Right Approach to Getting Shredded

Nutrition
1

I feel pretty ghey posting this but w/e. I’m preparing in advance and getting this done.

I’m about 12 weeks from a trip to the Caribbean, and before that like 10 weeks from a trip post-finals to Florida. I want to be really lean for the Caribbean trip.

I’m around 195 and anywhere from 15-17% bodyfat

I want to get to under 10%, closer to 8.

I’m ketogenic right now and have been carbing up on weekends. I like this basic approach but can change it.

what type of approach would get me this level of weight loss in time?

I feel like, from personal history, if I just stick on the anabolic diet and ride it out on my own the next few months, I’m not going to get to the low level that I want.

Perhaps slowly decreasing calories and eventually transitioning to a crash diet. Something like the ultimate diet 2.0 or get shredded diet?

I have the Alpha Male and HOT-ROX products from months ago at my disposal. I tend to not do cardio but I’ll do what I have to.

I’ve never tried to get my BF this low before, and ideas would be nice

2

[quote]actionjeff wrote:
I feel kind of dumb posting this but w/e. I’m preparing in advance and getting this done.

I’m about 12 weeks from a trip to the Caribbean, and before that like 10 weeks from a trip post-finals to Florida. I want to be really lean for the Caribbean trip.

I’m around 195 and anywhere from 15-17% bodyfat

I want to get to under 10%, closer to 8.

I’m ketogenic right now and have been carbing up on weekends. I like this basic approach but can change it.

what type of approach would get me this level of weight loss in time?

I feel like, from personal history, if I just stick on the anabolic diet and ride it out on my own the next few months, I’m not going to get to the low level that I want.

Perhaps slowly decreasing calories and eventually transitioning to a crash diet. Something like the ultimate diet 2.0 or get shredded diet?

I have the Alpha Male and HOT-ROX products from months ago at my disposal. I tend to not do cardio but I’ll do what I have to.

I’ve never tried to get my BF this low before, and ideas would be nice

[/quote]

I can appreciate wanting to get into shape for a great vacation like that! You have come to the right place, T-Nation is full of great people and a great source for information. I saw you were in the Boston area and I have acontact (fellow Poliquin trainer out there) who would be great for you to work with. His training studio is Apec-s and his name is Jason.

If you are serious about getting into the best shape of your life he is the guy to help you out. I will be happy to offer up some advice but in order to really help you out I would need to see what type of diet you are going to be doing. The cardio is NOT required to get lean (I have posted extensively about this so I will not go on again). Best of luck and keep us posted.

3

well I don’t know what type of diet! I’m doing a ketogenic diet right now, and doing my carb-up as suggested by Lyle Mcdonald in this article I just found on a log:
mesomorphosis.com/articles/mcdonald/carb-up-and-ketogenic-diet.htm

basically I’m eating high fat during the week, and lowering the fat a lot on Saturday and less Sunday and massively jacking up carbs Saturday with sugars and high GI stuff, and moving to complex carbs the next day.

I’d have to say I eat very clean but I have a hell of an appetite so even on a diet I shovel down a lot of food! I’m guessing that’s gonna have to change to reach this goal, lol

I just don’t want the normal situation of trying to diet down and ending up 4 weeks out and not being close to reaching my goal!

4

drop it to a 1-day carb up first thing.

i’ve had the most success with something like the V-diet. with 12 weeks to prep for this “show” i think you would have the most success doind the V-diet now and then in the weeks following the 28-day V-diet, properly transition off of it to prepare for a vacation of entirely “real” food to prevent the massive weight gain that would happen if you were to crash diet and then go straight to vacation eating.

5

I’m all open to thermogenics and NEPA and low calories, macro breakdown, whatever

I definitely want solid food though! I did the V-Diet 10 months ago or so and got down to 183 ish, then bulked to 200 ish or so this year. I don’t want to repeat the V-Diet experience though!

At 183 I could see a good outline of my abs. I’ve gained at least 10-12 pounds of muscle since then, so I think I would be pretty lean at as high as 185 but I could be underestimating the amount of fat I need to lose.

one carb-up day might be best yeah. Right now I’m eating like 500g of carbs the first carb-up day and 320 the 2nd.

Anyone have opinions on UD2.0 or anything like that? I’m pretty happy with ketogenic carb cycling on the whole, but if I just had to go low carb all the time with no carb-up Gustavopacho style to get to my goal, I would do it

6

[quote]actionjeff wrote:
I’m all open to thermogenics and NEPA and low calories, macro breakdown, whatever

I definitely want solid food though! I did the V-Diet 10 months ago or so and got down to 183 ish, then bulked to 200 ish or so this year. I don’t want to repeat the V-Diet experience though!

At 183 I could see a good outline of my abs. I’ve gained at least 10-12 pounds of muscle since then, so I think I would be pretty lean at as high as 185 but I could be underestimating the amount of fat I need to lose.

one carb-up day might be best yeah. Right now I’m eating like 500g of carbs the first carb-up day and 320 the 2nd.

Anyone have opinions on UD2.0 or anything like that? I’m pretty happy with ketogenic carb cycling on the whole, but if I just had to go low carb all the time with no carb-up Gustavopacho style to get to my goal, I would do it

[/quote]

I’ve tried UD2.0 and it works somewhat. However, the amount of carbs that the book recommends you take in during your carb up days might be a little too much. You could possibly lower the amount of carbs you take in on those carb up days or you can try limiting it to one day only as someone before mentioned.

You can only have so much of the carbs going to glycogen. There is a limit and once you hit that limit, the rest tends to get stored as fat.

The UD2.0 can work but I think the amount of carbs would have to be lowered by a good amount to get a real nice effect but personally I don’t like it that much. Wasn’t really into energy fluctuations.

7

Why would you have a carb day if you’re trying to be ketogenic? I thought you wanted only fats/protein everyday.

Any carbs would bust you out of the ketogenic state. Am I missing something?

8

Jeff,

Try combining the Regressive Keto Diet with Metabolic Pairings (both by Thibs). The fat falls off. I set my workouts up like this…

Sat - Chest & Back Heavy (4-8 rep range)
Sun - Metabolic pairings + 30min walk on treadmill
Mon - Off
Tue - Arms Heavy (4-8 rep range)
Wed - off
Thu - Metabolic pairings + 30min walk on treadmill
Fri - off

9

I highly suggest seen Laroyals friend, and get you biosig done. You will be blown away with the results…

If not, the least you could do is:

Pro @2g/lb
Fats @0.5/lb(more if you are lacking energy)
Carbs @ <30g

ONE carb meal a week!!..NOT A DAY…If you are at 15% bf, YOU DONT NEED CARBS. Follow this and the fat should fall off. Also, I would use a split similar to Clutch suggests with seperate heavy and metabolic work.

Goodluck,
GJ

10

Dude, check out Thibs’ “Refined Physique Transformation” guide. That was my fuckin’ bible for a while. I got down to 5% Bf in 12 weeks. If you follow it to a T you’ll make great progress. But be prepared to bust your ass like never before. The lactate inducing workouts (aka vomit inducing) will leave you on the floor. The plan is based around a low carb diet, and CT outlines the correct macronutrient ratios in the article so it’ll be easy for you to figure out the diet. Seriously, top notch article.

11

thanks for ud2 analysis

hey Laroyal,

I’m outside the city so I’m kind of far from Boston but maybe if I’ve got a free weekend I’d be interested yeah. I’m off at school right now.

12

[quote]Maximillian wrote:
Why would you have a carb day if you’re trying to be ketogenic? I thought you wanted only fats/protein everyday.

Any carbs would bust you out of the ketogenic state. Am I missing something?[/quote]

its like the anabolic diet, I don’t know if you’ve seen the thread

check out that article I linked. There is significant upregulation of carb intake to replenishing glycogen stores, and a negative fat balance on the first 24 hours.It’s pretty interesting stuff

13

I’ll check out the metabolic pairings and refined physique transformation thing, thanks guys

Chip what BF did you start from to get so low in only 12 weeks? nice job.

gym

those ratios sound pretty good thanks. Right now I was shooting for 140g fat, big protein, and <30g carbs but not really counting fat like I should be. I’ll start off lowering it a bit and keep lowering it if I have to. I guess I want to see about 1.5 pounds of fat loss a week to make it to where I want

14

I used the metabolic pairings and did a depletion workout Thursday before carbing up Friday.

horrible brutal and effective.

bw is down to 193 after week 1. Been trying to eat

135g fat, lots protein, <30g carbs/day. Will cut fat as I have to…

friday: 80g fat, 500+g carbs
Saturday: 40g fat, 360g carbs

maybe I will cut the carbs Saturday

Adding HOT-ROX Extreme tommorow.

I can’t believe I lost weight after that massive carb-up.

15

update

down to 192. 4 pounds now.

Just added the HOT-ROX and went from 2 light cardio sessions/week to NEPA sessions most days.

I’m not cutting the food yet, just watching it. I think the best plan is to get stricter week by week to drive the progress along. If things are slower than intended, more NEPA and/or less food.

I was looking at some pics from gus’ log and to be at the stage where all of my abs are visible, I am probably around 8 pounds away. I’m a little bigger than him, but my arms aren’t quite as big and I’ve also got a few inches on him. I think I can do it in the time frame.

I’m going to ask some questions in the future about adjusting my diet and everything before I leave home for vacation so I don’t gain back a ton of fat, and obviously can cheat and enjoy the trip

just in case u guys wanna comment, here’s what I’ve been eating, random day, I estimated macro intake just to see, about what I expected-

meal 1- (55p 40f 5c)

3 eggs (18p 13.5f)
slice cheese (5p 7f)
1 turkey sausage (19p 5f)
3 slices bacon ( 12p 9f)

ketchup (5c)
tbs milled flax seed (4p 6f 4fiber)
5g fish oil (5f)

meal 2-(45p 30f 5c)

8-10oz buffalo w/pecans, spinach and broccoli

meal 3- (55p 30f 5c)

8-10oz salmon, spinach, asparagus
tbs milled flax seed (4p 6f 4fiber)

PWO: 35g protein w/BCAAS and other supplements (35p)

meal 4- (55p 30?f 5c)

8-10oz venison (55p 5f)
tbs olive oil in pan (10f?)
walnuts or almonds (10f)
spinach and broccoli
5g fish oil (5f)

around 250g protein 135g fat <30g carbs

16

My carb ups and training planning is so complicated now that I’m not even going to write about it. I may cut off the incline bench and make it one day of chest work, add the triceps to shoulder day, and add a very light full body workout early on Friday for a bigger supercompensation effect on the carb up.

The only issue might be that the complex carb day could be important on Saturday for DL recovery

edit- yeah I’m almost certainly combining the bench stuff.

17

once you get down to 10-12% you should give ud2 a try.

the reason the carb-load calls for an enormous amount of carbs is because with your muscles very glycogen depleted, there is a super compensation effect.

check out my 2 pics, that’s 8 weeks of UD2. there was several cycles where I probably ate too many carbs and too much fat for too long. i’m sure the result would have been better had i followed the diet to a T.

18

Are you doing the coan/phillipe deadlift routine during this cut?

19

pretty much

I’m only working to my estimated max.

I don’t really know why I would do such a thing, and you wouldn’t be the first person to tell me it won’t work or is insane and stupid, which I’m sure it is.

I’ve always had absurd recovery and a few weeks ago I needed a decent routine for deadlift day, so I scrapped the 5x5 deads and just started pulling 1x2 and speed pulls.

I’m riding the glycogen supercompensation from the day before which helps a lot.

if my recovery gets really bad or I can’t handle the sessions I will cut back on the volume or just drop it, but I would take a bet right now that I’m pulling 405x1 min at the end. My sumo is higher so I think it’s just a matter of building work capacity and learning the movement to my back better.

I will be done before I am at the last stage of dieting anyway, I wouldn’t go on a diet to get to really low BF if I wasn’t. I’m only running it for 6 more weeks.

I feel dumb after typing that up, but it’s too late to turn back with a few successful sessions under my belt!

Dolce,

wow. Impressive job man. What’s the weight difference there?

20

its about 15-20 pounds give or take. approximately 200lb- 180-185ish.

my weight fluctuates like crazy with glycogen depletion and replenishment. i remember at one point i weighed about 183 fully depleted at the final day of low cals/carbs and 2 days later after the carb load, i weighed in at 195. granted i was pretty damn bloated by the end of the refeed but shit, that’s crazy weight fluctuation.

i didn’t really care much about scale weight, only used it as a reference, especially nearing the start of the carb load.