Ned to Lose 15kg (33lb) for Meet in July

Hi all

I have my first meet in July - I am a fat bastard (6 foot 1 around 297 lbs) I want to compete in the under 120kg (264lb) class in July. So I need to lose 33lbs in 3 months.

I have cut carbs drastically apart from say 100g before training and a re feed day once per week and this is the first week my lifts haven’t gone up and I struggled for energy in the gym.

Can anyone offer me advice on how to drop this fat and keep getting stronger for the meet or am I trying to achieve the impossible? I have read about carb cycling, is this a viable option?

Thanks all

Which fed has a 264? Isn’t it 242, 275, (308), shw?

Either way 33 pounds in 3 months is a lot if you don’t want strength to suffer. That being said, Mark Bell has a lot to say on the topic.

[quote]Big Al 1983 wrote:
Hi all

I have my first meet in July - I am a fat bastard (6 foot 1 around 297 lbs) I want to compete in the under 120kg (264lb) class in July. So I need to lose 33lbs in 3 months.

I have cut carbs drastically apart from say 100g before training and a re feed day once per week and this is the first week my lifts haven’t gone up and I struggled for energy in the gym.

Can anyone offer me advice on how to drop this fat and keep getting stronger for the meet or am I trying to achieve the impossible? I have read about carb cycling, is this a viable option?

Thanks all[/quote]

You dropped your carbs too drastically. Your carbs should be substantially higher than this to begin your diet. Otherwise, you’ll have nowhere to go when things slow down. Quality food choices are the biggest key right now, along with total caloric moderation.

Did you keep a food log, or have any idea of how much you were eating before starting your diet? It’s going to be hard to give good advice without having an idea of how you ate before.

What are you competing in? There is no 120kg class in powerlifting. There is a 110kg class (242 lbs) and a 125kg class (275 lbs). No 120kg class. My guess is the 125kg class would be most appropriate for you at this time if you want to preserve your strength. A 50 lbs cut in 4 months is possible, but not a great idea for your first meet. 22 lbs should not be an issue though, especially if you intend to cut any water the week of the meet. At your size, a 10 lbs water cut would be very easy to manage.

I just took a look at your log. I have new advice.

I think shedding fat is a great idea, and something you should definitely do. Being overweight is hard on health, as I’m sure you’re aware. You can probably stand to lose much more than 30 lbs, if we’re being honest. Not necessarily in 3 months, but overall.

I don’t see a point in cutting specifically for this meet. Your numbers won’t be competitive enough to win your weight class, unless it is a very weak meet, so making weight won’t accomplish anything.

My advice is to focus on a more long-term weight loss goal. If you shoot for a particular weight for a particular meet, you’ll likely slack off on the weight loss once you meet that goal. That won’t be good for you. Instead, read as much as you can on proper dieting habits, and implement them so that they become a lifestyle. If you want to succeed in powerlifting, this will be essential.

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:
Which fed has a 264? Isn’t it 242, 275, (308), shw?
[/quote]

IPF has 105kg, 120kg, 120kg+, so that’s 231, 264, 264+ in your silly American weights

[quote]rusty92 wrote:

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:
Which fed has a 264? Isn’t it 242, 275, (308), shw?
[/quote]

IPF has 105kg, 120kg, 120kg+, so that’s 231, 264, 264+ in your silly American weights [/quote]

I totally forgot they changed their classes a few years ago. That makes sense.

The usapl is now following the new ipf weight classes.

YEah, what fed? Is it a 24 hour weigh in or 2 hour weigh in?

If it’s 24 you have a little more room to play with manipulating your weight.

[quote]rusty92 wrote:

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:
Which fed has a 264? Isn’t it 242, 275, (308), shw?
[/quote]

IPF has 105kg, 120kg, 120kg+, so that’s 231, 264, 264+ in your silly American weights [/quote]

I did not know that. Last meet I did was USAPL and they hadn’t changed yet. As far as our silly weights, Merica!

[quote]rusty92 wrote:

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:
Which fed has a 264? Isn’t it 242, 275, (308), shw?
[/quote]

IPF has 105kg, 120kg, 120kg+, so that’s 231, 264, 264+ in your silly American weights [/quote]
Yea well at least we measure in weight! Once we get powerlifting on the moon, all those kilo records are gonna be gone. But Merica’s good ol’ pound records will still be competitive! :stuck_out_tongue:

Flipcollar thanks for the advice mate I know I should be looking to lose in the region of 70lbs long term but I am trying to get strong at the same time so what happens is I diet for a while, lose some fat, feel weak, then start eating a lot again as that makes me feel pathetic.

I think I’ll just look at long term weight loss, continue to train hard and see what class I end up in rather than aiming for something. It is a novices meet and a 1200lb total will probably win it looking at past numbers.

I’d rather be a strong healthy guy than a very strong fat one.

Thanks again

In terms of what I ate before a typical day would be as follows:

Breakfast 7am 2 bacon, 2 sausage, 3 eggs and 2 slices of toast (1500kcal 88g fat, 103g carbs 61 g protein)
Mid morning protein shake (50 g carbs, 42g protein 500 KCals)
Post training lunch large burger with cheese and bacon, fries 2 pints of milk (2725kcal, 290g fat, 250g carbs, 140g protein)
Mid afternoon protein shake (50 g carbs, 42g protein 500 KCals)
Dinner large steak with veg and potatoes (1000kcal, 20g fat, 200g carbs, 35g protein)
Pre bed 2 pints milk, yoghurt and granola (1800kcal, 50g carbs, 100g fat, 40g protein)

totals
8025kcal
360g protein
703g carbs
498g fat

I have never done this before and I see the problem!!! Too much fat, carbs and calories by a long way! What would be the best thing to do here just drastically reduce the fat and carbs keep protein where it is? Get calories down to 3500? This is what you get from reading starting strength lol

I will read up on diet as well - I know it must be annoying for you guys to have some idiot asking to be spoonfed all the info

Cheers

[quote]Big Al 1983 wrote:
In terms of what I ate before a typical day would be as follows:

Breakfast 7am 2 bacon, 2 sausage, 3 eggs and 2 slices of toast (1500kcal 88g fat, 103g carbs 61 g protein)
Mid morning protein shake (50 g carbs, 42g protein 500 KCals)
Post training lunch large burger with cheese and bacon, fries 2 pints of milk (2725kcal, 290g fat, 250g carbs, 140g protein)
Mid afternoon protein shake (50 g carbs, 42g protein 500 KCals)
Dinner large steak with veg and potatoes (1000kcal, 20g fat, 200g carbs, 35g protein)
Pre bed 2 pints milk, yoghurt and granola (1800kcal, 50g carbs, 100g fat, 40g protein)

totals
8025kcal
360g protein
703g carbs
498g fat

I have never done this before and I see the problem!!! Too much fat, carbs and calories by a long way! What would be the best thing to do here just drastically reduce the fat and carbs keep protein where it is? Get calories down to 3500? This is what you get from reading starting strength lol

[/quote]

the first and easiest thing i would do is drop the protein shake in the afternoon and the pre-bed meal that would save 2,300kcals per day and i doubt would be that difficult to do.

do that for 3-4 weeks and see how your body is adjusting ie how much weight/fat you are losing.

then i would introduce some cardio for around another 3-4 weeks, assess how you are doing. (any form is fine, daily liss, 3 hit sessions per week, whatever just do it).

then adjust the diet again (less carbs overall - just drop all the milk and replace with protein powder and water would likely again be easy to follow).

id do the above regardless of your comp, whatever you weigh when the comp comes round just enter that class.

[quote]tylerkeen42 wrote:

[quote]rusty92 wrote:

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:
Which fed has a 264? Isn’t it 242, 275, (308), shw?
[/quote]

IPF has 105kg, 120kg, 120kg+, so that’s 231, 264, 264+ in your silly American weights [/quote]
Yea well at least we measure in weight! Once we get powerlifting on the moon, all those kilo records are gonna be gone. But Merica’s good ol’ pound records will still be competitive! :P[/quote]

I believe, although I’m happy to be educated, that the lb is defined and was introduced/agreed upon as 0.454kg…so not sure how this will make it any different from the kg when we get our moon powerlifting going on?

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:

[quote]rusty92 wrote:

[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:
Which fed has a 264? Isn’t it 242, 275, (308), shw?
[/quote]

IPF has 105kg, 120kg, 120kg+, so that’s 231, 264, 264+ in your silly American weights [/quote]

I did not know that. Last meet I did was USAPL and they hadn’t changed yet. As far as our silly weights, Merica![/quote]

That is pretty odd? Worlds are in the new weight classes etc so I’m surprised USAPL hasn’t changed yet!

[quote]Big Al 1983 wrote:
In terms of what I ate before a typical day would be as follows:

Breakfast 7am 2 bacon, 2 sausage, 3 eggs and 2 slices of toast (1500kcal 88g fat, 103g carbs 61 g protein)
Mid morning protein shake (50 g carbs, 42g protein 500 KCals)
Post training lunch large burger with cheese and bacon, fries 2 pints of milk (2725kcal, 290g fat, 250g carbs, 140g protein)
Mid afternoon protein shake (50 g carbs, 42g protein 500 KCals)
Dinner large steak with veg and potatoes (1000kcal, 20g fat, 200g carbs, 35g protein)
Pre bed 2 pints milk, yoghurt and granola (1800kcal, 50g carbs, 100g fat, 40g protein)

totals
8025kcal
360g protein
703g carbs
498g fat

I have never done this before and I see the problem!!! Too much fat, carbs and calories by a long way! What would be the best thing to do here just drastically reduce the fat and carbs keep protein where it is? Get calories down to 3500? This is what you get from reading starting strength lol

[/quote]

Thanks for outlining this! That’s very helpful.

If you’re currently eating 8000 calories a day to maintain your weight, dropping to 3500 calories immediately is absolutely the wrong approach. And I wouldn’t remove much protein from your diet.

I would simply cut the pre-bed meal. That will drop you to between 75 and 80% of your current maintenance calorie level. If you’re truly eating 8000 calories everyday, see how far you can get by dropping to 6000. You should be able to maintain strength levels, and see bodyfat drop substantially if you’re consistent with it. If you see your scale weight level off for a week or 2, you can adjust your calories from there.

The post-training meal would be the next meal I would overhaul, but I would wait on that until the first approach stops working. But when that happens, I would reduce the fat in that meal substantially. Like basically to zero. Change it to either chicken and rice, or some kind of shake like Plazma. If you can’t get Plazma, try to get a similar protein to carb ratio as Plazma, or Surge Recovery. Basically 2:1 carbs to protein. This will give your dieting a huge boost, and take you very close to where you want to be, I believe.

Cheers, hope you keep posting.

OK from one fat basta to another…

I honestly believe that the weight loss techniques that skinny people use don’t work well for fat people, at least not while we are fat. Once we get closer to their weight… maybe.

I think that with just walking a lot, you could lose 35 pounds in a year, but of course that’s too slow, so you need to diet.

For me, if I wanted to lose 35 pounds in three months, something I’ve done many times… and need to do again right now… haha… I cut carbs out entirely, or really really low anyway, but I eat a lot. I still lose weight at least heading toward 250-255 while eating a lot without carbs. I just eat a lot of meat. And I walk a lot. I try to walk 1-2 hours a day ED.

Being fat, I lost about 35 pounds last year with just the walking, not doing any diet. And I mean no diet, I kept eating at McDonalds, for example. But I was also very farking fat. This year I’m going to top it by adding in low carb at some point, just need to save up the money because all meat is expensive. And it’s time consuming because you have to cook, which I hate.

I’m lucky though, my metabolism seems to work fine with all meat. I don’t experience the extreme slow downs that some people talk about. I’ve researched this some and certain people definitely react radically differently when they do this. Which I think leads to such different advice on the internet. As long as I eat a lot of meat and fat, and some cheese I’m good.

In general though, I suspect a lot of fat people react better to the all meat than skinny people. In fact, I suspect that it’s why a lot of us are fat to start with, because our body doesn’t really react well to high carbs. It doesn’t know what to do with them so it just stores them. We are closer to our hunter gatherer ancestors than the skinny people. Our ancestors lived on all meat diets. If you look at Arctic peoples, they live almost entirely off meat, getting their vitamins from whale blubber, caribou and walrus liver, and the occasional berry. We are like them. Bread isn’t in our DNA.

Anyway this probably sounds totally nuts so take it for what it’s worth. If all meat is too extreme, try the 7 day carb diet, where you eat meat on the 7th day.

[quote]trollDude wrote:
OK from one fat basta to another…

I honestly believe that the weight loss techniques that skinny people use don’t work well for fat people, at least not while we are fat. Once we get closer to their weight… maybe.

For me, if I wanted to lose 35 pounds in three months, something I’ve done many times… and need to do again right now… haha… I cut carbs out entirely, or really really low anyway, but I eat a lot. I still lose weight at least heading toward 250-255 while eating a lot without carbs. I just eat a lot of meat. And I walk a lot. I try to walk 1-2 hours a day ED.

Being fat, I lost about 35 pounds last year with just the walking, not doing any diet. This year I’m going to top it by adding in low carb at some point, just need to save up the money because all meat is expensive. And it’s time consuming because you have to cook.

I’m lucky though, my metabolism seems to work fine with all meat. I don’t experience the extreme slow downs that some people talk about. I’ve researched this some and certain people definitely react radically differently when they do this. Which I think leads to such different advice on the internet.

In general though, I suspect a lot of fat people react better to the all meat than skinny people. In fact, I suspect that it’s why we are fat to start with, because our body doesn’t really react well to high carbs. It doesn’t know what to do with them so it just stores them. We are closer to our hunter gatherer ancestors than the others.[/quote]

The fact that you’ve had to lose 35 lbs “many times” tells me you haven’t found a good long term eating solution. And for the record, the advice I’ve given to this point is NOT how I’d advise someone who’s already skinny. It’s not how I eat.

I believe the OP has already agreed that crash dieting to lose the weight in 3 months is not the optimal solution. Zero carb diets do NOT work long-term for anyone. You sound like a good example of this. Tell me, what’s more ideal for powerlifting: Maintaining approximate competition weigh year-round with minimal dieting, or having to crash diet for the 3 months leading up to competition and risking strength-loss? Carrying excess bodyfat is not ideal when competing in a weight-class based sport.

Yeah I’ve had ups and downs for sure.

But go back and read my post again. I clearly said, I lost 35 pounds last year without dieting, by adding walking. If I were going to advise a major life change, I’d say walk a lot. But that won’t take the weight off by July.

His question isn’t about lifestyle. It’s about losing weight by July. I’m not giving the guy a lifestyle answer, I’m giving him a good answer on how to lose weight by July, which was his question.

Having said that, yes, I still think that for a lot of people reducing carbs long term is a good idea. It might not be possible to just eat meat forever, but the less the better.