Should I change my diet? a bit long

Training Bodybuilding
41

Update 2nd day in for those that are still interested.

Yesterday pretty good, felt fine. Did my first Anti-BB workout and got through 10 sets of Bench presses and rows.

This morning had a bit of soreness but it wasn’t too bad.

The diet was a bit bad today as I felt pretty hungry and had a few cravings which made me fairly uncomfortable.

For cardio I went for a 10 km ride at moderate intensity and felt flat as a tack.

Not a good day today but I think everything I am going through is pretty much as expected.

Hope these cravings for shite food stop or else Saturday is going to be a big refreed :slight_smile:

42

Well, you know that I’m interested! (grin)

Cravings. Two or three things that might help.

  1. L-Phenylalanine is an amino acid that helps with appetite suppression. Needs to be taken on an empty stomach; i.e., not with protein, as it would compete with other amino acids for uptake and have a lesser (or no) effect.

  2. Guar gum mixed with Crystal Light. It’s a thickener. Mix one heaping teaspoon QUICKLY in a large glass of Crystal Light. Chug it down QUICKLY (or else it will thicken and you’ll be eating it with a spoon). You will feel instantly full!

  3. 5-HTP helps with cravings of the sweet/carb-y type variety. Try taking 100mg two or three times a day (preferably on an empty stomach). You can go as high as 900mg, but may start to feel sleepy, as it affects serotonin levels.

Other things you might play with or experiment with is a small cup of coffee (suppresses appetite and gives you a bit of a lift), an ECA stack, HCA, or synephrine (aka Bitter Orange).

Make sure you’re drinking 1.5 gallons of water at your weight. The area of your brain that monitors hydration levels and hunger are very close together, and dehydration is often misinterpreted as hunger. A lower-carb, higher-protein diet requires higher water intake. Your girlfriend should be drinking at least 1 gallon.

What do you mean by “I felt flat as a tack”?

BTW, T-Bow, you’re making a transition from being a sugar burner to a fat burner. Cravings will subside, I promise. But in the meantime, take full advantage of all resources.

As we discussed, plan on a refeed every Friday, Saturday or Sunday; your choice. I realize you don’t have a full week of T-Dawg 2 under the belt, but we’re talking about settling into your new, lifelong eating patterns. Don’t be suprised if you go really crazy on refeeds for the first month or two (for no other reason than you can!) Just don’t step on the scale the day after. (grin)

43

Hi,

Third day in and this was a bit better. I took your advice as usual.I made up an EC stack with 60mg psuedo ephedrine and 200mg of caffeine. Any effective supplements are banned in Australia so it’s the best I could do.

It worked fine and I got through the day a lot better but those extra 30gms of carbs seem to make a difference. I can’t remember the aussie that posted it but thanks for that if yo’re reading.

I’ll do a bit of research on the other stuff but it will probably either be unavailble or available in homeapathic amounts which I guess is the same thing.

It took me about a week to get used to the other diet I was on so I guess it’ll be the same and I should be well adjusted sometime next week.

Just had to bitch and moan for a bit I guess.

The weigh in Friday should be interesting as my cardio volume is way way down.Hopefully this less is more philosophy is going to work.

44

oh I forgot…doing the water thing and probably more than that amount daily.

“flat as a tack” in this sense meaning no energy,pump as in a thumb tack pressed into a wall etc. But of course it has several meanings depending how you use it.

Oh well you can add that into your Australian slang lexicon.

45

Re all the supps for hunger and cravings, I wouldn’t recommend that you take ALL of them! (grin) I was trying to give you a list of things that are fairly effective. Me? I like having lots of tools in my toolbox and tend to pull different things out under different situations. Bottom line is, we’re all biochemically unique, so different things tend to work for different people. And of course, your issue is availability.

Re taking about a week to get used to your old diet, that’s about right. Maybe two weeks. As I said, you’re teaching your body to utilize a different energy source. It gets easier and easier.

Monitor the hunger thing because after the transition, it should not be an issue. If it is, we’ll probably make an adjustment to your diet. I tend to get hungry about an hour before my next meal or after my cardio sessions. My times for being hungry are quite predictable. But in general, hunger is not something that preoccupies my thoughts. We’ll fix it in the next week or two if it’s extreme.

Glad to hear you’re drinking all that water!!! Tremendous health benefits!

Looking forward to Friday!!! (grin)

46

Hi,

Well Friday is here and I am not sure I am cool with the results.

On the tanita scales 79.6 and 27% (whatever that means). So I have acheived precisely nothing over the course of the week.

I am going to continue for the 4 weeks as I figure maybe it takes that amount fo time to get a result. 5 days isn’t much but of course I was hoping for some movement. I have been totally strict following the reccomendations here to the letter with no deviations.

I took a caliper reading (fat trackII)however and got the following values

Upper: 16mm
Mid:22 mm
lower: 8 mm

This works out to 14% but I don’t think I look like 14% so confusion reigns.

47

T-Bow, could I get the day you started your diet and your weight on that day? I’d also like to know your goal weight and goal BF%; immediately (this diet) and longer term; i.e., do you want to bulk after dieting down?

Glad to hear you’re using the calipers to measure your progress. The thing with calipers is that with the same mm measurements you get different BF percentages, depending on which formula you run those measurement through. That doesn’t matter, though, because the real benefit in using calipers is measuring your progress (in mms, not %).

Please don’t stress. Your body needs to settle into new eating patterns, a new workout (a hypertrophy one at that!), and smarter cardio. From the looks of things, you lost weight. But even if you gained weight, I would ask you to hang tough for two weeks while your body adjusts. Then at the two-week mark, with precise numbers (i.e., caloric intake and weight loss/gain), I’ll make minor adjustments.

Finally, after using the Tanita for a year, I no longer look at the BF%. It is not accurate for our purposes. If you want an accurate BF% see if you can find a doctor that has a DEXA machine. It stands for Dual X-Ray Absorbitometry. DEXA and hydrostatic weighing are the gold standards when it comes to measuring BF. A university might have a hydrostatic tank. But it’s a process that takes a couple of hours and dunking. The DEXA requires 6 minutes of your time.

I’ll respond further after you get me the information I asked for.

Take care, and keep the faith!!!

48

Okay, you started out Monday (12/8) at 80kg (176 lbs.), and Friday (12/12), there were no changes in your weight. (I’m going to continue to ignore the BF% reported by your Tanita (wink))

I’m going to ask you to use that 80kg on 12/12 as your starting weight. It takes a couple of weeks for the body to settle into new eating patterns. Next Friday (not really two weeks), we’ll make some adjustments if we have to. But for right now put your blinders on, eat your meals, work out, hit your numbers and basically just settle into your new routine.

T-Bow, let me share with you some of what’s going through my head. Basically, I want to do an overhaul of your metabolism. I’m not willing to decrease calories drastically, nor am I willing to increase energy expenditure excessively. My goal is to increase your LBM, which will result in an increase in your metabolism. And don’t worry, we’ll drop your BF% in the process.

So my question to you is, are you and I on the same page? Are these your goals? Because everything I recommend and ask you to do is based on the above stated goals.

A couple of questions:

  1. How is ABBH working for you? You’re in the gym every other day, right? You do find it challenging/demanding, right? In and out in an hour or less, right?

  2. Are you following the 70g/100g carb recommendation in T-Dawg 2, or did you increase your carb intake? Also, are you meeting your protein and fat requirements daily and eating 6 meals?

  3. Tell me about your PWO nutrition.

One thing I do want you to start is daily cardio, 45 minutes, 65-75% of MHR, out of bed, fasted state. Get up earlier if you have to. Get to bed earlier if you have to. It won’t be forever. You can walk/run, use an eliptical trainer, treadmill, bike, Stairmaster, Precor, whatever you want. If you don’t use a machine that reports your heart rate, you need to invest in a heart rate monitor.

It’s all about getting your heart rate to the prescribed range, giving your metabolism a kick in the butt, and putting yourself into fat burning mode. Your workout should be done separate from cardio, in the evening. If you’re not convinced and committed, let me know, I’ll explain in further detail why I want you doing cardio this way and the benefits. It’s not an iddle request on my part, and believe it or not, it’s not really about the calories you’ll be burning.

Let me talk about carbs and eating patterns just quickly. You are eating P+F meals and then taking in your carbs PWO with a Surge-type drink and a whole-food P+C meal an hour and a half after that, right? My preference on workout days is that those carbs be your starchy carbs (oatmeal, sweet potatoes, brown rice). On days you don’t work out, I want you eating green veggie carbs exclusively (no fruit), subtracting fiber from total carbs, divided up any way you like.

One last question for the record, what are your immediate (with the current diet) and long-term goals re body weight and body fat percentage.

Okay. It’s your turn, T-Bow. Questions? Answers to my questions? (grin)

49

Hi,

  1. ABBH has been good it’s tough but not too bad. It’s nicely laid out for the 23 days so easy to follow but too early to tell if I have any results.

2)I am following the TDAWG 2.0 70/100g guidelines and eat mostly leafy greens most days with the exception of workout days when I have some seasonal fruits. I don’t really eat starchy veges,breads,rice etc anymore except on a refeed.

I have been tracking via fitday.com and have been keeping track of the totals and have been righton the money as far as P/C/F is concerned.

3)PWO nutrition consists of a good quality protein shake +banana + maltodextin in water as soon as I drop the weights and come inside.

I think diet-wise I am going okay but I am just a fat b@stard with a slow metabolism.

Dropping the cardio level down I think sabotaged my progress as everything was pretty good diet pretty good, training good, cardio not enough :frowning:

I kind of figured I have the body type that requires daily cardio to get lean…bummer.

But anyway I guess it’s time to start again and re-evaluate some stuff.

My current goal is to get rid of my spare tyre and lovehandfles and I figure if I get to about 75kg (165) that should do it.

So the goal is to lose 5kgs of fat short term which may be tricky. Tell me it gets easier the leaner you get?

Long term I would like to be sub 10% BF amd 85 kgs.

50

Good information, T-Bow! Thanks.

There are two ways to reduce your BF%. One is to drop BF (and scale weight). The other is to put on muscle, keep scale weight the same. If your diet is optimized you can possibly put on a little LBM while cutting (or at least preserve LBM.

So in that vein . . .

Fruit is not an optimal carb choice when your carb intake is so limited. It does not refill muscle glycogen stores (the reason for eating carbs in the first place). It is only capable of refilling liver glycogen stores. It does not help with recovery or promote protein synthesis. Do a search on fructose here on the forum. Save fruit for your 6-hour refeeds.

Starchy carbs (oatmeal, sweet potatoes, rice) are the carbs of choice in the whole-food P+C meal PWO. Among other things it will have a positive impact on thyroid function. You don’t get a lot, but if what you’ve done in the past hasn’t worked, I’d like to see you try it out. Remember, different carbs for different purposes; different carbs at different times.

Are you subtracting fiber from total carbs? A given amount of broccoli might have 23g of carbs (Total Carbs) and 11g of fiber, resulting in a net of 12g of fiber.

Drop the banana from the PWO shake. NOT optimal. Works against your goals. Whey & malto in a 1:2 ratio is perfect. You can use a little bananna extract if you like the flavor.

No, the cardio is not your problem. Follow the guidelines (time & intensity) I recommended. Separate it from your weight training. It’s not about burning calories. It’s about putting yourself into a fat burning mode, raising an enzyme called Hormone Sensitive Lipase which is the rate-limiting enzyme in fat mobilization. Since you’re not doing anything to spike insulin, that enzyme will remain elevate for up to 12 hours (until you work out and drink your Surge-type drink).

As you put on muscle, and as we kick your metabolism into gear, daily cardio won’t be required. For now, it’s a useful tool, but too much intensity will chew up muscle and downregulate your metabolism.

Tell me it gets easier the leaner you get.

Unfortunately, T-Bow, the exact opposite is true. Long-term, strict dieting is perceived by the body as starvation. The body would prefer to break down muscle over fat in most cases. Everything is slowing down; metabolism, hormones (like T), immunity. That’s why everything is about supporting thyroid function, lean muscle and leptin levels.

And remember one final thing. My goal is to put some lean muscle on you, protect the muscle you have at all prices, and upregulate your metabolism. I’ve had any number of people I’ve worked with that didn’t lose scale weight as quickly as they had in the past on their own. However, they did put on muscle at the expense of BF.

51

Hi,

Looks like I got a little confused there. But i read the carbo roundtable and it says among other things that the consumption of fruit is engouraged so I thought that was an acceptable choice.

I’ll do the starchy carbs thing from now on all the while subtracting fiber from cabs and that should pump the amounts up a bit.

The banana is forever banished PWO and I’ll stick to whey +malto in the ratio supplied.

I thought I was doing the right things but there you go, fell into my own trap.

Thanks again for the advice, will keep chugging along making lots of mistakes. Hopefully some of this chubb will start coming off in reasonable amounts.

52

So just to make sure I am doing it right this time… How about a quick check of the T-Dawg article vs what I am doing now.

I just want to make sure I am getting what a P+F,P+C meal actually is. As you know I am developing a habit for taking good information and doing weird things with it :frowning:

Meal #1 (Big breakfast option)
Egg and cheese omelet
Oatmeal
Classic Grow!

So this is P+F right?

My alternative on busy days/early shift I do low-fat yoghurt + serving of protein powder and a macchiato? Is this still okay?

Snack
Beef jerky, handful of mixed nuts - don’t usually have this…as it stuffs up my P/C/F quantities (K.I.S.S)

Meal #2
Tuna + boiled egg - another P+F right?

Normally low carb whey powder + water as I am at work - this doesn’t seem to quite match any suggestions here?

Meal #3 - P+C?
Chicken breast/lean beef/tuna
Garden salad - lettuce,cucumber,small amount of tomato + balsamic dressing.

Meal #4 PWO - been over this whey power 1:2 with whey/malto in water?
Pre and post-workout drink

Meal #5 P+C meal?
Steak
Starchy veges + salad

Meal #6 end with a P+F
Cottage cheese
Low Carb Grow!

Does this also mean that I can have some of diesel’s mad low carb cheescake instead?

53

Communicating can be challenging at time; i.e., is the message sent the one received? Throw in the online factor, and it becomes all the more challenging. (grin)

You spoke/wrote back all my recommendations perfectly.

More suggestions based on your meal samples. (grin)

Some of the recommendations I’m making are based on my particular approach and are not really part of T-Dawg 2.0. I’m using a lot of the T-Dawg concepts, but tweaking things a bit. I’d like you to use the following eating patterns on days you work out in the gym.

AM FS Cardio for 45 minutes at 65%-75% of MHR
Meal 1 P+F
Meal 2 P+F
Meal 3 P+F
Meal 4 P+F
Weightbearing Workout
Meal 5 Liquid P+C
Meal 6 Starchy Carb P+C

Back to your meal samples:

  • Meal 1. I’d like to have you save your oatmeal for PWO. It’s a starchy carb. I want to minimize any insulin response after your FS cardio to keep you in a fat burning mode.

  • Snack. Jerky & nuts make for a great P+F meal. Remember, you need 32g of protein every meal and 15g of fat on each of your 4 P+F meals. For our purposes, snacks and meals are the same. Hit your numbers. Eat every 3 hours.

  • Meal 2. Perfecto!

  • Protein shake plus nuts or protein shake plus peanut butter or flaxseed or flaxseed oil make the meal a P+F meal. You have to track/count all of your carbs, but you’re allowed up to 10g of carbs in P+F meal ala Berardi.

  • Meal 3. If you look up 2 cups of salad on Fitday, you’ll see it’s only about 5g of carbs. You could use a dressing made of flaxseed oil, rice vinegar or lemon juice and diced garlic, maybe a little Splenda. The dressing I just described would be a P+F meal.

  • PWO drink should be 25g of whey protein and 50g of malto/carbs.

  • Meal 5. Use a lean cut of meat; no fatty cuts. Fat should be kept to a minimum this particular meal. You should try to be taking in your full alotment of carbs (as close to 50g as possible, without going over the 100g you’re allowed for a WO day).

  • Meal 6. I am not a fan of cottage cheese and milk products, especially since you’re struggling. Do a search on the forum for galactose. It’s the same issue as fructose.

  • Save your cheescake for your refeed. Since your diet is so strict, restricted and controlled, everything that goes into your mouth needs to be quality – quality protein, carbs and fat. Everything with a purpose.

On your non-WO days try this eating pattern:

AM FS Cardio for 45 minutes at 65%-75% of MHR
Meal 1 P+C (32gP + 20gC)
Meal 2 P+C (32gP + 20gC)
Meal 3 P+C (32gP + 20gC)
Meal 4 P+F (32gP + 20gF) up to 5gC
Meal 5 P+F (32gP + 20gF) up to 5gC
Meal 6 P+F (32gP + 20gF)

You’re doing great, T-Bow. Reading about something and applying it are two entirely different things. What you’re doing is not easy. But you really are dialing in your diet!!!

54

Not to hijack this thread but do you think it is ok to eat fruit on non workout days, actually every day including workouts days. I try to keep the carbs under 75 including all fruits and veggies. What do you think? Thank You

(Sorry if this is a double post)

55

Good question, roc, and considering what we’ve T-Bow and I have been discussing, it’s not a hijack at all.

T-Bow and I are struggling mightily to break a plateau, to maintain LBM while droppng BF. He and I are getting exceedingly strict and precise in the process.

In general, fruit is a good thing, even when cutting/dieting. It has phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals and numerous health benefits. It’s not like high fructose corn syrup which is found in processed carbs and should be avoided like the plague!

Yes, have some fruit every day, one or two servings. T-Bow for the time being is being directed to get his carbs from green veggie sources. But even that will not be for the rest of his life. It’s just that fructose (found in fruit) does not refill muscle glycogen stores, and considering the limited amount of carbs he is getting, refilling muscle glycogen stores is a priority.

Actually, your carb intake is pretty low, too. If you have the energy to work out, no problem. If recovery is not an issue, no problem. If you are making progress in your fat loss goals, no problem. If you plateau or have problems with any of what I listed above, you might want to reconsider the matter at that time.

56

Hi Roc,

this thread is not a private one and it’s good to see other people asking the same questions I have.

From what I have read if your goal is rapid fat loss then fruit copnsumption is not optimal.

Fructose can only replenish liver glycogen rather than muscle gylcogen. The liver has a very limited store and once capacity is exceeded it’s into fat storage.

Correct me if I am wrong anyone?

57

Roc,

I dont think that Tampa Terry is trying to say fruit is bad at all times, just when trying desperatly to cut off some weight it can be a hinderance.

As far as that goes, I also think it can be as individual as any other part of diet/nutrition. I for example still eat fruit while cutting, though I limit it to a couple peices a week.

So my answer to your question would be yes, it is ok. On the other hand, if it slows your weight loss goals I would limit it, or cut it out, until that goal is reached.

During other phases of diet, namely mantaining and bulking, I feel it is not only ok, but fruit consumption is a must. Fruit contains a large amount and variety of vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, etc. that must not be ignored.

Phill

58

Darn it, Phill, you took the words right outta my mouth!!! May I retire, now? (chuckling)

59

Hi TT

In answer to your last question.

No you may not retire while I am still rotund :slight_smile:

60

On a more serious note however… a few minor questions.

  1. protein intake - If everything else is at the correct level fat/carbs/calories etc and I consume over the amount by 30gms or so this won’t be a problem.

  2. the switch in order of the P+F and P+C on workout/non-workout days. What is the reason for this. Wouldn’t the carb consumption interfere with HSL production? Would I be better off doing my cardio at lunchtime and letting the P+F meals do their work afternoon and evening?

3)How much milk/dairy can I safely consume before it sccrews me up? I read about galactose and fructose so I understand the process but no numbers mentioned.

This is for convenience sake on early shift and not the rule, I generally have eggs.

Actually after analysis that 3rd question answers itself. Get up 10 mins earlier and cook some eggs.