Keeping Motivated!!

[Astigos]

I've been on a serious fat loss quest which has been quite success. Started Nov 1st and have lost 25lbs in ~2.5 months. I highly suggest everyone to read the bodybuilding.com forums as they have been the most enlightening thing as I am a complete novice.

Start here: How to lose fat for Noobs Part II and here: Calculating Calorie & Macronutrient Needs

Here are the rules:
-Eat 1g to about 85% of your weight in pounds (e.g. 200lbs = 170gs). This is where protein powders are your friend because it may be unfeasible to eat this much protein through foods.
-Calculate your maintenance calories (the amount of calories you need to live according to your activity level) then eat about 85% of that amount.
-Meal timing and frequency is IRRELEVANT. The only thing that matters is your calorie intake at the end of any 24 hour period. Don't believe that crap where you have to eat every 3 hours. Eating 400 calories 6 times a day is the same as eating 1200 calories 2 times a day (except much more annoying). You can eat once a day and still lose weight so long as you eat all the macronutrients you need and still hit your deficit in that one meal. It's called the Warrior Diet, look it up.
-If you run a 500 calorie deficit per day after 7 days you will lose 1lb. One pound of fat contains 3500 calories. Whether that 1lb loss is fat or fat and muscle is dependent on your protein intake and lifting routine.
-Sources of carbs/fats/proteins are irrelevant. All that matters are the carbs/fats/proteins so pay attention to what you're eating. You can actually eat nothing but chocolate cake and BBQ ribs and lose weight so long as you're running a calorie deficit. You'll probably lose muscle and be mentally broken from constant hunger pains as those are calorie dense but definitely lose weight.
-Aerobic cardio is unnecessary. Unless you're doing high intensity interval training (1min sprint, 1min jog, 1min sprint, etc.) all aerobic cardio does is burn calories so that your deficit for the day is now larger. Energy used for aerobic cardio is derived 75% from fat and 25% from muscle so it may be counter-productive to your goals if you do a lot of cardio. In all respects heavy weight lifting is better. It will both burn calories anaerobically (approaching 100% fat burn and no muscle loss) and cause after burn (soreness) which will burn calories long after you stop lifting and eventually train your muscles to use more calories in a day so that your deficit is easier to hit. Of course cardio is good for your heart and lungs but that's a different topic.

So do your weight lifting, eat 15% below your maintenance calories and get lots and lots of protein, but do not neglect your fats. Use carbs as only when necessary as they are proportionally less important in the quest for fat loss.

And here's my favorite motivating video.

[Jo_Culprit]

On the weight loss thing I recently came across a few interesting bits of info regarding metabolism and fat retention. I read them first in a book called "The 4-Hour Body" by Tim Ferriss. In the weight loss section Tim argues that a thermodynamic model of calorie usage is more useful than the calories in equals calories out model. He basically proposes taking cold showers and concentrating the cold between your lower neck and shoulder blades to enact a particular kind of 'fat burning fat' or something. Ferris covers a few other interesting things but one of reasons I like his book so much is that he split tests every theory and idea he can find.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by Astigos

tings

thumbsup.jpg!

I learned basically the same stuff through Leangains.com (which I think bb.com references for the most part). A good calculator to get all that caloric stuff done quickly is IF Calculator.

The aerobics thing is that it's basically a waste of time. If you're gonna do aerobics then eat afterwards, just stay home and do something else and don't eat as it doesn't help gain strength/lbm, and aerobic adaptation is for the most part unnecessary (it's basically only useful for doing more aerobic exercises). As for heavy lifting, the ideal range is 3-5 reps, as high rep stuff (10+) will induce a catabolic effect.

The cool foods aside from brotein shakes are Egg Whites (100% protein cals, unless you fuck up the yolk separation), Lean Chicken Breast (92% protein cals if you cut all the side fat), and as I found out today Shrimp (89% protein cals). The great thing about dieting is pretty much everything tastes great, so eating clean is super easy now.

I've been on a 20% deficit the past 4 weeks trying to lose 10lbs (ideally going from 16%bf to 11% assuming minor lbm loss). And I just hit the halfway point today, fysy! (Actually a week ahead of schedule, so maybe I underestimated my maintenance). bf% estimates are also on target. Once I hit my goal, I'll do an official bodpod measure and get an accurate %bf.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by Jo_Culprit

On the weight loss thing I recently came across a few interesting bits of info regarding metabolism and fat retention. I read them first in a book called "The 4-Hour Body" by Tim Ferriss. In the weight loss section Tim argues that a thermodynamic model of calorie usage is more useful than the calories in equals calories out model. He basically proposes taking cold showers and concentrating the cold between your lower neck and shoulder blades to enact a particular kind of 'fat burning fat' or something. Ferris covers a few other interesting things but one of reasons I like his book so much is that he split tests every theory and idea he can find.

Haven't read the book, but I'm pretty sure cals in/cals out IS thermodynamics. Arguing for cold showers beyond the raised metabolism (which is increased cals out) would be arguing from some nonthermodynamic biological effect.

[Jo_Culprit]

Originally Posted by DWarrior

Haven't read the book, but I'm pretty sure cals in/cals out IS thermodynamics. Arguing for cold showers beyond the raised metabolism (which is increased cals out) would be arguing from some nonthermodynamic biological effect.

he's saying it takes energy to maintain body temperature and he uses swimmers as a example where their raw exercise seems to account for a third of what they ingest in calories. While yes technically energy in equals energy out, he's saying that the calorie ingested equals calories exercised model specifically can be expanded to include calories the body uses to maintain its core temperature under thermal loading.

My forums posting really doesn't do the book justice.

[Astigos]

Originally Posted by DWarrior

thumbsup.jpg!

I learned basically the same stuff through Leangains.com (which I think bb.com references for the most part). A good calculator to get all that caloric stuff done quickly is IF Calculator.

The aerobics thing is that it's basically a waste of time. If you're gonna do aerobics then eat afterwards, just stay home and do something else and don't eat as it doesn't help gain strength/lbm, and aerobic adaptation is for the most part unnecessary (it's basically only useful for doing more aerobic exercises). As for heavy lifting, the ideal range is 3-5 reps, as high rep stuff (10+) will induce a catabolic effect.

The cool foods aside from brotein shakes are Egg Whites (100% protein cals, unless you fuck up the yolk separation), Lean Chicken Breast (92% protein cals if you cut all the side fat), and as I found out today Shrimp (89% protein cals). The great thing about dieting is pretty much everything tastes great, so eating clean is super easy now.

I've been on a 20% deficit the past 4 weeks trying to lose 10lbs (ideally going from 16%bf to 11% assuming minor lbm loss). And I just hit the halfway point today, fysy! (Actually a week ahead of schedule, so maybe I underestimated my maintenance). bf% estimates are also on target. Once I hit my goal, I'll do an official bodpod measure and get an accurate %bf.

Good link and good to hear you're doing it right.
I've been running a good 20% deficit for about 3 months now and my weight loss has really come almost to a halt. I'm not exactly sure what to do as some people have said I need to either refeed (which I believe means eat at maintenance for a while) or reduce calories further. I have no problems eating clean but to eat less would be a bit of a stretch. So I'm gonna try reducing calories for a while and if I don't see results I'm going to go to maintenance for 2 weeks.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by Astigos

Good link and good to hear you're doing it right.
I've been running a good 20% deficit for about 3 months now and my weight loss has really come almost to a halt. I'm not exactly sure what to do as some people have said I need to either refeed (which I believe means eat at maintenance for a while) or reduce calories further. I have no problems eating clean but to eat less would be a bit of a stretch. So I'm gonna try reducing calories for a while and if I don't see results I'm going to go to maintenance for 2 weeks.

25lbs is a pretty significant weight loss, and your current maintenance calories would definitely be lower than 25lbs ago. Try recalculating a 20% deficit from your current weight/stats and see how it compares to what you were doing before.

I don't know anything about refeeds (don't plan to diet long enough to need one, I think).

[Astigos]

Originally Posted by DWarrior

25lbs is a pretty significant weight loss, and your current maintenance calories would definitely be lower than 25lbs ago. Try recalculating a 20% deficit from your current weight/stats and see how it compares to what you were doing before.

I don't know anything about refeeds (don't plan to diet long enough to need one, I think).

I have been recalculating and that's the weird thing. I've read that your body will adapt to its new calorie intake in an effort to preserve homeostasis. But I'm gonna reduce calories and severely reduce carb intake because that was something I increased over the last 3 weeks because I was told I could stand to eat more carbs. Perhaps I'm just incredibly sensitive to carbs because when I started cutting I stopped eating grains entirely and the results were there.

And congrats on your weight loss. I can only imagine that it'll get more difficult when the body fat percentage reaches the low teens.

[Astigos]

Originally Posted by DWarrior

I don't know anything about refeeds (don't plan to diet long enough to need one, I think).

Just did my research about refeeds and here is a definitive post The reason we refeed...
Oh man I'm gonna have a fun time tomorrow.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by Astigos

Just did my research about refeeds and here is a definitive post The reason we refeed...
Oh man I'm gonna have a fun time tomorrow.

For those people who are in the 10-15% range, re-feeding every 6-12 days will probably be adequate

I actually read the 6-part Lyle series from that post and was all stoked to dine tonight, but then I reviewed Leangains, and his diet already includes mini-refeeds on workout days. He recommends the second macronutrient to be carbs on workout days and fat to be on rest days. I'm also alternating 10% deficit on workout days and 30% deficit on rest days, so apparently I already have the refeeds built in. I think I'm actually gonna buy the recommended reads instead of just going by the free articles to understand the diet better.