Question for Tampa Terry

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Terry,

I recently read your diet advice in one mof your posts and i was wondering if you could help me out?

I am 38 years old, 6’3, 225 lbs. MY BF is around 16-18%. My goal is to shed BF and maintain and/or gain LBM. I have good muscle mass everywhere but my abs, love handles have a layer of fat that I would like to get rid of.

I have been training for 20+ yrs in the gym, boxing, martial arts, kickboxing, MMA, etc. I currently like doing this one major bodypart per day program + one minor bodypart, and I work out 5 days a week. I haven’t been doing much cardio lately, if at all.

I eat about 5 times day and it really varies what I eat. Ususally it looks like this:

1: whey protein, flax oil, crystal light

2: turkey sandwich on whole wheat + chips or fries

2 pm workout

3: 2 scoops whey, oatmeal, fruit

4: chicken, potatoes, veggies

5: pizza or chicken fingers

Im know my diet sucks, sometimes I even indulge in desserts, cheeseburgers, etc. I need some alternatives, how much, and when to eat them. I am open to using any supplements. Not surprisingly, I have high cholesterol also.

Thanks for your time and i look forward to your response.

2

  1. You didn’t say what your goals were. I’m assuming you want to get lean.

  2. If my assumption is correct then you are also correct, your diet sucks.

  3. Help yourself. You know there is plenty of info around here and you clearly have looked at any of it.

3

Ahkeron,

  1. Mind your business. this question is for TT. He asked me to post it so other people with similar goals may benefit from the answer.

  2. My goals are stated in the post.

4

The forum is a public place, so anyone can asnswer. If you want to ask TT, send her a PM. Dont waste her time though, she is very helpful but it would be rude to ask her for some help if you are not going to help yourself.
Check out the FAQ, there is plenty of diet advice.
Read the “Dont diet” article, and give yourself a plan of attack. Write down what you want to achieve (be specific) and how you are going to do it (diet, supps, weights and cardio)

5

Hey, guys, I was going to answer this after I get back from my fasted state cardio (so that I can eat before half the day is gone), but I can see that things have taken a turn for the worse. 4realyo did PM me and ask for help. I asked him to post on the forum so that everyone could participate and everyone could benefit from the exchange.

I was HOPING that others would participate and share their thoughts. That’s the real value of T-Mag, the diversity of knowledge and experience. There are many of you out there that come up with things I’d have never thought of.

4realyo, I’ll be with my thoughts in a couple of hours.

6

Terry,

You are way too nice. You said it yourself about the value of T-mag. There’s a ton of information that this fool could’ve looked up on his own. But instead of doing his own research, he wants someone to just answer his questions.

You are way too knowledgable to be wasting your time helping this lazy clown.

4realyo, I don’t need to mind my own business. Perhaps you need to look up the definition of ‘forum’.

7

Ok, you know your diet sucks but you are asking for diet advice? If you know enough to know that it sucks, then you should know enough on how to fix it, correct?

8

Goldberg, you hold him and I’ll punch him. Deal?

:wink:

9

Hey there, 4realyo. With fasted-state (FS) cardio and my first meal of the day out of the way, let’s dig into your situation.

At 225 and 17% BF, dropping 19 pounds of BF would put you right around 8%. That’s where your abs will really start to show. Alternatively, if you were able to put on 10 pounds of muscle and drop 10 pounds of fat/scale weight, that would ALSO put you around 8%.

The alternative approach requires a high degree of discipline and compliance and is NOT easy to do at the same time. Nonetheless, most of the advice I give is based on protecting (and adding to) LBM, while maximizing fat loss.

There’s a saying on T-Mag, “It’s your diet, Stupid!” It’s a saying used whether people say, “I want to be Hyooge” or “I want to get Ripped.” Ignore the “stupid” part. The point is really that you’re going to have to dial in your diet to improve your body composition (fat to muscle ratio). Weight training is done mainly to preserve LBM while dieting, and cardio is done to mobilize and burn stores of subcutaneous fat. Both are secondary, though highly complementary (if not necessary), to diet.

I see you’re new to T-Mag, so I’ll make some recommendations that will get you on your way.

One, do a search on T-Mag for Berardi. Use the search engine to the left of the screen, click on the drop-down box and change the “T-forums” default to “T-Mag.” JB is a nutritional guru and has GREATLY influenced my life and body composition. There’s a ton of his stuff (writings) here on T-Mag, and he also has his own web site. If not the search engine, hit the “Previous Issues” section.

The thing of greatest value to me that JB’s contributed is the concept of food combining; eating P+F and P+C meals. It’s the first change you need to make in your diet.

The second thing is that you need some structure (a plan) and some nubmers to hit. My favorite diet here on T-Mag is T-Dawg 2.0. Once again, do a search. And if you need some help running the numbers, I’d be glad to help. But give it a stab yourself, first.

Actually, I didn’t think your diet looked that bad. Who here doesn’t believe that pizza (I had some last night) and chicken fingers aren’t good food? They’re not just good, they’re REALLY good! (grin) Unfortunately, they’re not terribly good when you’re trying to improve your body composition. Save them for your Cheat Meal or Cheat Afternoon. I have a Cheat Afternoon every week on Saturday.

The flax, chicken, veggies are all good food body-building food. But as I said, you need structure and you need to be hitting numbers. When you’re hitting numbers consistently, then you can tweak and fine-tune things to manage energy levels and increase or slow down fat/weight loss.

Let me give you an example of what I mean by structure. I eat 6 meals a day. I do FS cardio before my first meal. My first 4 meals are P+F meals. If I lift weights (3 days a week), I will eat a liquid P+C meal (Surge) and another whole-food P+C meal about an hour and a half later. On days I don’t lift, Meal 5 is all the green-veggie carbs I can stuff in my face.

All of this is T-Mag wisdom that I’ve learned from reading the forum and reading nutrition articles in the “Previous Issues” section.

I remember your telling me that you don’t do a lot of cardio. I tell you what, read up on it here on T-Mag (forum and archives, both). I don’t particularly like cardio, even though I do a ton of it. Body builders cutting for competition tend to do a lot of it. And the people I know that have managed to stay lean all of their lives do cardio on a daily basis. It’s a physiological fact that visceral fat is lost by dieting and subcutaneous fat (those love handles and the insulation covering your abs) is lost by increasing energy expenditure (i.e., cardio). Since I want the results (those ultra-low BF percentages), I just suck it up and do it.

I won’t make any recommendations on what YOU should be doing (those are issues you need to work through), but I will tell you what I’M doing. (grin) I do FS cardio 7 days a week. I take in 15g of BCAAs and Glutamine to protect LBM. I drink 2 quarts of water per cardio session. I do 45 minutes of moderate intensity cardio (70%) and wear a heart rate monitor to keep within a certain range. Cardio can be jump-rope, walk-run, eliptical trainer, StairMaster – anything. Recently, temporarily, I’ve added in a second session on evenings I don’t lift. It’s a major, major investment of time and energy. But since every other aspect of my plan is perfectly dialed in, I’m getting fabulous results for my efforts.

A couple of other things I would recommend you read is the article by Chris Shugart, “The Diet Manifesto” in this week’s edition, and also, “The Missing Ingredient,” which is about how to set up and keep a food log, a CRITICAL tool if you want to improve your body composition.

So, to condense and recap: Dial in your diet. Select a diet here on T-Mag and follow your plan. Keep a food log and track what you’re eating so that you can make adjustments and continue to make progress. Read up and follow JB’s P+F and P+C food combining principles. Run the numbers on how much protein, carbs and fat you need. Once you’ve run the numbers, I’d be glad to take a look at them. Do cardio and drink at least 4 quarts of water per day. 6 quarts at your BW would be better.

And, as always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

10

Will add in my .02 worth here. If you want to see what eating plans can get results…read the hot rox essays and look at the corresponding pics. Proof is in the postings there.

I think anyone that has been training as long as you have knows how bad refined carbs are and how important good protein sources are. Hard to beat that Don’t Diet or T-Dawg 2.0 plan for dropping bodyfat%.

I also know that searching the forum and mag can be overwhelming when you are trying to digest all the info at once. print things out so you can compare or read them again to help with comprehension. I know I get overwhelmed when searching and learning so much at one time.

Best of luck in achieving your goals and let us know what you decide upon and then keep us posted on your progress.

Eat clean, train hard…pretty simple.

11

Thanks again Terry for all of your help. Thanks for the other people who tried to help as well.

I’m also glad I could also help some of the internet tough guys vent their frustration in a safe way for them. It’s funny, when I was in the Marine corps, boxing in the Golden Gloves, or competing in 30+ muay thai tourneys, I never met anyone who talked shit behind their computers. I guess I found where they are hiding.

12

Posted for 4realyo. My reply follows:

Terry,

I tried posting a few follow-ups on the forum, and they are not getting there so I have given up. I am not a good typist so to keep doing it over is really frustrating.

Here’s the plan:

AM workout (4 days weights + cardio/3 days FS cardio)

Meal 1: 2 scoops whey protein mixed in 1 yogurt

Meal 2: 2 scoops whey protein mixed in crystal light with 1 tbl. flax

Meal 3: boneless chicken breast with veggies

Meal 4: fish with salad

Meal 5: 2 sccops whey with flax

Meal 6: 2 egg beaters and turkey sausage with veggies

I take 4 fish oil caps with each food meal. I’m also going to take Hot Rox, Myostat. I’m going to alternate Mag 10 and methoxy. I’m going to order the BCA’s and glut also.

LMK what you think. Thanks a lot!

4realyo, I see some really good things going on with your diet and with your plan. My thoughts are as follows:

  1. Until you’re struggling with taking a single-digit BF number down even lower, you probably shouldn’t do cardio and weights in the same workout. And you DEFINITELY shouldn’t do cardio BEFORE lifting weights. A 5- or 10-minute warmup to get the blood flowing and raise core temperature is okay, but you don’t want to deplete glycogen stores, which you will with longer sessions. Your workout will not be optimal. In fact, it will suffer.

  2. FS cardio (especially with BCAAs + Glutamine in your water) is okay, but you should NEVER do FS weight lifting. It’s way too catabolic. Remember, the goal is to hold on to every bit of the LBM you have and make sure it’s FAT that’s being lost. On days you lift weights early, at least chug down a protein shake an hour before. Some set their alarm clock an hour early, chug their shake down and go back to bed for an hour of snoozing.

So for the time being, do 4 days of lifting in the AM (after your first meal) and 3 days of FS cardio. That will be great until you hit a plateau.

  1. I know you’re looking for some variety, but in general, I’m really down on dairy. Milk and dairy products have a type of sugar in it called galactose that can only be processed in the liver. Galactose does not refill muscle glycogen stores (your goal and purpose when taking in carbs). What’s worse, if liver glycogen is full, said carb-sugars are converted to triglyceride and stored as subcutaneous fat, giving you that “soft” look. Not, not, not, not good. I avoid dairy like the plague.

You can include it in for the time being, but be aware of the problem. You may have to cut it out of your diet down the road. And definitely be sure to get the non-fruited, non-flavored kind, and add a little Splenda if you need to sweeten it up a bit.

  1. I’m not a big fan of sausage because of the chemicals they throw in 'em; nitrates and nitrites. I know it tastes good, but at least buy your sausage from a health food store.

But I tell you what, on meals that you’re trying to eat P+C, it’s best to keep fat to less than 5g. Have you read John Berardi’s article on food combining? It gives you some guidelines along those lines. So for your last meal of the day, I’d recommend turkey breast instead of turkey sausage. Save the nitrate-free sausage for your P+F meals.

  1. I like your choice of supplements, except for Mag-10 and Myostat, which will give you the biggest bang for the buck when you’re doing some hardcore bulking. However, as far as the fish oil goes, I have a few comments.

One, I only buy Health from the Sun’s product. It has all of the carcinogens, chemicals, DDTs and PCBs removed via a process called molecular distillation. It comes in capsule or liquid. But health benefits (and cognitive and endurance/stamina) are realized at 6-10g of EPA/DHA. I’d recommend that you take the required number of capsules ONLY in your P+F meals. You should be shooting for 4 P+F meals and 2 P+C meals (following your workout).

  1. Just for the fun of it, do a search on “recipes” here on the forum. Clean food doesn’t have to be boring.

  2. Finally, what are the numbers? How many grams of protein, carbs and fat are you shooting for each day? You didn’t think you were going to get off that easy, did you? (grin)

13

So you were asked to post this on a forum by a well-known forumite so your question could be answered by many and knowledge shared by all. But in the end, you don’t want to have anyone answer your question besides TT. PM TT next time and say you want to keep it private. Forum = multiple users answering and conversing. This is what happens when you post a question. Don’t be a dick about it. We’re here to help. Oh, and in your original post, you didn’t post your goals.

14

Mah bad, you said “lose fat and possibly gain lbm”. Go to the hot-rox forum and read what they said, mr. badass.

15

Oh yeah, well I’ve killed a bear, a lion, and a triceratops with my bare hands! 4 real yo!!

16

I guess he told me. hahahaha.

17

JWright, Akheron, Goldberg, Poohbaya, what is it that really offends you about this guy? Is it the fact that he doesn’t show humility and submissiveness when told his diet sucks? Is it the fact that he’s dared defend himself? Is it the fact that his diet doesn’t meet T-Mag standards and he was naive enough to admit/post it publicly?

I’ve been on T-Mag a year, contributing, reading, learning, and attempting to apply what I’ve learned. And you know what? I STILL don’t have it figured out. I STILL don’t have a diet that meets T-Mag standards. If I did, I’d have those ultra-elite, low BF numbers I’ve been trying so hard to achieve.

I’m famous for recommending the “Previous Issues” section. But have I read ALL the articles in the archives? No, I haven’t. Maybe someone should be jumping all over MY case?

And how about using the darn search engine? Well, I don’t know about you, but where I’m concerned it doesn’t seem to like more advanced (or even the more basic) forms of Boolean logic. Which means I don’t usually find whatever the heck I’m looking for, which means even I have to ask for help from time to time. Maybe everyone should be ripping ME a new one?

We’re all on a journey. We’re all trying to take what we are to a higher level. This whole bash-the-newbie thing really sucks!

18

TT, people are jumping on this guy for this one line in particular.

“1) Mind your business. this question is for TT. He asked me to post it so other people with similar goals may benefit from the answer.”

It’s got nothing to do with the search for knowledge. It’s got to do with the attitude he’s displayed along the way. If you post something on an OPEN forum, then you should expect multiple people to contribute to the answer. “Mind you own business” doesn’t fit in the picture here.

19

No, it’s the fact that we would help him, but as soon as someone posed a question to him, he told them to mind their own business. It’s as if he didn’t want anyone to answer but you, TT. If that were the case, then he should have just asked it to remain a PM.

20

Terry,

What pissed me off was/is his laziness:

“Here’s my diet, I know it sucks, so tell me how to fix it Terry.”

I’m sorry but that’s ridiculous. He acknowledgled that his diet was poor yet didn’t do any research of his own in attempt to correct it. Again, laziness.

Yes I agree the search engine sucks. Regardless, he could’ve EASILY found articles on how to correct this. I recently introduced T-mag to a friend of mine and he’s been finding information on his own without problems. So what’s this guy’s malfunction?

I’m all for you helping people, your posts are informative. But, I think the attention you give people is insane given the fact you do it for free. I’d rather you spend your time in discussions that are worthwhile, not “Should I cut pizza and desserts out of my diet if I’m trying to lose fat?”

See my point at all?