Guidance Required To Build Muscle/Lose Fat

Diet and Nutrition
1

Hello guys,

With sincere apologizes of posting this before checking if it was asked before, I want to ask for your guidance.
I’m a 29 years old guy, working 8 hours at a desk. Currently I weight 81 kgs (178 lbs) and my height is 188cm (6.1").

I used to lift weights lately in the last year but stopped since December due to a ugly pain in the upper deltoid head which I am currently trying to heal with the help of my Physiotherapist.

I have used Christian Thibaudeau’s program ( The Best Damn Workout Plan For Natural Lifters ) in the last year and I can say that I had some nice gains that I was happy with, even thought I was starting to gain some additional fat around my belly.
I plan to return to his program once I will be able to but in the meantime, can you please provide me any diet-wise guidance?

My plan is to gain as much lean muscle as possible, and try to lose some of the fat I have on my belly.

I know the internet is full of articles and this fact tends to confuse me even more since many of them have totally different opinions. Even the macro calculators give different results…

Sorry for the long post and hope to hear from you soon!

Thanks!

2

What’s your eating look like now?

3

Hi,

Right now it’s pretty unbalanced.

  • Breakfast:
    3 scrambled eggs, half a tuna can on toast

  • Once I get to work ~ 10 am
    1 small ball of chocolate musli with ~250-300 ml of milk

  • Lunch
    I usually go out for lunch but it’s usually around 200 grams of meat with vegetables and some carbs from rice/potato

  • Snacks
    Some nuts or almonds, an icescream

  • Dinner
    It’s usually pasta with sauce or chicken breast with some carbs from either rice/potatoes

How much protein should I really have? Someone suggested on a different thread that we should have around 1 gram per lean muscle mass and it’s something I never heard before but it kind of makes sense.
Is a high carb diet really the way to go? I’ve recently gone through a post regarding the Anabolic diet which is a high fat diet, which claims to be better than a high carb one.

Sorry if my questions are stupid, I’m trying to fix my problems with hopefully your help

Thanks!

4

Start training now, loads of ways to work around that injury, could ask Thib in his forum even. Def no excuse not to do lower body and conditioning work.

yeah get about 180g protein/1g per lb etc

Er, If want the belly to go down cut out the daily icecream and choc cereal! Replace with pretty much any other normal wholefood

2 Likes
5

Hmm, yes I think I could start training lower body and core since the recovery might take some time. Maybe it will get me out of this state of constantly feeling down because of the injury.
Thanks @RampantBadger

6

What’s the best calculator for required calorie intake?

7

At your height/weight your body fat is likely at or below 15%, that’s good, will help extra calories go to muscle building vs fat storage. Like the badger said though, get back on the resistance training now. Work around that injury. I currently have a strained obliques and cannot deadlift or do pullups without pain, so I’m getting more squats, rows and presses in.

Calories? start with your bodyweight x 18, which for you adds to 3200 cals a day. Start there, you only want to gain 1-2 pounds max a week, any more than that and it’s probably excess fat storage. If you’re not gaining anything bump it up another 100-200 a day until the scale starts moving.

1 Like
8

Thank you!

But wouldn’t it be harder to gain muscle now since I will only train legs and do resistance training?

9

Maybe a little harder, but you will stain gain muscle only working legs.