Plateau? Stuck on 224pds on my way to 190. Please Help.

[Tice]

I started at 244 on Jan 21. I am at 224 now and my weight hasnt changed for over a week. This is me in a nutshell. My goal is 190 by July 1. I am 29% bodyfat apparently.

WORKOUT PROGRAM

4 days per week
All sets pyramid down, 12-10-8, weights increase
All days begin with 5 mins warmup (rowing)

Monday
Chest/Triceps

DB Bench Press
Incline DB Press
DB Fly or Cable Fly

Rope Cable Pushdowns
DB Kickback

Ab crunches
30-45 mins cardio (or 450-650 calories)

Tuesday
Back/Biceps

Cab le Front Pulldown
DB Bent over Rows
DB Shrugs

BB Curls
Lever Preacher Curl
Concentration Curls

Reverse BB Curls supersetted w/Wrist Curls
30-45 mins cardio (or 450-650 calories)

Wednesday
Legs/Shoulders

Smith Squats
Deadlifts
Lying Leg Curl

DB Seated Shoulder Press
BB Upright Row
DB Front & Side Raises (both in one rep)

Ab crunches
30-45 mins cardio (or 450-650 calories)

Thurdays Repeat


FOOD


Meals, Average Day

Breakfast

3 flavoured eggwhites omelette w/orange + green pepper, mushrooms, white onion. Placed on top of one piece of whole wheat toast. 1 1/2 cups skim milk. [Egg whites 75 cals total, skim milk 135 cals, toast 120 cals, veggies?]

or

1 Quaker Weight Control Oatmeal Packet w/water. 3 flavoured eggwhites plain. 1 1/2 skim milk. [Oatmeal 150 cals]

Typical Snack

Nothing
or
2 Flax Crackers (High Fibre) with 1/2 cup 2% Cottage Cheese. [90 cals cottage cheese, 80 cals crackers]
or
Can Flavoured Tuna on 2 Flax Crackers [Tuna 100-150 cals]

Lunch

1 can Flavoured tuna on tossed salad.
or
Low Cal Microwaveable meal [300-500 cals]
or
Footlong Subway Turkey Sub w/all veggies, hot sauce + honey mustard, on brown of course. [600 cals?]
or
108g Pollock Fillet grilled on salad [Fillet 100 cal] Eat 2 if hungry.

Dinner

Whatever Wife is making
Difference between new me and old me is now I fill my plate with the healthy items (veggies) and take a proper serving of Meat (usually chicken) and carbs (pasta/rice). If I eat out I look for the Low calorie of "Weightsmart" items, and order one and a water.

Workout currently at 9pm, Protein Shake at 11pm

Cheat meals/Problems

Being italian it is hard to avoid at least weekly a pasta and carb filled meal at a relatives house. I Just limit myself to 1 big plate.
I love sushi, usually once every 2 weeks I get together with some peeps and go for all-u-can-eat sushi, where I take down a stupid amount of raw tuna and salmon. I also eat chicken teriyaki and oysters. This seems hard to eliminate.

Please give me you advice on where I can make changes to increase my chances of losing this fat. I would love to come out of this with a muscular build as well.

[Cape1]

It's simply math. If you're stuck you need more of a deficit. How you acheive that is the question:

You could try tweaking the workouts first before cutting calories: Your workouts look like the standard type of gym rat routine - blast through X sets of Y. YOu may want to replace two of these with circuits - giant sets. Keep two power workouts per week - one upper one lowe body.

For cardio, work in some HI intensity sessions. Do some reading on this.

You could try some macro nutrient cycling - no (very low) carbs 6 days or so then on days 7 and 8 drop the fat, decrease the protein a little and add a good portion of high GI carbs on each meal.

Last resort: Drop 3-5 hundred cals a day and increase all your cardio sessions by 10 minutes or so.. I hate to see that though because when you begin getting overly catabolic, your objective of muscle preservation is put at risk. Fact is though: you'll loose some musce under the best of situations. Just need to minimize it so tweaking the calories that you're already taking in - rather then reducing them - and shifing around the workouts a bit may give you a little push. If not, gotta break out the calorie hatchet and do some more work. Just have to play around with this dude...

[Hotmoltenlava]

This is me in a nutshell.

Just kidding.

Plateaus suck. Plain and simple. There are several strategies to break thru. You can up your cardio, you can drop your cals a few hundred or you can just keep doing what you are doing and wait for it to break. If you have had success at this intake and routine, it is just a matter of time. Try the above options if you are impatient, or just wait it out.

Good luck.

[Cape1]

...also, make sure your weighing yourself at the same time of the day, with the same scale and under the same general conditions.

[Tice]

...also, make sure your weighing yourself at the same time of the day, with the same scale and under the same general conditions.

I do this, every morn after i piss.

[gettinripped513]

try keeping the diet the same. But on your workouts start supersetting things. Lower rest times kick the intensity up. that will get the heart rate up and have a cardio effect. limit your cheat meals to 1 meal per week. Also dont worry about scale weight base results off of body fat calipers.

[Tice]

bump

[Anaar]

It's simply math. If you're stuck you need more of a deficit. How you acheive that is the question:

You could try tweaking the workouts first before cutting calories: Your workouts look like the standard type of gym rat routine - blast through X sets of Y. YOu may want to replace two of these with circuits - giant sets. Keep two power workouts per week - one upper one lowe body.

For cardio, work in some HI intensity sessions. Do some reading on this.

You could try some macro nutrient cycling - no (very low) carbs 6 days or so then on days 7 and 8 drop the fat, decrease the protein a little and add a good portion of high GI carbs on each meal.

Last resort: Drop 3-5 hundred cals a day and increase all your cardio sessions by 10 minutes or so.. I hate to see that though because when you begin getting overly catabolic, your objective of muscle preservation is put at risk. Fact is though: you'll loose some musce under the best of situations. Just need to minimize it so tweaking the calories that you're already taking in - rather then reducing them - and shifing around the workouts a bit may give you a little push. If not, gotta break out the calorie hatchet and do some more work. Just have to play around with this dude...

Isn't that a rather long period of minimal carbs? 6 days or so?

[Bmanxer]

Like that one guy said try super or giant sets.

Check out http://www.fitday.com/
You will be able to track your intake to the T!!!

That might help you get your diet under control and make you more accountable for what goes in your mouth brother. I know it certainly opened my eyes up wide and told me that everything I thought I was eating was totally wrong! I can't make my own food cuz I have to eat what they make here on camp and it usually has a very high fat content. My macros are currently balanced at 33% across all boards X( DAMNIT!!! Lol, you may realize something of that nature with yourself. Hope I helped ya dude.