[quote]egyptianBulk wrote:
[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Egyptian bulk:
You need to understand that more lean mass = faster metabolism
The bigger you get muscle-wise, the faster the fat loss will become, and/or you can eat more while getting leaner. So your recomp (gaining muscle and losing some fat) was a good thing and is THE main goal of most bodybuilders.
Not only that, but if you get to the stage where you are losing fat AND muscle (e.g. you’re eating too little like around 1500cals per day and exercising too much), then you may get fat loss “results” to start with, but your body will go into starvation mode sooner than you think and will hold onto everything it’s got - you’ll hit a brick wall. Doing this like once a week (too little calories/too much exercise) is fine, but do it every day and you’ll pay.
Secondly, try not to confuse muscle gaining with fat loss. When you weight lift, you do it to purely to gain or maintain muscle mass. Save the fat burning for cardio sessions. When you do supersets with short time intervals, you cannot lift as much. Sure, do it to be more time efficient (supersets are quicker workouts), or to get a slight fat loss effect from lifting - but don’t do it at the sacrifice of energy/effort/strength.
Your main focus is expending energy via cardio and diet. If you haven’t tried HIIT, try it, many find it more effective than slow paced high volume cardio. There are many forms of HIIT, it doesn’t have to be sprinting - could be rowing, elliptical trainer, jump rope etc. After each lifting session, do about 20 mins of slow paced cardio (this “burns up” the freed fatty acids in your bloodstream from lifting).
Get your nutrition timing/partitioning good. Generally, low carbs on off days/cardio days, and higher carbs (e.g. 1.5g/lbs lean bodyweight) on lifting days. Higher calories in first half of day, lower in last half. Higher carbs around lifting and 3 hours after, lower before and later etc. Doing this will help you to maintain a decent speed of metabolism without it “crashing”.
After 3 months of dieting (say 2000-2500 cals per day), take a months break (maintenance calorie intake) which will “re-rev” your metabolism and stop your body from “eating itself” too much…then crank on again.[/quote]
This is very informative, I have additional queries to you if you may help me
I googled HIIT and found dozens of programs if you may be so kind to direct me to one you know to be body taxing as well as how many days a week should I do HIIT and how many should I lift(I just love lifting its a psychological need)
In terms of increasing my calories to 2000-2500 should that be in protein/fat cals or carb cals
thanks again mate.[/quote]
Your welcome. Much of what I’ve learned is through trial and error and the good contributors to this site.
Basically, you follow a very simple “flowchart”. Forget the special formulas etc, you need to go by your bodies feedback (i.e. is it providing results?).
Don’t do everything at once - always save something for when fat loss stagnates. If you cut out 3000 cals and do cardio 7+ times a week, what are you going to do on week 8 when things slow down? When progress stops, you need to increase the stimulus by expending more energy or diminishing your energy intake. You want to do things that you can do long term(ish), not do something drastic that will just “waste you”.
So here’s the “flowchart”:
Your base exercise volume, which includes lifting and cardio, shouldn’t go lower than 5 hours per week (studies have demonstrated that this is the best minimum amount for decent body composition changes).
- Do 5 hours exercise per week
Losing fat? Yes - keep everything the same. No - step 2
- Reduce calories by 250 (e.g. drop from 3000 cals/day to 2750)
Losing fat? Yes - keep everything the same. No - keep repeating step 2 until losing fat
- When step 2 stops working, increasing cardio by 30 mins extra in a week.
- Keep alternating between steps 2 and 3 until you hit the lowest calorie intake which for most lifters is around 2000cals/day. If you decrease more than that, you’ll likely slow metabolism/lose muscle.
Better to increase exercise duration/frequency once you’re at the lower calorie level…but this cannot be sustained for long (e.g. like 12 sessions of weight lifting/cardio each week)…which is why a short break of say 4 weeks is needed (boost in calories, reduction of exercise).
It’s not rocket science (doesn’t have to be), but it does take dedication. Commitment/self discipline/faith in the program…all this is more important than having a “super duper one” that you stick to for 3 weeks.
Generally, you’ll want to do HIIT about twice a week to start with and increase it to about 3x/week when progress stalls. Also, duration should be around 10mins per session to start with, increasing to around 20-30 mins as progress stalls.
Steady state/slow cardio can follow the same sort of process as HIIT, but generally can be done more often/more volume with lessor drain than HIIT has.
As for diet, your body type would more likely respond better to moderate-low carb intake. So you wouldn’t be far off of a low carb diet (probably around 100-200g/day). Take in plenty of fish and green veggies. Have one “cheat day” a week to keep you going mentally.
