Looking for some help, i currently train 4 times a week (monday shoulders,tuesday legs,thursday chest and saturday back) Not doing any kind of cardio at the moment apart from fasted walking and my calories are down to around 1800.
My fat loss has stalled and after 3 weeks cant seem to get it going. The fasted cardio over the past 3 weeks hasnt helped at all.
How could i fit cardio in with my training days, i finish work at 5 and am normally in the gym for around 5.30 finish between 6.30 and 7. A protein shake is consumed as soon as i finish. And then have my final meal about an hour later.
Im also going to add hill sprints on my off days or an hour of cardio.
Do you eat the same amount of food every day, including off days?
How are you measuring your weight loss? How do you know it has stalled after 3 weeks? Are you taking any other measurements?
Obviously something is not working, so we need to start at the beginning here. 1800 would be quite low for someone to start off at honestly, and it doesnt give you much room to decrease in the future. I dont know if more cardio is the answer at this point. It will become part of the puzzle obviously, but at 1800 cals something is up if you are not losing weight.
Its been going well and ive been loosing weight b/f from about april. Ive been taking measurements around my stomach, chest, top leg and arm. My stomach circumfrence has been getting smaller along with weight loss. Just up until now it seems to have stopped!
Ive been slowly dropping calories tapering them down over this time. I keep a food log thru software called fit day where ive got all the foods i eat set up as custom foods. Makes it easyer to workout calories if i eat the same kind of stuff, eggs, tuna, chicken, turkey and whey are my main sources of protein along with nuts, macadamia nut oil and olive oil for fats. My carbs are quite low and i only really have 35g a day in my post workout meal.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, its much appreciated
I’m going to ask a few more questions because I want to make sure I really understand your scenario before I give any advice.
You have been dieting consistently since April? So for 7 months now? Have you had any breaks for longer than 1 week?
Does your current diet have any “cheat” windows or meals? Or do you eat the same foods totaling 1800 calories every day as of right now? What were you calories when you started?
What was your starting weight, and where are you currently at? If you have starting and current photos that would be helpful as well. If nothing else, post a current photo so we can see where you are at body fat wise.
Try this… and I know this goes against everything you have been told or understand… Every 3rd then 4th day (IE wednesday and sunday) at the end of the day a few hours after your last meal eat this… All of it. 1 1/2 cups oatmeal measured before cooking, a banana, a medium sized sweet potato, a can of green beans.
This will help reset your metabolism, store glycogen for energy, and make you feel like you are starving the next day. It will also speed up your weight loss over the next few days. Cut back to the 1800 calories immediatly following this. Do this every week and you won’t stall out your metabolism. I have used this along with a low carb diet many times to lose significant amounts of body fat.
About 2 months ago i cranked my calories up to around 2500 and added carbs back into the mix for 2 weeks and dropped back down to 1800.
Every saturday i kind of have a cheat day, subways, pizza, chinese food ect.
I pretty much eat the same foods everyday yea, wednesday and friday will be somthing other than turkey, rice and veg, maybe salmon or chicken with some sort of salad or veg.
Hmmm… Maybe you are going overboard having a cheat DAY, cut it down to a 3 hour window OR do what Swolle said, which is essentially a medium size carb up 2x a week, a strategy I have used to great success as well.
Since you haven’t really given me the info I requested its tough for me to offer any good advice… But it seems like you could benefit from adding in some cardio at this point. I dont know what your fasted walking schedule is like, but adding in 16-20 minutes of intense cardio after your lifting session would be a good place to start. try 3-4 sessions a week and see where that gets you. If you have the time, I like to separate my cardio from my weights, but that’s a luxury.
I dont know what your ultimate goals are, but basically its not going to get any easier from here on out. Thats why very few people have exceptional physiques. You will likely be eating less than you want, working out more, and doing more and more cardio from here on out.
Also, and take no offense to this, you are not very muscular. You’re dieted down physique will be unimpressive I’m afraid. If I had to hazard a guess I would say you have an honest 15-20 pounds (maybe more) to lose before you are even coming close to having visible abs. We all have different goals, and I can respect it if your goal is simply to be lean… But if your goal is to be lean AND muscular, you have many years of hard work ahead of you.
If you want to see what it takes, go read The Might Stu and Synergy’s threads on their contest preps. This will take hours but the knowledge you gain from it will last a lifetime. This will show you the kind of effort it takes to get really lean, while being quite muscular. Notice how much those guys weigh in their dieted state and compare their muscle mass to yours.
Agree w/ Lonnie about reducing the cheat DAY to a cheat MEAL.
Also, those are healthy sources of fat, but you are missing naturally sat fat; can you get your hands on some grass-fed beef, butter, cheese, and/or milk?
Walking is for digestion; everything else cardio does, weight-lifting does better. BF% is mainly about finding the diet that works for you. Most people who are not “hard-gainers” need to restrict carbs, esp. flour and sugar.
Weight loss isn’t linear. You’re probably getting ready to drop some lb’s all at once. Raising cals to lose weight never works. You may think it does but it doesnt. What you ate (or didn’t eat) a week ago will just now be showing up on or off you. Adding cals and losing fat the next day is just the defecit you had last week or even before that
lol no offence taken, i agree. Just ive never been what you call lean and id like to get to that point, its my goal if you like!
Thanks for the pointers and tips, il keep grinding away and see what happens by adding ing the cardio and the carb refeed before bed. Its all good, learning what works and what doesnt is all part of it.
