cutting up for summer...

[D.L.]

ok bros, this is my stats...

6'5, around 260lbs, around 18% bf...

goal: 10-14% bf... don't wanna go under 230lbs...

I'm doing about an hour of moderate cardio in the morning before breakfast and 20-30 mins of interval cardio after workout...

My diet looks like this:

Before morning cardio: Whey protein in water shake

Meal 1:
(another shake immediately after cardio) Bowl of oatmeal, 8 eggwhites + 1 yolk, 1 piece of fruit

Meal 2:
200-300g of any lean meat (chicken, beef, turkey etc), 1 baked potato, 1 large bowl of salat with various vegetables

Meal 3 (pre-workout):
Small portion of oatmeal, whey shake

Meal 4 (post-workout):
Shake with simple carbs

Meal 5:
200-300g of any lean meat, small portion of brown rice, large bowl of green salat

Meal 6 (before bed):
250g cottage cheese, shake

At night:
6 BCAA caps

I’ll drink a glass of milk or eat some fruit whenever I feel the need... except after 6pm...


I've tried a low carb diet before (but only for a month or so...) and found that it only drains my strengt and prevents me from training properly, so now I'm trying this one instead... sure feels alot better (and more healthy!)
so... is this just "perfect" or do you see something that needs to be improved???

[BIG TEXAN]

It looks pretty good, except the shake before the morning cardio. I'm not sure if it's just me or what, but I've been doing am cardio on an empty stomach on mon., tues, thur., and fri. for 30 minutes and eat right afterward and my strength has even improved, my bf has decreased and my workouts seem to go better. So to each his own though. Good luck bro.

[Pheedno]

First I would cut out the shake before cardio.

Secknd, Cut out the potatoes, too high glycemic index. Replace with some beans(small portion) or fiberous vegetable

Third- No fruit, too much sugar.


You mention you drink a glass of milk or eat fruit whenever the need. If you need a snack or your craving milk. Get organic 2% milk, it has 2.5g of fat and it tastes just like whole milk(Horizen is the brand I get). Instead of a fruit snack, try jerky.

No carbs 4-5 hours before bed.

Supplement flax oil sometime during the day. 1 Tablspn at least. Maybe after your cardio session.

If enough progress still isn't being made to your liking. I would add another cardio session in for about 30min sometime during the day.

[D.L.]

Originally posted by Pheedno
First I would cut out the shake before cardio.

Secknd, Cut out the potatoes, too high glycemic index. Replace with some beans(small portion) or fiberous vegetable

Third- No fruit, too much sugar.


You mention you drink a glass of milk or eat fruit whenever the need. If you need a snack or your craving milk. Get organic 2% milk, it has 2.5g of fat and it tastes just like whole milk(Horizen is the brand I get). Instead of a fruit snack, try jerky.

No carbs 4-5 hours before bed.

Supplement flax oil sometime during the day. 1 Tablspn at least. Maybe after your cardio session.

If enough progress still isn't being made to your liking. I would add another cardio session in for about 30min sometime during the day.

but if I don't get the protein and glutamine before cardio won't I burn mostly muscle instead of fat? This was recently discussed (I can't remember if it was on this board) and I think the conclusion was to get some aminos before any activity... if you have some info on this I would be very interested...

I know about the fruit and potatoes but I thought that if I just eat it early in the day it would be just the same...??? bear in mind that the meal with baked potato is around 12...
won't it somewhat blunt the insulin response when eaten with the peel on??

The milk I drink has 0.1g fat... skim milk...

I already take flax oil... and all other neccesary supplements...
I would also believe that it could be good to take just 1g of omega 3's before morning cardio...

[Pheedno]

I think glutamine would be fine before hand, but I still wouldn't have the protein shake. I think you'll find that catabolism won't be as bad as you think.

Well, even eating the high gycemic index foods early is still eating high glycemic foods. Replacing them with slower digesting carbs will help in attaining a more effecient metabolism. It would actually be a good thing to confine all your carbs in 2-3 meals so that insulin spikes are less frequent.

You got the milk thing covered but I will say the organic tastes awesome.


Remember, the more the meals, the faster the metabolism. When I'm cutting I eat 8 meals with only 3 containing carbs(give credit to Mike XXL for that tidbit) so that insulin spikes are eliminated. You stated you don't like low carb diets so possibly doing a 6-8 meal day with 3-4 containg carbs will help in speeding the metabolism, reduce that insulin, and keep carbs high enough to function to your liking.

[yellows2k]

What are your calorie numbers and macros. You might also find after a while that all that cardio is going to hinder recovery ability for your muscles.

I did some cardio today for 8 minutes after my workout.

[babi]

well our diet is almost identical,besides i dont have any protein shakes i substitute that one with egg whites too and my meal b4 bad is 250 gr of tuna with a spoon of flax oil.i think for someone like me and you trying to reduce to 12 or ten%b/f we dont need to be as strict with our diets to the extent that we eliminate fruits as we know they give great benefits to our health.ya know we aint going for a competition here where we need to be in single digits b/f wise.just one thing though you got to have patients,think about it if you dropp 1 or 2%b/f a month by the time summer hits you will get ther all natural and with a very minimal muscle loss then you do a cycle like fina,winny and a little bit of test just to keep you going and voila you are one big,ripped,mofo

[D.L.]

Originally posted by Pheedno
I think <a href="http://www.allsportsnutrition.com/listproducts.php?style=category&value=GLUTAMINE" target="_blank">glutamine</a> would be fine before hand, but I still wouldn't have the <a href="http://www.allsportsnutrition.com/listproducts.php?style=category&value=PROTEIN" target="_blank">protein</a> shake. I think you'll find that catabolism won't be as bad as you think.

Well, even eating the high gycemic index foods early is still eating high glycemic foods. Replacing them with slower digesting carbs will help in attaining a more effecient metabolism. It would actually be a good thing to confine all your carbs in 2-3 meals so that insulin spikes are less frequent.

You got the milk thing covered but I will say the organic tastes awesome.


Remember, the more the meals, the faster the metabolism. When I'm cutting I eat 8 meals with only 3 containing carbs(give credit to Mike XXL for that tidbit) so that insulin spikes are eliminated. You stated you don't like low carb diets so possibly doing a 6-8 meal day with 3-4 containg carbs will help in speeding the metabolism, reduce that insulin, and keep carbs high enough to function to your liking.

I'll try only eating the glutamine and BCAA's then...

can you give me an example of how you only eat carbs in 3 meals? breakfast, preworkout and postworkout? or how?

[D.L.]

Originally posted by yellows2k
What are your calorie numbers and macros.

I don't really use that calorie counting anymore... I think it only makes the whole thing that much harder...

You might also find after a while that all that cardio is going to hinder recovery ability for your muscles.

yeah I know... especially with the interval training, that's also why I've got to reduce this to everyone 2nd workout and only do moderate cardio when I'm not doing interval...
but I just try to sleep alot, take a shitload of supplements and not train my legs quite as hard...

[D.L.]

Originally posted by babi
well our diet is almost identical,besides i dont have any <a href="http://www.allsportsnutrition.com/listproducts.php?style=category&value=PROTEIN" target="_blank">protein</a> shakes i substitute that one with egg whites too and my meal b4 bad is 250 gr of tuna with a spoon of flax oil.i think for someone like me and you trying to reduce to 12 or ten%b/f we dont need to be as strict with our diets to the extent that we eliminate fruits as we know they give great benefits to our health.ya know we aint going for a competition here where we need to be in single digits b/f wise.just one thing though you got to have patients,think about it if you dropp 1 or 2%b/f a month by the time summer hits you will get ther all natural and with a very minimal muscle loss then you do a cycle like fina,winny and a little bit of test just to keep you going and voila you are one big,ripped,mofo

you're right, and I think that lower than 10% is not really worth it without AAS, you'd have to sacrifice to much muscle and size...

[yellows2k]

Originally posted by D.L.


I don't really use that calorie counting anymore... I think it only makes the whole thing that much harder...

You're right, you are definitely making it harder on yourself by not doing this. Without calories and macros you won't know if youa re getting too little or too high of calories. If you get too high you will never lose weight, if you get too little your body will slow down metabolism to a crawl. Good luck.

[D.L.]

yellow2k:
How do you suggest finding the calorie count for maintenance level? I think it'll be somewhere around 2500-3000 but how will I find it exactly?
I tried one of those calculaters on the internet, where you type in your daily activities etc and it said that I need 18000! WTF?!

[yellows2k]

Go to www.exrx.net. There's one there.

[D.L.]

Originally posted by yellows2k
Go to www.exrx.net. There's one there.

this one says 4500... I'm not gonna lose any weight with that...
Have you used such calculators to figure out your own need?

[yellows2k]

Yeah, mine comes to about 2650-2750 throughout several calculators. Many of the people here think I have no clue as to what I am talking about so I will no longer post here anymore. But I'm sure there are other people more qualified to help than I. Later.

[BIG TEXAN]

Hey yellows2k....check your pm!!!

[D.L.]

Well I certainly think that you know what you're talking about but I don't think that your macro values are that important...
after all you won't do the exact same activities everyday...
for instance, according to those calculators if I walk to the store and walk home again with two full shopping bags I'll burn no less than 500 cals... then I'd have to recalculate my whole food intake and percents and shit... maybe I'll need to shovel snow or something, that'll probably burn even more...

what's your opinion Pheedno? Would you use this?