First cut, could really use some help

Z

Zepphire

New Member
I'm a tad above 6ft, weigh 176 lbs. Bodyfat I'd say is 12-15% max. Definitely not over 15%. I started at a skinny-fat 110 lbs 3 years ago so I guess I did alright.
I'm not that strong yet (deadlift 315*8-10) but it's time to get clearly visible abs for the first time in my life. I really need some help with changes in my diet to make this a successful cut and to preserve as much muscle as possible. Hopefully I'll be able to get slightly stronger or at least stay the same in strength. My workout program will be HST. (I've posted this in the training section)

This is what I've been eating to maintain weight at 174-178lbs:

Breakfast: oatmeal, whey shake

Snack If I'm up early (otherwise nothing): 2 slices of whole wheat bread with 2 slices of light cheese.

Lunch: chicken/turkey/tuna with wheat bread/brown rice and peas and carrots. Sometimes eggs or roll with healthy toppings if I'm at uni all day and there's no time to get something else.

Snack: apple, 2 slices of wheat bread with 2 slices of light cheese.

Dinner: chicken/turkey/tuna/steak with brown rice/potatoes/wheat pasta and vegetables

Snack: Peanut butter mixed with milk

Before bed: 2 cups of cottage cheese

I have another whey shake randomly throughout the day, or after the workout on workout days. I bought a jar of BCAA pills to use during the cut. (I'll just open the containers into the whey shake because the pills are fukin huge to swallow)

I also take 4-6 Omega 3 pills randomly throughout the day.


I'm open to any suggestions regarding my diet and how to alter it for my upcoming cut (which will start this Wednesday when I start my HST cycle and resume training)

I've been bike riding for cardio around 3 times a week for 20-30 minutes. I'm thinking of keeping my diet/caloric intake largely the same and just increase the cardio time to 40 mins and add a Tabatha cardio session once every 2 weeks. (very high intensity cardio in which you do around 80 reps of front squats in 4 minutes) I think just doing a bit more cardio will really spike my metabolism (I have an easy time losing weight, slightly harder time gaining it)

I plan on losing 0.5 kg a week (1.1lbs) and will get on the scale every day at the same time and evaluate every week, and adjust accordingly. (my weight tends to fluctuate a lot so I'm looking at the general trend) I'll keep cutting till I hit 160 lbs or lose significant strength.


Thanks for reading and please help.
 
I think you would do well to search and learn about low carb/high fat and high carb/low fat diets.

Reading your diet plan, it seems you assume low fat/high carb is the way to go.
 
I've read some articles about those diets you suggested and most seem to prefer high fat/low carb. I'll try to cut out some carbs and add in some fats, any specific suggestions on what exeactly I should change?

Thanks
 
Nothing specific, no. It's more of a general advice though. I've become very interested in insulin. An over-simplified way of explaining it is this:

1. Without insulin, we can't store energy.
2. If we eat no sugar (starch, potatoes, flour, refined sugar, etc) we don't produce insulin. Goto 1.

The end result is we can't get fat. A link below for a comprehensive list of articles and whatnots concerning carbs, fats and protein.

http://www.lowcarb.ca/

This is the most eloquent:

http://www.lowcarb.ca/articles/article149.html

I'm under the impression that I'm on a mission. That's fine. My dad has been prescribed a diet that allows him 180 grams of carbs per day. He's been getting fat and gaining weight daily. He's always hungry. He takes metformin to control insulin. He views fats as bad for his health. He's feeling guilty that he can't get the fat off because he can't exercise as he should according to recomendations.

Basically, he's doing everything he must do, everything he's told to do. Yet he fails. I'm beginning to think that he fails precisely because he does exactly what he's told to do. Indeed, I think that what he's told to do will result in failure. Not because they want him to fail but because they don't know what the hell is happening and they assume that fats are bad and carbs are good. In fact fats are good and carbs are bad. The scenario below would happen in that case.

My dad would not store energy. He would get thinner. He would lose weight. He would not feel guilty about not doing enough to lose the weight. And he would not take metformin to control insulin because there would be no insulin to control.

If you know of a way to convince a cranky 65 year old piss ant, let me know.
 
I am really interested in insulin too, but more in controlling this hormonal highway by keeping protein and carbohydrates fairly equal to each other at each meal.
 
zep.

you make no mention of cal or macro amounts. do you know these?
talking about insulin control, low carb, hi fat etc etc makes no sense without this information.
i dont know your level of interest or knowledge about the specifics of diet so to be really helpful ill send the question back to you......"what is your interest or knowledge of the dietary basics (maint. cal levels, carb, pro, fat intake etc).

let us know
good luck
 
BlueJacket, your statement that it makes no sense without this information implies the assumption that a calorie is a calorie and all that matters is how much we eat. In fact, how much we eat is determined by what we eat. There's an underlying assumption and erroneous logic. Fat is dense therefore if we don't eat it we eat less calories. In fact, the correct logic is this. Fat is dense therefore if we eat it we are sated much more easily therefore we eat less calories. This logic takes into account how hungry we are. The actual logic is.

How hungry we are determines how much we eat.
 
martin

i think your missing my point but making it for me anyway.
if he is providing a typical daily meal plan to maint. wgt but has no real idea of how that plan adds up with respect to calories, protein, fat or carbs what good is calorie vs calorie or erroneous logic or underlying assumptions?

now if you want to have a discussion about cal vs cal, taming of insulin, keto, paleo or whatever diet strategy you like there are plenty of places for it..........i just dont think zeps post for help with his cutting plan is the place especially since we havent yet established if he is even familiar with what his sample "diet adds up to".
 
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(Zepphire @ Feb. 04 2008,18:08)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Breakfast: oatmeal, whey shake

Snack If I'm up early (otherwise nothing): 2 slices of whole wheat bread with 2 slices of light cheese.

Lunch: chicken/turkey/tuna with wheat bread/brown rice and peas and carrots. Sometimes eggs or roll with healthy toppings if I'm at uni all day and there's no time to get something else.

Snack: apple, 2 slices of wheat bread with 2 slices of light cheese.

Dinner: chicken/turkey/tuna/steak with brown rice/potatoes/wheat pasta and vegetables

Snack: Peanut butter mixed with milk

Before bed: 2 cups of cottage cheese

I have another whey shake randomly throughout the day, or after the workout on workout days. I bought a jar of BCAA pills to use during the cut. (I'll just open the containers into the whey shake because the pills are fukin huge to swallow)

I also take 4-6 Omega 3 pills randomly throughout the day.</div>
An exercise in comprehension. I'll translate the diet by substituting the elements with their corresponding macro-nutrient.

Breakfast: carbs, proteins

Snack: 2 carbs with 2 fats.

Lunch: proteins/fats carbs carbs carbs. Sometimes protein or carbs carbs/fat.

Snack: carbs, 2 carbs with 2 fats.

Dinner: proteins/fats carbs carbs

Snack: fats/protein/carbs + carbs/fats

Before bed: 2 fats

proteins

fats

15 carbs
6 proteins
12 fats

You can translate further by substituting carbs with insulin production. The other two macro-nutrients don't stimulate insulin production.
 
martin,

im not sure what the disagreement here is? im sure we disagree on any number of specifics concerning diet but does that really matter here.

when i eat a piece of toast (for ex.) i mark down cals, carbs, fat, and pro. values (if any) and you mark down carb (1). ok thats still counting, not how i would do it but so what........
i understand where your going with insulin and it effects as well as the macros that dont influence it to any degree but are you really disagreeing with my orig. post.

if zep doesnt know how many cals he eats in a typical maint. day (not saying this is the case zep. it was just a question) and doesnt really have an idea of the breakdown of those cals (macros) other then meat is pro. starch is carb and cheese is fat what are the chances he is going to get the point your driving at.

could knowing roughly how many carbs he takes in each day be of help to him........i would think so.
how about fat intake..........i think it could help.
protein.........maybe.
possibly even how many cals he takes in on a typical day could be helpful for himself as well as others he asking for help from.

you can go low-carb without knowing how many carbs you are taking in........but would you want to?
 
If one wanted to be correct and count things, what would probably be most important would be to count the day's totals of Protein, Carbs, and Fat(s) and then break it down to percentage ratios.
Then we could have a great discussion over which ratio is best for cutting...40/20/20, 30/50/20, etc. - whatever your flavor.
I know some recommendations from the champs. I just don't count stuff myself; too lazy and too busy.
 
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(quadancer @ Feb. 06 2008,03:26)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">If one wanted to be correct and count things, what would probably be most important would be to count the day's totals of Protein, Carbs, and Fat(s)</div>
I count total calories, protein, and carbs. Calories matter because you can't grow without a caloric excess and you can't cut without a caloric deficit.

Protein matters because you need about 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight in order to grow when bulking, or 1 gram of protein per pound to maintain your lean body mass on a cut.

I count carbs because both Kelly Bagget and Lyle say keeping carbs low is a good thing (though I don't know why...). So far I don't track fat at all.
 
Total calorie intake is the first thing that matters. You can only lose fat if your calorie intake is lower than your calorie expenditure, period. And you will even get fat on low-carbohydrate or high-protein diets if you eat more calories than you burn. Carbohydrates aren’t all that bad, even if you are diabetic. It’s a matter of choosing the right foods and eliminating simple carbohydrates. Now, if you don’t know your exact daily calorie intake, how can you come up with exact ratios for macronutrients? Counting each calorie that enters your mouth accurately is fundamental and one of the most difficult things to learn and maintain. How much is a tablespoon of X? Figure these things out first and be consistent. You will be surprised at how much people overeat just by using wrong portion sizes and weights. I’ve been learning that for over 18 months now and must say it’s still difficult to be consistent. But it’s well worth the effort. Once I don’t have to worry about the right portion sizes or weights anymore, I’ll jump into counting other stuff. If it has made me lose 40 Kg / 88 lbs in 18 months, it can’t be too wrong.
 
We eat because we're hungry. This is a fundamental principle. Here's another. What we eat determines how hungry we are. Combine the two and we can eat things that make us very hungry very quickly or not hungry at all for a long time. Eating things that make us very hungry very quickly makes us eat more. Eating things that make us not hungry at all makes us eat less. But here's where it gets really interesting. Eating high GI foods makes us both very hungry very quickly and makes us store energy. Eating low GI foods makes us not hungry at all and we can't store this energy either because there's no mechanism to do so.

You think we can store fat just as easily as we can store carbs? Think again. We store the carbs we eat as fat once it's broken down into glucose and in the blood. But we have no mechanism to store the fat we eat. The pathway is entirely different and there's no provision for storage.

The quantity is important only if we can store this energy. If we can't store it, it doesn't matter how much we eat. We can't store this energy as fat.
 
An attempt at understanding where we come from. Bear with me, I'm no expert.


Based on the principles I outlined in my previous post, here's a potential scenario.

We hunt to eat. Our prey is comprised of fat and protein and other things in trace quantities. We eat our prey and can last a very long time with that fat and protein. We can do that because fat takes a long time to digest and it's a very dense form of energy. We walk to our next hunting ground. During this trek, we encounter berries. We eat them but the quantity is finite. It's a different form of energy, a more powerful form of energy, a turbo kind of energy. But it's also a highly toxic substance when in high quantities in our blood. So we store it as glycogen. When that's full, we store it as fat. Here's where it all takes it meaning. The mechanism above when combined with the insulin spike it produces means we get hungry very quickly afterwards so we can eat a boatload of berries in a very short time. Not so with the fat and the protein we eat.

Our ability to quickly digest, store and consume carbs is determinant. Especially when we consider that it also makes us very hungry shortly thereafter. It is these two principles combined that make us grow fat. Take away the carbs and the entire problem goes away. Not only do we digest more slowly, but we can't store the fat we eat.


Just thought of something else quite relevant to this discussion. When we eat more, our metabolism rate increases. So when we eat more fat, we use it faster.
 
BTW, Zep.. if you are counting calories, you may find a lot of useful tips in my Optimizing Your Caloric Intake thread. The link is directly below in my signature.
 
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(Martin Levac @ Feb. 06 2008,15:27)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">We eat because we're hungry. This is a fundamental principle.</div>
Not if you are bulking. For those of us who have to eat over 4000 calories a day to grow, you almost forget what it's like to be hungry. At least until it comes time to cut...
 
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(Totentanz @ Feb. 06 2008,18:51)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(Martin Levac @ Feb. 06 2008,15:27)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">We eat because we're hungry. This is a fundamental principle.</div>
Not if you are bulking. For those of us who have to eat over 4000 calories a day to grow, you almost forget what it's like to be hungry. At least until it comes time to cut...</div>
The original poster is trying to cut. His hunger will determine how much he will eat. What he will eat will determine his hunger.

I should add that some will eat over 10k calories every day and still remain hungry.
 
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