Ive gone from 205ish lbs, to currently 185lbs over the course of about 3 years. I had dipped all the way down to 160-165ish (but not in a healthy way), and when I first started training in 2014 I weighed around 143lbs.
I’m wanting to drop another 20lbs being around perhaps 165-170. Been having difficulty getting the scale to budge, and I more or less don’t see much in terms of noticeable differences in the mirror.
I tend to stay around the mid-high 180s. Previously, I kind of feared losing weight, since my strength numbers often dipped, but as of now I don’t particularly mind, since it’s gonna happen a bit anyways.
Height: 5 foot
Age: 25
I’m also on birth control, and have been taking it for about 6-7 months. I had to cycle through a few brands, so I could find one that doesn’t interfere with my appetite, or unwanted weight gain/loss.
Diet wise, I’ve started tracking my calories, and weighing everything. Managed to stop myself from eye-balling a lot of stuff as well. Bought some cheap measuring cups, and just started using them.
Here’s a weeks worth of eating for me. The app suggested I be around 1500-1700 calories.
Trouble shooting? Would that be a good answer? Lol I’d like to see where I can improve. I know there’s things I’m missing.
I’ll get those up. I was trying to be neat with the posting
That’s a bit of a loaded question for me. At least in terms of where I am now, and all that. I’m happy I have my eating under control now. By control I mean, not being completely emotionally invested in it.
Personally, I don’t particularly care if I’m happy about how I’m eating, so much as I care about eating in an efficient way for my health, and strength/conditioning goals. But I suppose you could say I would feel a lot more accomplished if I managed to streamline my food choices better. Does that make any sense?
I made it a point to stay in the 2800-3000 range. I’ll post a couple of snippets of the few food notes I have somewhere in my log.
It’s…well…
Is it okay if I just link my log here? I’m pretty detailed about my training. You could skim over most of it if you wish, since it doesn’t vary too too much. I will say that I recently had been doing a PPL set up. 4 movements, 100 reps each movement. 2-3 times a week, for nearly 6-7 months.
Here’s one particular training day that I was quite fond of lol >>>Here
I try to train at least 3-4 days a week. I’ve been managing 2-3 for these passed few weeks. I’ve also started running. 2 mornings out of the week. Nothing fancy either since I suck at running. I’ve gotten up to 15 min sessions. Usually 5 mins on, walk for 2-3 mins, finish the other 5 mins roughly.
My husband and I also bike the trails in our neighborhood. This is sporadic and is mostly reserved for like bonding stuff. We also walk usually 3-4 miles. This we do somewhat regularly, usually twice a week on his days off.
I also work weekends (Fri-Sat), and It’s entirely standing. Except for my lunch break.
Well I’ve never seen myself lean enough to where I could be impressed, at least for myself. I’m not looking to be shredded, since there’s a lot that could go wrong, given my past Issues. I guess for simplicity, I would like to see a lot more definition, pretty much everywhere
No, no deadline. I wish to do this the right way for myself. Mentally and emotionally speaking. Not that a deadline is bad by any means, but for me, it’s not necessary.
Macros, My carbs fluctuate from the low-ish end of 50-70, to 100-130g
Protein is is between 80-110ish
And my fat consumption jumps around sometimes. There’s been a few days where it’s barely at 20g, other days it’s been at 80-90g. The higher end has been the most frequent Though
I’m not going to be able to format this as nicely as I want, I’m having trouble articulating myself. Here’s the best I can do.
Certainly. Snap shots are always tough to respond to, it’s very easily countered with “oh, but that day was special/weird” and then all the points laid out are just of no value anymore.
I’ll just toss some things out quickly, and we’ll see what sticks?
It seems as if you are skipping meals sometimes? See Mon/Tue (13/14), lunch/breakfast.
Food choices, cranberry juice, cookies, bars, chipotle wings. Can you make different choices? One mental model I like is Precision Nutritions that puts food on a spectrum of Eat More/Eat Less. Eat certain things more often than other things. Google “what should i eat precision nutrition infographic”.
Protein not in every meal (see dinner Wed Jul 15)
For this I again refer to Precision Nutrition (PN).
Were you gaining or maintaining on that? I would be very vary of dropping a thousand calories from your daily diet as your starting point.
Yes. I just read really quickly. It seems like you do PPL inside a session? Seems like a lot of work per session too. I don’t want to critique it. Maybe it aligns with your goals, maybe there’d be a ready-made program that aligns better.
You seem fairly active! I imagine you could by making different food choices remain satiated, have decent energy, and not feel at all deprived. It would maybe cost more (time for prep/groceries).
That’s probably ideal. That means you could keep your training days at maintenance level calories.
I like applying the idea of progressive overload to eating habits and doing the least one has to do to see the change one is after.
Usually, the first step is just making better food choices. If doing that alone results in weight coming off then one continues to do that for as long as possible.* Then, as we progress we have to start to consider other strategies. Maybe, reserving carbs for around a workout. Not having carbs on off-days. Eventually exploring say, 5:2 (2 days at 1100 calories, 400+700. Then evolving that to 400 pre-cardio, 700-post cardio)? Cyclical dieting (MATADOR-approach).
* As long as one isn’t over-zealous here. Example: let’s say one eats very fatty meats and replaces everything with chicken breasts. That’d create a very harsh deficit. No bueno.
I’m not too sure where I should be though. Someone of my height is supposed to be eating 60-80g a day according to online. I’m really not sure what would even be appropriate for someone like myself.
I get a bunch of mixed info quite a bit. TDEE calculators ballpark me around 2900 calories, with 225g protein, 116g fat, 230ish for carbs. I’ve also been quite bothered with the BMI things. Every last calculator/formula I tried tells me I’m Obese. I know I’m overweight, but damn lol
Yeah I can understand that. I definitely wouldn’t mind putting up actual pictures of my meals lol, but that would be a crap ton of posts. I figured putting the snapshots up would be somewhat beneficial, at least, since I’ve been really strict on myself about logging every last thing I eat.
Meal skipping is very common for me. Be it intentional or not. Unintentionally usually arises from me not waking up until the afternoon some days. I often times have a wonky sleep schedule, and on really bad days (mentally speaking), I can sleep for unusually long periods of time, Or go through bouts of insomnia where I haven’t slept in a while. It hasn’t been too bad, but sometimes I find myself staying up for like a day and a half.
Intentionally speaking, sometimes I go overboard and cut calories too quickly. I do make it a point to gauge my hunger levels intuitively, but sometimes I feel like there’s a lot of room for error just playing it by ear, so I go with online layouts. However, this current layout I’m using with the app has dropped me well below a 1,000 calories starting off, and I’m often hungry day in and day out, but just deal with it most times.
The snack choices definitely aren’t the best either. The juices and bars I just grab at work since it’s readily available, and quick. I was bringing my own food to work for a while sometime ago. I mostly stopped due to me just not doing it anymore to put it simply. I think that would be beneficial again. I wasn’t doing it to lose weight at the time, but I see no reason why it can’t be Used now.
And I will definitely give the PN site a look through
Maintaining. I would see a few increases and drops in weight here and there, but for the most part I’ve been around 185-190 for a good while now. About two years, year and a half I’d say?
This is kind of what I was trying to dig at by asking if you were maintaining or not. Calculators work for some people and others defy them completely. The ideal starting point I’d say is a diet of reasonably clean foods that’s enough to sustain an already ongoing training regimen. Then it becomes trivially easy to change one thing at a time and gauge what impact that has.
In the grand scheme of things, yes. It’s a crap ton of work. I kind of take a @T3hPwnisher view of training. I haven’t always, but for a couple of years now, I’ve become content with…a painful amount of work during sessions? Best way I could put it honestly.
I have switched back to 5/3/1 as of…a week and a half ago? Lol. As far as pre-made stuff goes, I don’t care to vary much between 5/3/1, high volume stuff like the PPL set up I had been doing, or Westside. I’ve run a few programs on the articles sections here and there, but that was just to say I did it, and give a couple reviews about them.
Some people look great on those programs, some look average and some don’t look good. Have you considered a more aesthetically driven program for a while? Since this is your training style I imagine performance in the big four matter to you?
I was wondering about things like that. I haven’t done either of the mentioned strategies, but in my mind at least, I don’t think they’ll prove beneficial yet, simply because I don’t think I’m at the point to where it’ll be noticeably beneficial.
Better food choices is something I think I have to really gauge first, so I completely agree.
Oh okay, I see.
I think right here is where I’m getting overwhelmed the most too. I can put a number on it all I want, but I get kind of lost in it. If that makes any sense. On the other hand, I don’t wish to be so intuitive about it, that I get messy with it.
I’d agree. I wouldn’t say I look spectacular, but I’d say I’d look like how a small female would, who’s been training in a particular way for some time. (Powerlifty? Lol)
I think I’ll have to come to terms with changing goals somewhat entirely in order to achieve a more aesthetic look. Well… I don’t know if I’ll have to change it that drastically until I go about doing so, but at least that’s what I’m thinking would happen. Could be wrong. I’m shouting for something moderate for the time being, so that I have realistic goals in mind. In terms of how I look.
I am quite attached to the aforementioned programs though. Like…one hell of a lot lol.
Good luck. I’ve been trying to find an article, because it was so concrete with examples, about a person living on the go that applied a “change your patterns”-approach. But I haven’t found it, and I go looking for it often. Distilled, heavily, imagine someone on the go whose starting point is hitting McDonald’s for breakfast. The first change is swapping their meal there for a better meal. Then omitting a dressing. Eventually, prepacking their own breakfast. Changing these habits one-by-one over weeks rather than wholesale revamping everything at once allows the mind to be “retrained” and has less odds of falling of the proverbial wagon completely.
I totally get it. But start then with what’s going to give you the most. I wouldn’t worry about tracking coffee as calories (lattes should be tracked though!) until some other stuff is taken care of first.
You can retain aspects of your training that you like but meld that with something that’s more geared towards creating a hypertrophy response.
Here’s just two ideas,
Monday: Squat (Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Glutes)
Tuesday: Bench (Chest, Back, Shoulders)
Wednesday: OFF
Thursday: Deadlift (Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Shoulders)
Friday: OFF
Saturday: Bench (Chest, Back, Biceps, Triceps)
Sunday: OFF
or
Monday: Squat (Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Glutes)
Tuesday: Bench (Chest, Back, Shoulders)
Wednesday: OFF
Thursday: Deadlift (Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Glutes)
Friday: OFF
Saturday: Press (Shoulders, Back, Biceps, Triceps)
Sunday: OFF
You could start with the main lift using 5/3/1 and then plan the rest with a hypertrophy mindset.
Thank you.
If you ever find it, please link it to me. It sounds quite interesting. If I’m really being thorough with how I go about my eating habits, I do make it a point to try and divide and conquer. I’ve had really bad habits of going off the deep end in either direction.
Noted
I wouldn’t mind giving it a go. With that I think I could give more time towards conditioning. I don’t think I do enough of it anyways. At least not enough to produce a response from my body to any noticeable degree.
How are you measuring this? Are you going by the mirror or cardiovascular performance? Also, sometimes the answer doesn’t lie in doing it more often but harder.
