Weight Loss (Testosterone)

Training Bodybuilding
21

[quote]Blacksnake wrote:
Dark_Knight wrote:
There were tests done of soldiers just coming out of Ranger training. They averaged a 1000 cal daily deficit for several months. Their levels of T were measured and found to be at “castrate” levels.

Double edged sword…The last thing they want hardcore commandos to be thinking about is poosay’ (hence the urban legends about saltpeter being put into G.I. rations)…Deprivation is built into training courses like this (sleep, food, etc) and this goes back to the 1940’s/WW2 era, so should be no shock these results came out as you described…

The troopers are as strong as pack mules (which is essentially what they are in a sense), but “lean and mean” not carrying a lot of extra LBM (except the genetic freaks) and are all putting time in the weight room when they can…(Airborne!)

[/quote]

Watched an interesting “reality TV” program here about S.A.S training programs. A whole group of athletes from the U.K where put into a sort of modified S.A.S training program to see if they could hack it. It was a blend of triathletes, boxers, adventurers and personal trainers.

While we like to think of the S.A.S boys as hardcore (think they still are) it wasn’t really the strength oriented guys that did well. Mostly the boxers and muscle bound candidates were the first to be axed due to poor stamina. It seems that after suitable “base-line” strength most of the factors that aided participants were endurance based. The training was mostly marching or patrolling with full gear over seriously rugged terain with little rest or food. Check the T level on these guys and im willing to bet it was seriously low. They then pushed even the hardest endurance athletes even further and were trying to check their willpower and decision making abilities under periods of physical and phsycological stress.

I guess from the SAS point of view endurance and combat effectiveness is more important than pure strength. Polliquin wrote a really cool article about training the secret service and army boys about this kind of stuff. Check it out as its posted on this website somwhere.

22

I’m not studying this in college but I have learned from my own experiences. I was obese about a year ago and I lost 70 pounds in about 4 months…very unhealthy (1000kcal a day, too much cardio)…and I had to live with a screwed up metabolism for quite a while. Might I add, the only reason I think I was able to actually lose those pounds was because I was eating less calories than my body needed to even function.

Fast forward to a few months ago, I realized that when I attempt any cuts, my body adapts to the lowered caloric intake pretty quickly, and the more I lower it, the faster it adapts. Therefore, I have been looking all over the place to keep the metabolism up or even improving it. Once I stumbled upon the hormone “leptin”, it all became very clear why my body was doing what it was. Sure, traditional diets such as weightwaters advocate that you just need to create a caloric deficit, and if you reach a plateau, just stay with it and you’ll bust through it. It sounds good on paper, but it doesn’t play out it is supposed to. I believe that leptin is the most important hormone to take control of when someone wants to lose fat. For many people who are not genetically gifted with raging metabolisms, when they lower their caloric intake, leptin levels will decrease as well. This leads to the body adapting so that it can maintain its weight at a lowered caloric intake.

The only things that have worked for me to continue a healthy fat loss are:

  1. Slowly adding calories back in until metabolism is restored…this didn’t seem to work so well for me since I did not see any improvement until after I would gain around 5 pounds.

  2. Carb/calorie cycling with at least a 500 calorie difference worked much better. For example, if I was losing weight at 2600 calories, I would probably eat 2600 for 2-3 days, then eat 3100 calories one day in order to restore leptin levels. You probably already know this, but I carbed up with mostly just oatmeal and ate the additional calories for breakfast and pwo. Of course, I gained weight after the carbup day, but there was a net weight loss over the 4 days.

23

Wait…so losing more than 2 lbs a week is bad ?

Then how come there are always so many people on TV that are like, " I lost 20 lbs in 2 months!"

And athletes who lose weight rapidly during practices and stuff(wrestlers)…

24

i would say either they are severely overweight in which it is much easier to lose weight or a bunch of it is water weight

25

Scholtz, the “Cheat to Lose Diet” article from today basically sums everything up. The only thing I might add is people with a higher body fat percentage don’t need as much refeeds, while people with lower body fat percentages will need more refeeds because their leptin levels are pretty low already.

So, for whoever your client is, i think you should monitor her weight loss after the initial refeed, and when it starts to slow down, do another refeed.

26

Well Chris Shugart lost 16 lbs in 28 days using the Velocity Diet and only eating about 1400-1700 calories a day.

27

[quote]scholtz wrote:
There were tests done of soldiers just coming out of Ranger training. They averaged a 1000 cal daily deficit for several months. Their levels of T were measured and found to be at “castrate” levels.

Hey Dark-Knight,
I am very interested to know if my program indeed affected her T levels. From what i can glean a 1000kcal deficit can be recommended for some individuals but this is largely dependant on thier size. While i have no actual figures on who can absorb such a deficit from TDEE and still maintain metabolism from a size point of view I guess those classed as obese would definately count.

In my case she is far from obese at 163cm and 70kg yet she still has some bodyfat to lose. As for Ranger training I guess I’m clearly not at that knowledge level…but maybe one day! Also thier doesnt seem to be much info about the timeframe at which a 1000kcal or even 500kcal deficit could be maintained before tanking metabolism. any ideas?[/quote]

Metabolism will not come to a screeching halt, as many believe. Granted, through various mechanisms, it can slow down, but it will always be running. If this were not true, it would not be possible to starve to death.

Would a deficit that large, combined with a low fat intake lower T?

Absolutely - and with a female, this is more of an issue, since their T production is lower to begin with.

Additionally, activities such a long duration steady-state cardio can lower T, as does, as mentioned, inadequate fat consumption.

However, I would submit that her halt in progress was not solely due to low T.

For example, both LSD cardio and low fat intake teaches the body to hold onto fat more so than usual. Why is this? This is because LSD cardio primarily burns fat for fuel, so the body learns to better conserve it. Further, with a low level of dietary fats, the body also learns that, since it is not getting any fat, it shouldn’t give any either.

Obese people can maintain far larger deficits, simply because they have far more “reserve” to give.

A good idea would be to up the cals for a couple weeks, to stoke the metabolism a bit and bring thyroid function and hormone production back to normal - and make sure she eats FAT.

Hell, she could even concentrate on building some LBM for a few weeks to not only accomplish the above, but also rebuild any lost tissue, harden up, and possibly add a little bit more to her metabolism.

She should mix up training with compound movements (this should be a given), heavy weights, high volume, and short rest periods. These all can help increase T. (Of course, she can’t do them all at once, which it why I say to mix it up.)

When this is achieved, she can return to her fat loss efforts.

Take a look at this: mindandmuscle.net/articles/lyle_mcdonald/maximum_fatloss

And have her drop the LSD cardio in favor of HIIT. It works better, in less time, and is not boring as hell.

28

[quote]Dark_Knight wrote:
scholtz wrote:
There were tests done of soldiers just coming out of Ranger training. They averaged a 1000 cal daily deficit for several months. Their levels of T were measured and found to be at “castrate” levels.

Hey Dark-Knight,
I am very interested to know if my program indeed affected her T levels. From what i can glean a 1000kcal deficit can be recommended for some individuals but this is largely dependant on thier size. While i have no actual figures on who can absorb such a deficit from TDEE and still maintain metabolism from a size point of view I guess those classed as obese would definately count.

In my case she is far from obese at 163cm and 70kg yet she still has some bodyfat to lose. As for Ranger training I guess I’m clearly not at that knowledge level…but maybe one day! Also thier doesnt seem to be much info about the timeframe at which a 1000kcal or even 500kcal deficit could be maintained before tanking metabolism. any ideas?

Metabolism will not come to a screeching halt, as many believe. Granted, through various mechanisms, it can slow down, but it will always be running. If this were not true, it would not be possible to starve to death.

Would a deficit that large, combined with a low fat intake lower T?

Absolutely - and with a female, this is more of an issue, since their T production is lower to begin with.

Additionally, activities such a long duration steady-state cardio can lower T, as does, as mentioned, inadequate fat consumption.

However, I would submit that her halt in progress was not solely due to low T.

For example, both LSD cardio and low fat intake teaches the body to hold onto fat more so than usual. Why is this? This is because LSD cardio primarily burns fat for fuel, so the body learns to better conserve it. Further, with a low level of dietary fats, the body also learns that, since it is not getting any fat, it shouldn’t give any either.

Obese people can maintain far larger deficits, simply because they have far more “reserve” to give.

A good idea would be to up the cals for a couple weeks, to stoke the metabolism a bit and bring thyroid function and hormone production back to normal - and make sure she eats FAT.

Hell, she could even concentrate on building some LBM for a few weeks to not only accomplish the above, but also rebuild any lost tissue, harden up, and possibly add a little bit more to her metabolism.

She should mix up training with compound movements (this should be a given), heavy weights, high volume, and short rest periods. These all can help increase T. (Of course, she can’t do them all at once, which it why I say to mix it up.)

When this is achieved, she can return to her fat loss efforts.

Take a look at this: mindandmuscle.net/articles/lyle_mcdonald/maximum_fatloss

And have her drop the LSD cardio in favor of HIIT. It works better, in less time, and is not boring as hell.
[/quote]

Hey Dark_Knight
Great article you recommended. It certainly represents a view of weightloss calculations I had not yet come across. For those of you who are interested check it out. the skinny is that the max deficit the body can sustain before affecting lean body mass (muscle) is based on innitial (and new) bodyfat levels. Very interesting, thanks.

29

[quote]Dark_Knight wrote:

Would a deficit that large, combined with a low fat intake lower T?

Absolutely - and with a female, this is more of an issue, since their T production is lower to begin with.

Additionally, activities such a long duration steady-state cardio can lower T, as does, as mentioned, inadequate fat consumption.

However, I would submit that her halt in progress was not solely due to low T.

For example, both LSD cardio and low fat intake teaches the body to hold onto fat more so than usual. Why is this? This is because LSD cardio primarily burns fat for fuel, so the body learns to better conserve it. Further, with a low level of dietary fats, the body also learns that, since it is not getting any fat, it shouldn’t give any either.

Obese people can maintain far larger deficits, simply because they have far more “reserve” to give.

A good idea would be to up the cals for a couple weeks, to stoke the metabolism a bit and bring thyroid function and hormone production back to normal - and make sure she eats FAT.

Hell, she could even concentrate on building some LBM for a few weeks to not only accomplish the above, but also rebuild any lost tissue, harden up, and possibly add a little bit more to her metabolism.

She should mix up training with compound movements (this should be a given), heavy weights, high volume, and short rest periods. These all can help increase T. (Of course, she can’t do them all at once, which it why I say to mix it up.)

When this is achieved, she can return to her fat loss efforts.

Take a look at this: mindandmuscle.net/articles/lyle_mcdonald/maximum_fatloss
[/quote]

Absolutely agree, I rotated her exercises every two weeks. A typical session might have included:
–front squats, stiff legged deadlifts (superset),
–Barbell bench press, Bentover row (superset)
–Peterson step ups, Military Press (superset)
–Hammer curls, dumbbell skullcrushers (superset)

20reps to failure, 3sets, minimal rest.

“and have her drop the LSD cardio in favor of HIIT. It works better, in less time, and is not boring as hell.”

While I couldnt quite call it HITT her cardio was not stricly LSD Either. LSD would be over an hour in duration. ours lasted bw 45-60min and included warm-up/cool down. I would build HR gradually to peak close to 170BPM and then taper her slowly down. average HR was above 140-150BPM. I consider this training to be closer to high impact than LSD.

“Metabolism will not come to a screeching halt, as many believe. Granted, through various mechanisms, it can slow down, but it will always be running. If this were not true, it would not be possible to starve to death.”

I agree. But if this is the case and metabolism doesnt come to a screeching halt I would need to explain how we went very rapidly from one week of good loss (500gram) to the next two marginal gains (300gram) yet the body would still have been in deficit.

Surely the metabolism doesnt adjust THIS FAST? we really went one week loss the next gain, the next loss, yet cal deficit still existed. I Have run weightloss programs (without specific calorie recommendations) that have been more successful and resulted in 1kg per week losses that have been sustained and even improved a year on.

Loved the article BTW. thanks

30

I weighed her today 13 weeks into our program. She has lost a total of 5.3kg (approx 10.5 pound) since starting. cant say either her or I are upset with the actual KG result. Weightloss is clearly a loaded topic as everyone has a very varied opinions. I will advise how we go with our higher cal intake. I haven’t made up my mind as to which dietary approach to take as further searches of the ACSM still yeilds mixed resutls.

I think that ultimately i was simply too optomistic about the results a 69kg girl could achieve as 500gram per week seems much more realistic than 1kg per week. I will consider a %age calorie reduction from TDEE in future or try my maths with the fat mass calcution method in the articel dark_knight recommended:
www.mindandmuscle.net/articles/lyle_mcdonald/maximum_fatloss?page=0%2C0

anyway, thanks for the advice guys. dont be afraid to keep the advice and articles coming. I was suprised to find that the ACSM didnt have a “Brochure” on its website for fat loss. they had newsletters and tidbits of info (some good) but no comprehensive articles/guidelines. They seem to follow the same principle of 1200kcal for women by kcal restriction I used and aslo advocate a 1000kcal deficit.

If anyone has recieved or is aware of such i brochure pls let me know as i cant find it.

Thanks for all the input.

31

[quote]scholtz wrote:
I have come across percentage recommendations before but have not found too many mainstream sources to guide me through this approach. Don’t suppose you know of any?

so I take it that when you are refering to a 20% reduction you are talking about a 20% reduction from TDEE (total daily energy expenditure /maintainance) via diet alone? where abouts did you come across your information?
Thanks Blue9steel.[/quote]

It’s pretty simple really, lets say you have one client that weighs 260lbs, and a second client that weighs 130 lbs. The average calorie intake for each individual is going to be vastly different. So if one is taking in say 3000 calories and you cut 500 it’s no big deal, but if the other is taking in 1200 calories and you cut 500 that’s huge! Percentages get around this problem because they naturally scale. 20% off of 3000 is 600 but only 240 for the smaller person.