Personally at your stats, I would be much more focused on fat loss, even if your strength takes a tumble. You can always build back up to previous strength levels.
I would. You definitely don’t need to/shouldn’t train on an empty stomach, but the timing might be able to be tweaked, like how soon before training is your last meal, an hour or so?
Liquid protein and carbs right before and during training really can make a big difference in recovery and performance. If you didn’t see many benefits to just plain BCAAs, try something with HBCD like Reed said (like SWF, ahem).
Also, not really fast food, but Cheeburger Cheeburger is top notch. And yeah, the local Five Guys crew knows me as a regular. 
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My typical timeline is
6:15p - Get home from work and eat dinner (wife usually cooks)
7:30 ish eat the PB sandwich
8:00-8:30 head to the gym (depends when kids get to sleep)
The PB sandwich really just bridges the gap between dinner and training, as I can train until 10-11 or later (depending on when I get there). I could replace the sandwich with say, a greek yogurt? Which is carbs and protein. I will look into HBCD though I have a hard time justifying dishing out extra money on supplements unless I’m absolutely positive they’re making a difference. That being said, I’ll try anything once…
So, after the initial glycogen / water weight loss my weight has been pretty stagnant for the past week. I don’t want to waste any more time so its on to counting calories and macros again.
I’ll be at 2405 cal per day, 40/30/30 split via 240p/180c/80f. Thoughts? This was the same split I used that one time a few years ago that I actually got lean.
Sorry for not reading the entire thread, but here are my tips to lose fat while doing powerlifting. Sure you must be in a caloric deficit:
- eat adequate amount of protein daily (at least 1g per lb of body mass)
- lower your carb as much as possible (doesn’t apply to carbs from green veggies)
- split your daily intake over 4 meals at least (so you don’t feel hungry)
- drink plenty of water
- carb up once per week
Notes for carbing up:
- Total intake of the day shouldn’t exceed your maintenance
- Carb up in one meal only
- Carbing up meal should include the least possible amount of fat
- choose complex / low GI sources of carbs for your carb up meal to avoid insulin spikes that can turn it to binge meal.
Also notice that your energy will drop because you are in a deficit, don’t decrease your training intensity (weights). You can reduce the volume be reducing the sets or reps, but keep the weights as high as possible. The target is to save the muscle mass not to burn energy. The deficit will come from shift in your daily caloric intake.
Thanks @hanymamdouh! I am thoroughly confused on the balance of carbs and fat at this point based on the spectrum of feedback, so I’ve decided to go back to a macro split that I know worked for ME in the past.
This has been the goal so far. I’ve kept my compound lifts heavy and dropped some of my high-volume assistance work in favor of some moderate conditioning. I’m trying to keep most of my assistance work to movements like GHR’s, pull-ups, back raises, etc to be as efficient as possible in my training.
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@max13 I dieted for more than 3 years, and I can confirm that sticking to certain macro split of carbs/fats will not work. We are made different, our life styles are different, so what works for me may not work for you. My advice is to find your sweet spot. For example, my sweet spot for fat loss is 50g or lower of carbs per day most of it come from green veggies, I then carb up once each week to 10 days, when I feel I need to do.
Another point to mention is that when you go low carb, for first week your energy will be down to earth and you will feel like a piece of crap. The next week, your body will learn how to utilize energy, extra protein will be converted to glycose and you will feel better.
By the way, I’m powerlifter on cut now and I do PRs almost every week while on very low carb, I lose also 0.5kg of fat weekly. So don’t stress yourself bro, keep it very simple and listen to your body, and give it sometime to adapt.
Good luck!
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Update:
As of this morning I have lost exactly 10 lbs. That number is buoyed by the initial water/glycogen loss but either way so far, so good. My face is noticably slimmer and I’ve had to tighten my power belt a notch to get it tight again. Last week the progress was slow so I lowered my calories a bit to 2200 per day. As long as I keep the rate of weight loss between 1.5-2lb per week I am good.
My goal weight remains 200-205 lb. I am thinking this will help me assess my competitiveness in the 198 weight class. That means about 30 lbs to go.
Checking in. Officially surpassed 15 lbs lost and descended below 230, weighing in at an even 229 this morning. I have been successful with 2200 cals and only one cheat meal for the past 5-6 weeks. No noticable strength loss. I don’t really have a solid goal weight or physique that I am shooting for. For now the diet is easy to follow and the gains are still coming, so there is no reason to change course.
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That’s awesome that it is working out so well for ya, keep plugging along and keep the updates coming!
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Update: it is probably a bit of a fluctuation, but weighing in at 225 on the nose this morning marks 20 lbs lost. I am very happy with my progress so far, particularly because I haven’t lost any strength it seems. I will continue the diet for now and hope to get under 220 so that I can eventually reverse the diet and start gaining again (slowly) to continue to build my strength while staying in the 220 lb weight class. Continuing the cut down to 198 is absolutely on the table at some point, however I feel it is important to have a period where I am focusing on concentrated strength gain only, as that is always my main goal.
I am thinking ahead a bit and will continue to diet for a few more weeks, but I want to make sure I make this eventual transition successfully and don’t end up putting this fat back on. So I want to reach out to some of our bodybuilding people who know what they are talking about diet-wise, if one of you fellas don’t mind offering some advice @BrickHead @robstein @The_Mighty_Stu
My diet for this cut (per day) was 2200 cal, 240 g protein, 48-73 g fat (20-30%), fill the rest with carbs. What is the best way to turn this into a diet for slow gaining? Slowly add carbs? Should I have a period where I am simply maintaining my weight before I start to gain? I do not use anabolics if that matters. Thanks for anyone willing to help!
We had two Cheeburger Cheeburgers here in Memphis, and they started out as the best burger joints in existence. Then after a year they started hiring shit employees, went downhill and went out of business. I wept like a weak little pansie man for a whole week
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@max13 congrats on your training and weight loss so far!
It’s good that you’re tracking macros and calories consistently, it’s the best way to ensure you’re moving in the right direction when you make adjustments either way, to keep losing or start gaining again. If you’ve been losing weight on this current breakdown, and want to reverse diet smartly to ensure you put on as minimal fat as possible, small adjustments are key. Protein intake should remain constant, so if you’re at 240g protein, leave it there, fats as well I think as 48-73g is a healthy amount, and having too many carbs and fat in the blood at the same time can potentially store fat. Ideally, adding in ~20-25 carbs per day (roughly 100 cals) is a good starting point, and be very consistent with it. This is a small adjustment, could be adding an apple somewhere in the day, or one slice of bread of something like that. Do that for a full week and see how you respond, if you’ve been losing weight on your current numbers then that addition might bring you to maintenance.
Reading your earlier first post, how many carbs a day were you getting before you started cutting? It looks like you’re getting very few currently, it is certainly possible to have carbs, and a solid amount of them, and still cut. I recently tried a cyclical bulking approach (bulk for a period, then cut for a smaller period, repeat) and for 4 weeks was eating 200g carbs a day and losing a little over a pound a week. I could be off, but reading your post it looks like you’re getting ~100g carbs per day? (PB sandwich, some gatorade and occasionally some rice or potato), so be sure to add them in slowly. Since your body is used to 100g a day, if you jump to 200g a day or something like that, you have a very good chance of storing some extra body fat as your metabolism isn’t used to processing all those carbs. There’s definitely nothing wrong with a low carb diet and it’s a great way to lose fat, just want to be careful adding them back in.
IMO if you want to ensure you’re gaining the right kind of weight, scale weight increase should be no more than 1lb every two weeks. Some might think differently, I think if you’re an experienced lifter and not using anabolics, and putting on more than 1lb a week, there’s no way it’s all muscle, otherwise in 6 months you could put on 25 pounds of muscle (obviously not possible for a natural lifter.) If you’re ok with adding a little fat, then of course use your judgement. Adding two pounds of muscle a month for an experienced lifter is pretty damn solid progress. Once you maintain, add another ~25g carbs a day, and keep going until you reach your desired weight/physique. You could always add more carbs faster, but then you’re opening the door to pack on some additional fat that you’ve worked so hard to take off.
Also be sure to use the mirror and progress pics as a guide. You may continue to recomp, if you lose another pound of fat but gain a pound of muscle over the course of a couple weeks, the scale won’t move but you should notice a difference in your progress pics.
You could also toss in one low carb/low calorie day on a non training day to help balance out the rest of the week. You certainly won’t lose any muscle or strength from doing that and it might help the metabolism and insulin sensitivity. Even with a properly executed bulk, there’s only so long you can do it before your body starts adapting to the higher calorie and carb intake, and eventually you’ll shift from adding more muscle than fat to adding more fat than muscle.
Good luck man and be sure to post with any more questions!
Thanks a ton Rob that was very detailed.
I actually began this diet thinking that I will just clean up my food choices without counting calories, basically by choosing my carbs haphazardly. What happened was that I had a great initial drop in water weight, but then the weight loss leveled off. I then made the decision to stop being lazy and count calories, which is when I settled in to the macro split described above. So aside from that initial 2 weeks, I have been getting 145-200 g carbs per day for the better part of the past 2 months.
This is what I would have guessed, so I am glad you are confirming. 0.5 lb per week it is. I track my daily weigh-ins as well as my weekly average rate of weight loss in excel like the good accountant that I am.
Again, the advice is much appreciated! I will certainly update.
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Do you think you can keeep your lifts up while going down to the 198 class? I am no power lifter but I do know bodyweight helps the bench the most. If you’re not on gear, 225 pounds at 5’6" is undoubtedly very soft. I don’t say that in a bad way because I understand bodyweight is important in powerlifting, especially depending on the individual’s aims.
If you don’t want to easily add fat back, I strongly suggest you continue to diet down til you’re lean (I don’t mean shredded like an onstage BBer) and then use a modest increase in calories with some calorie/carb rotation and see what happens.
Thanks for the response Brick.
Right now, no. To be in safe water cutting range for 198 I’d probably need to be walking around at 210, maximum. I’ve already lost 20 pounds and another 15 right now would definitely hurt my lifts. Ironically, its not my bench that has been affected. I’ve consistently hit bench PR’s for the past few months. I just feel like my legs and lower back are gone and it has hurt my squatting and pulling.
You are right, I am still soft at 225. Getting to 198 is definitely on the table but to be honest - my lifts are OK but aren’t terribly impressive. I’d really like to get them to be more respectable before I drop any more weight. Since drugs aren’t in the equation that most likely just means it will take a lot of constent diet and training. I think it is prudent to take this 20-lb weight loss as a victory for now and continue to build my lifts in order to keep moving forward. I just for sure want to do that without bloating up like crazy again.
Glad to help bro! Be sure to keep us updated on your progress and post back with any additional questions you may have.
Are you going to be competing soon? Of course you’ll do what you feel is best, but as you’re already at a low of 225, IMO now would be an ideal time to keep dieting. I understand the blow one takes when strength stalls or has a slight decrease, but if you’re not competing anytime soon, I agree with @BrickHead that you should continue dieting until you get nice and lean, at which point it’ll be MUCH EASIER to add strength and LBM without blowing up. Adding muscle and keeping metabolism moving along is infinitely easier the leaner you are. I’m 5’4" at 158lbs right now, good spot for the off season. At 5’6" and 225, I think you could certainly cut down to 200 and still look big (probably bigger as you get leaner), and then start adding again. Of course it’s up to you, but I think in the long term it’d be more beneficial to keep dieting for now.
EDIT: Just want to add, I’m aware as you’re a powerlifter our goals and priorities are different. I’m just putting my thoughts down as it pertains to the fat loss subject of the thread. Whether you continue cutting or decide to maintain and slowly add, the weight loss you’ve achieved is awesome and it’ll no doubt help your training. Keep killing it man.
Keep in mind; as your weight drops, your co-efficient will tend to improve better than the rate that your lifts decline, assuming you’re still training hard and aren’t crash dieting. I know having huge absolute numbers is awesome, but regarding the actual competition of powerlifting, in most cases, if you’re below SHW, it’s going to be better to focus more on getting rid of fluff and holding on to as much strength as you can until you’re at a point where you can really grow into a weight class.
Just some food for thought, if you’ll pardon the diet pun.
I get it, but as you improve from training, wouldn’t your relative strength/co-efficient improve?
Thanks for all the support fellas it means a lot.
Yes, I think so. There’s a meet across the river in Jersey in January that I’d like to lift in. Its 11.5 weeks away, perfect time for a meet cycle. I work in accounting so am naturally slammed with work from mid-January to April 15th, so by the time that settles and I can run a proper peaking cycle I may not get a chance to compete again until summer 2017. Since my last meet was in July, I don’t want to wait that long. Since I’d rather not diet to lose during a meet prep … Well, you see my point. I could then diet during my work busy season and hopefully come in lighter for a summer meet.[quote=“T3hPwnisher, post:38, topic:221758”]
Keep in mind; as your weight drops, your co-efficient will tend to improve better than the rate that your lifts decline, assuming you’re still training hard and aren’t crash dieting
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Yes you guys are right. However like I said in my last post, my lifts are currently just OK. It is my ultimate goal to make an elite total, and to do that with my current lifts I’d have to cut down to something like 148 or 165. Its too early in my competitive life to really worry about my coefficient, I honestly don’t even know what it is. I have lost 20 lbs without any significant strength loss which is awesome. But I do honestly think a meet prep where I am pushing my lifts up is what I need at the moment. Hence why I am here asking for advice on how to not fuck this up. I don’t want to turn it into an excuse to eat cheeseburgers 3x per day.