john_henry’s fat loss log, or “have you tried trying?”

[john_henry]

Hey community, long time lurker and I need a place to focus long-term on weight loss / recomp so here I am.

Current stats: 116kg, just shy of 40% bf. Mid thirties male, always been obese and more or less sedentary. More active now than ever but eating to make up for it.

I’ve been lifting again for a couple months, tracking but ending up with more of a recomp than cutting. Now I’m going to properly cut and get into a better lifting routine so I can make big progress this year.

[john_henry]

Planning my week.
Tracking calories is getting easier, although I took the weekend off.

2250 kcal, 150-200g protein, 75+g fat, <100g carbs
Lifting sessions planned. By the end of the week I should be within 1 month of setting DL and BS PR’s from 9 years ago.

[john_henry]

Still having trouble staying under 2.5k, I felt really hungry after working out on Monday and ended up around 3k. 1 hour heavy lifting + 1 hour biking so it was probably a wash, but I really want to tighten up my diet.

Instead of beating myself up (which I normally do), I’m just going to make some tweaks. So, limiting protein bars to 1/day, and no more bananas w/ peanut butter. Those two are like my default snacks now and the calories really add up. Next week I’ll think about eliminating milk from my protein shakes. They taste a lot better but if I’m honest with myself it’s 100+ extra calories every day.

[john_henry]

Nice week, had a tough time hitting macros without protein bars as I expected. Logging was sloppy and I would like to have a better meal plan for this week.

This week adding 1kg veggies per day, max 1 protein bar per day, 2-3 protein shakes per day. That gets 75-100g protein from supplements, which is maybe too much?

Last week I hit 70kg for 5x5 squats and 90kg for 5x5 deadlift, today with my trainer I hit 100kg for 2 sets of doubles which felt amazing.

Need a new battery for my scale, the scale at the gym said 117kg.

[NoCarbsNoSugar]

Good job so far.

How are you counting your daily calories?
Are you weighing your food?

Also, I would suggest that you EAT most of your calories, not drink them. Referring to protein shakes here. I love protein shakes, but I try to use them only when I am full and still short on protein for the day. I'll take a large platter of chicken and vegetables over 2 scoops of protein any time of day.

For protein intake, a general rule is 0.8lbs of protein per lbs of your body weight.

[john_henry]

Good job so far.

How are you counting your daily calories?
Are you weighing your food?

Also, I would suggest that you EAT most of your calories, not drink them. Referring to protein shakes here.

Thanks, good advice. I have a problem with snacking and I kind of replaced normal snacks with protein shakes/bars, which isn’t sustainable so I’m cutting back. I’m using a kitchen scale and I’m using the LoseIt app.

At 255 lb total weight / 160 lean body mass I’m targeting 150 grams protein minimum.

[john_henry]

Down to 112kg.

[john_henry]

Weight normalized a bit to 114kg, which I’m not super happy about in the short term. However, I ate every one of those calories so meh.

On the positive, I had another Inbody scan and my total weight and fat % are the lowest they’ve been since I started training again, so progress is happening.

[john_henry]

Still stalled at 112kg ish.

What’s going well:
Still training with an excellent coach, pushed up to my old PR’s where I usually stop every few years.
It feels like binge eating is totally behind me.
Other stuff in my life starting to stabilize as I take back control.

What sucks:
Not training enough or hard enough. Not doing my mobility work. Not doing my cardio.
Something missing from my job interviews that I need to work harder on.

What I’m going to do:
More walking / elliptical cardio
Spinning class 1x week
Lifting min 2x / week this month, then upping to 3x in february. Even if I have to give up my leisure time.

Giving up comfort / comfortable habits now for a big impact in 2020.

2020 goals:
mobility every day
1800-2200 kcal omad
cut to 80kg and reevaluate
3pl8 DL and BS
2pl8 FS
80kg bench
40kg press
learn snatch and c&j