Skinny Fat trying to cut for summer-before photos

[Skwidward]

Hey, I've been lifiting for years now. I've made steady progress on and off. A shoulder injury really screwed me, but I've come back slow and have been grateful just to be lifting again inbetween lay offs.

Anyway, I've been really slack with diet and cario and have carried a nice bit of fat during my whole lifting career. At 29 I've finally decided I'd like to fix that before 30. Also, I have some visitors coming to stay in June and we will be at the beach and pool most of the time. One of the visitors coming is probably the one person if I had to impress anyone it would be them. My Mum. She is also probably the one person to cut me down more than anyone. I think only becasue I actually care what she thinks. Sad really that it takes her visit to kick me up the arse but this is the situation in which I find myself. I also have Hypertension I need to control it before I end up on meds.

So I have a journal already and will just continue to use it as checking back for things that may have caused relapses with my shoulder injury has been very helpful. Here is the link to my journal http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...771519&page=22 it tracks my come back from not really being able to push myself up off the couch without shoulder pain to being able to do weighted dips again.

I am 29, 6ft, 200lbs. No idea on body fat...30% maybe? Pretty out of shape. Here's some pics









Goal
Short term-lose the gut, show some abs to be comfortable at the beach in front of mum for June...I'm talking no fat, no jiggling at all. Not scared of being skinny...reckon I'd look alright at 175.
Long term-Improve CV health and slowly bulk back from this cut.

Weights
My plan is really to continue as I have been with lifting. I workout 2-3 times per week and do an upper/lower split. I do this because I'm a nurse and work the night shift. I am dead at the end of my shift and also hardly eat during my 12 hour shift. I work 3-4 shifts per week and the days are always changing. The upper/lower thing allows me to workout on off days and keep it flexible. I am getting tempted to attempt a 3 day split push/pull/legs-M/W/F (my favorite routine that I have gained well off in the past) and just lift before going to work. The only concern is eating. I run pretty much my whole shift and sometimes don't eat. I'm thinking of getting around this with milkshakes, nuts, sandwhiches I can eat while charting. We'll see. It's really tough.

Diet
This is the one thing I believe if I could change, the results would just seem to drop out of the sky. I eat out a lot...I'm talking 5000 plus calorie meals at places like Chiles, Outbacks with loads of beer 3 or more times/week. Beer is another big problem for me. With help/encouragement from my wife I do not drink at home anymore. I used to drink 4 or more 6 packs per week. When I eat out I drink at least 3 pints of beer. Fast food..lol..I have just recently stopped that like with the drinking at home (I'm talking stopped in the last few days). I'll eat 3 burgers at a time. With a long family history of heart disease this **** will kill me pretty soon.

So diet will be eating out once every 2 weeks with 1 beer if any and sensible choices....I would like to be a non drinker. No fast food at all ever. Just eating what my wife cooks at home (meat and two veg is her thing she cooks whole foods) and I prepare myself (rice and tuna, chicken breast in salad with low fat dressing, oats for breakfast etc.). Snack on nuts, beef jerky, cheese string. I am also considering limiting carbs but dunno how effective that will be. I don't count calories religiously just at a passing glance. I don't plan too either, but I know how to reduce them drastically. I only drink tea or water (or beer) so sodas aren't an issue.

Cardio
Cardio is .....since 3 days..... now an intense 3-4 mile power walk every day. I feel awesome since starting this. It takes me 40 mins and when I get home my HR is around 170 or so and I'm sweaty. My resting HR is 60. I will also cycle to change things up now and then. Before starting the walking apart from a bike ride maybe once per week I was pretty much sedentary, so I figured this will help immensely.

Anyway....this is me. This is my plan. Follow along if you want. Feel free to advise or comment. The idea of posting in here is to more of a sense of obligation to training. Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I broke a rib a few weeks ago, so I'm off lifting at the moment. I will start back in a few days, but the diet and cardio will continue.

[TheNewestGuy]

Goal
Short term-lose the gut, show some abs to be comfortable at the beach in front of mum for June...I'm talking no fat, no jiggling at all. Not scared of being skinny...reckon I'd look alright at 175.
Long term-Improve CV health and slowly bulk back from this cut.

I don't think you're 30%. I'd say you're at 20-24% now, max. So as of right now, you're:

152lbs lean, 48lbs fat.

Assuming no muscle loss, to get to 10% bodyfat, you'll need to be:

152lbs lean, 16lbs fat

This is a net loss of 32 lbs. Again, if we were going to be very accurate, you'll probably lose somewhere around 7, 8 lbs of muscle for 32lbs of fat, especially given your goals.

In other words, 2lbs per week for four months. Not a walk in the park by any stretch to consistently lose 2lbs (7000 calorie deficit) for four months.

[Skwidward]

I don't think you're 30%. I'd say you're at 20-24% now, max. So as of right now, you're:

152lbs lean, 48lbs fat.

Assuming no muscle loss, to get to 10% bodyfat, you'll need to be:

152lbs lean, 16lbs fat

This is a net loss of 32 lbs. Again, if we were going to be very accurate, you'll probably lose somewhere around 7, 8 lbs of muscle for 32lbs of fat, especially given your goals.

In other words, 2lbs per week for four months. Not a walk in the park by any stretch to consistently lose 2lbs (7000 calorie deficit) for four months.

7000 calorie deficit?

You think my plan is adequate for my goals? I don't need to be 10% BF just no 'flab' u know?

[TheNewestGuy]

7000 kilocalories of deficit below your maintenance = 2lbs of fat loss.

No 'flab' basically means 10-11% bodyfat.

[ejthomp]

7000 kilocalories of deficit below your maintenance = 2lbs of fat loss.

No 'flab' basically means 10-11% bodyfat.

7,000 calories deficit PER WEEK.... So you need to be eating 1,000 calories below your daily maintenance level. Since we don't know what your daily maintenance level is yet, you need to start somewhere.... My guesstimate is that you should build a diet of

1700 calories per day that contains about 150 grams of protein.

You will need to live on that religiously for 3 weeks before you can evaluate the calorie level and make changes if necessary.

If you don't count calories or don't plan.... You won't be successful. IT IS THAT SIMPLE.... YOUR CHOICE.

[Skwidward]

7,000 calories deficit PER WEEK.... So you need to be eating 1,000 calories below your daily maintenance level. Since we don't know what your daily maintenance level is yet, you need to start somewhere.... My guesstimate is that you should build a diet of

1700 calories per day that contains about 150 grams of protein.

You will need to live on that religiously for 3 weeks before you can evaluate the calorie level and make changes if necessary.

If you don't count calories or don't plan.... You won't be successful. IT IS THAT SIMPLE.... YOUR CHOICE.

How do I count calories of say a stew my wife cooks? Add up total calories in the stew and try and estimate the percentage I eat? I wouldn't have thought that was too accurate.

[jgiameetj]

How do I count calories of say a stew my wife cooks? Add up total calories in the stew and try and estimate the percentage I eat? I wouldn't have thought that was too accurate.

Thats basically what I do when we cook at home. Though, lately I've just been cooking seperately for myself.

[casticonstantinescu]

How do I count calories of say a stew my wife cooks? Add up total calories in the stew and try and estimate the percentage I eat? I wouldn't have thought that was too accurate.

If you are eating 100% of it during that one week, net the calories for the week of that entire stew. That's what I do.

So for example:

week 1: goal was 11,900 calories (in your case)

stew = 4000 calories.

track your eating for 11900 ( - 4000) , and just portion out accordingly with the stew.

[Yank11]

How do I count calories of say a stew my wife cooks? Add up total calories in the stew and try and estimate the percentage I eat? I wouldn't have thought that was too accurate.

if you are really serious about it, I would suggest getting a food scale. They're pretty cheap (around $20-30 USD). Will help a lot in portion control and in turn counting calories.

For the stew, add up all the ingredients seperately, I find it easier. And if you really aren't sure about the calories, it's better to over estimate it then under cut it.

[koatliki]

How do I count calories of say a stew my wife cooks? Add up total calories in the stew and try and estimate the percentage I eat? I wouldn't have thought that was too accurate.

That's what I do: it is not like there are any other options and it should be fairly accurate. Especially if you eat the whole thing and not let wife eat it: then you know for sure how much you ate.

[potcherboy]

7,000 calories deficit PER WEEK.... So you need to be eating 1,000 calories below your daily maintenance level. Since we don't know what your daily maintenance level is yet, you need to start somewhere.... My guesstimate is that you should build a diet of

1700 calories per day that contains about 150 grams of protein.

You will need to live on that religiously for 3 weeks before you can evaluate the calorie level and make changes if necessary.

If you don't count calories or don't plan.... You won't be successful. IT IS THAT SIMPLE.... YOUR CHOICE.

Or perhaps more realistically, eating 500 calories below maintenance/day + at least 500 calories worth of exercise/day

[Skwidward]

Took these today.

I can't really see much difference except in my gut. In these photos today I am totally letting it hang out. Dunno if i did that in the first photos. So IMO in these lastest photos it looks more like a pot/beer belly than a bigger belly being somewhat held in in the earlier photos.

Either way not much progress due to letting myself slip with my diet. I got on fitday.com and maintained 1700 calories a day for a week (maintence is 2300) I noticed a huge loss then but just let it slip again.

I have a little over 7 weeks left to get into beach/pool shape (shape that I can handle) and the rest of my life to become more healthly over all.

So I discovered burpess through the sire rosstraining.com. These are killer. I've been training with tabata intervals, minute drills, doing jump rope, burpees, push ups, pull ups, body weight squats. these workouts are killer. I mix them up with walking or cycling. I continue to do cardio 6 days/week. I am still eating like a pig, but steadily loosing body fat. I'm going keep these up and just continue with the weights twice a week.

If you think you are in good shape, do some burpees.

EDIT: can't get the photos not to be ****ing giant...pissing me off

[Skwidward]

Took these today.

I can't really see much difference except in my gut. In these photos today I am totally letting it hang out. Dunno if i did that in the first photos. So IMO in these lastest photos it looks more like a pot/beer belly than a bigger belly being somewhat held in in the earlier photos.

Either way not much progress due to letting myself slip with my diet. I got on fitday.com and maintained 1700 calories a day for a week (maintence is 2300) I noticed a huge loss then but just let it slip again.

I have a little over 7 weeks left to get into beach/pool shape (shape that I can handle) and the rest of my life to become more healthly over all.

So I discovered burpess through the sire rosstraining.com. These are killer. I've been training with tabata intervals, minute drills, doing jump rope, burpees, push ups, pull ups, body weight squats. these workouts are killer. I mix them up with walking or cycling. I continue to do cardio 6 days/week. I am still eating like a pig, but steadily loosing body fat. I'm going keep these up and just continue with the weights twice a week.

Got the photos to a smaller size. Again, I took these photos on 4/10/10. I can't see much progress at all, but that's because my diet has been awful.

I think maybe look a little slimmer inthe back photo...like I said I really let my gut hang in all these photos dunno if I did that in the first ones.

[Skwidward]

3/2/10

4/10/10


3/2/10

4/10/10