Weight Loss Newbie Looking For Help

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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Hi. I’m a fatass and I don’t wanna be that anymore.

I’m 24 years old, 6’ (183 cm) tall and weigh 244 lb (111 kg). I’ve been fat for a long time and I wish to change that.

I’ve been lifting consistently for about a year.
From August 2011 to February 2012 I trained about 1.5 hrs a day, 5-6 days a week. Training consists of the big 3 (BS, BP and DL) with some assistance work, split across 5 days.
From February 2012 to July 2012 I trained 2.5 hrs a day, 3 days a week, plus 2 hrs rugby training 5 days a week. On the advice of some guys at the CrossFit forums I tried the GSLP, which I understand a variation of Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength program. The purpose was to bring up my Overhead Press and my Deadlifts.

My lifting stats are, as of July 2012:
Squats 6x 286 lb (130 kg)
Deadlift 6x 341 lb (155 kg)
Bench Press 4x 198 lb (90 kg)
Standing Overhead Press 6x 110lb (50 kg)
I can’t do even 1 good pullup,

Body fat is 32%. I asked my friend to help measure using a set of Accu-Measure calipers. I used a 9-point test (Parillo?) found here : Body Fat Calculator. Admittedly, both of us were kinda new in using calipers.

Then I used the Katch-McArdle formula (Basal Metabolic Rate - How To Calculate and Find Your BMR) to calculate my BMR. The formula gave me 2000 kCal/day.

Then I used an activity multiplier of 1.55. I figured that, other than the lifting and the rugby, I spend most of my day sitting down (I’m a college student) or sleeping, so I shouldn’t consider myself that active. This gave me a maintenance calorie of 3100 kCal/day.

I’ve read that you shouldn’t cut calories too drastically for fear of losing muscle mass, so I multiplied that by 0.8 (20% reduction). That gave me around 2400 kCal/day.

Now I’m not sure how much I actually eat per day. Sometimes I think I’m doin too little, while other days I indulge in some drive-thru McDs. But I’ve been getting fatter (I was only 226 lb (102 kg) last February). So I figure it’s about time I approached this seriously.

Also, I took my first progress pic today. I plan to do it every day.

Can you guys tell me if the 2400 kCal/day is correct? Any and all help/support would be greatly appreciated.

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2400 calories should be plenty low enough for your hiegth and size. Also your biggest problem I can tell right now is the just guessing what you eat day. Your problably well over 2400 calories espeacially if you are spludging at MacDonald’s. Its easy to get 1500+ calories from just one sitting at a fast food joint. With activity level you have you should be dropping pounds no problem. But sit assess your diet honestly and you will make progress in no time.

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[quote]Reed wrote:
2400 calories should be plenty low enough for your hiegth and size.[/quote]

Does that mean shooting for 2400 would be ok? As in, I won’t be risking losing too much lean mass?

I’ve just started a food journal to help me with that.

Question : I live in Malaysia; our staple carb is white rice. Dieters and some bodybuilders over here swear by cutting it out of the diet completely. But here I keep reading that carbs are important; most sport science-oriented diets I’ve read recommend roughly equal amounts of carbs and protein; more if I do cardio stuff like rugby. What do you guys think?

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2400 may be some what low for your activity but just journal everything and see what happens if your losing more than 2lbs aweek your dropping to fast and probably sacrificing some lean tissue and may need to bump it up 100-200 calories until you have hot your target each week.

You do need carbs efspeacially for something like rugby but white rice may not be the best option. Anything white is a bad idea on fat loss diet compared to there whole counter parts. Brown rice, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and light fruits should make up your carbs.

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Personally I wouldn’t worry about counting your calories. What you need to do is learn how to develop healthy eating habits. Until you do that, you will never lose the weight.

Put another way:

Sure, you might lose some weight by counting your calories every day, but eventually you will get tired of this, stop doing it, and get fat again.

If, however, you instead spend that time developing healthy eating habits, you won’t have to worry about counting calories, and you will be able to keep the weight off forever, because you have actually learned how to eat healthy, instead of learning how to count calories.

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[quote]Reed wrote:

You do need carbs efspeacially for something like rugby but white rice may not be the best option. Anything white is a bad idea on fat loss diet compared to there whole counter parts. Brown rice, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and light fruits should make up your carbs. [/quote]

Aight man thanks a lot :slight_smile:
Unrelated : Your profile pic man, what is that, 370lb? Shite, I wanna be able to do that! My inner elbows start to hurt when I go a bit heavy (+110lb) on the press, tho. I think it’s a nerve thing; it feels like an electric shock down my upper arm. Any ideas?

[quote]Chris87 wrote:

Personally I wouldn’t worry about counting your calories. What you need to do is learn how to develop healthy eating habits. Until you do that, you will never lose the weight. [/quote]

I agree with the bit about developing healthy habits; while I’m nowhere close to where I want to be I have improved my diet a lot from last year (Occasional McDs nonwithstanding). Thing is, for me at least, it’s really tough to do it intuitively. That’s why I figure a more structured approach is necessary; I lack the knowledge and experience to just wing it. I get what you’re sayin about getting tired of it too, that’s why I’m makin sure all my friends and family know about what I’m doin so that they’ll be able to support me thru it :slight_smile:

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First of all nice job on your lifts! I’m wondering, how much cardio does your “rugby training” entail? I can’t speak much about nutrition, but the other side to the weight loss equation is cardio (unfortunately).

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[quote]csulli wrote:
First of all nice job on your lifts! I’m wondering, how much cardio does your “rugby training” entail? I can’t speak much about nutrition, but the other side to the weight loss equation is cardio (unfortunately).[/quote]

Thank you :). I’ve been working to hit the 200kg mark on the squat and DLs, but at this rate it doesn’t seem that I’ll be able to hit it by the end of the year

As for rugby training, off-season we’d mostly play touch rugby; lots of jogs with interspersed sprints for roughly an hour. It’s very unstructured, tho, so if you’re lazy you can just pass the ball every time you get it so you won’t have to run much.

Pre-season and Season training is usually divided into about 30 minutes of warmups and general conditioning, then 20 minutes of position-specific drills, then 40 minutes of semi-contact game situations. This in addition to a 2.4km jog every morning.

I’m not that good, cardio-wise, so I find it hard enough as it is.

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There’s definitely more than one way to skin a cat with fat loss.

I’ve never counted calories, but I do judge/eyeball portion size when cutting and just try and eat a little less. More importantly, for me at least, is basically cutting non-fibrous-green-vegetable carbs out except for one blow-out-bessy-bar-the-barn door meal a week post workout, coupled with heavy weights, and some basic interval training/conditioning post weights.

This method has yielded the best results for me in fat loss without strength/muscle loss. I’m carb-back-loading right now and have been having good luck maintaining weight while still leaning out a bit.

Good luck, and be relentless with whatever method you choose.