Critique My Diet to Get to 8-10% BF

Nutrition
1

A little background first: I’m a 25 y/o male, 5’10", 180 lbs and about 17.5% BF. The last half of 2009 I was doing the Bill Starr 5x5 program, and in Jan/Feb of this year I was at about 193 lbs. Max squat was 375, DL 405, and bench 275.

I slacked off for a few months because of an impingement of my supraspinatus, and because of being a lazy arsehole when I recovered. Anyway, I’ve started up the 5x5 again, while also trying to include 3-4 days per week of tabatas, ICT, EIT, (a la Ross Enamait) and stretching. The conditioning stuff is all low volume/high intensity.

I’d like to get down to roughly 8-10% BF while maintaining most of my strength, and then slowly add muscle over the next year while maintaining a low BF, with a final goal of 185-190 lbs at 8-10%.

So, with a caloric intake goal of around 2000 cal/day for fat loss, a typical day this week for me has been:

Meal 1:
3 whole eggs
orange or banana

Meal 2:
can of tuna w/ mustard or a chicken breast
salad (cucumbers, spinach, tomatoes, celery, snap peas) with a tbsp salad dressing
500 mL 1% milk

Meal 3:
2 filets of fish (cod, tilapia)
15 asparagus spears
multivitamin

Meal 4:
Protein shake w/ scoop of creatine, glutamine, maybe a few berries

Any tips, advice, changes you recommend considering my goals?

And be nice, this is my first post on T-Nation… so if you give me hell, I’m gonna take a dump on your porch and leave!

2

What’s the macro breakdown of your diet? You can’t just paste your diet and expect us to figure it out for you. Also, you should post your complete workout regiment, not just a short snippet about it.

At first glance it looks like your not consuming enough food and not pushing yourself hard enough in the gym, both of which will be huge contributing factors to lowering your BF%.

In the meantime, use the search function and read the articles here, they will be of great benefit.

3

[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:
What’s the macro breakdown of your diet? You can’t just paste your diet and expect us to figure it out for you. Also, you should post your complete workout regiment, not just a short snippet about it.

At first glance it looks like your not consuming enough food and not pushing yourself hard enough in the gym, both of which will be huge contributing factors to lowering your BF%.

In the meantime, use the search function and read the articles here, they will be of great benefit.[/quote]

Yesterday I entered everything into FitDay, and it came out to about 1900 calories total, breakdown was approximately 40% protein (190g), 35% fat (74g), 25% carb (119g). My BMR is around 2500 (according to the program’s calculator). Is 600 cals too much of a deficit starting out? I’ve never attempted to reach a respectable BF% before, so this is new territory for me. I’m not against eating any kind of food, or changing my diet in any way.

My workout goes like this:

Monday:
Squat, 5x5
Bench, 5x5
BOR, 5x5

Wed:
Squat, 4x5 (light)
SOHP, 4x5
DL, 4x5

Friday:
Squat, 4x5, 1x3, 1x8 (3 reps will be 5-10 lbs heavier than Monday’s)
Bench, 4x5, 1x3, 1x8 “+5 lbs”
BOR, 4x5, 1x3, 1x8 “+10 lbs”

The conditioning stuff I do is mostly timed circuits, or racing myself against the previous week’s time.
For example, 1 minute each of burpees, pullups, BW squats, pushups, repeat for 0:45, repeat for 0:30, repeat for 0:15 for a total of 10:00.
Another example, tabatas with 8 different exercises (burpees, pullups, med ball slams, band sprints etc). I don’t do any kind of LSD conditioning.

Obviously since I’ve only been doing this for less than a week, I’m not expecting instant results, but I want to give it the best shot I can. I will browse around the forum for some other advice. Thanks for the help.

PS: Thanks to the mod who made my title more clear.

4

You should probably start out with your Cals higher.

5

1900 for a dude your height and weight strikes me as very low, even if you’re running a diet/deficit.

6

I would change up the nutrition a bit.

  1. add about 100 grams or protein per day
  2. swap the morning fruit for superfood and or add veggies like spinach, onions, etc to the eggs.
  3. buy a box of finibars to try, and have 1 or 1.5 30 min before your workout
7

I’m also relatively new, but thought Tiger’s advice was spot-on. I thought you needed way more protein and the fruit (however delicious) is probably not your friend.

There’s really an overwhelming amount of info on this site, but I just found this list of the top 20 articles (undoubtedly old news to most but a revelation to me):

8

I agree with all of these posts, but am surprised no one has commented on the amount of meals consumed a day. You should be attempting to get in at least 6 smaller meals a day. In doing so you can afford to eat a little more (because the extra meals will speed up your metabolism). The positive in being able to eat more is you can get in the extra protein others have mentioned while still getting your proper ratios. Good luck

9

Sorry also wanted to add that although it important you continue to get plenty of good carbs in your diet to build muscle. But you should be eating absolutely no carbs after 8pm. If you need to eat, try some kind of long lasting protein.

10

[quote]EzP wrote:
Sorry also wanted to add that although it important you continue to get plenty of good carbs in your diet to build muscle. But you should be eating absolutely no carbs after 8pm. If you need to eat, try some kind of long lasting protein. [/quote]

Lots of good advice in this thread, but this comment is complete nonsense.

There is no magical cut-off point after which carbs, or any other nutrient, shouldn’t be consumed. What’s important is the amount you eat over the course of the day.

11

[quote]EzP wrote:
I agree with all of these posts, but am surprised no one has commented on the amount of meals consumed a day. You should be attempting to get in at least 6 smaller meals a day. In doing so you can afford to eat a little more (because the extra meals will speed up your metabolism). The positive in being able to eat more is you can get in the extra protein others have mentioned while still getting your proper ratios. Good luck[/quote]

This, in addition to your other comment, which HK addressed, are complete nonsense. How does eating more often speed up your metabolism? Do you even know what metabolism means? You sound like someone who just blindly accepts what fitness trend is floating around in the media and spewing it out as truth.

12

It is my understanding that metabolism is simply referring to chemical reactions taking place in your body, both anabolic and catabolic. The process of your body breaking down food does burn calories and increase your metabolism. So how is it not beneficial to eat 5-6 smaller meals a day versus 3? And why not avoid eating at night?

My understanding is that our body should be resting and not using its energy on digestion. Not to mention problems with digestion while sleeping and being bloated in the morning. Im not trying to argue with two people that are most likely more knowledgeable than me on the subject. But both eating smaller meals more often and avoiding carbs (especially bad carbs) before sleep have really helped me to lean out.

13

My understanding is that the thermic effect on eating is overrated. And for some people eating smaller more frequent meals can stimulate hunger rather than suppress it, which might be good for bulking but bad for cutting.

And it is also my understanding that WHEN you consume your calories doesn’t matter as much as how many you consumed at the end of the day. Same with the nutrients. Your body doesn’t shut down carb utilization at night. It doesn’t even slow down. Thats a myth deep rooted in more roots.

Its great that what you have done worked for you. Keep it up (Im honest) but dont make it sound like that your way is the only way, whether you meant it or not.