Criticism wanted.

[Ichoai]

What's up everyone,

I'm a long time reader, and first made an account to post my current situation after a long time of being frustrated. I started working out about a year and a half ago. I'm 5"10, started out at 190lbs with minimal muscle tone. In december of this past year, after over a year of hitting the gym hard..I finally gained a significant amount of muscle. I'm now 185lbs, with a considerable amount of muscle. However, I still have about 15lbs of fat I need to lose (mostly around midsection, probably due to insulin resistance as a younger fat kid).

For the past 2 months or so, I've been doing the "Paleo" or "Primal" diet in which I basically only eat meat and vegetables. I have cheated a few times but I've followed it pretty strictly (about 90%) since a little before christmas. I've definitely seen some results, but not quite what I expected. I've had success with a low carb diet like this before in high school, but I'm considering the option that maybe this isn't the right route for me. I definitely gain weight faster than most people my age, and could be categorized as an "endomorph". Here's what my diet looks like roughly right now (Paleo):

Breakfast: 2 Eggs scrambled with sauteed vegetables, spinach, kale, broccoli, peppers.

Snack: If I have a snack at all it's usually an apple or banana to keep me satisfied while at work or in class.

Lunch: Grilled chicken over vegetables/ Salad. It changes from day to day what vegetables are in there but pretty much same as breakfast.

Snack:Again, only sometimes, not habitual... cashews/almonds unsalted.

Postworkout: Protein shake (20g) Hydrolyzed Whey
Intraworkout: BCAA's

Dinner: Varies, usually a meat with vegetables. Sometimes I have chili (cheat), or a sweet potato.

I workout with a 4-day split: Chest/Tris, Back/Bi's, Shoulders/Traps, Legs. I also do Cardio about 2-3 times per week since starting this diet, approx 20-30 minutes of the elliptical at ~135-145 bpm.

Oh I also take Opti-Men multi vitamin, and for the past two weeks I've been taking Driven Sport's Lean Extreme (Cortisol regulator) Fat loss supplement.

Please, criticize me. I need guidance aside from my stupid friends who just think more cardio is the answer. Nothing is more irritating when a buddy can eat ice cream and pizza at every meal and still have a six pack while I struggle with a caveman diet.

I posted this on muscle and strength forum, and one of their experts told me I am not eating nearly enough and have induced a metabolic shutdown. While I agree this is a possibility I think there may be other factors that are causing my lack of results. As you can see, I understand the concept behind not eating enough, I just don't know how to fix it. I'm also a college student with a part time job. I've tried counting cals in the past but it proved to be extremely difficult and often not accurate due to me not weighing my food. My lifestyle is a busy one, and I'm trying to do the best I can but I'm not sure how to apply all this information.

also my meals are rather big..for example for dinner last week I had approx .75 lb of London broil with vegetable. This was one of the larger meals ive had.. But just to give you an idea of portions.

[ABeast1Day]

Sounds like you have the basics down. The next step would be to start weighing and tracking your food. So you can really pin down your calories and macros. Have you used myfitnesspal before? Great tool. Also take the time to figure out your tdee and drop by like 20%

As far as the paelo/low carb goes, thats all preference. I for one cant do it,energy levels plummet. IF has worked really well for me.

[Ichoai]

What's IF? I've tried my fitness pal and some foods work very well on it but it seems pointless to try and add a salad (which I eat almost every meal) when you have to input each ingredient separately. It doesn't seem to make sense to eyeball it because then my total intake is nothing more than a rough estimate. If I was eating sandwiches with a set calorie for the bread, and set weight for the meat, logging it would make sense.. But the way I, eating it almost seems counterintuitive to try and log my daily food intake.

[BeABeast]

Eat less and / or move more. The obvious answer is you need to track everything, know how many calories you're taking in, and reduce it if you're not losing weight. Sounds like you're reluctant to this, but that's the best answer.

You don't need to a caveman diet if you track your calories and macros. Use my fitness pal as he said. You can make meals that you eat a lot, such as a salad, so you don't have to input each ingredient everytime. If you can't weigh everything, guesstimate, and estimate high. Once the scale starts moving, or doesn't, you'll know what you need to do.

[Ichoai]

So then I'm not in a state of "metabolic shutdown" as suggested in the other forum? All of this advice seems so contradictory. I'm grateful for your help but I'm being told eat more and eat less, workout more, or I need more rest.

[MrZombieSteve]

What's IF? I've tried my fitness pal and some foods work very well on it but it seems pointless to try and add a salad (which I eat almost every meal) when you have to input each ingredient separately. It doesn't seem to make sense to eyeball it because then my total intake is nothing more than a rough estimate. If I was eating sandwiches with a set calorie for the bread, and set weight for the meat, logging it would make sense.. But the way I, eating it almost seems counterintuitive to try and log my daily food intake.

IF = intermittent fasting, if you look it up you'll get a lot of helpful information but the bare-bones-breakdown of it is a daily fast where in the 24 hour window you don't eat for 16-20 hours and get all your food into the remainder ( Since meal timing/frequency is irrelevant in most scenarios )

You don't need to be too crazy with your counting. Everybody responds differently and some prefer being exact while others like to record for macro sake, however there's ways around that supposed inefficiency regarding salads. you could record it once and save it as a meal, or ballpark the calories once and put them in as empty since the carbs are mostly trace save for the dressing you choose to use.

It seems counterintuitive because it's so different from how you've considered your food up until this point, however your problem is mostly solved in the first part of this post and you're more or less just over-complicating things. weigh everything. bread. meat. any solid or consumable that isn't a free pouring liquid ( you use measuring cups for that ) you should weigh if you want accuracy in recording your food. 'IF you want' that IF statement is dependent on how you want to roll diet wise. Get a dirt cheap scale, use credible and reliable sources ( www.wolframalpha.com ) for any nutritional information you can't find along with the food you're eating and through trial and error find what works for you. ( the trial and error part as applying what you learn successfully is 90% of your success long term, recording your daily intake isjust done for organization and utilization purposes so that the knowledge you learn through trial and error can be used in the most efficient way you can. )

There's no golden rule, just approximations to get a base of understanding, the rest of it is experience.