What would you do?

Okay well this is my current situation...

I am 18, weight approximatley 94 and am over 30% BF (dexa scan)...

I have been doing the begginer PTC program and my lifts are going up etc. though my goal is to look built but be below 20% BF...

I have been told to keep weight training and eat cleanly but I am at the point where if I eat 2000calories to lose fat I simply just dont repair enough without it hindering my lifts in the gym, which is why I just started eating more (which is why I gained 4-5kgs over 4-5 weeks) and every time I lift less then the previous session it is depressing...

Should I just stick to the 2000calorie diet and lift as usual not mattering wether my lifts are going up or not?

or

Should I just eat more and make sure my lifts are going up and worry about the bodyfat when I have enough muscle mass?

Im just sick of this gut...

Any opinions welcome

Thanks

Eat your maintenance calories and do some other exercise outside of lifting, some sprints and a bit of walking can increase your calorie expenditure to help you lose weight.
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How long have you been training for? If it hasnt been that long you will probably find it becomes easier as you keep going.

Are you eating the right foods? I am on 2000-2200 calories per day at 107kg and recover fine. I train minimum 4 days per week. 2000 calories is a fair bit of food when you are eating lean meats and vegitables/salads. If you dont already break the 2000 calories over 5-6 meals.

Also if you dont already, i found it helped me when i started taking a protein shake to the gym and drinking it as soon as i finished working out.

Is there other factors that could be hindering recovery? Not getting enough sleep etc?

I noticed in your journal you are drinking alcomahol. This will effect recovery.

It's natural to feel a little weaker when in caloric deficit. This doesn't mean you should drop the poundage. You still need to lift heavy, but gaining strength is a lot easier in surplus and when you're gaining weight. Decide what you want to do, gain strength/lose body fat? Note, if you're a novice, it's not unusual to do both - lose fat & gain strength. Stay in deficit, and keep lifting heavy (as you can) if you want to drop the body fat.

How tall are you at 94kg? Personally, at 30% body fat - I wouldn't be too concerned if your lifts don't progress as quickly as you like - I would try to drop down 25%, then 20%. Do you have a figure in mind? You need to set your strength and body fat goals in stone. Then work out how you're going to get there. If you're not over training recovery won't be as much of an issue on 2000 cals. If anything, it will be sleep deprivation and late nights that'll do that.

Once you've reached a sustainable bodyfat percentage (or you're happier with the gut situation) then you can increase your weights and strength, as well as calories.

The absolute biggest mistake I see is this: Those thinking they need to be gaining 2kg a week, and eating too much. Everyone overestimates how much LBM they actually lay down in a given week. Gain slowly, eat cleanly and you'll add the lean body mass with less body fat.

Thanks for all the replys guys...

Well I have only drank alcohol once since on the PTC program, and will drink again this weekend for my birthday... Other than that I have stopped drinking completley once I realised the strength loss I had of the one time I did drink...

I am 179cm tall...

How does this look:

M/W/F - Beginner PTC program
Tue/Thur/Sat - 20mins of HIIT

On a 1900-2000 calorie diet?

My future goals are to pretty much put on as much lean body mass as I can and be as lean as I can...

My short term goals now I guess would be to lose 6-10kgs in 20 weeks, which I think should be possible???

I might just go back to calorie counting from tommorow and start my HIIT tommorow aswell...

Thanks for all the help so far, keep it coming

Daniel.308 said:

What would you do?

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1. I would not count calories
2. I would do the weights to maintain my muscles
3. I would perform HIIT twice a day/seven days a week the way I've outlined it here: Let’s Lose Some Fat Mass…


Fadi.

Fadi said:

1. I would not count calories
2. I would do the weights to maintain my muscles
3. I would perform HIIT twice a day/seven days a week the way I've outlined it here: Let’s Lose Some Fat Mass…


Fadi.

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Why wouldn't you count calories?

Daniel

Daniel.308 said:

Why wouldn't you count calories?
Daniel

Click to expand...

Why would you?

Generally speaking, people who wish to lose weight have enough on their plate without the added task of having to count every calorie they put in their mouth. In addition to that, I fully trust that you know what food is good and what is bad without having to know the ins and outs of their macro ratio. I'm a great believer that at the heart of your ability to lose weight lies in the speed of your metabolism and the state your muscle cells are in when it come to being insulin sensitive or resistant. I know that the frequency of exercise plays a huge part in affecting the way your muscle cells behave towards insulin, becoming more receptive (sensitive) to its presence when it knocks on that muscle "door". What does it? HIIT + HFT, that's what. That is high frequency training plus high intensity interval training. How do I know this and on what study do I base it? On the Fadi Chemaissem study while he was consuming 13500 calories without having to count one of them.

No, I'm not suggesting you gorge yourself with food and hope for the best, far from it. However what I'm suggesting you do is to focus your attention on the expenditure of calories through exercise rather than restricting them through food starvation.

Now if you feel better counting calories, then please go ahead, and simply disregard what I've written here. After all, it's about whatever makes you feel in a better position to realise your dream look.

All the best Daniel.


Fadi.

Fadi, when you say HIF cardio 2x a day.... how can this be achieved for regular people who have work/school, families, social activities responsibilities??
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I never bothered counting calories when I was trying to lose weight. It just seemed like too much of a hassle bothering with that for every meal.

I took the approach of judging portion size with my eyes (around fist-size) and changed my eating habits so that I ate until I was no longer hungry, rather than until I was full.

I actually dont find counting calories hard at all...

I have a diary sort of thing with 5 meals throughout your day and you just fill it in...

I have a scale next wo where I prepare my foods and stuff and it only takes me about 3mins to figure out which to me is worth it...

But then again that is just me...

PowerBuilder said:

Fadi, when you say HIF cardio 2x a day.... how can this be achieved for regular people who have work/school, families, social activities responsibilities??
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Obviously it wouldnt apply to everyone, but i dont see how most people wouldnt be able to find 20 mins during the day when they could do some HIIT if they really tried...

Fadi normally suggests his 10 minutes of 10 sec runs with 50 sec rest. Pretty easy to throw in morning, night, lunch break etc etc

PowerBuilder said:

Fadi, when you say HIF cardio 2x a day.... how can this be achieved for regular people who have work/school, families, social activities responsibilities??
Posted via Mobile Device

Click to expand...

It took me few seconds to figure out the meaning of "HIF", but I get what you mean though!

PB, if you get down to the problem of an overweight person, more often than not you'd find the issue relating to inactivity (or not enough activity rather) than simply overeating. Now I can not think of a better way to get someone back into shape than to get them active again which would speed up their metabolism and get the ball of fat loss rolling again.

As for time; each and everyone of us will do whatever it takes when their health is at stake. So a good way to prioritise and make time would be to stop thinking looks and start thinking health!

I'm speaking from observation here. Observing professional people like lawyers (when I was a gym instructor) go from obese to lean in no time when they were told to get their act together or lose their life. I'm talking about your average gym goer here who frequents the gym with near zero results to show for it after months and months of "training". An amazing transformation soon takes place when an ultimatum is given by a likewise professional person such as a GP.

Time appears from nowhere PB! Why? Because at the end of the day, each one of us loves life and would do what it takes (whatever it takes) to look after #1. So time is not and will never be an issue in my book, never!

PS: There are people who are sponsored by giant cooperations to simply train and get huge. Then there are others who hold a 9-5 job and look just as good or lift just as much. Determination plays a huge role in shaping one’s destiny and it’s up to us to activate this determination mechanism that we all share as human beings.


Fadi.

Also after doing a little research (into other research) it has been found that the body slows the metabolism mainly by reducing your energy expenditure after being on a diet. So that means you need to offset this by increasing your energy expenditure in other ways. More walking, more stairs and MORE exercise. Fadi's suggestion fits in well with this.

From personal experience i went from 110 to 84kg without counting a single calorie...

You know when you are overeating and you know when you are not...

It takes a long time but learn to listen to your body, and like fadi said constantly be active...

You wonder why tradesman eat 20 pies a day and are not all obese... Keep on the go!

People were fitter heathier and more active long before they even knew what a calorie was to count daniel.

Dave my friend, I'm getting to a stage where I'm hating the sound of the word exercise! What happened to good old fashion moving, moving, and some more moving! We were designed to move and if for whatever reason we find ourselves stuck in an office behind a computer, then we would have to be determined to take advantage of every second (not just minute) to see to it that we get moving. Yes some of us work behind computers and it's these same people I see going out for a cigarette every so often (due to their addiction). And they do this act whilst still in the boundary of their employer's rules and regulation. Surely, an 8 or 9 hour day can afford an overweight person to have certain breaks at certain times. Most spend it munching on cookies due to their messed up insulin levels and sugar cravings. These same people have the choice to use their allocated breaks wisely and reap the benefits of it all.

No excuses or "valid reason" given to me will I not work around and get the most for that overweight person. But it's a shame when I or (say) you Dave seem to be more interested in finding a solution to a problem than the overweight person him or herself.

Yes I know that low self esteem and lack of confidence do play their part, but it's high time we (yes we reading this) opened our mouths and offered some help or a suggestion of some sort that would get the ball rolling to help our fellow Aussies.


Fadi.

Fadi said:

Dave my friend, I'm getting to a stage where I'm hating the sound of the word exercise! What happened to good old fashion moving, moving, and some more moving! We were designed to move and if for whatever reason we find ourselves stuck in an office behind a computer, then we would have to be determined to take advantage of every second (not just minute) to see to it that we get moving. Yes some of us work behind computers and it's these same people I see going out for a cigarette every so often (due to their addiction). And they do this act whilst still in the boundary of their employer's rules and regulation. Surely, an 8 or 9 hour day can afford an overweight person to have certain breaks at certain times. Most spend it munching on cookies due to their messed up insulin levels and sugar cravings. These same people have the choice to use their allocated breaks wisely and reap the benefits of it all.

No excuses or "valid reason" given to me will I not work around and get the most for that overweight person. But it's a shame when I or (say) you Dave seem to be more interested in finding a solution to a problem than the overweight person him or herself.

Yes I know that low self esteem and lack of confidence do play their part, but it's high time we (yes we reading this) opened our mouths and offered some help or a suggestion of some sort that would get the ball rolling to help our fellow Aussies.


Fadi.

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Sadly Fadi I can some this all up in one sentence.

Humans are lazy.

dave said:

Sadly Fadi I can some this all up in one sentence.

Humans are lazy.

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We all become lazy at some stage in our lives Dave and each for his or her own reasons. I wouldn't give up though and I do have great faith in my fellow humans...but we may have to approach them with the subject rather indirectly and make them feel good about it. At least that's what I would like you to do for me if you ever see me being lazy on myself; I expect nothing less of you Dave!

It's all about motivating the motivation by instilling a drive and a need inside a cool belly and changing it into a raging fire ready to conquer come what may...


Fadi.