Ssantic, you’ve gotten some good advice. Let me summarize and add a few ideas of my own.
You’re not too far off with the 1900 number. I multiplied 15 times your LBM (166.32 x 15 = 2495). Creating a deficit brings you in at 1995 kCal/day. I’d like to see you meet that number and if you’re not losing weight, kick up the level of activity. That way instead of lowering calories, you’re forcing your thyroid and metabolism to rise to the level of performance at which it should be operating.
But whatever the number you pick for daily caloric intake, be it 1995 or 1900, that number is just a starting point. After a couple of weeks, depending on your metabolism (fast or slow) and your level of activity, you may have to adjust it upwards or downwards.
Which leads me to ask, “Are you keeping a food log?” A food log is a critical tool in ANY weight loss program, especially when troubleshooting a plateau. Read Shugart’s, “The Missing Ingredient.”
Re body fat testing, I would recommend that you pay someone experienced to take your numbers once a month. Self measuring is “challenging.” And when it comes to making changes to your program, you need hard, accurate numbers.
Once your diet/program/approach is working for you, you should stick with it and make adjustments no more than once a month, after your BF test.
Caloric recommendations.
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Take in 1.25g of protein per pound of LBM (166.32 x 1.25 = 208g Protein).
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Take in 100g of carbs per day.
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Take in .5g of fat per pound of LBM (.5g x 166.32 = 83g Fat).
That adds up to 1,980 kCal per day. Make sure you’re eating 6 meals a day, protein every meal.
Cardio that complements fat loss.
Since visceral fat is lost of dieting and subcutaneous fat is lost by activity/exercise, I’d like to see you pick up your activity level. Currently I’m doing 45 minutes of fasted state cardio. I take in a 15g-combo of BCAAs and glutamine in my water (2 quarts) to protect LBM. I do this 7 days a week. John Parillo (old time body builder) was a strong advocate of the partitioning benefits of cardio and even had his guys that were bulking at 6,000, 8,000+ calories per day doing cardio 6 days a week. Fasted state cardio should be longer duration, moderate intensity (65-75% of MHR)
Drink lots of water. It flushes ketones (by-products of fat burning), keeps you well hydrated (very anabolic), and keeps you from feeling hungry. I drink 2 quarts per 45 minute cardio session and a total of 6 quarts per day.
Carb manipulation/management.
Save starchy carbs for your whole food meal PWO. Starchy carbs include brown rice, sweet potatoes, oatmeal.
Even with limited carbs, take in Surge PWO. Read John Berardi’s article on why it was formulated the way it is and how it reduces cortisol levels and increases protein synthesis.
There are three types of carbs you should be manipulating: 1). High glycemic carbs, 2). Starchy carbs, 3). Green Veggie carbs. You should only take in high glycemic carbs in your liquid drink PWO. PWO means lifting weights; cardio doesn’t count as a PWO session. You should follow the high glycemic meal/drink with a whole food meal about an hour later; P+C (starchy). Fill the rest of your requirements with green veggie carbs; asparagus, broccoli, kale, collards, brussel sprouts, zucchini, yellow squash.
Be sure to subtract fiber from the total carbs. Example: Say a given amount of broccoli is 14g of carbs and fiber is 6.8g. You would record that you had eaten 7.2g of carbs.
Tools.
Be sure to invest in a nutritional desk reference that lists fat grams, carb grams, protein grams, fiber grams and calories. Make sure it has all the categories I listed. You can get one from amazon.com. Nutribase has a good one, and so does Corine Netzer.
You also need a digital scale. I got one from Office Depot for about $30. It weighs in grams and tenths of an ounce, both. Weighing in grams is useful at times when you’re looking for precision.
Dietary recommendations.
As has been suggested by others, ditch the dairy! Do a search on dairy here on the forum and you’ll see why. Some poeple can handle it, but for an awful lot of us, it results in increased subcutaneous fat stores.
You have to make a decision, ssantic. Do you want to manipulate your body composition positively, or do you want your milk? Sometimes it’s that simple. If something gets in the way of your higher goals, it boils down to what matters more.
Example: My mom’s complimented me on visible positive changes in physical appearance – she’s 82, by the way – and says, “Oh, I’d just LOVE to lose a few pounds . . . but I don’t want to give up my cookies at night.” Now, really, she’s fine the way she is and doesn’t need to lose weight for health reasons. But there’s someone who knows what she needs to do, but isn’t willing to pay the price. The question is, ssantic, are YOU willing to pay the price and make the sacrifices necessary to achieve your goals? If not, you’ve really wasted all of our time.
A good milk substitute is LC Grow. Goes great with oatmeal. Makes for the perfect P+C meal. But remember, starchy carbs are best taken in, in your whole-food PWO meal. Breakfast doesn’t have to be breakfast food. You can have tuna for your first meal of the day and your oatmeal PWO. It just boils down to how bad you want what you want. Some people are driven by their body composition or athletic goals. Some people are driven by the pleasure of the food they put in their mouth.
Juice and fruit.
I’d totally eliminate juice from your diet and limit fruit. There are specific times you might want to refill liver glycogen stores (not very often), but in general, the goal is to refill muscle glycogen (so you can perform in the gym). Juice is like milk; it works against your goals. Fructose and galactose refill liver glycogen, not muscle glycogen and if liver glycogen is full, results in those carb-sugars being stored as subcutaneous fat. NOT good!
Fat.
Replace some of your saturated fat (solid at room temperature) with EFAs. Use flaxseed oil. Pour it over the top of salads or any meat you’re eating. Don’t cook with it. EFAs have tremendous health benefits and complement fat loss. Take in small amounts of good fat with every P+F meal.
Okay. Those are my “quick” thoughts. (grin) Just keep reading the forum and old articles on nutrition. Improving our physique involves educating ourselves and constantly tweaking and fine-tuning our diet and finding what works best for our unique metabolism.
And remember, ultra elite results and low BF percentages don’t come without extreme effort on your part. But having said that, it isn’t just the “effort” part that gets results. You have to work smart, too. Thus the advice, “Read, read, read!”