I do almost Zero cardio when dieting… I only do cardio when I bulk. I have a fast metabolism though…I lose weight just by missing meals.
[quote]Hallowed wrote:
Good work AQ.[/quote]
THANKS!
[quote]Swolle wrote:
If you are in fact dieting are you using a carb load or a refuel or whatever name you want to call it? Examples every third or fourth day add a ton of carbs (low glycemic) as a last meal of the day. IE I would eat while dieting for competition every 4th day 7th meal Half a box of cheerios (or oatmeal), whole sweet potato,and a banana. Basically resets your metabolism… or throws it off. Every time i did this the next few days i lost weight but i was also on a pretty carb deficient diet.
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I eat about 5 meals per day; On Saturdays my 3rd meal is a tuna sub from subway, and then my 4th meal is sometimes dinner out, I try to get something carb heavy then too. This works well since Fridays is my deadlifting day and is usually pretty helacious. Then Sunday I have a low-carb conditioning day, monday is my heavy upper body day, and tuesday is my light leg day which involves higher rep squatting. So a lot of times on Tuesdays I have more carbs pwo as well, and end up around 300 for that day. But it depends how I feel on a given week. Would you suggest possibly installing that as a higher carb day every week?
It was more just to see if I could.
When you say cardio do you include things like incline walking, or just more traditional jogging/explosive cardio? I was under the impression incline walking, especially fasted focused on fat as an energy source. Honestly, I love my conditioning sessions; especially sprinting & jumping. I should probably add some more calories in to account for those things though, so that I can do them and preserve muscle.
Also, getting down to 8% is a problem for me, I WANT to, but it seems like no matter what I do I can’t get that low without losing all my muscle. I can GET there, but I’d have to get down to about 170 lbs or so, so I’d lose about 25 lbs. of muscle and 5 more lbs. of fat to get there. I have no idea why.
[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:
Also, getting down to 8% is a problem for me, I WANT to, but it seems like no matter what I do I can’t get that low without losing all my muscle. I can GET there, but I’d have to get down to about 170 lbs or so, so I’d lose about 25 lbs. of muscle and 5 more lbs. of fat to get there. I have no idea why. [/quote]
Really? I mean, losing 25 lbs of muscle would heavily skew your LBM/fat mass ratio big time. How would that result in 8% bodyfat? Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying.
You obviously have a good handle on training and diet, so if you’re still having problems getting as lean as you want without losing muscle, then I think it would probably be wise to hire a prep coach. Thing is sometimes it’s VERY hard to be objective about ourselves, so taking every last bit of guesswork out of the equation and just doing EXACTLY what your coach tells you may be just the ticket.
[quote]SkyNett wrote:
[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:
Also, getting down to 8% is a problem for me, I WANT to, but it seems like no matter what I do I can’t get that low without losing all my muscle. I can GET there, but I’d have to get down to about 170 lbs or so, so I’d lose about 25 lbs. of muscle and 5 more lbs. of fat to get there. I have no idea why. [/quote]
Really? I mean, losing 25 lbs of muscle would heavily skew your LBM/fat mass ratio big time. How would that result in 8% bodyfat? Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying.
You obviously have a good handle on training and diet, so if you’re still having problems getting as lean as you want without losing muscle, then I think it would probably be wise to hire a prep coach. Thing is sometimes it’s VERY hard to be objective about ourselves, so taking every last bit of guesswork out of the equation and just doing EXACTLY what your coach tells you may be just the ticket. [/quote]
The 25 was probably an exaggeration, but I just get to a point where it’s like 90% of the weight I lose is muscle wasting away.
Then you aren’t dieting right… I’ll try to post a good diet later that you can run for 6-12 weeks depending on goals and maintain muscle.
[quote]Swolle wrote:
I do almost Zero cardio when dieting… I only do cardio when I bulk. I have a fast metabolism though…I lose weight just by missing meals. [/quote]
Have you done the 1 day per week large carb load/skipload/cheat day in the past or only the carb up every 4 days or so?
Would a large carb refeed every 4th day be a good idea for someone who isnt very sensitive to carbs? Im currently using the 100g carb approach with a half hour fasted walk in the mornings, see what happens over the next month.
I like to think of it as a learning curve for what works for you making future bulks and cuts alot easyer.
I only do it mondays and fridays and only the last meal of the day… the intent is to refuel my glycogen supply and if you do it last meal of the day you wont burn it for energy immmediatly instead you will store it as glycogen. I have never been a big fan of the all day…
I’m not really in a good position to give advice, but for the last 2 weeks i’ve been doing 6 sub 50g of carb
days and 1 high carb re-feed day. So far i’ve dropped from 238 down to 226.5 in 2 weeks. Not really changed up
my reps or anything, just lifting like i would do without dieting. Going to start adding cardio in next week and
see where it takes me. Never really trusted carb cycling before but obviously it works and its pretty damn easy
to stick to.
Good work so far AQ but please, no more ass pics!
What do you class as high carb, how many grams? So you have one day of high carbs and all the rest are 50g?
[quote]Swolle wrote:
I only do it mondays and fridays and only the last meal of the day… the intent is to refuel my glycogen supply and if you do it last meal of the day you wont burn it for energy immmediatly instead you will store it as glycogen. I have never been a big fan of the all day…
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I aggree and do the same thing I feel absolutely disgusting doing that all day on a diet. Now bulking on the other hand…
[quote]Chrispy61 wrote:
What do you class as high carb, how many grams? So you have one day of high carbs and all the rest are 50g?
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Yeah pretty much, i say 50g as an estimate but pretty much all i eat on low carb days is eggs, cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, nuts, chicken breast and steak. And some frozen veggies. So even the carbs i get are from veggies.
My high carb is normally around 500g plus but no more than 700. I thought after a week of low carb i could kill a carb up. But eating 500g plus of carbs isn’t as easy as it seems unless u eat a trough full of starch!
Yea 500g of clean carbs wont be as easy as it sounds.
Thanks for the input
I have recently hit a ceiling too in terms of fat loss…I’ve been stuck around 12-13%bf for the past two months. I was 185lb around that time and I have tried to cut my calories down to as low as 2000kcal (was initially eating 2800-3000) with around 200g carbs on workout days and little to none on off days. I keep my diet strict so not a lot of cheat meals…maybe like once a week
I also tried keto diet and it didnt work quite well. I saw some improvements but it wasn’t worth it due to the loss in strength.
Training wise, I have been following CT’s complex. I have regained strength loss from keto and I feel I may have gotten stronger as well in some parts but bodyfat wise…it’s not changing much.
I have been eating via intermittent fasting principles and I may change it up to normal 4-5 meals per day soon just to try it out. So instead of a giant calorie bomb I will just eat smaller meals…though eating those giant meals feel more satieting.
A lot of poeple say cardio is not required if you have a solid diet but I feel like I should probably add it…
Add low intensity cardio, maybe treadmill walking on an incline, 4 times a week 20 mins a session. Try it fasted as well, every week at 5 minutes on so u r making progress. Drop the cals a bit, and see where that takes u.