Spanking New

I HATE dieting. I’ve tried Cheater’s Diet, T-Dawg, and Fat Fast, and they all sucked the big one. Either I was losing too much lean mass, or else I felt like shit. I ended up putting on more fat then I lost. The problem with T-mag diets is that they rely either on ketosis or androgens to work.


There are a few problams with this:


::Ketonic:: I feel “down”, feel nauseous when thinking of eating another meatball :stuck_out_tongue:


::Androgenic:: well…I live in Canada. And besides, they’re pretty expensive.


And of course, there is the problem with every diet: Getting off the diet, staying on the diet, etc etc.

Conclusion: Some people (myself included) just suck on a structured diet. I LIKE eating a bit of chocolate every once in a while. I LIKE drinking juice once in a while. I like eating when I feel like eating and not starving myself of any macronutrient, causing binges and insulin comas.

Why non-diet?: I can keep non-dieting up, and any gains or losses are pretty much static.

Conclusion: If you’re like me, you’d be better off not dieting, but doing the following: I call it:


THE FLEXIBLE UNBOTHERSOME NON-DIET FOR PEOPLE NOT ON DRUGS WHO HATE KETOGENIC DIETS


1.Make sure you get roughly 0.8-1.0g Protein / lb body weight. Make SURE that you’re getting that much. Are you sure? Good. Try writing down meat nutrition values at first; you’ll only have to memorize several numbers.

2. Once you fulfill this, eat other stuff when you feel like it. Make sure it’s stuff that’s good: fruits, vegetables, red pasta, fish, etc. Try to balance your diet; that is balance out the pasta (Carbs) with nuts (Fat).

3. Limit the intake of pizza, chocolate, and candy, etc. Make sure to eat only small amounts of choco (50-100g/day), if you must.

4. “Try” not to mix Carbohydrates and Fat in your meals.


5. Try to do some (20-30min) cardio every day. Pick one day of the week to take a rest from all activity if you like.

6. Follow whatever strength routine you like.

7. Since you don’t have to bother with androgens, depression, food logs, eating seven meals a day, supplement costs, preparation of crap food, go take your girlfriend to a movie :0)


Many of you may not want to agree with me, but this is the only thing that’s ever worked for me; I lost 20lbs of fat for good doing this. Hmm…this sounds so good I think I’ll start doing this for the rest of my life and drop that T-dawg I started. Oh, and by the way, the diet is slow, so don’t expect to lose more than a lb a week. But it’ll be gone for good so long as you continue eating this way. I’ve yet to meet someone who can keep the loss/gains of drastic diets.


What this diet will probably NOT do. It will probably not get you below 10% body fat. It will not make you grow muscle and lose fat at a fantastic rate. What it will do is create a diet where you will feel fit and strong and will look good.

IMPORTANT: If you do NOT know roughly how much of everything (macronutrients) there is in everything (food), you’ll likely be screwed. Just follow this simple guideline. When you feel slightly hungry, eat enough to satiate yourself. Simple enough for you?

Harkonnen




“Why do I write satires? Better ask me this: How can I write anything else?” -Juvenal

check out John Berardis’ article THE WINNING FORMULA in online issue 205. It is a great outline for a diet that is niether keto or andro. I have always felt that if you have a craving don’t deny it, it will only come back latter 10X worse. The key to eating what you want is moderation, an all out binge is not.
c-442

Sounds like a prettym good plan to me i think everyone has their niche that works for them…

Pugs

Dude, I totally agree with you, but you are slightly off the mark with the purpose of these diets. Those diets you outlined in the beginning (Cheater’s, Fat-Fast) are diets designed to get you from 10% to a very low bodyfat. These are not diets for normal, everyday situations. For myself, I use a similar system like you to maintain a “reasonable” look (~10%) year round, but when contest time comes I use an unrealistic diet to shred me up.

The Cheater’s Diet hasn’t been around very long. Exactly how long did you use it before you decided it sucked?

I’ll jump into the fire with ya on this one. I have been lifting for almost 7 years, with the last 4 being hardcore. I have made incredible gains and lost an amazing ammount of fat in this time. During the summer of 01’, I could of probably entered a contest at about 180. And ya know what? No food log, no training log, no special diet (Tdawg, etc), no special training regime (just basic hypertrophy work; iso and compound movements). In fact, I had only discovered TMAG about 3 monthes earlier. Now don’t get me wrong. I love Tmag. It’s just that I am a big proponet of “feel” and listening to one’s body. Sure, I eat the 350g protein spread out every three hours, but I don’t follow any specific diet. Just a plain-jane BB diet. I don’t count calories. I tried that along with a food log this summer and I found myself eating more, and generally obsessing about food. Not good. So now, when I want to cut I just undereat a little all day (along with some wicked cardio), and when I want to put on mass I just up my protein and carbs a little. In fact, I never do the traditional “bulk.” I have found it’s just too painful for me to diet down after a bulking cycle. I love food and seem to put on fat, as well as muscle, quite easily. And I’m not trying to bench 500 pds. I just want to look good and feel good about myself. So what I am saying on the rant is: learn what works for you and stick to it. I know. Not profound wisdom.

Makes me feel glad that I can run on all ten cylinders while on Keto diets. :slight_smile: Glad you’ve found something that works, though.

Dieting sucks! Okay we got that. The thing I am glad is that you didn’t just come on here and say it sucks and that’s it. You offered a solution, good for you. I have a friend who follows your plan, which seems to be Phillips meets Berardi. No matter, do what works for you. If this keeps you from yo-yoing then great. I’m one of those lucky few who finds low carb dieting relatively easy.

Good for you, Croooz

I have a better name for your diet: dieting for pussies…hahah. I think that is a good way to LIVE, as thats how I keep myself around 9-10 percent all year, but if you want to actually get down to 5-6 percent, you have to do something better than the rest. Ill stick to T-dawg as I have great results with that. Do you ever diet to get below 10 percent? if so how long does it take you?

Yes, I agree. Dieting sucks. Finding what works for you is a painstaking roller coaster ride of trial and error. What you’ve just outlined is basically a blueprint for what I would call “settling”. You stated that this diet will not help you grow muscle or shed fat! Then what’s the point? What that tells me is that you’re content to just give up and continue to spin your wheels in the gym, thus joining the rest of the flock who do the same thing day in and day out and never make any progress or see results. Listen to what I’m saying. In all walks of life, you’ll find that the most successful people are the ones who live just outside their “comfort zone”. What that means is that if you want to make a difference and rise above the rest, you have to do things that… well basically things that suck! Like dieting. Don’t settle. You’ve obviously got a leg up on the rest of the pack by being a regular on this forum and possessing the knowledge that most others unfortunately don’t have. So what if the T-diets don’t work for you? At least you’ve tried them and learned something about your body in the process. Poohbaya’s post was right on the money, by the way! Don’t settle, man.

Thanks for your responses guys. To be honest, I was afraid of getting flamed, but I’m glad that didn’t happen.


To TEK: What I mean is that it sucked for my purposes. I found I was losing strength on the diet, and posted on the board. Even Joel told me to get off the diet unless I plan on using an androgen. I also found that I couldn’t really control myself when it came to cheating days. You see, I like to believe that I can eat the foods I like every once in a while, and those are usually F + C. Now the cheater’s diet says “Okay, you can eat the food you like for cheat meals, just make sure that it’s fat free”. That was also an impossibility for me. To answer your question, I was on the diet for exactly 1 week, during which time I lost ~10lb, This should have made me do chinups easier, right? Wrong, I could barely do 3 chinups (usually I can do 3 sets of 8). Now that’s pathetic. So I got off the diet.

Looks like a good plan if your only trying to look good with your shirt on. It won’t take you to the kind of leaness you need to take your shirt off and look good though. And i don’t think you’ll gain much muscle with that protein level and not eating too often, either. Sounds like its good for the “average” guy.

I’m wondering how long you went keto before giving up? My body adjusted in 2 weeks, maybe you should have given it a little more time. And i agree, the cheaters diet is new, how long were you on it before you stopped?

I always found keto dieting easy for myself as well… until I started Renegade Training. Now I just eat maintenance calories Massive Eating/Don’t Diet… and I’ve been getting leaner.

To be wholly honest, I think that this “diet” CAN make you look good with a shirt off. I’ve seen many posts here where people are talking about how they binged out completely for three weeks and put on 20lb of fat (There was just a post like this a few days ago). If you do well on a keto diet, good for you. I know a 56 year old woman who eats nothing but meat and vegetables, and she’s leaner than me (probably about 12% BF). I also know many other people that lost weight on a keto diet and put MORE weight back on.


All I’m saying is that if you find yourself yo-yo dieting, you would be FAR better off not DIETING at all! Now, we’re all physically active people here, right? If we add cardio and eat maintenance calories, what’s to stop anyone from shedding fat?


I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; this won’t make you look like a freak, but you will feel good and look good, so long as you’re a good instinctive eater. If your instincts are telling you to eat a kilo of chocolate, it’s time to take up knitting…

I appreciate what you’re saying. Consider this: most people’s definition of living “normally” is eating as much as they want of anything they want. And not excercising. Including many people you see at the gym. That is the flock you speak of.


That is a flock I do not want to become a part of again. So what do I do? I watch what I eat. I KNOW what I eat, because I’ve dieted, kept a food log, and memorized a bunch of nutritional information for all types of food I should be eating. I lift weight olympic-style and gain noticeable muscle and strength every single week, and every time I look in the mirror I look either a litttle bigger, a little leaner.


Do you really feel that it is necessary to go to extremes to succeed? No, Chris, I have never dieted below 10%, nor do I want to. Some people find a diet that works for them and stick to it. Then they go back to eating junk food and back to their sedentary lifestyles. I was unable to find a diet that worked, so I made my own. And it worked for me.



All I know is that I am making constant progress, progress I can count on and track. This “diet” is not for people who don’t know what they’re eating in the first place. It’s for people who have tried a few of the T-Mag diets and who have basic eating skills that they don’t need to bother with the pains of dieting.


to antny16: I’m glad you realized my point. It’s not really a diet, but a change of lifestyle, which is the only way to lose fat and keep it off.

Harkonnen, I’m glad you didn’t take any offense to what I said previously. If you’re happy with your present condition and maintaining what you have, then more power to you! But did you come this conclusion only after all these T-diets failed you? If you’ve never wanted to diet to below 10% bodyfat, then why would you attempt such an extreme approach to fat loss? You did state that eating the way you’ve just outlined will keep gains and losses relatively static. But you also stated in your reply to my first post that every time you look in the mirror, you look a little bit bigger and a little bit leaner. I’m confused by your contradiction of terms. Don’t get me wrong, my intention isn’t to flame you. After all, your own personal well-being is what’s important here. I just think the statements you’re making sort of go against the grain of the bulk of this very forum.

Just to clarify, many will be able to get away with having some fat containing foods during the cheat sessions simply because of the fact that a severe diet is a very special situation.

Will this accelerate your progress physiogically? Probably not.

Will this make the cheat more psychologically satisfying? Most certainly.

Will the psychological benefits outweigh any negative physiologica effects? Well, that's an individual individual assessment that needs to be made, but most will find, myself included, that any negative pysiological effects are negligable.

Most I have talked with so far have found that they have gotten the best psychological and physiological benefit by allowing themself to indulge in some fat containing foods (such as a few slices of pizza or a couple of krispy kreme donuts, etc) to satisfy their cravings, and then continuing with the rest of the refeed w/ as little fat as possible.

I tend to agree with this approach as the optimal one.

Joel

You mentioned the “don;t diet” diet I was thinking about this diet today. I searched through the previous issues and couldn;t find it. I probably just missed it or it is hidden under another name. Is it part of an appetite for construction? Could you post the link to find it for me please.
Thanks,
:slight_smile: Groove

I tried these extreme methods for two reasons:

  1. I was on a plateau because I really didn’t know how/what to eat; that has been surpassed in the last 9 months since I discovered T-Mag. More specifically, in the last week I realized this that will work for me. How? Well, you might laugh what brought this on, but I visited the Anorexia website of America something or other, and read some stuff about yo-yo dieting. This made me realize that’s what I was doing for a while, and that is what ultimately all diets do. This is fine and expected if you’re 10% trying to cut down to 5% for a competition, but if you’re at a higher percentage level it’s really pointless, as you would probably be trying to hit about ~10% and stay there.

  2. I really didn’t know that the diets were that extreme; I wasn’t aware they would have the adverse effects they would have, and I did not realize that the androgens/supplements that were “suggested” were actually -mandatory- for the diets to work. Through experimentation and searching through forum posts and reading previous issues of T-mag, I am constantly increasing my knowledge of the subject of all that is body-building, and hey, knowledge is power. I have nothing against individuals trying to achieve extreme leanness (<10%), but only in the last week or so have I come to the revelation that that is not what I am trying to do. A big Thank You to Joel for helping me realize some important facts concerning this. If done to the letter (and with some minor carb refeed length modifications that Joel himself said were necessary), I believe the Cheater’s Diet can be a very very powerful fat-loss tool.



    In response to the linguistic maladies, I will attempt to clarify: Every week I look in the mirror, I find I look slightly leaner as well as slightly more muscular. Does that work for you?

    I’m aware that my statements go against the grain of the forum, but this whole magazine IS about going against the grain, and hey, I’m aware most people here know what they’re doing perfectly well. I’m also aware that there are people who like me were/are yo-yo dieting who are also reading this forum; my intent was to give those people something to consider:

    1.If you’re high-ish BF% like me (16%), you really have no reason to go on some extreme dieting, unless you’re impatient (like I was). Impatience will ultimately lead you to failure. Lesson one.

    2.If you’re not taking 'roids or Mag 10, you will certainly lose a lot of muscle mass on the extreme dieting, no matter what you eat. Lesson two.

    3.You need to try many diets before you can even consider non-dieting. You need to keep one of those food logs and measure everything you eat. This will educate you as to what you are eating so that you can slowly make the transition to non-dieting yet still make gains. If you’re just eating blindly, you can make no progress, and this is yet another important lesson, lesson three.

Joel, as for mixing carbs and fat in a cheat meal, I’ve read all the studies and you seem right. However, the times I’ve eaten so many calories in one sitting I’ve gotten warm and began to sweat, I was overdoing it on peanuts or pistachios. Any thoughts?