Am I on a good track here?

[AnnaEA]

My primary goal is to slowly reduce my fat mass and weight, while maintaining (or if possible building) my lean muscle mass.

I currently weigh 260, with a BF% of about 50% -- this is per my inexpensive Tanita scale, so I doubt it's really accurate. I'll be getting a good measurement taken at a local weight clinic at the beginning of May.

Right now I am:

eating: 10-20% percent below maintenance - 1800-2000 kC per day, following the zone ratio (40/30/30) of carbs, fats, proteins. I chose the zone ratio because it's easy, and I don't think that in my current situation I need the kind of precise macros that someone healthier would.

Lifting: I have just started Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength program, and am lifting three times a week. This coming week will be my second week, and I'll be adding a little weight on some of the lifts, and continuing working on being able to get all three sets completed on the others. I definitely feel stronger, and am really enjoying the program.

Cardio: I am hitting 30 minutes a day - light intensity on my lifting days, and a higher intensity (for me, anyways) Couch to 5k interval program on cardio days. Sunday is a straight rest day - nothing other then lifestyle activities.

Am I on a decent track here, or is there anything I am doing that really seems out of whack?

Anna

[beccawigg]

My primary goal is to slowly reduce my fat mass and weight, while maintaining (or if possible building) my lean muscle mass.

I currently weigh 260, with a BF% of about 50% -- this is per my inexpensive Tanita scale, so I doubt it's really accurate. I'll be getting a good measurement taken at a local weight clinic at the beginning of May.

Right now I am:

eating: 10-20% percent below maintenance - 1800-2000 kC per day, following the zone ratio (40/30/30) of carbs, fats, proteins. I chose the zone ratio because it's easy, and I don't think that in my current situation I need the kind of precise macros that someone healthier would.

Lifting: I have just started Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength program, and am lifting three times a week. This coming week will be my second week, and I'll be adding a little weight on some of the lifts, and continuing working on being able to get all three sets completed on the others. I definitely feel stronger, and am really enjoying the program.

Cardio: I am hitting 30 minutes a day - light intensity on my lifting days, and a higher intensity (for me, anyways) Couch to 5k interval program on cardio days. Sunday is a straight rest day - nothing other then lifestyle activities.

Am I on a decent track here, or is there anything I am doing that really seems out of whack?

Anna

How tall are you? That also depends on how many calories you are taking in. Like a female that's 6ft naturally needs a few more calories than somebody 5ft... I'm 5'3" and I'm on a 1700 calorie diet. I'm at a different ratio though. Personal trainer hooked me up with 50carbs/35protein/15fat.

carbs = 850calories/213grams OR 35grams x6meals
protein = 595cals/149grams OR 25 grams x6meals
fat = 255cals/28grams OR 5grams x6meals

I actually kinda transferred it a little bit and take in more protein now. But eating 6 small meals a day should help speed up your metabolism. Just remember nothing will happen over night and if you want to see my meal breakdown, you can email me and I'll PM it to you.

Also with working out, I do cardio 6 times a week with nothing less than 45 minutes. But depending on which day it is, it might be chest and tris day or back and abs, legs and abs, etc you get the idea. I know you may be just starting out, but I'm confident you'll get there! Also if you want to see my workout schedule I can email that to you too.

Hope this helps!

[AnnaEA]

I'm 5'5" - thank you for mentioning that makes a difference - it completely slipped my mind.

My macros are carb: 180-200, prot: 135-150, fats: 60-66 grams per day. I'm not on any fixed meal plan right now, but I generally eat something every 3-4 hours. I figure that as long as I've got a balanced day at the end and am on track with all my counts, I'm doing alright.

I would love to see your work out schedule -- I can't do 45 minutes of cardio yet, but I am working my way up to it. I'll pop you a message.

Thanks for the feedback!

[andrerox80]

glad you started on a strength program, that's way more impt than the cardio. if you want to do some cardio and can't do hiit or steady state yet, maybe just incorporate walking or swimming. movement is good, even though fat loss is really about diet. as for your diet, if the zone type of system works for you, that would be fine (even though percentages really don't matter. but, at this point, whatever works), and i agree that at this point it's more about cals than specific macro's and being obsessive, however, what you have now isn't a good set-up. first, i think your cals are too low. have you looked at the sticky on calculating cals and macro's and done the calculations (there are ones you don't need to know bf for)? i really think it's higher, which will help set up your macro's better. you want to start as high as you can - w/in a good deficit, of course - so you can lower later and also not feel deprived now and mess things up. i'm particularly concerned (too strong a word) w/ your fat intake. way too low. is the zone a diet you've followed in the past? what have you been doing up till now? if eating 3-4 hrs works for you, keep it up. meal frequency is irrelevant and you're right to focus on totals. but please do check the sticky. lots of helpful info there.

Personal trainer hooked me up with 50carbs/35protein/15fat.

carbs = 850calories/213grams OR 35grams x6meals
protein = 595cals/149grams OR 25 grams x6meals
fat = 255cals/28grams OR 5grams x6meals

I actually kinda transferred it a little bit and take in more protein now. But eating 6 small meals a day should help speed up your metabolism. Just remember nothing will happen over night and if you want to see my meal breakdown, you can email me and I'll PM it to you.

Also with working out, I do cardio 6 times a week with nothing less than 45 minutes. But depending on which day it is, it might be chest and tris day or back and abs, legs and abs, etc you get the idea. I know you may be just starting out, but I'm confident you'll get there! Also if you want to see my workout schedule I can email that to you too.

Hope this helps!

ratios are meaningless as is meal frequency. you also don't need to separate your cals and macro's to make them specific to ea meal. it's overall that matters. you said your trainer did this for you? take that w/ a grain of salt b/c trainers generally do not know much abt nutrition, unless they have a specific degree or certification in nutrition along w/ their pt cert. you also needn't do cardio 6 days a week. op said she's doing starting strength, which is a good prgm.

op, you might also want to check out a book called the new rules of lifting for women. has training and nutrition advice/info.

[AnnaEA]

Okay, I revisited my calories. I used the two formula Emma gave that didn't require bf%, and then I searched online and found eight other calculators and ran my numbers through them. Then I averaged all the results, and got a result of 2460 for my maintenance calories. This gives me a weight loss range of 2210 to 1970 (numbers rounded to the nearest 10 for simplicity).

Those numbers scare me -- I'm still really inculturated to the low calorie / high cardio mindset, and the thought of eating that much is frightening to me. I jumpstarted myself off the couch in March with two weeks on the SlimFast program - 1200 calories a day, so the 1800 -2000 I"m eating these days still seems like a huge amount to me.

But, I am seeing the weight coming off, so I guess I just need to take some deep breaths, keep lifting, and trust the numbers. And keep an eye on them so I can adjust them as needed.

I am eager for May 2nd - I have an appointment at the weight clinic to get my bf% taken, and that will let me use some of the more accurate calculations, I hope. Emma mentions in the sticky, and a lot of websites mentioned too, that the numbers may be high for obese people, which I am. So I am a little concerned about the numbers I've come up with here being too high. Being able to use the bodyfat calculations should help with that.

I picked the Zone percentages because when I used to backpack a lot, I found that a diet set up that way could keep me on my feet and my energy good all day long. It's pretty common among backpackers and long distance hikers. I've never tried it for losing weight.

I"ll read through the sticky more thoroughly this afternoon!

Thank you for the feedback.

Oh! New Rules of Lifting for Women is on my wish list, right after the Starting Strength book. I have to wait for my budget to match my desires though.

[AnnaEA]

Spent some more time with the nutrition sticky, and per it's math, my fat grams are okay. The sticky recommends 1-2 g fat per kg of lean mass for a high bodyfat person, and with my guesstimate of about 50% bodyfat, that means my lean mass would be about 129 pounds, approximately 58 kilograms, so 60-66 grams of fat is right on target as my minimum, and I certainly haven't got any problem meeting it.

I'm also over on protein with the zone proportions - target per the sticky is 117 grams, while the zone has me at 135-150 right now. So I guess I could dial that back little bit. I've been having trouble getting that much protein and staying in my calorie range, so that's good.

May 2nd. can't come soon enough. Then I can smooth all this out when I have good body comp data.

[andrerox80]

i don't know how you're having your bf measured, but you might be interested in this sticky: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=123726731

[AnnaEA]

The clinic here has an Inbody 320 scale - a very fancy bio impedance device. I've ready a couple of papers on it since I found out what device they had, and I'm comfortable with the margin of error on this machine. At my current weight and body fat, it's not enough to be significant (+/- 2.5%). It will give me a more reliable baseline then my Tanita does, and then I'll be able to use my Tanita or one the mathematic models (I'm thinking Naval) to track my bf% trend.


Anna

[andrerox80]

sounds like you've figured out what you want to do. was just giving my $.02. g'luck!

[AnnaEA]

sounds like you've figured out what you want to do. was just giving my $.02. g'luck!

Thank you I'm a complete newbie to all this, and I really appreciate all the info people are sharing, and the references to what to read. It's all so different from the eat less/exercise more mindset I grew up with.

Every $.02 is valuable to me, because knowledge wise about this all, I'm broke!

[Sami76]

Looks like you've thought things out and have a good plan. Good luck with everything!

[AnnaEA]

I was able to tweak my budget around, and get my body comp. consultation done today!!

51.1% body fat, with a lean body mass of 127.7lbs. 71.3 lbs of skeletal muscle mass, giving me a BMR of 1621 kC. Now I can get my numbers sorted properly.

I am so happy I was able to get this done sooner, even though the results are a little fattier then I hoped.