After A Full Year, I Need Help

Training
21

If you want to go back to what originally caused the weightloss, thats all fine and dandy but what usually happens with these so called “WOW” transformations is people fall back into the same routines that got them pre transformation in the first place

If you personally feel thats the best approach towards getting you to where you want to be, then by all means do it. Youve walked your mile in your shoes and are entitled to do whatever you want.
However.
There are many different ways to skin a cat, and by picking tried and true methods that yeild consistent results, set you up for higher chances of not only getting the fat off, but also keeping the fat off

First step should always be diet, and usually its the first place people go wrong

Being as precise as you can, what have you eaten over the last 7 days, to the gram?

Im pretty pedantic but I can say to the gram what ive ingested over the last week, and by being that anal about what youre eating its a hell of a lot easier to see where youre going right and wrong is

Also a good idea to start a training log over in the https://t-nation.com/c/training-logs
Training log sub section of the forum and actually keeping track of what youre doing

Good job on seeking help mate, best thing you could have done for yourself

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22

Monday - 16 oz sirloin (cut until exactly 16oz), 1 Powerful Yogurt (Strawberry Greek yogurt), 1 tbs butter, 4 leveled scoops of Myprotein (100 calories per scoop, 18g protein), 1 cup of 2% milk, broccoli

Tuesday - 16 oz sirloin (cut until exactly 16oz), 1 Powerful Yogurt (Strawberry Greek yogurt), 2 tbs Olive oil, 4 leveled scoops of Myprotein (100 calories per scoop, 18g protein), 3 cups of 2% milk. Spinach

Wednesday - 16 oz sirloin (cut until exactly 16oz), 1 Powerful Yogurt (Strawberry Greek yogurt), 2 tbs butter, 4 leveled scoops of Myprotein (100 calories per scoop, 18g protein), 1 cup of 2% milk, 2 leveled tbs peanut butter. Spinach

Thursday - 16 oz sirloin (cut until exactly 16oz), 2 tbs butter, 4 leveled scoops of Myprotein (100 calories per scoop, 18g protein), 3 cups of 2% milk, 9 oz watermelon, zucchini

Friday - 16 oz sirloin (cut until exactly 16oz), 1 Powerful Yogurt (Strawberry Greek yogurt), 2 tbs butter, 4 leveled scoops of Myprotein (100 calories per scoop, 18g protein), 2 cups of 2% milk. Iceberg lettuce ( just lettuce, raw)

Saturday - 16 oz sirloin (cut until exactly 16oz), 1 Powerful Yogurt (Strawberry Greek yogurt), 2 tbs butter, 4 leveled scoops of Myprotein (100 calories per scoop, 18g protein), 3 cups of 2% milk. Broccoli

Sunday - 16 oz chicken breast, one cup leveled fat free Greek yogurt, 2 cups leveled brown rice (not packed), 1.5 cups leveled, not packed, Dreyer’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream, 7 cans of Dr. Pepper Bold 10 (10 calories per can), 1 cup 0% milk

Today - 16 oz sirloin (cut until exactly 16oz), 1 Powerful Yogurt (Strawberry Greek yogurt), 2 tbs butter, 4 leveled scoops of Myprotein (100 calories per scoop, 18g protein), no milk.

This is what I’ve got written down. Like I said, the only thing I don’t weigh are my veggies… But I count the butter/ Olive oil they get cooked in if I don’t steam them.

Sunday was hanging out with friends, but they had a scale and measuring cups so I still counted everything. It is not indicative of what I eat or drink every Sunday.

I don’t know if it helps, but I weighed myself once a week, same time.
Week 1 - 243
Week 2 - 245
Week 3 - 244
Week 4 - 242
Week 5 - 245

Get Fit Done - 245 to 225
23

This is likely due to all the cardio you’re doing.

24

I don’t mean to labour the point but I don’t feel like this question:

received a satisfactory answer.

You can’t just do what you did last time?

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25

I think he’s feeling compelled to do something different. Last time he took stimulants, walked a bit, and played video games and it worked.

Now he has a new lifestyle so he’s looking for a new approach.

He’s also probably finding it harder to get the ball rolling at 245 than it was at 330.

I “helped” a co-worker lose 50 lbs to prepare for his partial knee replacement surgery. I told him to track his food with My Fitness Pal for starters. That’s all he ended up doing; he never worked out. Just paying attention to his food was enough to lose weight.

When you’re that big it doesn’t take much.

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26

yea so here’s what I would do.

Eat the way you did to get to 180. Whatever that was, it clearly worked for you, so do that.

The stim you were taking was probably helpful, but it wasn’t what made the difference between being 240 lbs and 180. Stims aren’t THAT effective.

cardio isn’t particularly helpful in your situation. And a lot of people who perform a lot of cardio tend to overeat to compensate for that work. I do believe in conditioning work, but just don’t over do it.

eh. that’s not a great measure of the quality of a weight training workout. If you’re running from exercise to exercise, from set to set, you’re likely not recovering enough between lifts for an appropriately intense workout. Maybe rest a little bit more between sets. I have a feeling you’re trying to turn lifting into a cardio session because you think it will burn more calories.

And the final thing: Your diet looks like shit. You have multiple days a week that you listed where you didn’t eat a single vegetable. That’s not good, man. That’s probably why you’ve been feeling crappy. You’re getting basically zero variety in vegetables (just spinach broccoli and zucchini? WHAT???) And the quantities seem minimal. I would definitely eat a LOT more veggies, and you could reduce protein intake to compensate.

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27

You are over estimating how many calories your activities are burning , should probably be eating around 2700 for maintenance and no more than 2200 to lose weight. Yes expect to be hungry, that’s what happens when dieting. Your past weight loss with what sounds like minimal effort was easier because you started at a higher weight

28

The Amphetamines actually only got me to 260 before I stopped taking them. I think I should have said that earlier.

I didn’t think I was doing that much cardio, the cycling is really light, it was meant to just replace a one hour fasted walk.

I wait 1:30-3:00 between Stronglift sets, and 1:30 between sets on the other days. I’m just out of breath right after and I’m good to go after the 1:30. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was pushing it to the max.

Back when I had dropped that weight, all the veggies I could eat were broccoli. That was it. I was coming off a diet of ramen noodles and other boxed junk. There’s more variety now. I’ll eat more vegetables in a variety.

Should I keep my workouts the same? Should I drop something?

Thanks for the help guys.

Started a training log in the Training Log section.

29

For fuck’s sake, man. So what, exactly, got you from 260 to 180?

Let me phrase it this way. In your next post, describe, to the best of your ability, exactly what happened, how you ate and what you did, to go from 260 to 180, and what the timeframe for that was.

30

That’s part of my problem and why I’m so frustrated. It took me two years to go from 330->183. I kept no record. I had just read The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. I ate steak, broccoli, and a loaded baked potato almost every day except Friday night going out to eat with my family. The cuts of steak were whatever I felt like eating from sirloin to ribeye to strip. I walked one hour, occasionally two hours, every day. I played Flag Football once a month (now no longer doable as everyone’s moved). I did not count calories. I even ate once a day. I didn’t even consume protein powder for the longest time until I started working out.

If there’s something else, I’ve completely forgotten what it was.

31

well ok. so if this is what worked then, why are you not doing it now? why are you eating protein powder? I’m baffled as to why you’ve been down the road you’re trying to go now, and instead of following the directions you already know work for you, you’re currently deviating?

Don’t reinvent the wheel, man. In my opinion, you should get back to eating those potatoes, ditch the protein powder, and do what you know works for YOUR body.

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32

Not that it necessarily has much to do with your weight loss, but doing a program like Stronglifts is definitely not meant to be done with three added days of hypertrophy work added to it. It’s an aggressive linear progression program. A program like that gets difficult to recover from on your own, but adding in three extra days of lifting just ensures that you’re not, and it probably causes you to eat a lot more than you would need to without it. You seriously might want to rethink your lifting strategy, although, as others have said, your diet is going to determine your weight loss.

33

150# lost in 100 weeks = 1.5#/week. Absolutely perfect–no problems there.

Do what you did then. Exactly. If you want to add some weightlifting, fine. But drop all the extra cardio–it’s just making you hungrier.

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34

Going back to a prescriptive diet after I’ve slipped has never worked for me. I don’t know what it is but that single trip up makes it very difficult to stick to.

That said, I reckon you are way over thinking this. Just get into the habit of making good food choices. On your plate (which is sensible in size): half veggies, quarter protein and a quarter carbs with a drizzle of oil or handful of nuts. Optionally, a small glass of milk or juice.

Do this 3-4 times per day and avoid things with added sugar. Have 8 glasses of water.

If you can do this day in, day out. You’ll be fine.

35

I started using whey to get in more protein while lifting. I keep reading that protein had to be kept so high (high being more than what I was eating at maybe 80g a day 2-3 years ago). Switching to eating 100g less than I am now seems counter productive, hence why I’m reluctant to completely go back to what I was doing.

Like I said, Strength is my ultimate concern, which is why I don’t want to just stop lifting and just walk the weight off. It’s really stressful to not go to the gym for more than a couple of days. Missing a day is fine, I just push back what I had planned. But deliberately staying out is frustrating.

I just did my sixth week weigh in at 241.2lb. I got scurred all though the 5th week because every day was 245-247 until this morning.

As stupid as it’s going to make me look, should this new weigh in change my perspective on progress?

1: 243
2: 245
3: 244
4: 242
5: 245
6: 241(.2)

36

you don’t have to change anything. you can keep doing the thing that isn’t working rather than switching to something that you already know works. I do wonder why you came on here asking for help, and then say ‘well I don’t want to change, that seems counter productive’. But people are weird, so I don’t expect you to be receptive to good advice.

Nobody is suggesting you do that, right? no one has said don’t lift. I promise that you don’t have to keep protein sky high to make gains in the gym. I doubt I eat much more than 100g of protein a day on average, and you can see that it’s worked for me. I keep carbs sky high.

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37

My only problem with going back is that I was not working out. I walked. Then I played video games. That’s it. Nothing else. Nada. My goal was to just lose weight.

I don’t like playing video games anymore.

That’s why I’m here. To try and work around what I’m wanting to do now, which is workout.

If I don’t actually have to eat 185g of protein at 241lb, and that’s a consensus that I should just try lowering that, I’m game. The reason I’m here, is that I’m not going back to being a couch potato.

@EyeDentist I’m going to drop the cardio every day. I do like mountain biking a couple times a week around a pond that’s 1.5 miles long, then 2 miles of road to get there and back for a total of 3.5 miles. Would I need to drop that, too? Or is dropping the hour of cycling at the gym enough for now?

Edit When I first started going to the gym after hitting 183. I couldn’t deadlift 75lb. I couldn’t squat to below parallel at all. My bench was 65lb.

I don’t want to just lose fat and lose the (compared to you guys) little amount of strength I’ve gained to take a year off to drop back down to 183.

38

Dude, forget the video games. No one is suggesting you play video games.

Strength training of the sort you’re talking about is not going to make you ravenously hungry, so it won’t interfere with what should be your primary goal (fat loss).

If you enjoy it, keep the mountain biking as a stress reducer–just don’t let it turn into a hard-core cardio death-ride. But do drop the gym cycling.

39

I was just explaining that going back to what I had been doing exactly, meant do it exactly. It was kind of a stretch to emphasize… Rereading, you’re right, I think the suggestions were to walk, but that’s almost impossible with plantar fasciitis. Hopefully kt tape, stretching, and lacrosse rolling will fix that.

I hate cardio. So that’s easy advice to take. (I just like being outside and going fast in regards to biking).

40

  • I think we’re all saying diet is the most important (chill out on the protein regardless what the Internet says; @flipcollar frequently posts about how moderate his is and look at him); you were incredibly successful before, so do exactly the diet you were doing.

  • I think we’re all saying do whatever leisurely activity you want (walking was it before), but not hard cardio, so your mountain biking is fine.

  • I think we’re all saying keep lifting - it’s good for you and not a major variable in your, more critical, goal of weight loss, so keep doing that.

  • I don’t think anyone else is focused on the video games, so keep not doing that.

So: eat like you were, bike when you feel like it (outside the gym), and lift weights. You got this!

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