Recomp Diet

Nutrition
1

This is a bit of a noob question and will likely be a long post so please bare with me. Essentially I am trying to set up a good recomp diet or at least a diet that will allow me to slowly lose fat while getting stronger and continuing to train hard.

Stats: 25 y/o, 5’7", 180 lbs, bodyfat percentage unknown, but I’m at that point where I look “in shape” to average people but my bodybuilder friends say I’m fat. I definitely have some pudge, and because of where I store my fat (love handles, lower belly, and chest almost exclusively) it is obvious when I have my shirt off and sometimes in a T-shirt. Sometimes I look fairly lean-ish but water retention can make me look straight up fat too. I hope this paints a good enough picture.

Training: currently following a 4-day 5/3/1 template. I usually do prowler sprints after my deadlift day and some kind of conditioning on saturday, but lately recovery has felt like an issue so these HIIT-style sessions have fallen off a bit. Conditioning is usually the first thing to go when my body needs a break or I’m feeling lazy. Never miss a lifting session (ever), but I just don’t have that same diligence with conditioning. Squat/bench/deads are in the 300s/200s/400s.

Goals: Overall, long-term goal is to be big and strong by any man’s standard. That said, I don’t want to look disgusting either. I don’t care bout abs, veins, or striations, but I DO care about not being a pudgy dude with sort-of-big muscles. As for the short term, I have my first powerlifting comp coming up in december, so obviously I need to continue getting stronger for that. I don’t care what weight class I’m in for the competition though, and plan to use powerlifting as a way to gauge my progress and add meaning to my training, not as something I expect to be particularly good or competitive at. I want to do MY best, but if thats still way worse than the next guy’s best I honestly don’t care.

Special considerations: I’m a long-time vegetarian and rely on whey, eggs, and occasionally cottage cheese and fake meat to hit my protein requirements. I’ve gone from 115 lbs with piss-poor strength to 185 lbs with better-than-piss-poor strength as a vegetarian so I don’t think it’s an issue, but I figured I’d throw it out there.

Diet: I eat every 3-4 hours, with a healthy dose of protein at every meal. In the past 6 months I’ve gotten away from counting everything and just eating “a lot,” an average day of eating looks something like this for me:

Breakfast (9 am)
3 whole eggs, 1/2 cup egg whites
1 cup dry oatmeal
1/4 cup walnuts
Couple handfuls of spinach

Lunch 1 (12 am)
40 g protein from whey
1.5 - 2 cups brown rice w/ black beans
Veggies

Lunch 2 (3 pm)
Same as above

Intra-workout (6pm)
10 g BCAAs
half a large bottle of gatorade
lots of water

Post-workout (7:30 pm)
30 grams of dextrose
40 g of protein from whey

Dinner (9 pm)
3 whole eggs, 1/2 cup egg whites
Large sweet potato
veggies
[Extra carbs if I feel like I need it – maybe once a week]

Snack (If I stay up late or feel like I need more food0
whey shake
handful of walnuts

So there it is. Again, what I’m trying to figure out is a way to eat that is going to allow me to lose some of this fat while getting stronger and (ideally) putting on a bit of muscle in the process. I know that that is the Holy grail of diets and training that EVERYONE wants, but I think it should be achievable with how much and how intensely I train, and the fact that I don’t want to get shredded but just want a more athletic body fat level (lets say 12-14%). Any input would be greatly appreciate.

2

Update: searched around while looking at some macro calculators and this is more or less what I came up with: 2800 calories, 315 grams of carbs, 210 gram of protein, 78 grams of fat for maintenance. Does this look like a decent place to start if I want to keep my weight more or less the same (+/- 5 lbs) but improve my body comp?

3

Looks good to me, but maybe eat more meat and rely less on whey shakes.

tweet

4

Good luck as a vegetarian.

You already have your answers. If you feel run down after your conditioning, you are no eating enough. You are also having a meal 3 hours before your conditioning after deadlifts. Of course you will be run down.

No one can tell you if it is enough or too much. but then again, you already have your answers as per:

“in shape” to average people but my bodybuilder friends say I’m fat. I definitely have some pudge, and because of where I store my fat (love handles, lower belly, and chest almost exclusively) it is obvious when I have my shirt off and sometimes in a T-shirt."

I am not sure why you are trying to sugar coat this or what, we really don’t care. Just start being honest with yourself.

Your goal is to compete. So, do that and stop worrying about the minor shit. Eat to win. Read up 5/3/1 books. and just so you know, 2800 calories is NOT a lot. You want to get bigger and stronger, start eating. How many calories? All of them.

5

[quote]JFG wrote:
Your goal is to compete. So, do that and stop worrying about the minor shit. Eat to win. Read up 5/3/1 books. and just so you know, 2800 calories is NOT a lot. You want to get bigger and stronger, start eating. How many calories? All of them.[/quote]

While I appreciate this sentiment, whenever I try to eat that way I end up putting on a lot of useless fat with minimal increases in performance. This is not optimal given my goals, because one of them is to not look like shit. All I’m looking for is the opinion of a few more experienced people on how to eat while training for performance that limits the gain of useless fat. Since I have a bit of useless fat now, I would expect to slowly lose it if I started eating this way. I’m not looking to “get shredded” and also compete in powerlifting, but I also don’t think there’s any sense in sporting a muffin top at 180 lbs either. Either way, thanks for your input (not sarcasm.)

6

[quote]theBird wrote:
Looks good to me, but maybe eat more meat and rely less on whey shakes.

tweet[/quote]

I’d definitely do that if I weren’t a vegetarian. It’s solid advice and what I’d tell people to do too.

7

I would try cutting out the intra workout Gatorade and possibly eliminate the post workout dextrose or at least reduce it to 15-20 g. That would be an easy way to drop around 50 carbs from your daily intake without feeling like you’re eating less (since you’re consuming them in liquid form), so increased hunger shouldn’t be an issue.

8

Updating this for those who care at all. Been at the above-mentioned macros/ calories (2800 calories, 315 grams of carbs, 210 gram of protein, 78 grams of fat) for 3 weeks and have already seen a noticeable improvement in my physique while keeping pace with my previous rate of strength increase. Weight is down about 3 lbs? seemingly all from fat. I don’t get worked up if I go over my macros by a bit here or there, but the simple act of tracking gives me a sense of certainty about my diet and in the future will give me a way to adjust my intake based on my goals.

Maybe when I’m stronger and have more mass I’ll be able to “wing it” a bit more with my eating, but this seems to be the solution to my problem for now. I know I’m not saying anything groundbreaking here but I just wanted to end this thread with what I learned.

9

Nice one.

report back in three months please.

It is always nice to know things are working out.

Cheers