Okay, so I’m not talking bodybuilding show lean. I’m just talking as in 8%…I’m curious if 8% is still healthy and okay to walk around/easily maintained year round?
Now I’ve just read the Death Match: You vs. Your Body.
That’s fine I think people with normal training and normal jobs…but for guys like me I don’t think that works.
I know about eating a lot of food and getting bigger…I can pound 4000 cals fairly clean, and get 1.5g’s of protein per lb. bodyweight. Eat every 2-3 hours, eat veggies, take your multis’, fish oil…blah blah blah.
But what about getting lean without losing too much muscle?
It’s A LOT more confusing to me cause not only do I not want to lose too much muscle, I want to actually have ENERGY because
I lift weights 3-4x a week
I do muay thai 3x a week
I’m JUST going to switch to a boxing gym 2x a week
I work construction. (electrical, residential…lots of up n down stairs, ladders, pulling wire all day in your house lol)
So I can’t drastically cut down carbs but I eat A SHITLOAD of carbs…CARBS at every single meal. I eat pretty much whatever I want…I mix fats n carbs(as in for breakfast I’ll have cheese with my toast and 4 whole eggs, and my protein shake).
I am ALREADY fairly lean, but wouldn’t mind getting a bit leaner. And see where I wanna go from there.
I’m also willing to pay if anyone knows of someone good to make some type of meal plan to do this…cause I’ve tried myself and it has been a fail fail fail. And I’m not sure even where to read articles to help me out with this anymore.
Everyone has their own ‘genetic leanness’. Meaning certain people can walk around shredded and dry with zero effort. Some people can also carry a decent amount of muscle while staying this lean. Others can only carry a fair amount of mass while also holding a fair amount of fat. Where the fat is held is another thing completely controlled by genetics.
So by the sound of it you’d like to be leaner without going into a contest diet, without drastically lowering carbs, keep your energy up, and hold your mass. Unless you were a serious ecto to begin with, based on your avatar, it doesn’t appear like you can have all of that.
You are ‘offseason’ lean. You may be the type that needs to go into hardcore contest mode and drop weight over a period of 8 weeks with utmost strictness. It’s almost impossible to say at this point.
But completely cleaning up the diet and closely monitoring calories is a start. Add 30 minutes of cardio every day at some point. Drop it to 300 calories below maintanence with carbs coming from sweet potatoes, rice and veggies. Go from there.
Why not simply lower your caloric intake by 500 calories below maintenance and see where that takes you?
Since you’re worried about muscle loss add in some Leucine.
Lift heavier weights, lower reps.
If need be add in some cardio if progress stalls.
you’re gonna lose size, for some people that can be the mental barrier that holds them back. I know personally right now I’m battling it.
From a high of 208, down to 179 right now, granted I know I lost some muscle because of went 3 weeks without working out due to wedding/honeymoon/sickness.
I’ll go a bit lower knowing that while I feel like a little bitch now, I can put the weight back on later when I’ve shed the fat I want.
On top of what he said, try partitioning your carbs to the morning and post-training periods for a while and see how your body reacts. Boosting insulin sensitivity is always a good thing when trying to lose fat and, given that you’re not controlling carbs at all currently, you’ll probably see some marked improvements just by making this change.
Aside from your own genetic predispositions that BONEZ described, I feel 8% is attainable for most trainees with some understanding of dedication, which I’m sure you possess.
As far as meal plan help, you can’t beat Mike Roussell’s Naked Nutrition Guide. I bought it a couple years ago and still reread it every couple of months to make sure my nutrition is as dialed in as it needs to be. You can pick it up at nakednutritionguide.com.
If you’re looking for more direct help, shoot Shelby Starnes an email over at Troponin Nutrition. I worked with him for a couple months and have nothing but good things to say about the guy.
If you’re already not fat, and admittedly eat carbs at every meal, I imagine that if you simply adjusted some days to lower the carb intake (throw in a few P+F meals) and then on the other days kept doing what you’re already doing, that you’d probably experience a slight readjustment in your overall composition without too much extra work (ie. cardio).
My recommendation would be to just lower carbs for your last two meals depending on training time. This way you can keep your energy for work and workouts and still lower cals some and cut carbs some. Everyone seems to rave about shelby starnes, so possibly check him out.
I have no experience with it myself, but I have heard that carb cycling plans work very well, and let you keep a lot of your muscle/strength a the same time.
High days: Carbs all day, every meal.
Medium days: Carbs until (and including) lunch.
Low day: Carbs only just before training (Waxy Maise generally).
I typically train 6 times per week (rest pause, DC inspired but not ACTUAL DC due to gym limitations), so I have 1 low day (off day) and vary my medium/high days based on how lean I want to be.
Some think this is a compromise between size and leanness, but actually I think it is superior for size (lbm wise) than all-out carbilicious bulking. The heightened insulin sensitivity brought about by having a couple of low(er) carb days enhances one’s lbm gains, IME.
This is exactly what I was looking for…all awesome responses here by everyone.
I hear though that carb cycling isn’t for athletes because the off carb days will give you a lack of energy?
If this isn’t the case though I will definately look into carb cycling.
Like I said before though really need all the energy I can get between working full time (labour), lifting, and muay thai.
Bonez - that’s how I see myself…but I used to be very lean at 175lbs, of course I’m much bigger now and well not so lean…but abs are still visible…I just want it to be more pronounced (whole body).
I also believe that one can get bigger and stay lean, or even get MORE lean. I think I have the right type of body to be able to do this. I also think that nutrition is a BIG part of it and that’s the only area I’m lackiing real APPLICABLE knowledge.
ALSO BONEZ - I’m not too keen on dropping calories below maintence (300) cause I eat so much already I feel that might be overkill all at once…but I’ll keep it in mind
Stu - Yes I eat carbs every single meal of the day in and out, been doing it since I started and I guess I respond well with carbs. I don’t pay an extra ordinary amount of time decoding fats, carbs…I just make sure I get enough protein at each meal…the rest is just whatever…carbs, fat…whatever I eat it.
Of course I’m not eating shit…I am eating healthy things…cheese, whole eggs, whole wheat pasta’s, LOTS of bread…I mean…LOAFS a day lol. stuff like that.
So in conclusion perhaps I’ll mix it up and eat no carbs at some meals? But keep calories still pretty high.
I’m going to leave it at 3000 and see how that works for me.
So if I want 1.2g’s of protein I’ll take in 252g’s a day. That’s 42g’s of protein at each meal making up about 1010 calories coming from protein.
(dumb question but do you guys include the protein in bread as protein as well or no?) I never have…I just get it from either 2 chicken breasts, steak, shakes, fish etc.)
After work: big carb + protein meal (will be the meal an hour and half before training)
Train: gatorade powder + protein during workout
After training (night time) - carb + protein.
Before bed: cottage cheese (caesin protein for that sleep, + half banana and some yogurt OR 50g’s almonds)
How does that look? Or is it just bad all over?
Can I do that everyday as well?
Lastly I do eat natural peanut butter sandwhiches…but I’ll eat 2 of them so that’s quite a bit of fat along with 4 pieces of bread…I’m guessing that’s bad all over cause it’s a lot of carbs and fat together…of course I eat 30’s of protein with it (coming form cottage cheese)
Mmm a lot of people have been saying this…but how do you cut carbs on your last meal if you train at night…you need carbs after the workout don’t you?
I always train at night and finish kinda late…depending if it’s muay thai or lifting…lifting it’ll be 8, muay thai is closer to 9 before I get to eat.
[quote]rasturai wrote:
Lastly I do eat natural peanut butter sandwhiches…but I’ll eat 2 of them so that’s quite a bit of fat along with 4 pieces of bread…I’m guessing that’s bad all over cause it’s a lot of carbs and fat together…of course I eat 30’s of protein with it (coming form cottage cheese)[/quote]
the carb cutoff at night and the next step would be to have P+C and P+F meals, not mixing them. If you can already see some abs there’s no reason you’re gonna be officially lean with these adjustments. Sorry if my continuous posts seem annoying.
haha no man meymz it’s all good man…keep posting away…i know not much of this nutrition and have read a lot of articles and have enough knowledge for it but not knowledge to apply it properly to myself really.
I have to get to know my body better and how it functions with food choices, but I’ve always been fairly lean my whole life…so I’ve never thought about it I think though just for a change of pace I’d like to get more lean and see how it’s like. Bulk up to about 230 and then cut to 215 or so and be more solid than I am right now. (current weight 210).
[quote]rasturai wrote:
Mmm a lot of people have been saying this…but how do you cut carbs on your last meal if you train at night…you need carbs after the workout don’t you?
I always train at night and finish kinda late…depending if it’s muay thai or lifting…lifting it’ll be 8, muay thai is closer to 9 before I get to eat.[/quote]
Sorry again bud. Well, when lifting you can have your carbs before. In this way you can spike insulin to get a more anabolic response and add some intraworkout protein. Cathecholamines are secreted when training and they reduce tolerance to carbs for some time after training, so immediate carbs post workout are no longer recommended. When training muay thai be sure to eat complex carbs, because insulin crash can get you and make you feel lazy.
[quote]rasturai wrote:
haha no man meymz it’s all good man…keep posting away…i know not much of this nutrition and have read a lot of articles and have enough knowledge for it but not knowledge to apply it properly to myself really.
I have to get to know my body better and how it functions with food choices, but I’ve always been fairly lean my whole life…so I’ve never thought about it I think though just for a change of pace I’d like to get more lean and see how it’s like. Bulk up to about 230 and then cut to 215 or so and be more solid than I am right now. (current weight 210).
[/quote]
Nice bro, well those two things should work really well.
[quote]MEYMZ wrote:
rasturai wrote:
Mmm a lot of people have been saying this…but how do you cut carbs on your last meal if you train at night…you need carbs after the workout don’t you?
I always train at night and finish kinda late…depending if it’s muay thai or lifting…lifting it’ll be 8, muay thai is closer to 9 before I get to eat.
Sorry again bud. Well, when lifting you can have your carbs before. In this way you can spike insulin to get a more anabolic response and add some intraworkout protein. Cathecholamines are secreted when training and they reduce tolerance to carbs for some time after training, so immediate carbs post workout are no longer recommended. When training muay thai be sure to eat complex carbs, because insulin crash can get you and make you feel lazy.[/quote]
So if I eat a MASSIVE carb meal an hour and half before training…and sip on simple carbs with my protein shake…that will be enough carbs for the rest of the night/after training? (because I do train later at night for muay thai and will eat at 9pm.
Sometimes on lifting days though I can lift at 5-5:30 finish at 7…should I cut off carbs then or eat carbs but not as much and then at 9 have a P+F snack?
Also if I do train later at night and I don’t need more carbs cause the ones I ate before the workout…what should I eat AFTER the workout…obviosuly protein shake…I wait a bit for my stomach to settle after training before eating a bigger meal…but what should I eat?
Peanut butter?..kiddy cereal? or simple carbs wont be good either?
lol just really confused on what I would eat after training other than protein shake lol :S
