Advice on BF Maintenance

I’d like to reduce my bodyfat by probably about 5%. I’d say after my long and difficult bulk I’m sitting at or slightly above 20% bodyfat. I’m happy with this for the most part since I do mostly powerlifting and plan on entering a meet in 2012 with the goal of a 1200 total.

In December I just got approved to take from Christmas through New Years off to travel, I’ll be spending it on a beach and partying in Puerto Rico. I just hit 195 lbs and that was my goal to get just under 200 so its a perfect time for me to do some maintenance work. Ideally, I’d like to stay between 180 and 200, if possible above the 190.

I’m currently doing Ricky Dale Crain Bench and I’m not willing to drop that at all except perhaps a week or two right before the trip. I’m seeing gains with it on a bench that has been otherwise entirely stalled.

I’m mostly interested in bringing up my biceps, back width and legs.

Current routine is:

Monday - nothing
Tuesday - Ricky Dale Crain Bench method day 1 [Bench Press, Close Grip off boards, decline, cambered]
Wednesday - Deadlift, Front Squats, DB Rows, Glute Ham Raises or Band Hamstring Curls, Shrugs, Heavy Ab Work
Thursday - nothing
Friday - Ricky Dale Crain Bench method day 2 [CGBP, Incline DB Press, Front DB Raise, Side DB Raise, Bent Over DB Raise, Heavy Ab Work]
Saturday - I try to get to the gym to do some bicep work [Preacher curl, hammer curl, pinwheel curls, band curls]
Sunday - Back Squats, Romanians/SLDL, Lateral Pulldown, Sled Drag forwards and backwards

Diet definitely has some room to play but an average day looks something like:

7:30am - 3 or 4 eggs for breakfast with either parmesan cheese or soy sauce on top. (I don’t like pepper on my eggs)
11:00am - Protein shake at work of 100% whey protein, whole milk and often a table spoon of organic peanut butter
1:00pm - Lunch is usually either shrimp, salmon, chicken or turkey meatloaf with a salad. If its shrimp I usually make some pasta with it
2:00-5:00 - I’ll sometimes have something like a few pretzels, a fiber bar, popcorn… whatever we have in the office.
5:30 - Protein shake at home of whole milk and 100% whey and 5g creatine
GYM or no gym
Protein shake if gym otherwise not. same as preworkout
Dinner is roughly the same as lunch but sometimes I’ll add in a sweet potato
*Once a week for lunch I’ll get either a vegetable burrito or chinese takeout for a little variety and usually once a week for dinner I’ll get something out as well. Occassionally twice a week but not very often.

Any suggestions on what to change and when to change it to see the results I want with minimal loss to strength?

I’m thinking maybe substituting the whole milk alone would be a big shift and I could reduce it first to low fat for 3 weeks then no fat for 3 weeks and then get rid of it entirely and take my shakes with water for the remaining 3 weeks. Maybe cut all carbs during dinner time too and then closer to time cut carbs entirely.

For workout I’m not sure if I should make drastic changes like doing Density training or FST-7 or if I should just make minor changes. Could definitely use some help defining how and when to train biceps. Again, not willing to change my two bench days at all.

I’m not going to do the math for you, but if you are 195 @ 20% you don’t have enough muscle mass to be 180 @ 5%.

5% is a pretty lofty goal for a week at the beach, I’m sure you’d be more than happy at 10% or 12%.

Look up carb cycling, it’s one of the better approaches to recomp/maintenance.

what’s up with Ricky Bobby and bench press?

AH!

you spilled my macchiato!

[quote]overstand wrote:
I’m not going to do the math for you, but if you are 195 @ 20% you don’t have enough muscle mass to be 180 @ 5%.
[/quote]

OP wants to LOSE 5% not get down to 5%

What does your diet come down to OP? How many cals, how much protien/carb/fat?

I didnt see you mention cardio anywhere in your first post? Are you doing any cardio?

A basic diet would be 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of BW, 25-30% of your calories from fat and fill in the rest with carbs. Start out with a moderate caloric deficit (300 cals below maintenance) and add in some low/moderate SS cardio 3 days a week and you’ll start dropping fat. If your fatloss isnt going quite the way you had hoped after a few weeks you can drop cals a bit more etc.

Overstand - Gregron is correct in that my desire is to just be 5% less so around 15% bodyfat not 5%

Kaisermetal - I’m not sure what the point of your post is

Gregron - My diet is basically what I said. Since I was bulking I didn’t really worry about counting macros or anything. Just ate relatively healthy foods with minimal eating out / sauces / junk food / fast food type of stuff. Cardio I also avoided because it wasn’t going to help my goal. Now the only cardio I do is the once a week Sled Drags and Front Squats if you want to count 'em :slight_smile: - This is my old progress thread http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/pictures_pics_photo_body_image_performance/approaching_the_1_year_mark which for whatever reason got locked but now I stay mostly in the BOI and keep a training log: http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/blog_sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding_log/tauromachie?id=4657891&pageNo=0

I see so I guess to do what I want I might have to really work at keeping a food log and doing some regular cardio.