Tuesday, November 2, 2010
JC - Question
I want to get leaner, yet still maintain consistent strength gains. I'm currently around 215, but I'd like to be in the lower 190s/upper 180s. Any suggestions for losing bodyfat (which is not a primary goal like getting stronger, but still), yet still getting strong?
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I've always been skinny/lean, so I'm not the best person to give you advice about losing weight, but the first thing you need to do when considering body recomposition is to keep a food log. Sort of like how the first thing you need to do if you want to get stronger is to keep a training log. This is regardless of whether you actually have a plan.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion: Keep a food log for a couple months, then email it around to the people here who have ever cared about that sort of thing (me, Shanker, Rene?), and we'll be able to give you better advice.
The main way to lose weight is just to eat less, though. Start with the crap (junk food, soda, etc.) and keep the meats and veggies for sure. Think about it this way: whatever you're eating right now is allowing you to stay at your current weight. Eat less, and you'll lose weight. Chose correctly and train hard, and you'll lose mostly fat.
And finally, because you have a tendency to ignore advice, KEEP A FOOD LOG.
:)
I'm sure better/more specific advice will follow.
Warrior diet
ReplyDeleteEat meat and veggies. Eat your veggies first, then meat. Eat like 2-3lbs of meat a day. After the veggies and meat, you can have a some healthy carbs like beans or oatmeal. Trust me though, the meat will fill you up. Try that. There is a lot to the diet thing than I can explain, but if it doesn't work over a month or two, I can give you more info. Or I can tell you now...
ReplyDelete@Frank- Thanks, I'll keep a food log.
ReplyDelete@ Justin- I keep hearing about that Warrior Diet, primarily from the Chaos and Pain blog, I need to do some research first.
@ Aaron- If its possible, lol, I'd like the info now.... so I can prepare properly.
You might not believe it from looking at me, but I used to be much more severe and regimented about my nutrition than anything else. I eventually burnt out on this, so here I am at 220 lbs. Whatever.
ReplyDeleteBut if you want my advice, it's pretty similar to strength training -- do the basics, keep it simple, and be patient. A few key things to note:
- Do high-intensity cardio, not steady-state (ie, sprints not distance running).
- Lift heavy. You need to force your body to keep that muscle. Do NOT switch to a body building program while you diet -- watch the Ronnie Coleman video of him deadlifting 800x2 a couple weeks out of Olympia if you need convincing.
- Eat fruits and veggies. These are healthy, they will cover your nutrition requirements while you cut calories (and therefore total nutrient input) to lose weight. They are also bulky, so they help with satiation without giving lots of calories.
- Cut out ALL calories from liquids. Only drink water, tea, coffee, etc.
- Eat lean protein. Chicken or fish, but if you are responsible you won't eat fish that are from an endangered stock (which is most, and not tuna).
- Avoid simple carbohydrates like the plague, except in moderation first thing in the morning or immediately before or after exercise.
- Cheat. Don't try to be a Nazi. You can't expect healthy losses of more than one-two pounds per week (two pounds is quite aggressive) after the first losses in water and food weight. It will take a while, so take breaks from the diet to satisfy those cravings you have during the week. It's easier to hold off if you know you have a free meal on Saturday, and you end up cheating less overall with planned cheat meals.
- You don't need a fad diet or some super strict regimented plan if you aren't shooting to be in body building shape (which you aren't, trust me). Just be smart and disciplined, exactly like strength training in general.
Most of my info is from the late ironaddict at ironaddicts.com. There is enough info there for you. Like Nate said, avoid running, do sled dragging like Justin and I do, or hill sprints, or an elliptical. Super low intensity cardio like walking would be fine.
ReplyDeleteThanks a bunch Nathan. I think I am going to implement 15-20 min of interval training after my lifting sessions. So basically I'm going keep doing what I'm doing strength wise (5/3/1), and just adding the sprints with proper dieting.
ReplyDeleteEat less calories to loose weight. Cutting all calories from beverages and going vegetarian 5 days a week will get this done fast.
ReplyDeleteYou will not be quite as strong if you lose 20-30 pounds, but if you keep the same lifting program, you won't loose much strength and all the bodyweight exercises will be easier.
I disagree with garrett. Don't go vegetarian and you don't need to eat less calories to lose weight, or at least to lose fat. Also, if you keep the same numbers, but are lighter, you have gotten stronger.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to lose body weight (other than water weight, which is pointless), you need to change your calorie balance so you burn more calories than you consume. This almost always involves reducing calorie intake, so I'm going to need to disagree with Aaron. You don't want to be too drastic, however, as this will just fuck you over and not lead to anything good. (Powerlifters have a tendency to go to extremes -- just cut _slightly_ under the number of calories you need to keep things even.)
ReplyDeleteI think Garrett's suggestions are perfectly valid. You would probably want to pay attention to make sure you are getting enough protein, but otherwise this is an easy way to reduce calories without counting anything -- vegetarian food is more bulky, and therefore you get full on fewer calories. Of course, you don't _need_ to do this, but it might be easier. It is certainly better for the environment, and probably healthier than a meat-intensive diet.
A lot of sources will tell you that you need some ridiculous amount of protein each day. This is nonsense, biologically speaking. It has some effects to change ketosis (is that the right spelling?) so you drop water weight, but ultimately this doesn't matter. If you are choosing foods that are good protein sources (this doesn't have to be meat), you are fine.
To clarify, you don't need to eat a third of your calories from pure protein ... E.g., you don't need two chicken breasts at each meal. This is just overkill, but a lot of powerlifters/bodybuilders think it is gospel.
ReplyDeleteAbout the calorie deficit, there have been reports about how changing macronutrient ratios affect body composition. An example would be a guy was eating 4000kcal at a 30/60/10 pro/carb/fat for maintenance, and switched to a 30/10/60 pro/carb/fat and all of a sudden needed 5000kcal for maintenance.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of sources say you don't need that much protein, and only powerlifters/bbers (the people who actually get strong and build muscle) who say otherwise.
Think of the info as guidelines rather than rules. Nate has some differing views than mine along with others, and you really just have to find what works for you.
Justin got lean on low calories (2-3k) with something like a 30/30/30 macro ratio, I stayed lean with high calories (3-4k) and a 30/15/55 pro/carb/fat, and when I went to 4-5k calories with a 30/50/20 ratio I started to gain weight. Experiment.
Here's my $0.02. I think there are two things going on with the macronutrient things you bring up...
ReplyDelete(1) The amount of carbs you eat has a big impact on your water retention, leading to large swings in weight that aren't "real".
(2) Changing these ratios will impact your "steady-state" calorie burning because fat is harder to digest than carbs, especially if you are eating "bad carbs".
I'm not sure which is a bigger factor in what you are referring to -- I don't think (2) would be too significant as a general rule (changing muscle mass is the dominant factor afaik).
I know that I have, in the past, pushed 6-6.5 calories (1.5k shakes, olive oil shots) without noticing significant changes in body weight, and then dropped to 3k calories and after a week or two of adjusting not noticing any change from there either. A lot of this also depends on your own metabolism and how you react to changing food intake.
Ultimately, all you can do is follow simple rules and slowly increase output/decrease input until you are seeing the change you want. The key to remember here is that you do not want to drop weight too fast, so don't be drastic.
I think I'm done now.
-- With 22 years of training experience, I have never seen any non-complete-beginner getting (significantly) stronger and losing (a significant amount of) bodyfat without chemistry involved, assuming you mean doing this over a relatively short period of time (like 3-4 months). But if you're talking about a period of 1-1.5 years, this is possible with good planning.
ReplyDelete-- In your case, I think that the best possible scenario is getting leaner without getting significantly weaker.
@Danny! I did it this summer! (depending of your definition of "significantly"). Here's what I did:
ReplyDelete2300-2600 total calories/day, pretty much keto, only carbs pwo (this isn't even that important, just how I did it) and 1 day a week carb refeed. Protein is around 1.5g/lb. I used a simple wsbb template, because it's stupid to try big volume when you're running a calorie deficit. I also did LISS cardio 3-4 days a week.
I went from about 235 to 208 over 3 months. My bench went up about 10 lbs, squat almost tied pre injury pr, and dead went up like 40 lbs.
Right now however, I'm doing the warrior diet and the results are even better. Let me state in no uncertain terms that it kicks sooo much ass, that I can see no reason why I shouldn't eat this way for the rest of my life, even when trying to add weight. Plus, you can eat carbs on the WD, which means you can do HIIT as opposed to boring ass LISS.
Lastly, be careful how you implement your HIIT. Too many sprints will royally fuck your lifts.
Anyhow, that's just my experience. You're mileage may vary.
@Justin: But are you a complete beginner? :)
ReplyDeleteNo
ReplyDeleteIf you are coming off an injury / some time without serious training / being very far from your peak strength / ... you're essentially a complete beginner as far as potential improvements are concerned.
ReplyDeleteOk...The first two don't apply, so how do you want to quantify "very far from peak strength"? From when I started lifting, my S/B/D has gone up ~200/150/200 lbs. That seems pretty fucking far from beginner to me, regardless of how much potential I have left.
ReplyDeleteDogma says you can't get stronger and lose weight at the same time. My experience says otherwise. If you want to discount that by calling me a beginner...Well that's stupid. It's exactly like the Catholic church trying to silence Galileo and discredit the heliocentric theory because it contradicted their dogma.
Bottom line- You can get stronger and lose weight at the same time. You do this by training for neural gains, not hypertrophy. There is a trade-off between rate of fat loss and rate of strength progress. But you don't instantly get weaker as soon as you start to lose weight.
As far as the beginner thing...well you certainly won't gain a whole lot of strength if you are already advanced, but this is true regardless of whether or not you are dieting, so what's your point?
OK, it seems we struck a nerve. We are just giving you a hard time.
ReplyDelete>.< That was my initial thought, but Danny's post kind of pushed me away from that interpretation.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't trying to snap, it's just a topic I care about and tend to have strong feelings toward.
I appreciate everyone's input- thanks.
ReplyDeleteCareful Justin, the misnomer here are the words "weight" and "strength." In fact, science tell us that you cannot burn fat and put on muscle mass. This is Danny's point and in it he is 100% correct.
ReplyDelete...within a relatively short time period defined by months, not years.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Justin, are you seriously comparing your individual weight loss/weight room progress with heliocentric theory? Because if you have discovered a breakthrough, writing a book instead of getting pissed on a blog post seems like a more constructive use of time.
ReplyDeleteNewsflash, youre a beginner. In the powerlifting world, in which Danny has been a part since the time you were born, a beginner is generally considered as someone who isnt a 3/4/5 lifter. Which makes everyone on this blog except for Nate, Danny and Frank a beginner.
3/4/5? Beginners are people who haven't totalled elite in their respective weight class.
ReplyDeleteShanker, nobody said anything about adding mass. JC's initial post says "stronger" and Danny's post also says "stronger." Not sure why you think they were talking about adding mass.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the whole beginner thing I could care less about people's definitions except when it sounds like an attempt to discredit what I'm saying. That's what I got *kinda* pissed about.
Everyone just needs to hug it out.
ReplyDeleteTalking about diet in the context of "strength" is entirely meaningless without the introduction of body composition. This whole conversation is being conducted on grounds of ignorance and misnomers.
ReplyDelete*Hug*
ReplyDeletealright, alright, alright. But I only got in on this at the tail end, I feel left out...
ReplyDelete