Tampa-Terry Help

Diet and Nutrition
1

Here’s the re-post that you asked me post in the supplments and nutrition board:
Tampa-Terry

Your posts have been a great help to me and I thank you for the time you take to help the people on this board. Would you mind critiqueing my girlfriend’s diet at your conveniance. She is trying to lost some bodyfat and she currently weighs 143 @ 5 foot 3. The funny thing is, two weeks ago she weighed 137 and I can tell no difference in her physique. She gains and loses weight rapidly. Here is her current diet:

Workout days:
1)Chicken Wrap(chicken, spinach,low carb wrap, small amt. cheese)
2).5 cup oatmeal, 1 scoop Low-Carb Grow!, 1 tbs natural PB
3)1.5 scoops Low-Carb Grow!, .5 cup blueberries, 5 fishoil caps
Workout
4)2/3 bottle Mass Recovery(40 sugary carbs, 25 protein)
5)Grilled Chicken Salad - chicken, spinach, balsamic vinegarette dressing)

Non-W/O:
1)Chicken Wrap
2).5 cup oatmeal, 1 scoop Low-Carb Grow!, 1tbs PB
3)1.5 Low-Carb Grow!, 5 fishoil, .5 cup berries
4)2 Carb Countdown yogurts
5)Grilled Chicken Salad

She has one cheat meal a week. She is pretty strong for her size(squat over 200) but she seems to have trouble losing fat. The total calories are 1300 per day. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thankyou

Will Geer

Yes, she does train four days a week, currently on Pendulum Bodybuilding and she does slow-paced cardio(her knee has been killing her lately) for 30 minutes 3 times a week. Her weight is 143 @ 23% bodyfat. She measures all her food and writes it down, and she knows thr P,C, and Fat of every meal. She is taking in approximately 150 grams of protein, 135 grams of carbs, and 30-35 grams of fat. She has made great progress on muscle gain and strength, but her fat loss has been pretty much nonexistant. Her total caloric intake is approximately 1300 calories. She has been on this particular diet for one week but recently got off a low calorie diet of 6 weeks with no weight loss(not sure of the specifics on this one, it was her concoction. Any critique of her current diet is most appreciated.

2

Hey, there, Will!

I can see your girlfriend is doing a lot of right things.

You said she was on a low-calorie diet, lower than her current 1300 cal/day, I gather. If she was running low on carbs on the prior diet, I’m sure the increase in weight is just an increase in hydration. Carbs are stored in the muscles as glucose in a 3 to 1 ratio; i.e., for every unit of carbs stored, there are 3 units of water stored with it. That’s the problem with low-carb approaches.

Two radically different things I will recommend.

First option/recommendation

  • Reduce carbs on WO days to 110g. That’s 1g x LBM, which is a good maintenance number.

  • Reduce carbs to <25g on NWO days. Essentially she’d be eating P+F meals on her non-workout days.

  • Save starchy carbs (like oatmeal) for PWO only. Green veggie carbs at all other times.

Second option/recommendation

  • Take a look at the Warrior Diet. Some people do exceedingly well on it. Other people do horribly. But play by the rules as they’re outlined in the book. I’ve read about people eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and calling it the Warrior Diet! I did a review on “Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat” on the T-Jack forum, which is the scientific explanation/validation of how and why the Warrior Diet works.

  • I feel that the Warrior Diet is best utilized by someone who has hit a plateau, who has played by the rules, worked out, dieted carefully, done cardio and just isn’t seeing any results.

3

Thank you so much for the advice, she incorporated your recommendations into her diet immediatly, although I don’ think she liked <25 carbs on NWO days, lol. You’re quite an asset to this forum.

Will

4

Hey, there, again, Will!!

I really feel for your girlfriend re the <25g of CHO. Carbs provide flavor, taste and variety. All P+F meals can get tiresome really quickly. But I’ve used the approach I recommended to help break platueas before with great success. What your GF is doing is eating at maintenance one day and at a deficit the next. She’s getting carbs on the days she works out (i.e., resistence training), and virtually none on the days she doesn’t. She gets carbs when her body needs 'em most and can process 'em best. She forces her body to draw upon stored BF for energy on days she doesn’t work out.

What she’s doing is keeping her body in a constant state of metabolic confusion. It works. Even if she doesn’t like it real well, it works.

Please share my message with her. It helps to understand why you’re doing something when you’re making changes to your diet that you don’t like.

Finally, last tip, tell your GF to go out and buy some sugar-free Metamucil for hunger. She can have as much as she wants as often as she wants it. And don’t count the carbs in it towards her carb alotment, of course.

Please let me know how she does.

5

Well, well, well Terry I see you are up to your usual great advice!

Hope you are doing well, take care,

Zeb

6

Hey, there, ZEB!!! Great to see you on the Supplements & Nutrition forum, LOL!

Maybe we’ll see more of you after the elections are over? (dig, dig, dig) & (Very Big Grin)

7

Terry, thanks a bunch, I will surely pass this bit of information along to her, as knowing the method behind the madness will definitely facilitate her routine.

8

Maybe, but then again maybe I will hang around the political forum to gloat a while…(wink)