Body Recomp Advice

Training Bodybuilding
1

Hello all,

Of late I have been pondering the realities of being obesely skinny. Before you go off on that let me tell you what I mean by this, I feel that I am in need of significantly more muscle mass (skinny) yet I am carrying around way too much body fat (obese).

GOALS:

I have set a target goal for myself of 190lbs 10-12%BF, no really specific time limit, I don’t mind taking it slowly and working towards this over a few months.

A friend suggested that I try to do a body recomp. Here are my challenges, I LOVE to eat (the only diet I have ever done was massive eating…) and I HATE cardio :stuck_out_tongue: While I realize that I will have to do at least a little of both I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help me achieve my goals with still enjoying eating and minimizing cardio.

CURRENT STATS:

I have been training for a few years but I have been plagued by consistency problems. Even so I feel that I have made reasonably good progress. When I started lifting 8 or 9 years ago I weighed 125-130lbs. Currently I am:

Weight: 205lbs
BF%: 18-20%
Height: 5’6"

CONDITION AND LIFESTYLE:

I should also mention that I have bad knees, and some lower back pain, (that were aggrivated by a car accident a few years ago), I work though these most of the time, however things like running are just too much for my knees to handle so any cardio that I do do is usually bicycle or rowing machine.

Currently I do alot of sitting at work, I try to walk around as much as possible, but the majority of my time is spent sitting in meetings or infront of a computer. I don’t play any sports or really do a whole lot of extra activity outside of the gym, except for some chores (house maintenance, yard work etc).

WORKOUT:

Due to scheduling constraints I have been reduced to a 2 day workout week :frowning: In these two days I do a split routine, workouts usually take a long time going from 2-2.5 hours.

I’ve never tried to max out on anything but here are some of my current lifts:

Squats: 365lbs x 2
Front Squats: 225lbs x4
Bench: 185lbs x 5
Deads: 305lbs x 5
Chins: BWx 2

Yes I realized I need ALOT of work on arms and chest. My bench and chins are abysmal :frowning:

NUTRITION:

I logged my food intake for about 2 months and my daily averages came out to be the following:

Calories: 2899
Fat: 83g 26%
Carbs: 338g 44%
Protein: 213g 30%

I just came off a 2 bottle cycle of Alapha Male about 2 weeks ago. I have also tried HOT-ROX Extreme with reasonable good results (considering no cardio). I have another bottle of HOT-ROX for when I start the body recomp.

I don’t know how realistic my goals are but I was wondering if anyone else has faced a similar situation and maybe had some advice for me.

Thanks in advance!

Rook4eva

2

Hi rook. Don’t let your schedule excuse you from getting in more workouts. The easiest way around a busy day is to wake up early and workout before your day even starts. The only excuse you make for missing a workout is you didn’t get out of bed. And if your energy levels aren’t high at first, go for an early morning walk or bike ride, especially if weight loss is your goal.

3

This is a tough question…

Maybe something like “Fat to Fire”?

I would be very interested in what other think about making progress with very little cardio or nutritional changes.

4

[quote]texass wrote:
Hi rook. Don’t let your schedule excuse you from getting in more workouts. The easiest way around a busy day is to wake up early and workout before your day even starts. The only excuse you make for missing a workout is you didn’t get out of bed. And if your energy levels aren’t high at first, go for an early morning walk or bike ride, especially if weight loss is your goal.[/quote]

Thanks for the reply Tex. The problem with the getting up early and adding in more workouts is 2 part. I workout in a local school gym which is open to me 8am-10pm M-TH and 8am-4:30pm Fri 8am-1pm Sat. (yes I know someone is going to say I can get up for a walk or bike ride or something)

A typical weekday for me starts at around 5-5:30 am, do all the morning stuff and head to work(typically a 1.25hr commute each way), after that I either go to another job or a class, or to the gym. Typically on any week day I get home around 10-11pm. Generally getting to sleep 12-1am. Getting up earlier would make my already lacking 5ish hours of sleep even less :frowning:

I’ve been trying to work in some more stuff during weekends, possibly another working Sat AM. but honestly something always comes up (often work related). I do realized this is a lame excuse and am trying to rectify that.

Also, I’m not really trying to lose weight, heck I would love to be 205 10-12% BF :slight_smile: I am just trying to be realistic in the expectation that I will probably lose a few pounds if I shed almost 10% BF.

5

[quote]Myosin wrote:
This is a tough question…

Maybe something like “Fat to Fire”?

I would be very interested in what other think about making progress with very little cardio or nutritional changes.

[/quote]

While I would certainly be interested in trying this “Fat to Fire” is a 5 day routine with 3 gym days at least. With my current schedule it just wouldnt work.

In all honesty I dont know if I would even be able to handle it, If i had the time for it I would probably give it a shot though.

Thanks for the idea, maybe I will see if I can adapt some aspects of it.

6

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

7

The answer is simple:

  1. Clean up your diet.

  2. Find ways to increase your overall training (2-3 days of weights and 2-3 days of interval training - i.e. HIIT).

  3. Be consistent in both.

Pick up John Berardi’s new book “The Metabolism Advantage” and follow it exactly as written. It lays out your diet and training for 8 weeks. But you need to commit yourself to doing it and following through!

You can’t expect to make changes if you don’t want to fix your diet or get in the necessary amount of training required.