Any advice appreciated

[nr3279]

Have been reading these forums for years, but have never really had the confidence to post anything or comment.

I have followed numerous weight loss and training strategies with varying degrees of success, I have tried calorie-counting, macros, veganism, low-carb, PPL, Fullbody, Upper-Lower Split...

18 months ago, I reached an all-time high of 99.7 kgs (219lbs) for a 171 cm (5'7) frame, made some significant changes to my lifestyle and managed to get down to 82.7 kgs (182lbs), I am currently at 87kgs (191lbs).

I would like to reach 15% body fat and reckon I need to lose approx 25lbs for that, so quite a way to go.

With the heaps of real-life experience and knowledge flying around on these forums (I never seem to be able to apply any of the strategies found in books or websites etc...) I feel this is the right place to ask for advice and comments on the strategy below:

I have always done heaps of sport so I alternate cardio, weights and crossfit, Spartan races etc...

Training plan:

Weights - 3 times a week, full-body workout (weights and calisthenics) focussing on compound movements (I can't go too heavy as I work out alone at home and have an L5/S1 spondylo and double fracture) but lift my body weight on the Big 3 for multiple reps (so high-rep count)
Crossfit - 3X a week at a Box (when they re-open, until then at home)
1X hill runs
Mob, conditioning most days
1 Full day of rest
7-8 hours of sleep

Diet:

TDEE should be around 2650cals

2000 calories per day (48/30/22)
240g P
150g C
50g F
3-4l water per day

Supps
Green Tea, Coffee, Creatine, Multivitamin, ZMA, Fish Oil, L-Glutamine (Whey's included in food)

Before and After pix show good weight loss but not significant muscle gain, so what am I doing wrong?

Thanks for advice

[faithbrah]

- 25 lbs loss is most likely not enough for 15% body fat unless you're an intermediate/advanced lifter, i could be wrong though
- less protein, more fat
- hard to gain "significant muscle" on a cut

[nr3279]

- 25 lbs loss is most likely not enough for 15% body fat unless you're an intermediate/advanced lifter, i could be wrong though
- less protein, more fat
- hard to gain "significant muscle" on a cut

Thanks for the reply.

I'll try reducing my protein to match my body weight in lbs and then a 50/50 split between carbs and Fat (which would lead to approx 40/30/30).

You're right about not gaining significant muscle on a cut - I suppose I just have to keep on losing more bodyfat in order to make whatever muscle I have stand out more.

[faithbrah]

Thanks for the reply.

I'll try reducing my protein to match my body weight in lbs and then a 50/50 split between carbs and Fat (which would lead to approx 40/30/30).

You're right about not gaining significant muscle on a cut - I suppose I just have to keep on losing more bodyfat in order to make whatever muscle I have stand out more.

you don't need to use splits or percentages either, just eat a minimum of 0.7g protein and 0.4g fat per lb of bodyweight

[xsquid99]

The stickies are the best place to find a lot of great info about nutrition and basic guidelines.

https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showt...hp?t=173439001

[puqeqofa]

I would have the same willpower as you

[nr3279]

So, one month in, I thought I'd give a quick update but also to give a big thumbs up to the guys on this forum as their advice is spot on!

I have dropped 2.5 kgs (about a pound a week) which I think is mainly fat as I have kept up my lifts and even made some progress. Progress pictures show some body fat reduction but I've still a long way to go to get to 15% (as someone mentioned above).

Here are the big lessons I have learned over these past 5 weeks, thanks to the advice given here:

1. I started weighing every single gram of food that goes in and I finally managed after a few weeks to find out what my TDEE was and how much I could eat to lose a pound a week. In fact, I was happy to find out that I could eat more than I thought and STILL lose a pound a week. The online calculators I had used before were too agressive and I was 15-20% below my actual TDEE. This usually resulted in yo-yo weight loss/gain and a drop in motivation, after a while.

2. After having toyed with macro splits before, I followed the advice on this forum and applied 0.7g of Protein and 0.4g of Fat per pound of bodyweight which resulted in being able to eat more carbs which greatly helped fuel my workouts. I have been less tired and have been recovering better. Even sleep quality has increased. Another significant win.

3. EVERY calorie counts, after the first couple of weeks, I realised that I was missing out on approx. 200 calories per day in small things like milk in tea, drinks etc...

4. I've also stopped dreaming about the quick wins that are all over the Internet with pix of people who seem to go from Fat to Jacked in a short period of time and realised that it will take a while to reach my goals but small gains in lifts and fat loss are good enough! Reading testimonies here does help to keep up the motivation.

In short, the advice on here is great and I truly appreciate the time that people took to reply to my initial post.

[CommitmentRulz]

So, one month in, I thought I'd give a quick update but also to give a big thumbs up to the guys on this forum as their advice is spot on!

I have dropped 2.5 kgs (about a pound a week) which I think is mainly fat as I have kept up my lifts and even made some progress. Progress pictures show some body fat reduction but I've still a long way to go to get to 15% (as someone mentioned above).

Here are the big lessons I have learned over these past 5 weeks, thanks to the advice given here:

1. I started weighing every single gram of food that goes in and I finally managed after a few weeks to find out what my TDEE was and how much I could eat to lose a pound a week. In fact, I was happy to find out that I could eat more than I thought and STILL lose a pound a week. The online calculators I had used before were too agressive and I was 15-20% below my actual TDEE. This usually resulted in yo-yo weight loss/gain and a drop in motivation, after a while.

2. After having toyed with macro splits before, I followed the advice on this forum and applied 0.7g of Protein and 0.4g of Fat per pound of bodyweight which resulted in being able to eat more carbs which greatly helped fuel my workouts. I have been less tired and have been recovering better. Even sleep quality has increased. Another significant win.

3. EVERY calorie counts, after the first couple of weeks, I realised that I was missing out on approx. 200 calories per day in small things like milk in tea, drinks etc...

4. I've also stopped dreaming about the quick wins that are all over the Internet with pix of people who seem to go from Fat to Jacked in a short period of time and realised that it will take a while to reach my goals but small gains in lifts and fat loss are good enough! Reading testimonies here does help to keep up the motivation.

In short, the advice on here is great and I truly appreciate the time that people took to reply to my initial post.

Good stuff here. Repped.

[faithbrah]

Good stuff here. Repped.

yep, very good stuff OP

glad to hear you took the advice and it worked