The next level

[Corsair]

Hello,
This is my first post here so I'm curious as to the response I will get. I want to take my traing to the next level. I have been working out seriously for a year. Tried different routines and diets. I made my own spreadsheets calculating Lean Body Mass, % fat, and fat wieght. My average wieght/BF(218 - 24%BF) in 2001 and I am 6' 1" tall and will be 36 in Feb. I started at 230 w/ BF at 28%. I now wiegh 216 at 17%BF. I started with a lean body mass of 155lbs and now sport about 180lbs I can't seem to lose more body fat even with cardio 4-5 times a week and I cant seem to lose any more waist size(36.5-37 inches at the umbilicus). My weight training routine is to hit 1 muscle group every 7 days. This seems to work best for me as I have seem more development since I started doing this 2 months ago. I have lowered my carb intake to 50g per day and my protien intake is 200-300g per day, fat will vary on how clean I eat. I now generally consume 1500-2000K a day over 4-5 meals and this is a lower intake that I just started last week. I just completed a 6 cycle of 1-AD and andro poppers with good results and am taking ergopharm's 6-oxo to get my natural testosterone production back up ( I'll let you know how it works since It's a new product)and I am also taking L-dopa along with ISS proM3 protien. I plan to try 1-test on the next cycle 4-6 weeks from now.
My goal for this year is to have a 5%-10% BF and 200lbs of lean body fat. Any suggestions as far as diet or supplements to help me. Thanks

John

[kendo]

I have been there too Corsair and pulled out of a contest because of it. Folk are always in here when weight loss stands still and I've seen it happen in here all the time. Constant calorie deficit no matter how much cardio you do or how far you drop carbs eventually your metabolic rate shuts down and weight loss stops, catabolism sets in especially now you are post cycle. For lean gain I set cals at 15 - 20 times bodyweight and slowly go down to 10 - times for cutting.

If you weigh 216 your cals shouldn't be below 2300 on a contest diet so I'm being honest bro your starving yourself nowhere!

I would suggest going to 6 meals per day maybe try and do a natural gain for a while staying clean on around 3000 - 3500. The slowly coming down again with a renewed metabolic rate.

All your doing at the minute bro is setting yourself up for a slow metabolism and muscle loss. Dieting doesn't have to be that hard especially at your weight!

How long have you been on a cutting plan for?

[Corsair]

Thanks for the reply. I would love to go to 6 meals a day but I work in a clean room and can't get out often enough to eat 6times a day. 5 is the best I can do. I have been slowly lowering my calories for about 3 weeks now. your right ablout the muscle loss. My spreadsheets have started to show a loss. I lost Fat as well but the ratio is out of wack. Loosing the muscle faster that the fat. So as of today I started bringing up my cals but I lowered my carbs again. I also am increasing my cardio intensity to 75% of max heart rate for 30 min a day. We will see how this works.

John

[Dooges]

I think you need to eat more. Food builds muscle, muscle burns fat. You can only cut for so long before your body gets used to the low calories and your metabolism slows.

Life's great irony:
You need to burn more calories that you consume to loose fat.
You need to consume more calories that burn to gain muscle.

As someone who started out very much an endomorph, I know that bulking cycles are a concept that's hard to get used to. I cut for a year and a half straight, and lost alot of weight (40 pounds) doing so. But it didn't take long to plateau. I suggest that during your next cycle of 1-test you bulk. I bet that the little fat you gain will be greatly offset by lots of lean muscle, which will make your next cutting cycle that much more effective.

[Charger]

I will second Kendo, his advice helped me on my last cut. Up the carbs! I was cutting carbs as you are and going backwards losing hard gained muscle. By uping carbs I reversed that trend in 2 weeks. Were not talking much of an increase, just enough to give your metab a shot in the arm.

[Corsair]

Thanks for the advice. What amount of carbs would you guys recommend? I was thinking of 1g of carbs for every 3g of protien and I am taking in about 2g of protien for every lb of lean muscle mass(181.5lbs). How much fat should I take in? I was thinking 1.5g for every gram of protien.

363g protien 60%
109g carbs 20%
54g fat 20%

I built this into my spreadsheet calculations and it spit out 2379k per day which is about average with what Kendo was saying about 15-20 times bodywieght.

[Charger]

This in not by expertise, in fact that just made me wonder what is??? Damb, I'm depressed now. No really I would say your protien intake is maybe a litte high and carb to low. Just bump up your carbs a little, it's that simple. Your body thinks it's starving so it conserves fat and stores fat and burns muscle, you body perfers to burn muslce, you need to teach it to burn fat. That is also the idea of 6 small meals. It keeps your body with a steady amount of cals so even though you cut overall amount of cals it doesn't believe it is starving. The increased carbs will also give you more energy to burn cals.
I am sure Kendo can explain better and correct me if I am mistaken. This is more up his alley.

[kendo]

No Charger thats fine and I agree with you carbs up a bit more and less on the protein. I would also agree with Dooges and bulk on the next 1-test cycle gain some muscle with a little fat and come down again slowly you cant stay forever in a calorie deprived state -it's detrimental to bodybuilding.

I used to try and work out g of protein for lbs of bodyweight and the same for carbs and fats but these calcs are for lean mass and after working out and subtracting b/f% which is harder to determine allowing for innacuracy/ water levels etc, than for overall bodyweight . I now find it easier to work out cals times bodyweight and then split it into % ratios. - doesn't cook the brain as much either bumpin up that cortisol :

[Corsair]

My body is very sensitive to my carb intake. If I go too high Its like the StayPuffed marshmellow man or a funny balloon animal made by some psycotic clown. I have raised my caloric intake to 2600-2800 per day. I have also started to vary my carb intake so that my body will not think it is in starvation mode.

[Charger]

Originally posted by Corsair
I have also started to vary my carb intake so that my body will not think it is in starvation mode.

Not a bad idea!