T-Dawg/Meltdown: Not Getting Results

I’m playing around with the T-dawg/meltdown training combo and just finished my first week:

Week 0: 65.2kg @ 17.7 BF% (11.54kg fat)
Week 1: 65.6kg @ 17.1 BF% (11.22kg fat)

That’s a fatloss of 320grams (0.7 pound), not extremely impressing for the first week. I like the muscle gain but maybe it’s just water.

The caloric guidelines for the T-Dawg diet recommends 15 x bodyweight, which comes to 2145 and then cut 500 after a week (=1645).

I keep a detailed foodlog, but made a calculating mistake, so my intake have been quite a bit lower than recommended:

205/103/59 (P/C/F) = 1760kcal on training days.
205/62/59 (P/C/F) = 1596kcal on off-days.

However, my experience tells me I probably need to get very low before losing weight, but I am still surprised I only lost a measly 0.7 pounds of fat.

My initial thoughts when not losing enough fat, is lowering overall caloric intake a bit more (maybe in the 250-300 range), but where? Protein is basically following guidelines (10g. too low), carbs are about as low as they can be (I eat a little oatmeal as breakfast and get the rest as simple sugars during- and postworkout), and a high fat intake is usually recommended with low(er) carb intake.

Any tips on what to do?

Is this in the right forum?

You only have one week so far. I wouldn’t be too worried.

One important thing to know is that burned fat creates water that weighs more then the fat that was burned. And it can sometimes take a while to lose that water depending on certain issues, such as that time of the month.

Give it more time, and see what happens.

Your fatloss is still there. You made good progress because your lean mass went up and your fat mass went down. About the only thing you can do right now is adjust the diet a little and see what happens either way.

Another thing you can try is to get some steady-state cardio in the mornings maybe 5 times a week for 30-45 minutes a session. Nothing massive just some incline walking or light jogging or something like that. First thing on an empty stomach seems to work out pretty good. Also if you don’t exercise too intensily for this cardio session its unlikely you’ll be catabolic for a while so it might be ok to not eat upwards of 1 hour or so after you finish for a little afterburn.

Yeah I am feeling the same. I know I am gaining muscle, but I sure wish the weight (fat) would drop also. I seem to be stuck at 258-260. That cheat meal will make the scale go up 4-5 lbs the next day.

You may want to try eliminating the carbs altogether. Don’t even eat the oatmeal! Only use surge on your workout days for your carbs 1/2 serving during your workout for energy and 1/2 PWO.

Up your protein and fat as needed.

You’ll notice on the weekends that you will lose alot of water weight and other stuff.

But hey if you are losing 1 - 2 lbs of fat a week that’s a darn good goal. I bet you could get there if you drop the carbs.

walleye

Interesting stuff! Thanks for the help, it is much appreciated.

I’ve changed a few things around and have lowered overall kcal by about 190 per day. That comes to an average of 1500kcal, about 100-150 below the recommended starting point of the article.

I’m trying walleye’s recommendations of lowering carb intake even more and am now getting almost all my carbs during- and post workout. Because of this, I’m moving my Meltdown training to first thing in the morning.
Just wondering, should I get a little protein in before the workout or do it on an empty stomach?

Thanks for the help!

Buff >>
Post your numbers/diet/training, there’s a good chance someone can help you out or at the very least give you some new ideas.

Guys the facts are you must be patient.

I would follow the suggestions you have received. Give any diet change atleast two weeks to show its true results befor any tweeking. After each tweek another two weeks is needed.

As far as losing .7lbs in one week. Man that is just about perfect. To hold onto as much LBM as possibl;e while cutting it is good to go for 1lb a week and if you reach the 1.5lb per week mark it is time to up the cals to slow the loss or you are risking to much muscle loss.

If you were extremely obese that is a different story, you can afford to lose fast right off the bat without risking LBM loss.

Either way. Please give each change a few weeks to take effect. Be patient and shoot more for holding on to LBM than losing fat. You will thank yourself in the long run. Also dont lower cals to much and supress that metabolism for to long. It takes a while to get that furnace turned back on after it has been dampened for so long. This will translate into fast fat gain when you do reach your goals and try and up the cals.

Slow and steady guys. Its a long game and it has just begun.

Any more direct ?'s feel free to ask and I am sue we can all help ya

Hope this helps,
Phill

I would strongly suggest that you eat tons of veggies (preferably raw) in place of all other carbs except for PWO shake to keep you full and keep your blood pH more alkaline. It was my own modifed T Dawg 2.0 diet and it seemed to work better. I have like at least 3 big bowl of salads covered with extra vrigin olive oil w/ vinegar (my homemade Italian dressing cuz the ones at the stores are crap) with steak, eggs, chickens, etc. It really works as far as controlling hunger!

As a rule you never count the first weeks result when you change something. You have to allow for all things to stabilize in the new diet or training or supplements. Think of the atkins system where the first week is water or CCKdiets where the first two weeks runs produce weird results then it stabalizes and you know what reacts how.

Measure after the first week then start calculating for change from there.

I agree with many of the comments above. I’m a HUGE advocate of the low carb diet and I have both practiced it and recommended it to many people with great success. You are on the right track, I believe, however, because you have greater than 10% bodyfat, you may want to abstain from carbs until your in the single digit bodyfat range. That means, eggs in the morning instead of oatmeal, and low-carb Grow! after workouts. You will feel some fatigue if you’re new to the diet but that only has only lasted 7-16 days in myself or anyone I’ve recommended the diet to in the past. I know there are some post-workout zealots out there who will come after me for this post but if you’d like rapid results, this is what I recommend in good faith. This method is used with elite level athletes and average Joe’s at the Poliquin Performance Center. If you abstain from carbs for 16 days, and by this I mean 30-40 grams coming from green vegetables you will most likely see a marked improvement in your physique as well as energy levels. In fact, I recommended this diet to a girl last semester who told me her clothes fit better after only two weeks which was more progress than she’d made in the four prior to consulting me. Granted it was due mostly to water lost but it still contributed to a more svelte appearance. Anyway, it’s all just food for thought. Let us know how it all plays out.

P.S.
You didn’t mention any other supplements. I’d suggest looking into a high quality omega-3 supplement, high lignan flax oil, or Hot-Rox.