Hello all and thank you in advance for any and all advice given.
I’m 24 5’7 192 pounds with a 30.5 BMI
Growing up I was always ether 140-145 (low BMI) growing up and 160-165 while I was in the military. My diet is nonexistent but I’d like to start working on it.
My first goal is slash my BMI into half and eventually to 10% or less as well as dropping back to the 140’s. After a little reach apparently if I slash 1000 calories a day while also eating healthy and hitting a gym (or FIIT) I can lose ± 50 pounds in 5-6 months.
First,
I used to do FIIT in the military so I’m aware of how draining it can be.
Would you suggest cardio over weight lifting or a mixture of both?
I’m still trying to put a diet plan together but if I want to shed fat I want to eliminate nasty fats and carbos correct? But without carbs wouldn’t that make FIIT very difficult?
Eventually if I can hit my first goal I’d like to start cycling steroids as I feel my gains would be very fast. In the past I’d use NOXplode and noticed gains fast.
I’m trying to learn everything to a T before I spend money on some shit I don’t even know what it does.
Unfortunately I’ve been hit with the Male pattern baldness train, will cycling only increase hair loss or is there something that I can include that will lower the chances of less hair?
Slashing your BMI in half would give you a BMI of 15. That’s not good.
Your diet is by far and away the most important thing so get that sorted. You can post a plan here and we’ll critique it.
I’m a steroid user myself so while I wouldn’t tell you to never use them, I will say that you need to know what you’re doing in the gym and the kitchen to make it worthwhile. The steroid horror stories are always from the dudes jumping in too soon. NOXplode is in no way comparable to steroids; I hope that was a joke. And yes, they will certainly exacerbate MPB but different compounds are worse than others for that. It’s not something you need to think about for a few years yet anyway.
Thanks for the reply Yogi.
I once had a fast metabolism so hopefully it’ll kick itself back into action so I can get down to that %10 maybe even 7%. It sucks because I once had an active career but now I have to go to an office and make time to work out. I realize if I continue down this path I’ll most likely become fatter and my health will decline.
I just got done reading up on a diet called the velocity diet which would probably work wonders for me but it’s way to expensive. Could you perhaps recommend a diet that you’ve used that you were successful with or recommend for somebody my size?
I’ll have a meal plan posted soon.
A buddy of mine suggests starting with HIIT as the heavy cardio will condition me for heavy lifting.
I recently lost 50lbs (well, it’s been like 6 months since I stopped losing. I’ve since gained 6lbs, on purpose.)
I put myself in a calorie deficit, which had to be adjusted as I lost weight, for 7 months.
Super simple, but not necessarily easy. I didn’t do any cardio. I didn’t eat “clean” or “healthy”. No drugs. I did IIFYM, and ate less total calories than I burned.
I continued to lift as I normally would (strength focused on compound movements). I did lose strength, something like 10%. I don’t believe I lost much muscle at all.
Thanks for the reply man!
Nice losses man!
I think it’s safe to assume that you count your calories right? Do you ever have a set eating “schedule” that you follow by? I remember this ripped as guy in technical school who would literally cooked a whole week of meals and then separate it all including snack bags and such. Is this a normal practice for you guys?
As a frequent weed smoker, will smoking hinder me in anyway during workouts or affect gains/loses? This sounds completely stupid but I remember reading about a “beer diet” which doesn’t sound quite safe to be honest.
How though? Almost every post on this forum regarding nutrition suggests otherwise haha.
Edit: Thanks for the site man it seems very helpful!
I tried to eat 3 meals a day. I don’t pay as much attention to meal timing as I could. While it matters, it matters less than you’d think.
I was however very strict with my diet. I hit my macronutrient (protein/carbs/fat) requirements for the day, and no more. Every day. I had a cheat day every 2 weeks where I didn’t bother counting; sometimes I went way over, sometimes I ended up under.
It matters, just not as much as you might think. The number one thing that matters for fat loss is being in a calorie deficit.
I’m probably going to ruffle some feathers by saying this, but, IMHO “healthy” and “clean” are bullshit words when it comes to food. There’s no definition on what is “healthy” and what is “clean”.
I’m not saying to just eat twinkies, hot dogs, and whey protein. You’ll end up with a vitamin deficiency. But having a cheeseburger every now and then at McDonald’s isn’t going to matter. Or maybe a snickers bar here & there.
I’m not super lean. I went from 255 to 204. I’m ~210 now. But if I cared to be truly lean, I would diet the exact same way. But I’m 34, married, and just don’t care. I’ve been lean before, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Here’s a before/after pictures of me front squatting (405x1 while fat, and 330x7 while not fat), and a recent crappy picture I took.
I know there are people on here who don’t count macros, and get by just fine. Counting lets me eat a bunch of shitty food, because it’s so easy to eat a lot of shitty food. It’s hard to overeat when your diet consists of chicken, vegetables, and rice.
I know there are people here who think cardio super helpful, and have had good success with it. That includes LISS and HIIT.
[quote=“abnormalprince, post:1, topic:214850”]
5’7 192 pounds with a 30.5 BMI
[…]
My first goal is slash my BMI into half and eventually to 10% or less[/quote]
BMI is Body Mass Index, basically a ratio of height to weight that has nothing much to do with actual bodyfat. It sounds like you’re using it interchangeable with “bodyfat percentage”, but they’re two different things.
What is “FIIT”? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that training method.
And if you cut 1,500 calories from your diet and train 9 days a week, you’ll lose 80 pounds in 4 months. Yay!
Dude, cutting a ton of calories is rarely a good idea. A very general rule of thumb when trying to drop fat is to not reduce calories past 10xBodyweight. So that’d have you at about 1900 calories at the lowest, since you do still need to fuel and recover from hard training.
Start by writing down what, how much, and when you eat. Doesn’t have to be weighed out or anything, but it does have to be honest. Simply “Egg McMuffin, hashbrowns, and small milkshake at 9:00am; Snickers bar at 1:00pm; five slices pepperoni pizza at 7:00pm”, or whatever it is. That’ll give you some type of baseline to improve on.
Both, yes. 3-4 days of lifting and 3-4 cardio workouts per week is a solid place to start. Tons of articles lay out programs that fit that bill.
Your buddy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You don’t “get into condition for lifting” by not lifting. Find a well-designed lifting routine and start it ASAP. Also, I wouldn’t dive right into HIIT if I thought someone was so deconditioned they couldn’t handle lifting. Stop asking that dude for advice.
Meh. Weight loss without a deficit isn’t possible. You could potentially maintain weight & build muscle while losing fat the same time but, that’s probably a bad way to go about it.
Here’s some info from another expert on the subject:
Dr. Israetal is a (jacked) professor at Temple University
IMHO (and it seems Dr. Israetal’s expert opinion) Trying to lose fat without going into a deficit is a fools errand. All though, the OP meets some exceptions mentioned (especially if he foolishly decides to use steroids) …
And remember, OP is talking about losing a large amount of weight: 50lbs!
Well those plans are written by Chris Colluci above and Chris Shugart this sites editor and I can pretty much guarantee the OP will get solid results if he tries one faithfully.
Anyway not worth arguing over, as you said many ways to skin a cat
.[quote=“RampantBadger, post:12, topic:214850, full:true”]
Well those plans are written by Chris Colluci above and Chris Shugart this sites editor and I can pretty much guarantee the OP will get solid results if he tries one faithfully.
Anyway not worth arguing over, as you said many ways to skin a cat
[/quote]
You know, I actually am a pretty big fan of the approach of getting in shape BEFORE lifting. It used to be a given that someone would grow up playing sports and already have all that sorted out, but these days people are growing up pretty sedentary and lacking a lot of the basic qualities that I would consider necessary before engaging in lifting. Things like balance, body awareness, basic levels of strength, conditioning, flexibility, mobility, etc etc, along with other really valuable assets like the ability to determine between injury and pain and knowing how to push exert yourself.
One of my favorite articles that talked about how to get an adult lifter ready to actually lift was Dave Tate’s “Education of a Powerlifter”
I imagine the topic creator simply lacked the necessary vocabulary to put that idea into words. We hear someone say “do cardio and HIIT to prep for lifting” and we scoff at it, but if the same person said “Push a prowler and pull a sled” (which, to many laymen, is cardio) it makes more sense.
You actually talked about this a bit here too
Focusing more on bodyweight movements before actually getting into the lifting. Definitely a great way to go about it.
We lack some details, but from what I’ve read, I wouldn’t consider this guy to be sedentary. He’s 24 years old and was in the military and was training until maybe a few of years ago. He’s simply 25-30 pounds fatter than he used to be and is out of shape, but not “never exercised a day in my life, so I need to start from square one”.
I scoff, sir. I do scoff. I think it’s entirely fair to scoff at the idea that HIIT, which is by definition high intensity, is the right way to train someone who’s “too deconditioned” to handle hands-elevated push-ups, bodyweight lunges, or 45-pound deadlifts.
For sure I wrote about bodyweight training to build physical conditioning and I’ve used that plan with folks as an intro before lifting. But I still consider that type of exercise different and more efficient at preparing the body for a lifting routine than a cardio/conditioning-only plan.
Also, like I said in my first post to the guy, there’s no reason he can’t start with both - a good (and appropriately designed) lifting plan a few days a week and some (appropriately designed) conditioning a few days a week.
Ah yeah, I apologize. My comment in that regard was more in general rather than specific to the topic creator.
[quote=“Chris_Colucci, post:16, topic:214850”]
I scoff, sir. I do scoff. I think it’s entirely fair to scoff at the idea that HIIT, which is by definition high intensity, is the right way to train someone who’s “too deconditioned” to handle hands-elevated push-ups, bodyweight lunges, or 45-pound deadlifts.[/quote]
I agree. Like I said, I imagine he was simply using the wrong term to communicate his thoughts. I have found most individuals don’t understand the difference between cardio and conditioning, and consider it all the same, and that ADDITIONALLY, most folks don’t actually understand “high intensity” as it relates to HIIT.
I’d stick with bodyweight personally with some time dedicated to technique practice before jumping into barbell lifts, but that’s just me. I’ve seen too many people screw up lifting at the start.
