Diet for 5x5 fat loss

For all you guys that are doing or have done 5x5 for fat loss, what type of diet did you use? I just finished bulking with MAG10 and finished my off cycle. I’m 5’10", 185 lbs, and about 12% body fat. I’m gonna be taking 1/2 does of 4AD while on 5x5 along with MD6, and a cycle of T2 and T2pro. Right now I’m thinking about doing a 1500 calories diet with 175g protein, 50g carbs (not including post workout), and 30g fat. Any advice would really be appreciate, especially from you guys in the 5x5 thread (Patricia, Jason, Eric, Joel). Thanks again!!!

Hi Nick! Well, I will be hated by saying this, but oh well: the only things I have done for my “diet” during the 5x5 program is: cut out my cookie a day and cut down the beer intake. That’s it. Oh, and I began supplementing with GROW and Surge and continued with my creatine intake.

Last week, I did take some *ahem* liberties with my diet. For instance, Ko brought home from his restuarant, five TASTY chocolate chip cookies (not big in size, but BIG in flavor) - and I ate those. Like, can you say "YUMMY"?! I've also significantly increased my water intake and I don't eat past 6:30PM. I also added another night of jump rope - so now it's three nights a week. Little changes for me make a HUGE difference.

Ko is now doing the 5x5 - couldn't up until recently due to his injuries. But he's begun again - and training has been great! God, I love this program.

I have been doing 5x5 with JB’s don’t diet using the “winning formula” plan for lifting and cardio and I have done meltdown, get buffed and others but for fat loss and muscle gain this is where it is at for me. I plan to continue this for a while. and just changing lifts every 5 weeks or so.

I like a more moderate approach like Berardi’s Don’t Diet. I also like to increase energy expenditure to create a caloric deficit rather than decreasing intake.

I need to mention that I first recommended this style of lifting to complement ketogenic diets or low carb diets due to the lower volume, so you could give the T-Dawg a try. If doing ketogenic diets, I would recommended using moderate intensity cardio (75% max HR) rather than HIIT.

I’m using it on off-weeks between Mag-10 cycles with 3-4 HIIT sessions thrown in per week to help shed some fat before starting to bulk again. However, I’m keeping calories at maintenance with 1.5g protein per lb. of body weight and fat at 30% of total calories. Carbs make up the rest (usually around 1.25g per lb. of bodyweight). As you can see, it is not even close to a keto diet, as carbs are needed to support this type of training. I’m pretty happy with the results, as I restarted bulking with noticeable less fat than when I finished my previous bulking cycle.

Thanks guys for your input, a few last questions. I’m probably gonna reshape my diet somewhat like the T-Dawg diet, maybe just a few more carbs, but not much. My questions are…I’ve been taking 10g Creatine during all my bulking, should I cut this to 5g a day for my cutting cycle? Second, when do you guys do your ab workouts during the 5x5 and what sort of workout do you do? Third, roughly how many calories TOTAL intake for the T-Dawg diet? Thanks a lot guys. I appreciate all your input!!!

It’s funny, after I hit “post message” I realized I hadn’t mentioned the ab work. I guess I will here: I do my primary ab work at home. I’ve mentioned before that I have a fitball, so I use that for my ab work and also do reverse crunches, crunches, etc. I also have been doing more “shadow boxing” - I’m going to be incorporating more heavy bag training now, so this is a good way to get into the “moves” for that. Also good for the midsection, especially working on hooks. Oh, and good for the calves, since you have to remain on the balls of your feet. So, ab work is performed same nights I do the jump rope (three nights a week).

I'll be a little more specific for my diet. Even though I think that I eat far too few calories than what you'll be needing, but I'll throw this in. As for calorie range, it's more than likely around 1800 to over 2000 a day. I simply eat when I'm hungry. I don't eat past 6:30PM - I now have a serving of GROW at this time. Weekends I don't eat as much - I'm usually too active and not that hungry. Wierd, but true. I believe in quality of the calories, not the quantity - so I eat NO "crap" - like NO so-called fast foods ( I just call 'em "crap"). Almost NO dairy (*hate*cheeses, cottage cheese, etc.) - only a bit of skim milk with the oatmeal and my latte. Ko and I follow a somewhat Asian diet: fresh fruits, veggies, with red meat (yummy) and other protein sources. We have no fear of pork, too! I limit my bread intake to a occasional bagel for breakfast - but normally will have oatmeal with an egg mixed in. BUT, really, Ko can be more specific about what I eat. Afterall, he does cook my meals. And come contest time, that'll be his primary "duty": I just eat the damn stuff.

While I am not that analytical about my dietary intake now, it's cuz what I've been doing has done me just fine. I can gain LBM while staying relatively low in BF%. But as soon as my contest prep begins (late August) this all changes. I also don't plan on cutting down my creatine intake during pre-contest - I figured I would need it more during a cutting phase. Wouldn't that make sense?

But I've seen a increase in my poundages during the 5x5 program. I will be increasing the weight for my deads and incline bench next time.

REALLY??? SO you think I should be taking MORE than 2000 calories? Could you give me a legit breakdown in grams of p,c,and f? Like i said, i’m leaning towards the t-dawg diet. Now i’m really confused :slight_smile: The lifting must be going to my head…

Nick, I was just assuming with the fact that you are a bigger dude than I, that you would need to consume more than me in a day. I was just making a assumption, sorry!

No apologies necessary! Like i said in the orginally post, I’m about 185. I know i’m not supposed to intake more than 1g of protein per lb body weight, and no more than 70g carbs, but how much fat then? That’s my main concern. Thanks again.

That after seeing that you are intending on only 1500 calories - that I really, really don’t think that’s a good idea. If you were like, 5’1" and weighed 100lbs - “maybe” - but you have ALOT more LBM than I: you should be eating more. Jason mentioned Berrardi’s Don’t Diet - you should check that out.

Just a thought....Patricia

I would check out the T-dawg diet. It gives you a formula for calorie needs while on a diet. The don’t diet is good but the calories are a little too high for me. May have to experiment.

For whatever reason, I cannot search for the 5x5 thread from a couple weeks ago. Either the search engine will not allow you to search by that type of parameter (5x5) or I am missing a few chromosomes, possibly both. I am interested in doing the 5x5 for fat loss, but I wanted some more info on the amount of exercises per session and what kind of rest times people are using between sets. If someone could post some ideas or teach my moronic ass how to search for the old thread, it would be much appreciated.

Make sure that you are CLICKING on “subject” or “author” and not hitting return after typing in your query.

[Note from Mod: And if that doesn’t work, just click it again and it will. This will be fixed soon.]

I have used 16-20 sets with 90-120 seconds rest between sets with good results during my previous 5x5 phases. I normally used a 30X0 tempo as well.

Here is the routine Joel set Ko and I up on:

Friday- Arms and Chest

A1) Cambered Bar Incline Press

A2) Weighted Dips

B1) Power Rack Tricep Lockouts

B2) Seated EZ-bar Bicep Curl w/ flexed wrist

Sunday- (Legs, Back Extensors, Shoulders)

A1) Sumo Squat

A2) Sumo Deadlift

B1) Dumbell Clean and Press

B2) Calve Press in the Leg Press Machine w/ a 3 sec. pause at the top of the movement

Tuesday- (Lats, Traps, Forearms)

A1) Wide-Grip pullups

A2) Explosive Barbell Shrugs w/ hip thrust

B1) Seated Wrist Curls

B2) Seated Reverse Grip Wrist Curls

Utilize the 5x5 approach on all movements. As you can see, the program is loaded with compound movements that work a variety of muscle groups simultaneously; therefore, you are actually getting alot more that 25 reps per body part...it's more like 50 or 75 reps in most cases...all while only doing only 4 exercises per workout. Also, you don't need to time your rest periods; alternating the A movements and then the B movements should give you sufficient recovery time. Don't superset, just casually move back and forth between the respective exercises. You are familiar with the A1, A2 approach, right? If not, just let me know and I'll give further explanation.

****I hope this helps....Patricia :-)))

Thank you all! I tried clicking on the subject or author field rather than hitting enter, since I ran into that problem in the past. It was just coming up with either 0 results or another error that was different than the SQL error.
I just started up on the routine again this week since I haven’t done it in six months or so. I wasn’t sure if I needed to be lowering the rest times, adding more HIIT training, changing my diet to fewer calories, or all of these things in order to drop some fat. I wasn’t sure on the alternating exercises if I should be doing it chest/back, bis/tris, quads/hams or chest/tris, back/bis, quads/hams. I figured the latter would result in overworking the muscles, but I wasn’t sure if the former would be too taxing on the nervous system.

Ya, 1500 is way too low. I’m looking more at 2300 right now. I’ll give it a go and i’ll update you guys in a week or two.

1.35g of protein/lb of LBM.

1g of carbs/lb of LBM.

.4g of fat/lb of LBM.

These are the numbers that I use, but I'm a firm believer in individualizing everything.

You aren’t a moron, the search engine just can’t find the phrase ‘5x5’. Try searching for Joel Marion in the author field, or ‘Don Alessi Response Low carb’ in the subject field. A year or so ago I offered to write code for t-mag gratis (I’m a perl, java, html, MySQL/mSQL developer), but I guess they’re getting it taken care of now.