Diet Help

2ndal · 2018-10-12T12:10:54+00:00

Don't get caught in the haze of pop culture diet mystique. It's very simple. Calorie in, calorie out. If you're not losing weight (aka fat) you're eating too many calories.

Calculate your TDEE. I prefer this calculator. For an even more accurate TDEE, use this spreadsheet which tracks your calorie intake and weight over time. Note that it takes about 3-4 weeks of accurate tracking with this spreadsheet before you get a TDEE you can trust, but assuming you track calories correctly you can count on this method to be very accurate. Ignore the exercise modifiers and calculate everything with a sedentary lifestyle, unless you're a professional athlete.

Once you know your TDEE, eat at a deficit. Yes, your muscle and strength gains might suffer, but your goal should be to maintain there, not gain, during a cut.

Your first chunk of weight loss might take a while if you're continuing to lift at maintenance because you could be still building muscle. But push through that and eventually muscle gain will level out in accordance to your caloric intake and your scale numbers will drop along with your body fat.

Also don't rely solely on the scale to gauge success. Measure your body with a measuring tape in all of the right places and track that over time, too. (I suggest the Navy method of body fat calculation.) You will notice that often your weight changes little while your body geometry does significantly. Before, during, and after pictures help as well.

Track your daily caloric intake on a week-by-week basis. For example if your TDEE is 1700, and you're looking to cut a pound of fat per week, you're going to want to eat 1200 calories a day or 8400 per week. (That's a 500 calorie deficit per day, or 3500 per week: the same amount as a pound of fat.) Tracking the daily intake over the week nets you better insight into caloric averages and helps you regulate your daily input based on weekly progress.

It's also important to recalculate your TDEE on a semi-regular basis. This is because when you lose weight, your body expends less energy at a resting state, therefore you need less calories, which means you will lose weight at a slower rate unless you adjust your intake in accordance with your lower weight and lower TDEE.

If you're not losing weight it means you're eating too much. This is usually because of one of two reasons: 1) Your calculated TDEE is incorrect or 2) you're not weighing and tracking everything you eat correctly.

If you don't know what your TDEE is, if you do not have a food scale, if you're not weighing everything, if you're not tracking everything (don't forget cooking oils) in MyFitnessPal or LoseIt! then you can not expect to do this correctly. You must do all of that.

Finally, it takes time so be fucking patient. It's hard losing fat while continuing a strength program. You're lifting heavy and you're fucking hungry, and it's tough to eat at larger deficits which yield faster results. This makes it a long, slow burn; I like to think of it more as a lifestyle change than a diet or cut.

Yes, it's a pain in the ass, yes it takes time, but anything worth doing comes at a cost. It gets easier as you go and eventually becomes second nature.

If you're doing all of this and still not seeing the results you want, find a group of nutritional scientists and ask them to study you because your body works like no other human body on planet earth.

Good luck. We're all counting on you.

BobbyPeru · 2018-10-12T03:09:52+00:00

Focus on maintaining the muscle you have built and cut the fat. You will know you are keeping the muscle if you are losing weight and your strength remains constant.

Then, when you get 5 pounds below your ideal weight (factor in lost water weight), start doing bulking:cutting cycles. During cutting, practice intermittent fasting, at least 16 hours.

JudgeDoom69 · 2018-10-12T14:54:27+00:00

245lbs (down from 283)

Great progress!

You should use the MyFitnessPal app to track your macros and caloric intake.

Don't drink any calories. Drink only water or zero calorie beverages.

Cut out all alcohol.

Don't eat white bread or sugary foods.

zurgenfloggin · 2018-10-12T03:19:56+00:00

Keep lifting but cut fat until 10% to 12%. use the Navy body fat method instead of the hand held thing. Focus on your waist measurement -- over 40 inches is high risk, below 37 inches is much lower risk medically.

Know that your strength/muscle gains will be curtailed while you do this, but you won't lose muscle (not nearly as much) if you keep lifting. When you get frustrated that your muscles aren't getting bigger and your strength isn't going up tell your self not to get fat next time.

I went through this, I got stronger for 3 months and went from ~28% BF to 19% BF (229lbs to 208lbs). Took a 6 week breather at maintenance calories then went back into cutting to 12% BF (189 lbs). The drop from 19% to 15% seemed much more dramatic than the 28% to 19%. You look much better each pound of fat you lose after 20%. If your blood #s are high now they will all go down (cholesterol, blood pressure, triglycerides). Hell even my testosterone went up from low 200s to 400s. Dropping from 15% to 12% was even more dramatic. I can see abs at 12% but not a six pack. My face starts looking bony and weird at 10% and lower, so I am fine at 12%.

When you add carbs back in after your cut your lifts will go up. It's kind of amazing.

Sepean · 2018-10-12T05:58:27+00:00

This is a very thorough, no nonsense guide to everything on setting up your diet https://rippedbody.com/books/

redwall92 · 2018-10-12T12:31:56+00:00

I'm a CICO believer. I'll post my personal take on your question which I see as a basically a question of priority... 1) Lift to reach some certain lifting goal OR 2) Cut to reach some certain weight goal.

I had the same question. Still do at some level. Wish I had taken a different track earlier in my path.

I'm 6'2" started at 230lb. Started with SL 5x5 just the bar. Never been to a gym. Played rqball a lot - 3x a week. Rqball was my priority over lifting. Cutting weight was my priority over lifting. My lifts ... especially my bench ... went up slowly.

I did build muscle, up the weights, and get down to 190 over the period of about a year or so. Squat got up to 315x3. Shoulder and arm injuries kept the bench and upper body moving forward.

My lifting goals are body weight bench and 1.5 body weight squat.

My weight goals are a looks thing. Pretty sure <15% bf will get me the look I want. I did a DexaScan that had me at 18% when I weighed 187 while also injured and doing less in the gym and eating at a larger deficit.

Injuries cleared up. I have still managed to add weight while eating at a deficit. I have used MyFitnessPal since the beginning. Currently I'm at 193lb and benched 190 just this week - my new PR. Squatting 285x3 fairly easily. My goal is to get down to 190lb while keeping my bench at 190 - unless I happen to bench 195 and check my goal box that way.

Once I hit my goals in the gym it will be decision time for me as to how to spend my time there going forward. I dropped rqball for boxing earlier this year. Rqball is a huge calorie deficit for me. Boxing not as much. But boxing has been great for me and for my 15yo son. However, I want to pick rqball back up early next year.

IMO I've split my focus too much - leaned towards loosing weight more than adding muscle. Wish I could go back and start again while eating more at maintenance and pushing harder to add to the bar in the gym. Hit my goals on bench and squat. Then do a serious cut while attempting to maintain the muscle to get the look I want. Pretty sure I could have shortened my path by being more intentional about adding muscle and slowing the roll on weight loss.

Live and learn... Your path is yours. Track your calories and macros. Get enough protein and sleep.

Do you have clear goals for your lifts and looks?

ChokingDownRP · 2018-10-12T15:33:25+00:00

At 245, even at 6'4, you're probably pretty fat. Unless you're an NFL tight end, that size makes it seem that you're a big dude. Good work on loss thus far.

Keep cutting. Figure out your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), take off 500cals of that, and track your food in MyFitnessPal. The weight will come off if you are dedicated and continue tracking. But keep lifting heavy to preserve what muscle you have...you're going to lose strength as you lose weight (and muscle) but don't pussy out. Go as hard as you safely can.

johneyapocalypse · 2018-10-12T03:02:53+00:00

Kung-fu... southern, northern?

Focus on both. Cycle it. Get your macros right - use myfitnesspal it rocks - and you can build muscle while reducing fat. Or at least you can come god damn close to doing that.

I did that.

I cut out all shit carbs, IM'd 20/4 on weekdays, and worked-out fasted. I gained muscle and nuked fat doing that.

Myfitnesspal is a must.

p.s. I gained muscle while losing fat. There's a paleo-alternative by the dude from Mark's Daily Apple. It's good. He advocates up to around 100g - 150g carbs, including beans and fruit and it strikes me as more healthy and really easy to adhere to. RZD turned me onto IM and it's easy. I was more interested in cutting since I already had size. A lot of dudes, though, if they're not lard-asses, will mostly recommend size first, then cut. I think you're low enough at 21% that as long as you have some size you should drop further and get to 15%. You'll feel great there. Between biceps and abs my wife digs the abs the most.

And make 2% Greek yogurt your new best friend.

RedPill-BlackLotus · 2018-10-12T12:22:21+00:00

Start small, wax on wax off type of shit.

Don't complicate things.

Start by just writing down everything you eat for a couple of weeks. The point is, once you record everything you eat, you eventually only eat things you want to write down.

It's like building a sand castle.

Next, after you are comfortable recording your food, get a my fitness pal account and start weighing your portions. This will force you to limit your menu, that's the point.

Once you have a small list of foods you have on rotation you can weigh yourself every day and plot a line. The trajectory will tell you if you need to eat more or less.

You always lift the same. Always do cardio, even if you are trying to gain muscle, just eat some more food. If you nail the cardio habit it makes cutting painless.

The point is to establish your routine. The physique is a byproduct, it's a visual representation of your consistency.

SorcererKing · 2018-10-12T05:23:12+00:00

I understand that you cannot burn fat & build muscle simultaneously over the long run.

Depends on who you ask:

/r/leangains

FoxShitNasty83 · 2018-10-12T07:39:43+00:00

Read burn the fat feed the muscle. Track what you eat specifically look at setting macros. Get anal about it.

hystericalbonding · 2018-10-12T11:23:14+00:00

Going against the grain here.

Assuming natty.

If you're stalling and struggling, then eat at maintenance for 4-6 weeks while increasing strength. Cut again after that, using whichever diet strategy you prefer. It's a psychological break, and it may help to lessen the stress response. Losing 10% of body mass is a threshold for some people where things start to go awry in terms of testosterone, cortisol, gut symptoms, and fatigue. Drop 10%, maintain for a month or so, drop another 10%, rinse and repeat.

gameoflibidos · 2018-10-12T14:19:14+00:00

So I've lived by the slow body composition change for 2.5 years now. That is, I eat just slighty more than maintenance calories and in theory I gain muscle slowly which requires more caloric maintenance which then results in some slow weight loss and a slow cycle. While that has worked to a degree, it's frustrating how long it takes. (*note I am 41, it is harder for us at this age)

Most people though will tell you to drop the weight first. In which case I highly recommend Keto. It works. It's not the easiest diet to stick to, but it works for sure. Get the weight off and then start a bulk/cut cycle. Bulk in the fall, cut in the spring.

I will tell you though, at our age even if your T levels are good (mine are actually quite high for my age), it takes a long time to build a good physique. As I said, I'm 2.5 years in and I'm only maybe half way to my goal. I have considered the roids because of this. It's so slow its frustrating at times, but am still attempting to do it cleanly.

Make sure to get your T tested though. If you have low T, you'll get nowhere and be wasting your time except for the Keto diet part.

DeplorableRay · 2018-10-13T13:37:36+00:00

You may underestimate how many austistic fucks there are on this site that will take CICO for face value and rationalize that candy dinner.

ChokingDownRP · 2018-10-14T01:28:08+00:00

I'm going to start the new week off with a serious effort to lose weight by doing a keto with IF diet and continued lifting & cardio. I will Dial in my macros as I go. I lost significant weight on the Atkins diet around 13 years ago...gained it back because I lost focus and determination. Just didn't have the right mindset to maintain weight loss. I do now!

[deleted] · 2018-10-15T02:12:10+00:00

I find a large portion of the population could loose a noticeable amount of weight if they just cut out sugar from their diet.

Your coffee/tea should be black

Start removing any soda from your life

Even some yogurts have soda levels of sugar so start paying attention to the grams of sugar.

4 grams of sugar is 1 of those square sugar cubes.... if you start doing the math in your head and realize a soda is like 7-8 of those squares it might help you realize how toxic that shit is.