i’m new to the forum, eventhough ive been reading them for a while now. basically my prediciment is this, im 6’1 205 and am approx. 26% BF, which is way to high for me to be at. im on t-dawg 2.0 right now and would like my bf to get down into the low teens. i lift 3-4 times a week. just wondering if anyone else is or was in the same boat as i,and what they did to help drop body fat w/out cutting much more than another 10-20lbs. any workout info would be helpful
I used to be over 50% bf. I did a lot of what CT calls ESW. I’d recommend you do it in the morning or on off days.
How do you know you are 26%? Did you get it measured with calipers or are you relying on a Tanita scale? I find that my Tanita scale is about 10-11% off my actual BF% relative to calipers; this isn’t entirely accurate ;).
I would think that for very rapid fat loss you might want to try something like the Fat Fast, but in all probability you need to delay gratification and go on a program over the long haul. If your BF% is what you say it is, you need to put on some muscle. That BF% puts you at 150 lbs lean body mass. I’m about 6’1.5-2 and I have about 190 lbs of lean mass at 16.3% BF; I’m not really that big and want to gain more size but I want to tighten up first. I have started a “cutting” cycle recently (2 weeks ago) and have a very strict and specific diet.
I think a good place to start is to read the article “The Beast Evolves”; its about 4-5 issues back I think here in the previous issues section. It has some good information relative to diet when trying to cut (and even put on a few lbs). You might want to cut down to about 12% before you start to think about mass gaining but at 150 lbs, you gotta do that at some point.
A general rule would be to lift 4-5 days a week and add some kind of interval training. The article I mentioned has some information about this.
Here is a sample diet that I’m currently using; clearly the calories would be different for you but its a demonstration of a usage of P+F/P+C meals (not entirely for me, but close), moderate calories, and the “taper” method of consuming less calories as the day goes on.
Meal 1: P+C
4 egg whites, 1 whole
1 orange
3/4 cup grapenuts (dry)
1/4 cup blueberries
Meal 2: P+C+F
4oz boneless/skinless baked chicken thigh, well trimmed and drained.
1 banana
Meal 3: P+C+F
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 banana
1 apple
1 slice of flax/stoneground wheat bread
4 oz of above chicken
Meal 4: P+F
4oz of above chicken
15 grams pistachios, peeled
1/2 tbsp golden flax seeds
1-2 tbsp of salsa (flavor, and make the seeds stick to the meat)
Meal 5: P+F
3 oz above chicken
15 grams pistachios, peeled
1-2 tbsp of salsa
Meal 6: P+F
2 oz above chicken
1/2 tbsp golden flax seeds
1-2 tbsp of salsa
This yields about 2300 calories. I am staying away from sugar these days so the post-workout shakes are out for now (gonna do this for at least 4-6 weeks and evaluate). Its clear that the post-workout shakes are beneficial (I noticed they eliminated soreness) so you might want to add that. My carb intake from meal 4 on is very very low. P+F for the rest of the day, although I really don’t follow the P+C protocol except for the first meal perhaps (I work out first thing in the morning).
Also, I find that I “feel better” when I really chew my food up really good. I would normally inhale food but with my very small portions and limited calories, I find that chewing slows me down a great deal and allows the fat that is in my diet to tell my brain to turn my appetite off. This might seem silly, but I like the whole flax seeds because I use my teeth to really grind them up and I find the other food gets chewed up really good as well. I think the general concensus is that ground flax seeds are best but I’m sticking to the whole ones for a while; I just make sure they are chewed up really good… I use “nature’s grinder”.
Hope this at least provides some ideas.
Forgot to say, add some green veggies where you feel like it. You could probably eat entire bags of frozen broccoli with no ill effect.