Winter is Coming - Avoid the Gain?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

Hello All,
First off, thank you for reading through this and any help you can provide.
My main question is advice on transitioning off a large caloric deficit. Below are details.

This summer I left my car keys at home and started riding my bike to work, it’s faster and let’s be burn extra calories daily.

I’ve seen some considerable physique improvements over the last 3 month, a lose of about 12 pounds of fat and i’ve seen some recogization muscle/strength increase.

My major concern is the upcoming off-season (biking). Without that large caloric deficit biking has created I really don’t know how to ensure I do not start gaining fat.

My Current Program:

I weight 175lb and i’m at 5’8". I’m about 11-12% bf atm, will be at roughly 10% when winter hits.

My diet is pretty good already, not being super strict but avoiding the baddies. It resembles:
Mon-Fri: Carbs: 100-120g, Protein: 250-300g, Fat: unsure, but nothing above 50g.
Sat-Sun: Carbs:200-400g, Protein: 200g, Fat: unsure, but under 60g.

I lift 3 times a week (arms, chest, shoulders, back) and my legs get a pretty good workout from biking + single leg squats.

I burn about 1000-1100 calories a 5 days a week from biking. (I bike 2X a day, 5X a week for about 40 minutes at 25km/h)

My Concerns:
As you can see, biking has created a large caloric deficit, so large I’m surprised I’m not losing more weight than I am. So without it I’m concerned I’ll start gaining more.

My diet is not strict, but I am hoping I will not have to restrict it much more than I am currently.

Do you think my metabolism is lower? I try to double my carbs on the weekend to help hormones and because I lift larger body parts.

I’ve starting taking fish oils, fiber, cla as of last week and always been taking protein+vitamins.

Thanks for any advice!

Any suggestions of

2

How much do you weigh and what’s your height? At bare minimum, start squatting and deadlifting.

3

I weight 175lb and i’m at 5’8". I’m about 11-12% bf atm, will be at roughly 10% when winter hits.

Been developing my single leg squats over the last month in preparation for the winter. Will start Deadlifting, i see that exercise all over the forums. Thank you for the reply.

4

Train more often during the week. Also, it is a MUST to train legs; deadlifts and regular squats (not just single leg) should be your base.

During the summer, I also ride my bike to and from work and it obviously helps with body composition. During the winter, just keep your diet in check and throw in some easy cardio on some days. Along with training more often, you should be fine.

5

^Right.
Just replace biking with another activity. I notice you added fat in there as if a lot is bad. Fat itself won’t hinder you from losing fat or hurt your heart or anything like that. It still is dense in calories, so if that’s your concern that’s fine. But as far as the 80s nutrition misinformation about fat being bad for you, it’s simply not true.

6

Post your actuall diet. Right now you are under 2k a day.

7

Whats your end goal?

What does your training plan look like( excercises, sets, reps, progression etc )?

8

Thanks you all for so many replies and so quickly! So far the comments seems helpful.

My Goals are to slowly put on lean muscle as I keep my body fat down, I’m not aiming to be super bulky but enough muscle to really add shape and definition. Would like to keep get to and stay at about 0-10% bf. My progression has been steady and easy to maintain during the biking season.

Without going into too much detail, my diet consists of the following foods:

  • Oatmeal
  • Eggs
  • Chicken
  • Tuna
  • low-fat Cheese
  • Yogurt (as snacks)
  • Protein shakes (frozen berries, yogurt, powder)
  • Assortment of green veggies

My Training is all done at home, so most of it is using dumbbells and body weight.
I keep short rest period of about 1 minute. My routine is not anything complicated, mostly just exercising with what I know and have available to me at home ( 90lb adjustable dumbbells, Bench)

I try to keep to these days/routines:
-Thursday
- (Arms) 3 sets, 6-12 reps of hammers
- (Arms) 4 sets, 5-12 reps of curls
- (Arms) 3 sets, 8-12 reps of twisted curls
- (Shoulders) 3 sets of front raises
- (Shoulders) 3 sets of side raises
- (Shoulders) 3 sets of Shoulder Pressed

-Friday (since I don’t bike sat/sunday I try to burn my legs completely out to allow for more rest time)
- (Legs) 4 sets each leg, 6-7 reps - Single Leg Squats
- (Legs) 2 sets each leg, 3-4 reps - Weighted Single Leg Squats

-Sunday
- (Chest) 3 sets, 6-9 reps - incline bench - Super set with flies;
- (Chest) 3 sets, 6-9 reps - flat bench - Super set with flies;
- (Chest) 3 sets, 6-9 reps - Decline bench - Super set with flies;
- (Back) 3 sets, 8-12 reps - One arm bent over Row.
- (Back) 3 sets, 8-12 reps - Bent over Rows

9

hm okay, well about your goal( being muscular and ripped ), You have to find out what you need the most
to get there, add mass or cut fat. If you uploaded some pics, some of the other more experienced guys
could probably point you in the right direction. If the case is that you need more musclemass, then
some added kg`s in the winter may not be as bad for you, but if it is vice versa, then taking up a alternative
winter activity instead of biking could work.

About your program:

  1. You have way to much pressing compared to pulling, please fix that. The ratio beetwen pulling and pressing
    should be atleast 1rep of pull for each rep of press. If you do more pulling than pressing would be even better
    and your shoulders would thank you.

  2. You have no excercises for hamstrings, you could add in RDL with dbs and single leg deads.

  3. You have 3 excercises for biceps, but zero for triceps. Remember that tricep makes up most of your
    arms and strong triceps = more pressing strenght.

  4. Since you have so much pressing in your routine, I think it could be a good idea to replace front raises
    with bent over lateral raises.

Hope that was helpfull.

best regards from florelius.

10

Wow thank you for the detailed reply.

I forgot to type out my triceps, I do work them along with my chest.

Been meaning to get a chi up bar and get more pulls in. I’ll take some pics this weekend and upload them.
Thanks again.

11

The chin up bar sounds like a great Idea :slight_smile:

12

[quote]Drozes wrote:
My Goals are to slowly put on lean muscle as I keep my body fat down, I’m not aiming to be super bulky but enough muscle to really add shape and definition. Would like to keep get to and stay at about 0-10% bf.
[/quote]

You’ve watched way too many infomercials and read way too many fitness magazines. I don’t think you appreciate how damned difficult it is to put on muscle at this point.

Whatever happened to wanting to get big and strong like your favorite superheros…fuck my generation sucks.

13

^got that right. dieting down, avoiding carbs and doing three a days was easier (relatively) than trying to eat enough to gain mass.