T Nation

A Transition & Setting Goals

Beginners
#1

Hi guys

Here is where I am:
172 lbs
20.0% body fat

–>

34.4 lbs fat
137.6 lbs LBM

Here is where I would like to be

200 lbs
5.0% body fat

–>

10 lbs fat
190 lbs LBM

This means I have to lose 24.4 lbs of fat, and gain 52.4 lbs of muscle.

Also, I would prefer to NEVER be above 20% body fat while doing this.

I used to be a LOT fatter, so I’m pretty prone to gaining weight

What are some reasonable intermediate goals to achieve, given my restrictions?

I generally eat according to JB’s 6 habits (I rarely eat any kind of bread, pasta, rice – even the whole wheat/brown kinds nowadays).

A general daily meal plan for me is something like this, e.g. today

breakfast:
1 egg
1 c egg beaters
4 oz sliced turkey or beef (I usually try to get it without the usual preservatives in sandwich meat)
buncha random vegetables (onions, bell peppers, spinach, mushrooms, zucchini)

lunch 1:
8 oz shrimp
1 apple

lunch 2:
turkey chili
(8 oz ground turkey per serving, this is the lean but not extra lean kind (so i think 15 g fat in 1 serving), 2 servings of beans per serving, and mushrooms, onions, corn, etc)

lunch 3:
8 oz chicken breast
3 oz broccoli
4 oz avocado, or maybe some olives
some carrots

working out (either lift weights, or martial arts class)
PWO
40 g protein powder (i’ve been using a whey/soy/casein mix but i just ran out and plan to find something that’s whey only)

dinner:
8 oz ground beef (really lean, i think like <10 g fat, with 50 g protein)
random mixed veggies

before sleeping
1 c cottage cheese
2 Tbsp peanut butter or 1 oz almonds

I USED to work out with weights where I could do 10-12 reps, but then I tried MAX-OT shortly…I didn’t like 4-6 reps too much but now I’m going in the range of 6-10 reps.

Ideally, I want to continue doing martial arts (jiu jitsu) 3x a week, and lift weights 4x a week. More lifting is negotiable.

What should I do?

Lose fat first?

I really appreciate any help getting to my goals, time is not really an issue now, only getting to my currently established goal is right now.

Thanks guys
–Tom

#2

Here’s an idea. Why don’t you start by making realistic goals.

172lbs and 20% bf is pitiful shape. Try starting with a goal of 180lbs 16% bf.

That should take approximately 2 to 8 weeks.

Good luck

#3

Ok, here is the deal.

Log everythign you eat for 3 average days a week. The key word here is average. Don’t eat more or less than you normally would to impress yourself or others with your list.

Go to google and type in “nutrition facts”. You should be able to find a website that has browseable lists of foods. Use this in conjunction with food labels on the back of your packaged food products.

You can then enter your foods from your diet analysis into the system(keep the volume consumed consistent with what you actually ate) and record how many total calories, grams of protein, fats, carbs you are getting in.

Report back here with your figures when you accomplish that.

This is step 1.

Step 2 is to buy a scale. Weigh yourself first thing in the morning at the same time of day and same day of the week, once a week.

Step 3, collaborate scale information with information gained from diet. Use critical thinking to reason out whether you should increase or decrease calories.

Step 4, profit!

#4

[quote]Chickenmcnug wrote:
Here’s an idea. Why don’t you start by making realistic goals.
[/quote]
Wow – it sounds like you actually answered my question: “What are some reasonable intermediate goals to achieve, given my restrictions?” without even reading that I asked it! Right on.

[quote]
172lbs and 20% bf is pitiful shape. Try starting with a goal of 180lbs 16% bf.

That should take approximately 2 to 8 weeks.

Good luck[/quote]

I’ve been in a pretty health concious mode for the past 2 months or so and have not really been changing much in my body composition (I can continue to drop pounds slowly but can’t really tell if its changing my BFP). But if you guys can actually show me how I’d get to 16% at any weight (180 would be good), my ears are open.

#5

[quote]Chickenmcnug wrote:
Here’s an idea. Why don’t you start by making realistic goals.
[/quote]
Wow – it sounds like you actually answered my question: “What are some reasonable intermediate goals to achieve, given my restrictions?” without even reading that I asked it! Right on.

[quote]
172lbs and 20% bf is pitiful shape. Try starting with a goal of 180lbs 16% bf.

That should take approximately 2 to 8 weeks.

Good luck[/quote]

I’ve been in a pretty health concious mode for the past 2 months or so and have not really been changing much in my body composition (I can continue to drop pounds slowly but can’t really tell if its changing my BFP). But if you guys can actually show me how I’d get to 16% at any weight (180 would be good), my ears are open.

#6

[quote]Chickenmcnug wrote:
Log everythign you eat for 3 average days a week. The key word here is average. Don’t eat more or less than you normally would to impress yourself or others with your list.
[/quote]

I currently eat pretty healthy and pretty high in protein. That meal plan above was from a recent day last week. Honest, 3 days of this will be pretty much the same, eggs, turkey chili, chicken, ground beef, cottage cheese, surrounded by those vegetables and similar ones – and avocados and nuts and olive oil randomly.

That list is not intended to impress anyone.

Basically I am just doing John Berardi’s 6 Habits right now.

I suppose what that is missing is calorie and macronutrient counts.

Sure. I have one. I weigh myself in the morning before water, eating, after shitting, pissing.

The problem I see with what you say is that you just want me to eat more or less food. Its not saying anything about what kinds of foods to eat, whether I just need to lift heavy weights, etc. I see how I can get to whatever weight I want to be at – eat more – or eat less. What I don’t see is how I’m going to do that while also getting into my desired body composition.

#7

[quote]tmowad wrote:

breakfast:
1 egg
1 c egg beaters
4 oz sliced turkey or beef (I usually try to get it without the usual preservatives in sandwich meat)
buncha random vegetables (onions, bell peppers, spinach, mushrooms, zucchini)

lunch 1:
8 oz shrimp
1 apple

lunch 2:
turkey chili
(8 oz ground turkey per serving, this is the lean but not extra lean kind (so i think 15 g fat in 1 serving), 2 servings of beans per serving, and mushrooms, onions, corn, etc)

lunch 3:
8 oz chicken breast
3 oz broccoli
4 oz avocado, or maybe some olives
some carrots

working out (either lift weights, or martial arts class)
PWO
40 g protein powder (i’ve been using a whey/soy/casein mix but i just ran out and plan to find something that’s whey only)

dinner:
8 oz ground beef (really lean, i think like <10 g fat, with 50 g protein)
random mixed veggies

before sleeping
1 c cottage cheese
2 Tbsp peanut butter or 1 oz almonds

The problem I see with what you say is that you just want me to eat more or less food. Its not saying anything about what kinds of foods to eat, whether I just need to lift heavy weights, etc. I see how I can get to whatever weight I want to be at – eat more – or eat less. What I don’t see is how I’m going to do that while also getting into my desired body composition.

[/quote]

Ok, I hear what you are saying.

First off you need to decide whether to gain weight or loose weight. Your overall goal is 200lbs and you are at 172. I think you should start gaining.

Just at eyeball’s glance, your diet has a lot of protein and veggies(Which is good) but not a lot of carbohydrates and fats. These are very important for gaining weight.

You need to add a lot of milk, bread, rice, pasta, etc to get the calories up. I would add in complex carbs in a whole grain source first. That is most lacking from your diet.

I would assume you need to add 1.5-2x the amount of food you are currently eating. Run the diet through the nutrition fact websites and find out how many calories you currently eating. Then we can help you more easily.

As for lifting, I don’t recall seeing what you wrote about your routine. You need to hit some big lifts like squats, deadlifts, rows, pullups, weighted dips, bench, curls, push press, etc.

The good thing is that your post lead me to believe you are relatively untrained in the weights department. So you should receive a lot of gains really quickly and it should be relatively solid. Which means your body fat will go down(relatively).