Plazma and Mag 10 for sure. If you can use the Mag 10 instead of whey it’s a much more quality protein.
Curcumin and fish oil for recovery are excellent.
Micro PA is a great addition for strength and adding weight.
If you need stimulants - Spike and Brain Candy are options pre workout.
I love caffeine and think there is a lot of benefit as long as it’s not being abused. I like brain candy personally before I workout - it’s got 300mg which is a pretty decent kick lol.
I’d love to help. It is so hard to give guidlines without knowing you but I will try my best. Ideally I need a set of pictures - do you mind posting? It will give me so much more information to work with and then we will go from there!
As a VERY general guideline: as you try to lose fat, you want to keep most of your carb intake pre/intra/and possibly post workout. The higher you are in body fat, the lower the post workout carb intake would be. The vast majority of your carbs should come from Plazma intra workout - this will be your biggest carb intake meal on your training days. If you eat 50g pre workout, the Plazma is 75-100 (double or 1.5 what you eat in your normal meals…again very very general). Post workout meal would be half or the same as pre workout meal…the logic being that in the pre and intra meals, you will use this up during your training. In your post workout meal your body will continue to burn it and use it for recovery.
As for timing - around 90 minutes pre workout, then start drinking the Plazma 10 minutes pre workout and throughout the workout, then post workout 60-90 minutes after training.
In your case I suppose breakfast first, then pre workout meal, then Plazma, then post workout meal. Then after your post workout meal start lowering carbs as meals progress.
Post pics if I can help you with a bit more specific information for you!
Hi @Amit_Sapir thank you very much! I posted a few pictures in the first post of my new log:
https://forums.t-nation.com/t/t-ransformation-2017-usmccds423-log/224884?u=usmccds423
As you can see, I’m a bit chunky… I am down about 7 pounds since these pictures were taken. Thanks again!
-Chris
Thanks for the reply. I’ll add everything to my list and try to shop for it this weekend.
Sorry for the photo quality and the lighting on these. It’s pretty bad, but you’ll get a general idea of what everything is looking like
Here’s the most recent one
A side by side of my bulk from last year from ~165 to ~175
And a shot of my back that’s pretty recent
Like I said, pretty bad quality but there is a rough outline
2-3 lbs per week is a good starting point if you want to keep the gains nice and clean. Any more than that will store into fat. Even if half a pound of this is muscle, it will be cleaner and the rest will be water and not fat. For this to happen you’ll need to increase your nutrition intake as we spoke about and train hard. Don’t have a set date on it - just let your body gain at it’s own pace…if you push too much you’ll gain fat and not muscle. I wouldn’t overthink the timeline - increase your food slowly and train hard.
1 Like
Ok that’s helpful. Body fat is pretty high right now you’re right.
I honestly think that your best bet to get to your goals is to hire a coach, as your carb intake and macros in general should be adjusted weekly for the best results. Those small changes are what make the big difference.
If I did have to give a general recommendation, I would probably do no more than 25-40 grams of carbs pre workout, about 60-80 intra workout from Plazma, and maybe 25-40 post workout meal. The rest of the day should be pretty low in carbs but still do have them (maybe 25g every other meal). Start protein at roughly 1.2/1.3g per lb of body weight and keep fat relatively low (just for basic function). This should give you a good starting point!
Again ideally this would get adjusted as your body changes and if you can swing it, I think you’d see the value in working with someone who can help you make those alterations as you go!
Hope that gives you a point to jump from! Looking forward to seeing you progress.
Thank you, Amit. I really appreciate the advice!
Happy to help! Let me know how you’re doing and if any other questions come up.
Hi Amit
I recently find a part time job (Only2-3 days aweek and it’s an 8hours job usually 10AM-6PM/1PM-10PM)And I’m not allowed to slip out to have a meal besides the rest time.So only 2 meal I can take at work.
My question is
Is that okay if I just use protein shake or protein bar to replace some meal?And if I use protein shake, my protein intake will be more than usual and I have to cut some carbs to make my calorie intake even(Hard to cut fat cuz it’s already not too much).I don’t wanna cut protein from meat cuz I already packaged several months amount of meat in the fridge…
Thanks!
If it is actually only 2-3 days per week and it’s only one shake, the extra calories/protein wont make or break you and I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If you are really worried about it, take however many protein is in the shake/bar and cut half of that amount of carbs from another meal (so if you have 50g protein in the shake, cut 25g carbs from another meal). That should keep you doing ok even with the extra calories.
1 Like
Thanks for the reply!
I’m gonna try it next week.
1 Like
Hey @Amit_Sapir, are you still here? What is your opinion on keto diets for powerlifting? I think it’s complete crap, but a couple people seem to disagree. Maybe you can set them straight.
https://forums.t-nation.com/t/keto-skd-and-tkd-with-powerlifting/230655/13
1 Like
Yes still here of course! Always haha
First of all you I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ll be very blunt (sooo unlike me hahahaha)…no matter how you turn it and I don’t care what trendy or fancy name you give it, any kind of keto or low carb diet will ALWAYS be inferior to a high carb/medium-high protein/low fat diet when it comes to performance. Even more than that - even when it comes to physique, getting a hard, dense, full look (not just shredded), keto will fall short no matter how much manipulation you do in peak week. You already mentioned the glycogen reasoning, but even more than that, carbs are a superior energy source for both your muscular system and your brain…from an absorption (faster and more efficient than ketones), recovery, and strength point of view. Show me one high level (I mean actual high level) performance athlete or body builder that successfully uses a keto diet…we aren’t just talking about studies showing carbs work better for performance, I’m talking about real life athletes and everyone i have ever heard about trying keto eventually comes back to high carb/low fat. I tried it myself 2 or 3 times as a body builder and all I got was a soft (shredded but soft) look…and when carbs were reintroduced, metabolism was hell and I had terrible water rebounds with a huge adjustment period. At best keto can be a short term solution to lose weight and get leaner, but it is definitely not sustainable for a healthy balanced diet (as is the case for any diet that cuts out an entire food source) and is not for performance.
1 Like
My thoughts exactly. Thank you very much.
2 Likes
How do you feel about something low carb on off days and carbs based only around training so NOT KETO but, still lowish carb for a guy not really trying to put on any more size as much as just hold on to mass, lean out, and get stronger in a weight class? Something like
Something for a 220lbs male like
Off days
5 meals
250g protein
100g carbs mostly around bed since carbs really make me sleepy haha.
70g fat
Training days
250g protein
300g carbs all spaced around pre, intra, and post (dinner since I train real late)
70g of fat
Obviously all foods good clean sources.
So basically protein and fat meals all day then protein and carb meals later around training?
1 Like
That’s what Josh Bryant and Fred Hatfield recommend, it’s called carb cycling. Ben Pollack has some articles on EliteFTS about that too. That’s more or less what I do, I just don’t reduce carbs that much on off days because I’m not trying to make any significant changes in body weight.
1 Like
I was kinda curious on this approach as well.
For what it’s worth, Josh Bryant is actually coming out with a book on keto. I respect Josh Bryant and most of my training these days is based on his methods, but I still don’t believe that keto is better than a balanced diet with adequate caloric intake for whatever you are trying to accomplish. As @Reed has shown us, it can work, but unless your preference is low carb/high fat or you have diabetes I just don’t see the point.
2 Likes