3/17/25 weight 237
Workout 1
Deadlift 445x5 (yes…the hundos)
Meal 1: mcdonalds breakfast (sausage biscuit, two hasbrowns, orange juice)
Meal 2: chciken breast
Meal 3 3 ramen noodles, two cereal bars, protein
Workout 2
50 wide grip pullups
3x25 facepulls 35 pounds
Meal 4: 4 tacos
(Food has been a fucking disaster today. Was running late and waited til i got starving to eat and ate absolute trash)
Total calories 4416
3/18/25 weight 237
Workout 1
Squat 260 4x4
Meal 1: Protein, 4 tacos (hamburger meat, refried beans, tortilla) 1191
Meal 2: biotest superfood powder, herring, oysters 320
Meal 3: taco meat and refried beans ( no tortillas) 2 ramen noodles (starving…not great decision 1592
Total calories 3103
Are you wanting to lose weight with this current approach? If so, are you open to suggestions?
Essentially, i was told to kind of do what i normally do so that you guys could look at it and then help me. Obviously, i lost ten pounds last weekend with sickness, so have dropped caloric intake to maintain that, but i am only posting this so that you guys can help
Short answer, fire away. Obviously I have low hanging fruit with easy cleanups. My goal is to get to 225
That’s exactly what I was going to take a swing at. Not a big overhaul. I asked about the hot dog/hamburger buns and the bread in the sandwiches, and the tortillas stand out here too. @s.gentz brought this up previously too, but a real simple change to make here is to use fewer grains in your meals here. Instead of 4 reasonable sized tacos, make 1 or 2 HUGE tacos. Use the same amount of fillers, but fewer tortillas. Same with sandwiches. Same with burgers, and even hot dogs. I’d personally just get ride of all of the grains and focus on the innards, but I know that can be too big a change for many folks.
That is so simple. I didnt even think of it. Especially with tacos.. man. But yeah. So it appears to me at least that 35-3700 seems maintenance for this weight with the inactivity i have had at work lately. Would you recommend trying to get to 3000 daily and see what happens?
Right now i would like to get to 225. If I lose some strength temporarily, no big deal
I have never counted a calorie or macro in my life. It’s really not any way I care to live. So, in that regard: I can’t say.
Dr. Peter Attia talks about how there are 3 primary methods of nutritional intervention: energy restriction (calorie restriction/counting), nutrient restriction (carnivore/vegan/keto) and time restriction (fasting). I prefer those last 2 approaches, and specifically the middle one, over the first one. It’s where the grain elimination can work out. If you keep your habits the same, but make 2 big tacos instead of 4 regular ones, you’ll inevitably engage in energy restriction as well without actually counting or tracking anything.
Yeah. That is true. The reason i am counting calories is that my diet is so ridiculous that making good decisions could cut 1500 calories, and in the past, i have had massive strength losses with sensible practices, due to the sheer amount of caloric restriction sensible eating can create, lol
3/19/25 weight 237
Workout 1
Press 135 5x5
Meal 1: protein, 6 oz roast beef deli meat 380
Meal 2: biotest super food shake, smoked oysters, herring 320
Snack 4 slices of turkey deli meat and protein shake 318
Workout 2
Farmers shrugs 45 loaded 5x10
Side delt raises 20 lbs 3x15
Rear delt raises 25 lbs 3x15
Facepulls 35 lb 5x20
Meal 3 4 eggs, 5 bacon, 3 ramen noodles, nutrigrain bar, chocalote granola bar 1851
Total calories 2889
Here is how this goes for me personally:
4 reasonable size tacos → 1 or 2 HUGE tacos → 6 HUGE tacos
You are most likely like me: an abstainer, rather than a moderator. Its why I just cut out the grains.
Oh yeah I’m 100% an abstainer, no question about it. As I get older and have more self control I can get away with moderation for very short periods of time, but ultimately it does not work.
I wrote about this recently in my blog, but Vinnie Tortorich (among others) refer to this as “white knuckling” as it relates to diet. And yeah: you can’t sustain white knuckling, and, ultimately, it has a vacuum effect. The longer we do it, the bigger the compensatory binge. There are SO many diets out there that, rather than try to force the one on us that doesn’t fit just because it’s “the best”, it’s better to find the one that fits US and make it the best it can be.
Yeah. This has been my diet experience. A fucking yo yo. Kill it and then compensate. And by compensate, i mean overcompensate.
And half of it is i would completely clean up doet. Nothing processed. Nothing that wasnt prepared.
But this morning, I had an idea. I need to, at least in short term stop worrying about using food to increase my happiness (so stop worrying about enjoying what i eat. Instead, i will use it to stave off this incredible hunger
Also. I would like to preface this by saying, i am not a bodybuilder, and dont really give a shit about pretty muscle or even big muscle, etc. i am a strength lifter.
However, in the interest of kind of trying to get less fat, i would like to post a pic and get you guys to kind of guess my bodyfat percentage. I believe i am around 20-30% at 237.
Then i can kind of post another in a few weeks when i hit 225. Then we can kind of see if i need to stick there or lose more
This is absolutely futile.
There are, effectively, two kinds of fat: subcutaneous and visceral. They BOTH contribute to bodyfat percentage, but the latter can NOT be seen from the outside. It’s fat between your organs. You can have two dudes that look the same degree of “ripped”, but have wildly different numbers because one dude has more visceral fat than the other.
You’ll look exactly how fat you look irrespective of what that number is. If you want to know an actual number for gee wiz sacks, a DEXA scan is your best bet, and even THAT has a margin of error. Ultimately, autopsy is the only real way to “know”.
Someone like @s.gentz or @RT_Nomad could give you a much more meaningful evaluation of how many “weeks out” you are from a certain degree of leanness based on your current state.
So on this topic, Dr. Ted Naiman has an awesome theory that I ascribe to. Dr. Paul Saladino has also expressed a similar sentiment. It’s based on the notion that our bodies hunger for protein and nutrients: NOT energy. That is to say: we’re not eating for CALORIES, we’re eating for protein and micronutrients. Therefore, if we want to “beat” hunger, we do so by eating protein and nutrient dense foods such that we DON’T need to eat a lot of calories to get there.
Simple example: a twinkie. They have 1 gram of protein each. If you wanted to hit a target goal of 200g of protein a day, you’d have to eat 200 of them to get there. Given that 1 twinkie ALSO has 140 calories because of the 23g of carbs and 5g of fat, you’d end up taking in 28,000 calories to get your protein goal. Compare this to a piedmontese grassfed ribeye, which is like 140 calories per 26g of protein, you’d only need to eat 1075 calories worth of steak to get to your protein goal. And if you ate a little less steak and a few more eggs and liver, you’d get the nutrients your body is hungry for, and most likely “shut off” hunger.
It’s why obesity is a disease of MALnutrition these days. Most folks are eating such nutrient VOID “foods” that they have to eat SO much of it in order to satiate their body’s nutrient hunger, whereas if they ate whole foods that are nutrient and protein rich, they’d require far less. But THOSE foods aren’t shelf stable and are expensive for junk food manufacturers to produce, and ALSO aren’t addictive and have a low return on investment, so they don’t bother selling them.
No problem. I definitely keep visceral fat. It is great for bracing. So,.even when i get down to abs, it is round.
If the pics are unnecessary, then no big deal. I was trying to avoid doing shit to find out my fat percentage. Im essentially wanting to figure out when to stop dieting, and start a slight surplus to begin really building strength again.
The nutrient info is useful. I will try it your way. Essentially being in caloric deficit at this high of weight with strength training, it is only reasonable that protein should make up the majority of my diet
It’s not good for not dying young though: something to consider.
Oh, keep in mind: I haven’t shared “my way” yet: just sharing some information on the subject.
Well. Either way. I appreciate you all watching my progress/lack of progress and helping me out.
I am a bull and I charge headfirst. Not always the best method. But it is my way
My view of a good walking around percent body fat for a person lifting weights with the objective to improve his appearance is to have visible major body part separation. A look that would be impressive on the beach.
