The Staying Lean Factor

Training
121

[quote]browndisaster wrote:

[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:
am I the only one who hates counting calories? I find it’s much easier just to think about servings. For example, instead of trying to add calories, I’ll just add in another serving of carbs to a meal, or two, or whatever. Then if I want to lean out a bit, I’ll take out one or two servings of carbs.

So bulking might look like this:

meal 1 - protein & fat
meal 2 - protein & fat & carbs
meal 3 - protein & fat & carbs
meal 4 - protein & fat

whereas cutting would be:

meal 1 - protein & fat
meal 2 - protein & fat
meal 3 - protein & fat & carbs
meal 4 - protein & fat

works ok for me, I could never be arsed trying to work out calories. Do people really weigh their food? Ain’t nobody got time for that![/quote]
I guess that would work except I’m terrible at estimating a serving(and consequently how much i’m actually eating), and would sometimes miss breakfast or lunch. I recently bough a scale and started weighing, and measuring my food. So now I know 400g of sweet potatoe is basically 2 cups and about 100g of carbs, 1/2 cup of uncooked rice is about 70g of carbs and that lean meat like chicken breast is about 100g of protein per pound.

@browndisaster

I got this scale a while ago and decided to eat the same macros for a while to see at what rate I drop weight after which Ill be better able to manipulate my macros/calories to gain, drop or maintain.[/quote]
interdasting, how long did it take you to find your maintenance levels?

I can already tell that without measuring my food, I eat way too much fat and have a really inconsistent carb intake.[/quote]
I just tried this very recently so I am still figuring out my maintenance levels.

122

[quote]browndisaster wrote:

[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:
am I the only one who hates counting calories? I find it’s much easier just to think about servings. For example, instead of trying to add calories, I’ll just add in another serving of carbs to a meal, or two, or whatever. Then if I want to lean out a bit, I’ll take out one or two servings of carbs.

So bulking might look like this:

meal 1 - protein & fat
meal 2 - protein & fat & carbs
meal 3 - protein & fat & carbs
meal 4 - protein & fat

whereas cutting would be:

meal 1 - protein & fat
meal 2 - protein & fat
meal 3 - protein & fat & carbs
meal 4 - protein & fat

works ok for me, I could never be arsed trying to work out calories. Do people really weigh their food? Ain’t nobody got time for that![/quote]
I guess that would work except I’m terrible at estimating a serving(and consequently how much i’m actually eating), and would sometimes miss breakfast or lunch. I recently bough a scale and started weighing, and measuring my food. So now I know 400g of sweet potatoe is basically 2 cups and about 100g of carbs, 1/2 cup of uncooked rice is about 70g of carbs and that lean meat like chicken breast is about 100g of protein per pound.

@browndisaster

I got this scale a while ago and decided to eat the same macros for a while to see at what rate I drop weight after which Ill be better able to manipulate my macros/calories to gain, drop or maintain.[/quote]
interdasting, how long did it take you to find your maintenance levels?

I can already tell that without measuring my food, I eat way too much fat and have a really inconsistent carb intake.[/quote]

Measuring your food properly for the first time can be an interesting experience, I found I was no where near my aimed Protein intake.

123

Well the first to second page of this thread was great read…and I stopped there knowing what’s probably going to happen after lol

124

[quote]Doh wrote:
Well the first to second page of this thread was great read…and I stopped there knowing what’s probably going to happen after lol[/quote]

Yep.

/productive thread at that point.

125

Women don’t think like men, so speaking for ‘what they like’ is a fruitless exercise.

Having a good body is just one factor, which will be weighted differently from gender to gender and person to person and a ‘good body’ is entirely subjective. You’re in a spot of trouble if all you bring to the table is a set of abs or a set of tits imo. I believe the confidence associated with YOU feeling like you look good is a lot more important than some give it credit for.

126

[quote]The Hoss wrote:
Women don’t think like men, so speaking for ‘what they like’ is a fruitless exercise.

Having a good body is just one factor, which will be weighted differently from gender to gender and person to person and a ‘good body’ is entirely subjective. You’re in a spot of trouble if all you bring to the table is a set of abs or a set of tits imo. I believe the confidence associated with YOU feeling like you look good is a lot more important than some give it credit for.

[/quote]

You are wise beyond your years.

127

CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT STAYING LEAN NOW PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE?

Christ on a crosstrainer.

128

So guys who like to stay lean, how do you try and limit fat gain?

IF?

Carb backloading?

Cardio?

throw out some ideas you hot abz mo fos

129

[quote]rds63799 wrote:
So guys who like to stay lean, how do you try and limit fat gain?

IF?

Carb backloading?

Cardio?

throw out some ideas you hot abz mo fos[/quote]

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I don’t eat breakfast. eat whenever I get hungry. Make sure to get 200+ grams of protein. Eat limited carbs only peri and post workout (50 to 75). and eat as much fat as I want. During the day I’m eating eggs, sausage, bacon, nuts, cheese, low carb veggies, coconut oil, cream, beef, skin on chicken, est. At night after training it’s full fat yogurt, some fruit, cottage cheese, milk, more meat est.

I also eat organic, grassfed meat and milk, and non GMO as possible. I eat no wheat, refined sugar, or starches.

I lift for an hour most days and play at something else for 30 minutes. Might be a run, stone carries, rucking, bike ride, battle ropes, sled pulling, pump work, complexes, est. Just whatever I feel like. I also stay as active as possible the rest of the day (I now stand at my desk and go on walks and stuff at lunch).

I’m eating 3000-4000 calories a day and still leaning out.

130

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:
So guys who like to stay lean, how do you try and limit fat gain?

IF?

Carb backloading?

Cardio?

throw out some ideas you hot abz mo fos[/quote]

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I don’t eat breakfast. eat whenever I get hungry. Make sure to get 200+ grams of protein. Eat limited carbs only peri and post workout (50 to 75). and eat as much fat as I want. During the day I’m eating eggs, sausage, bacon, nuts, cheese, low carb veggies, coconut oil, cream, beef, skin on chicken, est. At night after training it’s full fat yogurt, some fruit, cottage cheese, milk, more meat est.

I also eat organic, grassfed meat and milk, and non GMO as possible. I eat no wheat, refined sugar, or starches.

I lift for an hour most days and play at something else for 30 minutes. Might be a run, stone carries, rucking, bike ride, battle ropes, sled pulling, pump work, complexes, est. Just whatever I feel like. I also stay as active as possible the rest of the day (I now stand at my desk and go on walks and stuff at lunch).[/quote]

I do pretty much the same as you, I’m not hungry in the mornings so I don’t force myself to have breakfast. On the rare occasion I am hungry, a cup of black coffee usually sorts that out.

If I train in the mornings I train fasted + BCAAs, when I train in the afternoon I’ll have had something to eat but no carbs, and if I train in the evening I’ll have had some carbs. I keep the carbs to the evening regardless of when I train, so if I train morning/afternoon my pwo is carbless. I have just started doing that for a month or so and already I look a little leaner so I’m going to keep up with that. I make sure to hit 180g+ of protein. Some people might think that’s a bit low but I gain from it just fine.

I’m training with weights 5x a week which doesn’t really leave me with too much time for dedicated conditioning work (I like my weekends off), but I think as long as your diet is in check it’s not that important.

Getting a dog is also a great way to get some low intensity, fasted cardio. Chasing that damn dog around the park every morning is a good way to get moving.

131

[quote]rds63799 wrote:
So guys who like to stay lean, how do you try and limit fat gain?

IF?

Carb backloading?

Cardio?

throw out some ideas you hot abz mo fos[/quote]

Yes, haven’t tried it, and some.

I don’t have an appetite until 11:00 AM, so I inadvertently follow a type of IF. What I have done that’s been very successful for me is eliminate carbs completely from all but vegetable sources. I’m 41 and have a sedentary day job (8 - 14 hours in an office chair, including all meals). Those two factors led to some degree of insluin resistance for me as my resting blood glucose was 102 when I weighed 218 lbs at %23 (DEXA). I had tracked my calories for a year at that point and an increase in carbs coincided with an increase in weight and fasting glucose.

In January of 2012, I cut all but 30 grams of carbs out of my diet, per day and reduced my total daily calories by 200. My weight dropped to 198, my body fat % to 17 (again, DEXA) and my fasting glucose was 83, iirc. All this occurred in a little more than 3 months. The best part was, and the reason I continue to avoid most carbs is, my energy levels have been much more stable throughout the day, no afternoon food comas, no crashes, no reactive hypoglycemia, and no intrusive thoughts of food (cravings). Managing my appetite is incredibly easy now, I eat when I’m hungry.

I maintain at around 2400 cals a day, which seems very low to me for a 200lb man, but I’ve got over 2 years of calorie records to prove it.

I’m probably hovering around %17 still and would like to get down to %12 or thereabouts. I have reduced calories to lose weight in the past, as well as hopped on the elliptical, but found that when I was consuming carbs, I would get brain fog if I dropped cals below 2000/per day. Now, I can cut total cals down below that with no brain fog at all. So, all in all, I would rank these items in order of importance for getting leaner:

High fat diet
Activity
Total cals

132

I skip breakfast too as I’m not hungry until around noon. Stormthebeach wrote somewhere that skipping breakfast is helpful in fat loss.

In the past what I’ve done is high fat high protein and super low carbs, adding in carbs once a week when I feel really flat and low energy. I found it worked really well for short term diets, but that I always needed a break after a few weeks of dieting. Now that I’m doing a longer term diet, I’m going high protein low fat but higher carbs, although the total calories will be lower overall. I think for me this will pan out better and help me get into the hawt abz range.

133

So most of you guys found a benefit in having little to no breakfast and shifting your carbs to night time?

134

[quote]ishinator wrote:
So most of you guys found a benefit in having little to no breakfast and shifting your carbs to night time?[/quote]

I definitely did. I’m leaner now without much of a reduction in calories.

It’s weird, it’s like if I have breakast it makes me hungry. If I don’t have breakfast I can go 7 hours before I get hungry.

The downside is I end up usually having to eat a huge meal before bed to hit my protein target (protein’s the only thing I actually work out; no calorie counting or anything like that) when I’m usually still full from dinner

135

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

It’s weird, it’s like if I have breakast it makes me hungry. If I don’t have breakfast I can go 7 hours before I get hungry.
[/quote]

x2
I don’t start getting hungry until after my first food intake. I can go a long time completely without food. If I eat breakfast I have to continue eating or I get really hungry.

136

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

It’s weird, it’s like if I have breakast it makes me hungry. If I don’t have breakfast I can go 7 hours before I get hungry.
[/quote]

x2
I don’t start getting hungry until after my first food intake. I can go a long time completely without food. If I eat breakfast I have to continue eating or I get really hungry.[/quote]

I’m actually different in that I’m eating breakfast again and having a lot of carbs on a regular basis. About 240g on off days and well north of 300g on training days. I’ve started making breakfast just 50-75g protein+coconut oil or butter and coffee at 6am. This seems to keep me from being hungry until around lunch time. It’s also easy to take down in the car on the way to work. As far as carbs go, I have 100g or so at lunch, and the rest pre and post workout. I like big meals and the seratonin dump from a big carb meal at night helps me sleep.

I’d much rather count my macros than just restrict food types. Easier for me to have total control over macros but pretty much total freedom over choices thaan to do calorie restriction via food avoidance. Just how I’m wired I guess.

137

Myself, I have coffee @ 5:30 am and then hit the Prowler mon/tue/thu/fri for 30 minutes of 30 to 50 meter sprints (heavy into lighter weights) about 75 seconds down to 45 seconds with two minute rests. Then do the 1 minute of Concept2 rowing with 2-3 minutes rest for half an hour. Hit the shower and whey shake and call the morning good.

Lunch @ 11am is a huge 5quart salad of spinach, brocc, tomato, onion, shoom and peppers along with either 3 eggs and bacon or 6oz lean burger patty. I also drop my omega3’s at this point (approx 10g).

dinner 2 4pm is the same as lunch but with a different protein source and no fish oil.

Lifting on mon/tue/thu/fri @ 6pm until 7:30 with a huge whey shake +/- 50-70g wheyl and berries, then into a 9pm carb back load.

In the first 13 days of +/- 30g carb a day I lost 8 pounds of FAT and gained some strength.

Now, as keifer and others have mentioned my overall strength has returned with a minimal amount of daily carbs.

Usually I keep carbs low except for friday night and wednesday night. Working well as I am on the verge of

Single digit body fat after only 1 month :wink: it all comes down to Consistency

138

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

It’s weird, it’s like if I have breakast it makes me hungry. If I don’t have breakfast I can go 7 hours before I get hungry.
[/quote]

x2
I don’t start getting hungry until after my first food intake. I can go a long time completely without food. If I eat breakfast I have to continue eating or I get really hungry.[/quote]

x3

Another benefit of being lean, although I am sure it’s been mentioned somewhere in (the good part of) this thread: you can get away with dietary MURDER. I got lean a year ago for the first time (all-out fat loss plan) in prep for a Hawaii trip. After that, I got real lax for many months. I could still see abs though. If I had done that when I was fatter, it would have been disastrous.

139

[quote]Stronghold wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

It’s weird, it’s like if I have breakast it makes me hungry. If I don’t have breakfast I can go 7 hours before I get hungry.
[/quote]

x2
I don’t start getting hungry until after my first food intake. I can go a long time completely without food. If I eat breakfast I have to continue eating or I get really hungry.[/quote]

I’m actually different in that I’m eating breakfast again and having a lot of carbs on a regular basis. About 240g on off days and well north of 300g on training days. I’ve started making breakfast just 50-75g protein+coconut oil or butter and coffee at 6am. This seems to keep me from being hungry until around lunch time. It’s also easy to take down in the car on the way to work. As far as carbs go, I have 100g or so at lunch, and the rest pre and post workout. I like big meals and the seratonin dump from a big carb meal at night helps me sleep.

I’d much rather count my macros than just restrict food types. Easier for me to have total control over macros but pretty much total freedom over choices thaan to do calorie restriction via food avoidance. Just how I’m wired I guess.[/quote]
Do you generally keep your fat macros lower to go with the higher carbs or do you just try to hit a caloric value with most of it coming from carbs after you hit your protein for the day.

140

[quote]Tyler23 wrote:
Another benefit of being lean, although I am sure it’s been mentioned somewhere in (the good part of) this thread: you can get away with dietary MURDER. I got lean a year ago for the first time (all-out fat loss plan) in prep for a Hawaii trip. After that, I got real lax for many months. I could still see abs though. If I had done that when I was fatter, it would have been disastrous. [/quote]

I also have noticed the same thing. The leaner I am, the more junk I am able to eat without blowing up, where as the fatter I am, the easier it is to put on more fat. (This coming from someone who’s never been lean, and I also noticed this before I even started lifting weights and only use to exercise/cardio)

The more I think about it, the more I think it is important for natty’s to not let themself get too out of control in terms of fat. I dont subscribe to the whole “hold a certain weight for a certain time, or you’ll lose it.” I believe muscle is built very slowly, over time, and unless you do something silly like drop cals drastically, most muscle will remain.

Besides, comptetitors always talk about the post-show rebound. I would assume this is the equivalent of muscle memory. Even if you were to lose some muscle (again, nothing crazy in terms of dieting down too fast), I’d imagine you’d gain most of it back fairly quickly once you’re no longer dieting.