Biting the Bullet

Diet and Nutrition
1

Well, I’ve been around on this site for a while now.
I can’t say that I’ve spent much time here in the supp’s and nutrition section. I’ve been looking around for the last couple of days, and figured it’s about time that I bite the bullet and create a thread.

I’ve been lifting for about 9 months, when I started I was very under-weight- 6’1, and 160 lbs. I started on Stronglifts, and decided to give GOMAD a go, to try and get myself to a reasonable weight, and gain some strength.
Unfortunately I bought into the idea of dirty bulking, and just ate what-ever, when-ever.
I now weigh 205lbs, and although I’ve gained considerable strength, and I’m much happier with my body the way it is now, I’ve also jumped to about 20-25% body-fat. Unfortunately my body deems it necessary to store most of this fat around my chest area, especially on the side of my chest. This has become somewhat of an embarrasment to me, and so I figured now is the time to do something about cleaning up my diet…

First off, I lift weights 4 days a week, I’m now following ws4sb’s.
I also play judo 2x week for about 1.5 hours a session.
If I’m feeling like I need an extra day for recovery after judo I drop the DE day from my lifting.

I’ve read so many conflicting things regarding how many calories I should be taking in at my height and weight. I did a search of the site, but the search function sucks. I’ve read figures from 2500-3500, which is obviously a large range. As I have not been counting calories, I’m not quite sure of where my intake is now. During my bulk (while doing GOMAD) I was at about the 4000-4500 range, from what I can gather from doing research now. Currently I’m taking in about 3000-3500, and my diet is getting slowly cleaner…

Anyway, question time!
Is it reasonable to think that cleaning up my diet, while remaining at around a maintenance level of calories will lead to fat loss. I’m not worried about a time frame, as my major concern is to clean up my eating habits.

How does this look like for a breakdown of a proposed diet?-
2800-3000 calories, <30g sat fat, 230-ish-g carbs with minimum of 50g fibre, 260-280g protein. No carbs after 6 o’clock (I work nights, last meal is usually 10-11pm, then bed at 12.30-1.00), the rest of the calories are made up in good fats, so the breakdown is something like-
40p,30c,30f

I would like to get to 10-15%ish body fat, at a similar weight, or perhaps 5-10lbs lighter. Then, with my eating habits improved, I would like to go on a cleaner bulk, with the long term goal of hitting 230-240.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2

hmm you may want to get proteins from chicken breast meat, its lean!

3

My main protein sources are chicken, tuna, whey and 1.5l milk a day.
The milk contributes a fair bit to my sat fat, but From what I have read, <30g a day, and a 40/30/30 split would be a good place to start.
If I don’t see a body comp. change in a couple of weeks, I will drop some carbs and add protein, if I don’t see much change from that, I will drop over-all calories.

Really I’m just looking for confirmation or correction on whether I’m in the right calorie range, and whether the macro’s are ok.

4

if you’re looking to drop a bit of fat, i would suggest removing all drinks that have calories other than your workout nutrition.

5

Search on “massive eating”. I personally consider Berardi’s work in that area to be the definitive source.

6

Thanks yorik,
Having an exact article to search for helps a lot,
I read through them and now have a much better idea of what I have to do with my diet to make it work.