I am good at getting strong, and I am good at getting big. The problem I have is losing any weight. I am worried that this continual “bulk” I have been on (like 3 or 4 years) is getting out of control.
I know “how” to eat right, but I can’t get over the mental hurdles involved. Burgers, donuts, pizza and all that good stuff are just too, well, good. I am now 5’10" and around 270 pounds. I want to be 235 (I figure I hover around 20%).
I need hints and tips from anyone and everyone on how to jump the mental hurdles associated with getting smaller. I mean this in all seriousness, I really want to get lean. All advice is appreciated.
Hey Brother, I’m in the same boat as you (except I was Air Farce, not Navy).
Anyway, it’s not easy as you know. I’ve been struggling with my weight for over a decade now. All I can advise is that it’s a personal journey, and no amount of advice or diets can achieve your goals for you. It really comes down to finding your niche; your groove. Once you discover that, the rest is perseverance and stubbornness. Stick it out.
I’ve had to control my appetite. That’s been the biggest hurdle. It doesn’t matter if I’m eating low carb, six small meals or whatever’s the “right” way to eat, none of it worked until I could learn to push away from the table.
I’ve also found that cheat days are a must. No way in hell could I diet non-stop.
Try to follow your gut. What do you like, constant feeding or grazing; big time all-out binges? If you’re like me, than binging is also a problem. I’ve cured that by intermittent fasting. That allows me to go all out and not worry about the consequences.
If you’re constantly eating all day, maybe Lean Eatin’ is the way to go. Again, find your groove and stick with it. Don’t be afraid to try different approaches until you can figure out what works for your body and mind.
My approach is fairly simple. Eat everything I can, maintaining a fairly decent nutrient split. The whole 50,25,25 thing. Mind you, cleanliness is not my focus in this way of eating. I eat 6-8 times a day probably as low as 3500 calories and as high as 8500 calories in the day, it all depends on how I feel.
This has helped me get very strong and big, but the risk (fat) is starting to outweigh the reward (strength gains) as of this point. I just don’t know how to develop the mental toughness to clean up and make my feedings more steady.
So, would you say your problem is more of an appetite/satiety issue; or is it more of a specific food problem?
50% carbs (I’m assuming you meant carbs) seems like a lot by my standards even. Pauli D. made an excellent point on the Warrior D thread (shameless plug) about making sure your nutrients were evenly balanced at 33/33/33. If you can satisfy your hunger somewhat by offsetting the excess carbs with protein or fat, you may end up with better blood sugar levels, a little less insulin, and a little more fat burning. That might be a good start before you look at total calorie reduction. You might simply be getting too hungry from your blood sugar spiking and then dropping. Yeah…that’s the ticket.
1. Eat every 2-3 hours, no matter what. You should eat between 5-8 meals per day.
2. Eat complete (containing all the essential amino acids), lean protein with each meal.
3. Eat fruits and/or vegetables with each food meal.
4. Ensure that your carbohydrate intake comes from fruits and vegetables. Exception: workout and post-workout drinks and meals.
5. Ensure that 25-35% of your energy intake comes from fat, with your fat intake split equally between saturates (e.g. animal fat), monounsaturates (e.g., olive oil), and polyunsaturates (e.g. flax oil, salmon oil).
6. Drink only non-calorie containing beverages, the best choices being water and green tea.
7. Eat mostly whole foods (except workout and post-workout drinks).
Start small and work your way up. Do one rule per week, and in 7 weeks, you’ll be totally compliant. Don;t worry about macronutrient split or total calories. You don’t need to do anything complicated, just follow the rules and I guarantee that fat will melt off.
Protein is the 50%. I would say my problem lies in convenience. Being that I am in the military (you know how that is), have a wife and two children; time is a luxury. I also go to sea twice a year for 2 1/2 months at a time with little to no workout equipment; therefore, I sometimes force myself to overbulk in the not at sea time. I really just need to gain control, like you said earlier. The issue though is changing my “only weak bitches worry about their abs” mentality. I appreciate the conversation, it helps me put things into perspective.
To the second response: The problem does not lie in me being a vagina. The problem lies in the fact that I have a conscious fear of not getting stronger (or getting weaker and thus becoming a pussy). I have never hit a plateau with this lifestyle, regardless of the program I use. I am 23 and currently bench 412, squat 587, and dead 617 (all raw mind you). While I do appreciate your “tough” attitude, I think you are off, maybe thats just my opinion though.
[quote]Gianacakos wrote:
Protein is the 50%. I would say my problem lies in convenience. Being that I am in the military (you know how that is), have a wife and two children; time is a luxury. I also go to sea twice a year for 2 1/2 months at a time with little to no workout equipment; therefore, I sometimes force myself to overbulk in the not at sea time. I really just need to gain control, like you said earlier. The issue though is changing my “only weak bitches worry about their abs” mentality. I appreciate the conversation, it helps me put things into perspective.
To the second response: The problem does not lie in me being a vagina. The problem lies in the fact that I have a conscious fear of not getting stronger (or getting weaker and thus becoming a pussy). I have never hit a plateau with this lifestyle, regardless of the program I use. I am 23 and currently bench 412, squat 587, and dead 617 (all raw mind you). While I do appreciate your “tough” attitude, I think you are off, maybe thats just my opinion though.[/quote]
He was off…but just about everything “texasguy” writes is off. Look up Leo Ingram. He is also Navy and in one past article in Flex wrote about how hard it was on him when he was deployed at sea for months on end without the ability to train. He did the same thing as you only he took it to an extreme was once over 300lbs and pretty “hefty” at one point before he started competing again last year. It makes sense because if the choices you have are “eat more to maintain and grow” vs “eat less and lose everything you have because you can’t train during those periods”, most of us would eat more if the goal was truly more overall size.
I think you need to just take it in stages and slowly drop any foods you are trying to avoid without making drastic quick changes. Unless you are trying to compete, I don’t see this as that large of an issue considering there is no impending short coming time limit you need to meet.
Your statement above is also wrong. “Only weak bitches worry ONLY about abs or allow abs to hold back any other progress they make”. You can diet down, assuming you aren’t obese, in much less time than it takes to build large amounts of muscle in the first place.
I was never that big, but when I saw myself going in a direction that I didn’t want to go I added in the good foods first, before trying to cut off bad foods.
In otherwords if all I ate was pizza all day before I would add an apple or 2 a day and eat pizza. I did this until eventually, I would start to fill up more off of healthy foods, and my taste buds changed. It was only a slight change but its enough that I didn’t “HAVE” to have junk all the time. Realize to do this you have to plan ahead which will help you because that is the biggest part of eating healthy. You will have to say for next week I will eat 7 apples so when you can get that 7 apples. Instead of looking for an apple here or there.
The stop being a pussy part is the other half. You might get defensive when he says it, but if you even attempt to think about it in that way just for 5 minutes a week, that is at least 5 minutes your not eating the way your not supposed to. It is good but you don’t want to do it ALL the time because then you will binge.
All these are helpfull, constructive comments. I really appreciate the discussion going on here. I will look that guy up Prof. X. Hopefully more people in my situation can get some help from this discussion. I understand the idea of being a pussy that the last response is talking about. I know I need to “man up” sometimes (when it comes to eating).
[quote]Gianacakos wrote:
All these are helpfull, constructive comments. I really appreciate the discussion going on here. I will look that guy up Prof. X. Hopefully more people in my situation can get some help from this discussion. I understand the idea of being a pussy that the last response is talking about. I know I need to “man up” sometimes (when it comes to eating).[/quote]
Anyone who has been deployed and lifts weights seriously can understand what you are talking about. I have had to change around my short term goals before because of that. I have always made the decision to gain more over allowing a loss during that period of time. Your experience is longer, however, due to your time at sea. I am only now cleaning up my overall diet to a significant degree because I feel I have a decent amount of size at this point. You need to figure out what your short term and long term physical goals are and eat towards that end, not simply start eating in whatever way you may think is appropriate (whatever that may be).
Many of us who train regularly can get away with eating much more than the average person. You need to find some level of balance and control.
A lot of the people here only bulk for a few months, then cut. I wouldn’t do that if I were new to weights, unless I am/was obese. I’d much rather spend a few years doing a consistent bulk.
Try cutting out most of the junk to slow down fat gain- you said you were eating donuts and such- and keep on going.
I’m glad I never listened to my buddies when they were making fun of me for getting past 250.
You’re doing good. Keep it up.
Oh, and Texas guy, shut the hell up.
Not near as big as you but at 40 years old I can no longer eat everything in sight like I want to.
Eat 3 apples a day. I read about it here. It sounds stupid but it works to control cravings.
Also you need to face the facts, you have a lot of weight to lose. While you lose this weight your strength will go down. You will still be stronger than 99% of the people on this planet.
Dedicate yourself to losing the weight. The sooner you do it the sooner you can concentrate on improving strength. Good luck.
I like the “take it in small steps” advice other people are saying on this thread. Don’t do like me and jump from one extreme to the other.
Although, maybe the Anabolic Diet would be your thang; I know you can get as much protein and veggies as you need in the mess hall.
Those are damn impressive numbers you’ve got. Definately don’t worry about getting weak, you’d have to do something seriously wrong to loose all that strength.
You don’t have to give up burgers, pizza, etc… You just need to cut back. You can get lean while having some. You just probably can’t get competition lean. But that doesn’t seem like what you’re striving for anyhow. Are you happy with your size? How much more muscle would you like? Whether or not you ultimately want more it doesn’t seem to be a problem to me if you want to take some time to lean out.
You have some solid size. I would not expect you to lose much or any muscle if you continue to train hard, especially if it’s not a stringent diet but only cleaning up your diet and dropping calories a ltitle.
Also, look into some bodyweight training for the times when you are overseas. I’ve never bothered because I’ve always had access to a gym. But there are ways you can make bodyweight movements much more difficult and get a decent workout. I think CT might’ve written some programs. Better than nothing, for sure.
I used to be like that. So what I did was I started drinking a protein shake right before I went to eat. That way I was displacing a lot of junk like fries and a coke with protein. Then I only had to order 1 sandwich and a water instead of 2 value meals with coke, and I’d still be satisfied.
Eventually you will have made enough progress that you will start seeing burgers and fries as being detrimental to the progress that you have made, insted of being comforting.
[quote]tveddy wrote:
I used to be like that. So what I did was I started drinking a protein shake right before I went to eat. That way I was displacing a lot of junk like fries and a coke with protein. Then I only had to order 1 sandwich and a water instead of 2 value meals with coke, and I’d still be satisfied.
Eventually you will have made enough progress that you will start seeing burgers and fries as being detrimental to the progress that you have made, insted of being comforting.[/quote]
Wow. Fries? Yes. Why do people see a bun and ground beef as “detrimental to progress”?
As for the training at sea thing I have been in a similar situation. I was working way out of town and in a camp. Camp had no gym anywhere near. So I decided that I was going to try and drop fat during this time and ran bodyweight complexes everyday.
I made huge progress fat loss wise and my stamina went way up. It’s what I’m doing now to drop fat again after a bulk. Burpees are your friend here.
As for food I find the best way to alter how you eat is to simplify. For me I function best at extremes. Things like the velocity diet and dave drapers “tuna and water” diet work like hot cakes. And I actually enjoy the spartan discipline it takes to do it. I kind of get off on it, esp when i see the fat dropping like tits on a 72 year old.
Then after those extreme diet are over I just go to meat and veggie shit till i get to where I want. I pop in a tuna and water every so often (like this monday for example) to keep the mental toughness up.
Like the above post say, find what works for you and just dropp the shitty food. Dropping the shitty food alone will result in tons of fat los likely.