Losing fat while gaining muscle - a new angle

[EPS1980]

I know it's the goal of nearly everyone on here, but like most of you, I am currently hoping to both lose fat and gain muscle. I have a program I've created for myself (based on a lot of time studying this) and want to share it here and see if anyone has any suggestions for how to improve it.

I'm currently about 220, 6'2", and probably about 14% body fat. I'm trying to get down to about 9% body fat without losing muscle, and possibly even gaining some while on what I consider a cutting phase.

Based on what I can calculate and my general experience, I need an average of about 3,200 calories per day to maintain my fitness level while exercising. More calories should make me gain some muscle and maybe a tiny bit of fat, fewer should help me lose fat.

I currently track everything I eat in an Excel spreadsheet - literally everything. (I'll share the sheet if anyone wants it, if you prepare your own food, which I'm sure many of you do, you just have to enter the products into the database tab, and then its easy to track fat, protein, carbs, and sodium, along with total caloric intake, and to see the balance - I shoot for a calorie breakdown of 30% protein, 40% carbs, 30% fat.) I'm eating 6 or 7 times per day (small meals each time to keep my metabolism up without a lot of calories). Obviously I'm eating very healthy.

My workout routine has been 4 days lifting and 2 days cardio per week for a while. I'm now shifting during this cutting phase to 3 days lifting and 3 days of cardio per week (which I estimate will take until about the end of April). To make it easier on myself, I'm running a calorie deficit from Sunday afternoon through Friday morning, then a calorie surplus Friday afternoon through Sunday morning (this way I get to eat a lot on weekends, and have something to look forward to while starving myself). I'll lift heavy Friday and Saturday afternoons (I'm not drinking while on this diet, so I have nothing better to do...) and eat an extra 800 calories or so per day between roughly 2 PM Friday through 2 PM Sunday, for 4000 calories per day on those days (not exactly days, but 24 hour periods). The 2 PM start time on Friday is to give my body extra calories to get ready for really heavy workouts at about 6 PM, and then of course a huge calorie load right after the workout to get maximum recovery. I'll do Push/Pull on Friday/Saturday, alternating since I'll have more recovery from the Friday workout since it will be followed by two days of excess calories. The rest of the time, I'll be running an approximately 750 calorie deficit, except for Wednesday night through Thursday morning. Wednesday evenings I'll do a full body workout (both push and pull) and run a slight calorie surplus (maybe 400 or so) to help maintain muscle. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday I'll do cardio, probably low intensity once or twice and high intensity once or twice (alternating the mixture from week to week).

As the calorie surplus days should go almost entirely to muscle building/recovery, I estimate that I have about 4 days per week of 750 calorie deficits, or about 3,000 calories in deficit per week. That should translate into about 1 pound of fat loss per week, while maintaining or possibly gaining a tiny bit of muscle.

As I have a slight tendency to store fat in my chest (no man-boobs, but not defined pecs as I'd like), I'm taking zinc and Tribulus to increase testosterone and reduce the aromatization into estrogens. I'm also using whey protein and casein proteins (whey during the day, casein at night) to help prevent catabolism.

If anyone has any suggestions on ways I might improve this plan, I'd be happy to hear them. If not, I'll just post on my progress periodically and we'll see if this strategy works.

[Jneves]

Not a new idea, but definatly give it a go

research into carb cycling diets, they are laid out much the same as what you are trying to do.

[EPS1980]

I've been going for roughly two weeks on what I'll call my "Caloric Cycling" diet. I've cut the lifting to 3x per week, with 3x per week cardio. I'm exactly on target for fat loss days with a roughly 750 calories deficit daily 3 or 4 days per week, and I'm tracking all of this in an Excel spreadsheet (recording calories, protein, carbs, fat, and sodium of every single thing I eat). I've actually lost more weight than I thought I would (I'm down to 217, a loss of 5 pounds) but so far haven't lost any strength. I've made little to no gains in terms of my weights, maybe a tiny bit here and there, but can see improvement on the fat side. I am using Accu-Measure fat calipers at home combined with my Tanita body-fat scale to estimate fat, and these indicate that I've lost about 1.5% body fat in two weeks (about 3 pounds). Given that I've lost 5 pounds total, I'm guessing that's 3 pounds of fat and 2 pounds of water, as I've also substantially reduced my creatine intake.

The one tweak I've made is increasing recovery time a bit. I've found that by loading calories into the weekend, it's actually the second workout that feels good. Fridays I'm going in to the gym with probably very low muscle glycogen as a result of a super-low calorie diet all week. I eat a bit before that Friday workout then load up on calories afterwords to keep/gain muscle, so the calorie surplus translates into a great workout on Saturday. To maintain muscle, however, I'm forced to keep eating through Sunday, cutting fat loss days down by a bit. I'm also doing this a bit following the mid-week workout, though to a lesser extent as I don't push as hard during that one. This leaves me in calorie deficit Monday through Wednesday morning, and Thursday afternoon through Friday morning, which is actually about 3 1/2 days of calorie deficit per week. I'm guessing that will slow fat loss as I go forward to maybe 1 pound per week, and with about 4.5% body fat to go (to get to about 9%), that's just about 10 pounds, or 10 weeks, before I'll complete this cycle.

[Rocky3540]

I've been going for roughly two weeks on what I'll call my "Caloric Cycling" diet. I've cut the lifting to 3x per week, with 3x per week cardio. I'm exactly on target for fat loss days with a roughly 750 calories deficit daily 3 or 4 days per week, and I'm tracking all of this in an Excel spreadsheet (recording calories, protein, carbs, fat, and sodium of every single thing I eat). I've actually lost more weight than I thought I would (I'm down to 217, a loss of 5 pounds) but so far haven't lost any strength. I've made little to no gains in terms of my weights, maybe a tiny bit here and there, but can see improvement on the fat side. I am using Accu-Measure fat calipers at home combined with my Tanita body-fat scale to estimate fat, and these indicate that I've lost about 1.5% body fat in two weeks (about 3 pounds). Given that I've lost 5 pounds total, I'm guessing that's 3 pounds of fat and 2 pounds of water, as I've also substantially reduced my creatine intake.

The one tweak I've made is increasing recovery time a bit. I've found that by loading calories into the weekend, it's actually the second workout that feels good. Fridays I'm going in to the gym with probably very low muscle glycogen as a result of a super-low calorie diet all week. I eat a bit before that Friday workout then load up on calories afterwords to keep/gain muscle, so the calorie surplus translates into a great workout on Saturday. To maintain muscle, however, I'm forced to keep eating through Sunday, cutting fat loss days down by a bit. I'm also doing this a bit following the mid-week workout, though to a lesser extent as I don't push as hard during that one. This leaves me in calorie deficit Monday through Wednesday morning, and Thursday afternoon through Friday morning, which is actually about 3 1/2 days of calorie deficit per week. I'm guessing that will slow fat loss as I go forward to maybe 1 pound per week, and with about 4.5% body fat to go (to get to about 9%), that's just about 10 pounds, or 10 weeks, before I'll complete this cycle.

Sounds good. If you are wanting to build muscle and loose fat, you could try to tweak it. Here is what I have done over the past month...with this, i gained 7lbs and lost 7% body fat. This is per calipers and the standing weight machine that figures body fat. I wanted 2 different kind of test.

It is simple...Im just going to tell what is different from what you are doing... change your Protein and Carb intake. More protein and less carbs...about 50/30/20. Lift heavy every workout...one body part per day, except arms(averaged 5 or so sets per body part)....and don't do any cardio.

Supps..I took NO Xplode and one pill of supremacy per day.

I would like to see your spreadsheet. send it to rocky3540@yahoo.com

when i say you can tweak it, i mean when you hit a wall. What your are doing seems to be working.

[Miketoc]

Sounds good. If you are wanting to build muscle and loose fat, you could try to tweak it. Here is what I have done over the past month...with this, i gained 7lbs and lost 7% body fat. This is per calipers and the standing weight machine that figures body fat. I wanted 2 different kind of test.

It is simple...Im just going to tell what is different from what you are doing... change your Protein and Carb intake. More protein and less carbs...about 50/30/20. Lift heavy every workout...one body part per day, except arms(averaged 5 or so sets per body part)....and don't do any cardio.

Supps..I took NO Xplode and one pill of supremacy per day.

I would like to see your spreadsheet. send it to rocky3540@yahoo.com

when i say you can tweak it, i mean when you hit a wall. What your are doing seems to be working.

Somehow...I just don't believe you.

[BananaHammocks]

Somehow...I just don't believe you.

Everyone seems to think that being more defined = more muscle. Maybe in terms of what you see in the mirror, but that's about it.

[Rocky3540]

Somehow...I just don't believe you.

I suppose you don't have to believe me. Just saying what I did. Went from eating like a pig to being very strict with my diet. My profile pic was taken last weekend. I am 223 in the picture.

[RugbyPlayer13]

EPS, lets me know how that works out for you. Right now I'm eating almost 50% of my carbs in the morning. And about 75% of my fats in the evening so I don't get hungry before bed. I have actually been sleeping better while doing this for some reason, and from the last two weeks I already see some results.