Building material. Bricks. You can’t gain energy from protein, you can only use it to build muscle/skin/hair/nails. It’s basically just amino acids and it’s what our bodies are made of. As such, we need lots of it. 1g of protein per body lb is a good number to shoot for. Go as high as 2g per body lb if you’re lifting weights and trying to build muscle. For example, I am 210 lbs and I eat between 300-400 grams per day. Conventional wisdom states that our bodies can only break down so much at one time, so we want to eat 20-40 grams of protein in every meal, several times per day. However, more and more literature to the contrary is being published every day and there is no hard evidence to support the 20-40g “max absorption” concept. Still, with regard to metabolic health and maintaining a balanced diet, splitting your daily protein intake up among many smaller meals is going to be most efficient. Protein, being building material only and not energy/labor – the body can rarely find a reason for it to be stored as fat. If you must over-eat – make it lean meat/fish.

Carbs – 4 calories per gram - Think of these as human labor for your house. Think of sugar as dudes you pick up out front of home depot and oatmeal as a skilled carpenter. Both are carbs, both serve very different purposes. Carbs do not build muscle; they are simply an energy source. As such, they should only be eaten/used when we need energy. Any carbs we ingest before bed or before watching a movie, or something sedentary are not used as energy, and as such, are stored in the body as glycogen (glucose/water in our muscles that we will use when doing high-intensity exercise). Once our glycogen reserves are full, they are stored as fat. Yes, they will make you fat. Carbs can be your best friend or your worst enemy. As such, I will teach you what carbs to eat and when.

Fats – 9 calories per gram - Like carbs, fats are an energy source, not a building material like protein. They provide nowhere near as much energy as carbs however and are not the body’s preferred source. With regard to our house, think of fats as the glue/cement. They provide much needed essential fatty acids, which are great for joint/organ health, metabolism, and increase our protein synthesis (body’s ability to make use of the protein we give it). Going back to our analogy, cement/glue increases the effectiveness of bricks! If we give our bodies the right fats, it will be able to burn stored body fat quickly as it won’t see any use in keeping it. Remember, like carbs – not all fat is good and ALL fat is high in calories so watch out. A tablespoon of peanut butter can be a good addition to a meal. Snack on 5-6 tablespoons means you’ve just eaten over your TDEE for the day.

Part 4 – Diet – What to Eat:
Acceptable proteins for your healthy lifestyle diet:
The goal is to eat lean protein. Meats/other sources low in fat/carbs.
Ground beef (93% lean or better)
Lean steak (Flank, flat iron, or top sirloin)
Bison sirloin (the highest quality red meat)
Chicken breas
Turkey breast
Tuna (canned or sushi grade)
Salmon
Tilapia (mostly all white fish)
All shellfish
Venison
Whey protein (post-workout recovery purposes only)
Casein/Cottage cheese (before bed only)

Black-List Protein sources. Do not eat these because they are high in fat. And not the
good kind we find in nuts and olive oil – I’m talking about cholesterol raising saturated
fat!
1 Bacon
2 Sausage
3 Expensive fat-marbled Steaks (Ribeye, Strip, Filet)
4 Pork and beef ribs
5 Pork/Lamb chops
6 Restaurant ground beef (80/20 fat – most burgers)
7 Duck
8 Chicken legs/thighs
9 Chicken skin
10 Cheese

Acceptable Carbs for your healthy lifestlyle:
Complex carbs are now your creed. These are slower-digesting, natural, low on the glycemic index carbohydrates that digest slowly and provide us with sustained energy. They do not drastically affect our blood sugar and do not cause insulin spikes. Thus our body sees no reason to store them as fat, it would rather burn them for energy. Simple carbs such as enriched white breads/pastas/rice/potatoes/sugars (including most fruit) cause insulin spikes and are high GI foods. They should not be eaten when on a strict diet. Fruit can be consumed early in the day or pre/post-workout because of it’s high nutritional value but should usually be avoided due to being a form of simple sugar. Remember, healthy, low-calorie foods aren’t always the correct foods and such is the case with fruit.
1 Oats/Oatmeal
2 Grits/Cornmeal
3 Unsalted/non-buttered popcorn (great, low-cal snack)
4 Sweet potato (the best choice)
5 Butternut squash
6 Whole wheat pasta (not enriched)
7 Organic whole wheat bread (not enriched wonder bread crap)
8 Brown rice
9 Ezekiel bread
10 Swedish grain bread
11 Gluten free bread
12 Wheat couscous
13 Corn
14 Quinoa
15 Lentils
16 Beans
17 Many more, look up the GI (glycemic index) for healthy choices

Black List:
1 White pasta
2 White bread
3 Baguette
4 Bagels
5 Cookies, cake, muffins, cupcakes, all sweets basically.
6 White couscous
7 White rice
8 You get the idea…

Don’t get discouraged upon reading this list. I still make desserts all the time with whole
grain flour and splenda. I buy bagels and baguettes at the health food store that use
complex carbs as a base. If you’re dedicated, you don’t have to miss out 100%

Acceptable fats for your healthy lifestyle:
We look for fat sources that are high in omega-3, 6, and 9 fatty acids. Also, many are high in protein. We do not want saturated fats such as butter, cream, meat fat. We don’t want test tube fats like trans (the worst). We want mono/polyunsaturated fats that our body can use for something other than calories. Remember, even good fats are high in calories.
1 Natural peanut butter (no sugar added, just roasted peanuts)
2 Natural almond butter
3 Cashews
4 Almonds
5 Peanuts
6 Flax seeds
7 Flax seed oil
8 Salmon and Trout (great fatty proteins)
9 Fish oil
10 Extra virgin olive oil (should be used on all veggies/salads)
11 Chia seeds
12 Grapeseed oil
13 Macadamia nut oil

Acceptable miscellaneous foods:

These foods don’t provide much as far as macronutrients but are great for adding vitamins/minerals and taste. Notice some of these other foods are dairy. Dairy is another animal’s milk. We lack the enzymes to digest it as they do and it’s high in fat/sugar. It should only be eaten early in the day for nutrient purposes with the exception of whey and casein (cottage cheese).
1 Skim milk (Hood brand is only 45 calories and 3g of sugar per cup)
2 Greek yogurt (no sugar added)
3 Berries (all berries are much lower in sugar than other fruits and packed with fiber/nutrients – eat berries)
4 Green Vegetables. These are technically carbs but they are packed with fiber (a type of carb that isn’t used as energy or stored). In bodybuilding/nutrition – we refer to most vegetables as fibrous carbohydrates. While a serving of Broccoli may have 6g of carbs, 5 are from fiber. Meaning that it contains only 1g of storable carbohydrates. In addition, green vegetables are a calorie neutral/negative food (our body uses more calories to digest them than they contain – think celery). Veggies should be eaten with every meal. Every day. If you do this, you can become almost impervious to getting sick. Some vegetables are better than others for healthy diets.
5 Many non-green vegetables. Most are fine – just check labels, some have a good bit of sugar and should be eaten in moderation only (carrots)