On this thread, I would like to plan a 90 day transformation. Based on different charts I've seen (not calipers), I am currently about 25% body fat, and would like to get to at least 15% over the next 90 days. I'm 6'2," 216 pounds. I've attached a pic for reference.

I need your help to plan a workout regimen and diet and keep me on track as I continue forward.

Cardio is obviously an essential... however... I prefer to do longer, low-intensity cardio than shorter, high intensity stuff. Going for brisk walks for an hour a day is much preferable than out of control wheezing for ten minutes.

I'm buckling down on my diet, too. Chicken, beef, and fish is what I'm going to live on. I'll also be doing a 14/10 intermittent fast as well (so basically I'm just skipping breakfast), though it will probably translate into a 16/8 fast since I usually don't eat after 8 PM.

I need most advice on the weight training section. What should I do, exactly, in order to drop that much weight in only 90 days? I normally just go into the gym 5 days a week and do a different muscle group each day. How should that change?

I'm not using any supplements including multivitamins. I might drink protein shakes if you guys insist.

I've attached a picture taken today. I'll try to take one every week. I'll also try to update this thread every day in order to keep myself accountable and motivated. I'll be starting Monday. If anybody else wants to start a 90 day challenge and become an accountability partner, I'd like that.

If I stop posting in this thread before May 3rd, post in here and ask me what my lazy, fat ass is doing getting off track.

Good luck. I hope you succeed.

G

Quote: (01-31-2015 04:49 PM)Geomann180 Wrote:  

Good luck. I hope you succeed.

G

Thanks, man.

Fasted cardio is your friend. 30-40 minutes first thing, 6 days/week. Walking probably won't cut it. Jog and walk as you need if you can't run for 20 - 40 mins solid to start with, but I'd encourage you to set a goal to be able to run 3 miles in 25 minutes (to start with) in the space of the next 3 months. Performance based goals make it so much easier to stay on track, and push yourself to make progress and stick to it outside of the gym (diet, sleep, etc). Conditioning can be a real drug too once you get into it, and a good form of meditation.

Intermittent fasting is effective for fat loss. Whether it is optimal is open to debate, but if you like it and can stick to it, go for it, it'll do you well enough. Keep food quality high, and make sure you're eating enough, or it will be counter productive. The easiest way to sort your diet is to only eat quality food, and try to count calories. Don't be afraid of carbs, just limit them and make sure they are quality, not bread, pasta, etc.

Weights - do 5/3/1, or really whatever you like, depending on your goals. What are your strength goals? Again, performance based goals make it much easier to hit mini goals, stay accountable, and stay motivated. Doesn't have to be bench press if you don't like it. It could be handstand pressups, a high number of pushups or pullups, 500BW squats in 15 minutes. If you can come up with some good goals, we can probably give you more targeted advice.

Since your main goal is to lose as much bodyfat as possible, and that your weight training routine is not on deck yet, my recommendation would be to do a Power 90/ Insanity bootcamp.

You don't have that much bodyfat on you, so by just doing it and not eating extremely bad you'll get rid of your belly easy. If you want to work out in a gym as you're doing now, it'll take some time for you to find your routine that works best with trials and errors.

Finally, I would not recommend you doing low intensity training for your goal. The reason why is that low intensity consist of burning mainly body fat, but this takes A LONG time to achieve. 3500 calories is approximately 1 lbs of body fat and bicycling at low intensity for example can take up to 10-13 hours to achieve this # of calories burned.

For your goal fast interval training is best, and then when you loose the desired fat much quickly since it will create a much greater calorie deficit. Then you can focus on muscle mass with a designed routine and getting down your macros right

If you like long-cardio, go on all-day hikes. Find some mountains, some hilly environments, and explore all day. Bring some hard-boiled eggs or a tuna sandwich, tons of water, some nuts, and just spend your whole day trapesing around outside. There must be some nature-trails, national parks, or something like that around you.

And eat your veggies man. Lots of veggies. Try juicing. Instead of not eating breakfast, which can slow down your metabolism, try just having juice for breakfast. Get your vitamins in early. Do red peppers, cucumber, celery, tomatoes, grapefruit etc. if you want to avoid sugar. http://fit-juice.com/

But Kruyos, why are you afraid of intense cardio?

Something like a boxing class, Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu, whatever you're interested in, will be absolutely intense cardio that has you going nonstop for an hour. It sounds like you're just afraid you'll be very tired, which is the entire point. A long walk won't burn nearly the amount of calories a boxing class would.

Make sure you are tracking calories Krusyo. Myfitnesspal is a good app to do so, or writing it in a journal is good too. When you have to track what you're eating, its harder to eat junk. You're going to need to eat at a fairly big deficit.

Sub'd. Stick with your plan.. you have big goals but I think it's possible if you give it 100%.

What is low intensity cardio?

I bike 30 miles a couple of times a week. Around 100 a miles a week in all.

First of all, what's your target weight? You need to plan your time according to your target weight. Losing too much weight too quickly is not good. Realistically you should probably aim for losing 1-2 pounds a week based on a slight caloric deficit. Deluge also made a very good post regarding getting lean and muscular at the same time.

http://www.rooshvforum.network/thread-44641-...#pid945236

Agreed with tracking your calories. A deficit of 500 is probably the healthiest way going forward. This way may not get you where you want to be in the allotted time but you will already be well on your way then.

It's been said before, but eat your veggies in addition to the meats. Stick to mostly meat and veggies. Avoid any bread that isn't certified 100% whole wheat.

Also I mentioned a book called the Renaissance Diet in the other thread which has some detailed scientific plans for getting lean and gaining muscle. My cousin who is a competitive powerlifter (and one of the best bench pressers in the country) and owns a performance gym recommends it to his clients and recommended it to me. It may not be necessary but maybe you should try giving it a look.

As far as diet advice, do The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook. It is designed for obese people to lose a ton of weight in a short amount of time without dying from malnutrition. It is exactly what you're looking for. Fuck running, if you followed the diet book you'd likely get the results you want without ever hitting the road or lifting a weight. At your weight, all you will do is fuck up your knees if you tried running. There are guys who have lost 30 lbs in 3 months.

Since you're sitting at 216 lbs and you want to get down to 15% bodyfat from 25%, that means you need to lose about 25 lbs of bodyfat without burning up any muscle at all. That is possible with the Rapid Fat Loss Diet. It is a protein sparing modified fast, it's like being in starvation mode but you're eating enough micronutrients to stave off disease and protein to prevent your body from eating your muscle tissue for fuel.

http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Fat-Loss-Han...s+handbook

For lifting. I would do something like this. A split between high reps, low intensity (aka bodybuilding type shit) and low rep compound movements to retain strength.

So it could look something like this.

Day 1
Back Squat 3x10
Bench or Overhead Press 3 x 10
As many pullups as you can do in 15 minutes

Day 2
Go through all the machines in the gym with light poundages, repping in the 10-15 rep range for a half hour or more. If you like calisthenics, you can do them too. If you want to do something cardio-like, you could try out barbell complexes and just do a shitload of volume.

Day 3
Deadlift 20-30 singles
Weighted Dips (I like doing these after deadlift to stretch out my back). You can superset these with weighted chins, too.

Day 4
Accessory bodybuilding type shit for arms, shoulders, abs, and traps. That's one way to look leaner. Higher rep range is good, I like doing dumbbell hammer curl and press for sets of five up the dumbbell rack (go up five pounds every set till you can't), then run down the ladder again. Hits arms, shoulders, and forearms. Other things like leg raises, farmers carries, and tricep pushdowns are good, too.

Day 5
Back Squat or Snatch Grip Deadlift. Some people like to deadlift more than squat, so I threw that in there. Keep the reps under 5, try to do anywhere from 20-30 total reps.
Bench or Overhead Press

Thanks for the advice guys. I also found a link to the pdf of The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook which I am going to read now. The reviews on Amazon look promising. The biggest issue for me is going to be staying super clean. I don't buy the food in the house, so I'm going to have to try as hard as possible to follow my diet strictly. I'll just visualize getting eyefucked by hot girls when I take my shirt off. That's the only thing I can do.

Alright, I finished rereading The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook by Lyle Mcdonald.

Since you're borderline (real close to 26% bodyfat), you could probably do the diet for two months straight with no ill effects. The book says that you get 2 cheat meals per week (you will likely center these around workout days), and that cardio is not a good idea, but weight training is. He recommends 3 days per week of pretty basic compound exercises with some higher rep bodybuilding type shit thrown in there for good measure (higher reps drain the muscles of glycogen, which will aid you in your fat loss journey).

To put my money where my mouth is, I started at 22% bodyfat and I did a combination of fasting, diet, and exercise (ie weightlifting) that took me down to 10% bodyfat in about a year and a half. During that time I started doing simple stuff such as
-never drinking soda (or drinking diet instead)
-fasting for an entire
-making protein the focus of my meals
-not going out to eat all the time
-getting drunk once per week on liquor as opposed to two-three times on beer (or just getting drunk once on beer, I really like beer)
-drinking more cold water (cold water burns calories)
-cutting down consumption of grains and sticking to vegetables and less offensive carbs like rice and potatoes

Over time I will force myself to enjoy salads, haven't gotten that far. Also, doing some form of training every day, whether it's a bodyweight circuit when you get out of bed or bringing some exercise bands to work to bust out some curls. Going for an early morning walk helps too, and getting at least 8 hours of sleep is critical.

The book will tell you how to lose fat rapidly, then how to keep it off. Doing it slowly by altering lifestyle habits over a long period of time works, that's what I did, but you're talking 90 days here.

If you're not the one buying groceries I figured I'd give you some other ideas for your weight loss journey. What you'll find in the book is that you're basically living off lean chicken breasts and non-fatty ground beef all day every day with some token vegetables and vitamin supplements thrown in for good measure. You'll need a little over 1.5 lbs of lean chicken a day to make it work if you're weight training. If you can't get your hands on 1.5 lbs of lean meat every day, it will be real hard to get leaner without losing muscle mass and it will take longer than 90 days to get to a decent level of leanness.

Sorry for the long post but I'm at work and bored off my ass.

Krusyos, congratulations on creating this thread, soundness of body is something worth achieving/maintaining.

It's really simple, man.

1. Accountability: Use the myfitnesspal app, so as to end up with 1600 calories taken a day, and post a pic update every four weeks or so. Calorie counting is crucial.

2. Nutrition: Eat paleo, that means meats, fruits, and veggies, only water, no other drinks, and while you can eat nuts, keep the portions very small, as they are calorie dense. You want to eat about a pound of minimally processed meat of some kind per day, like chicken, beef, salmon, trout, pork, shrimp, or whatever. I do about a pound of filet mignon, T bone steak, or salmon almost every day, and other meats also just to have some variety. Meats are the key to feeling full and being able to maintain a paleo lifestyle. You also want to eat a little bit of fruits every day, this is key to staving off cravings for sugary snacks (like chocolate). Vegetables every day as well, but the key to all of this, is that if you don't get enough protein (meat of some kind), you will be hungry, and it will be very difficult to stay under 1600 calories, so eat a lot of high quality meat. Also, if you're a cheese lover or a yogurt lover and want to have a slice of cheese or yogurt here and there, if it keeps you on track, do it, find what works for you and stick to it. Avocado almost every day helps me stay paleo.

3. Physical Activity: If you like going to the gym, by all means, do it, but it's completely unnecessary for losing weight, and if you have a tendency to "reward yourself" with junk food after working out, it may even be counter-productive. The gym is more for the detail-work, and based on your pic, you're still working on the rough outline of the sculpture, so it's not necessary yet, but if you enjoy it, by all means, do it. Also, walking for an hour or so a day is a fantastic use of your time. You can even shoot two birds with one stone and day game while you walk. As you lose weight, your face will change as your jaw becomes more outlined, and you'll notice women will smile at you more on first-sight, and be more open to your advances, which will give you more positive reinforcement for the lifestyle changes you're making. Walking an hour a day will also give you time to re-focus on your goal every day, as it clears your mind.

That's it man, your goal, or very close to it, is completely do-able, just follow the three points above and you're good to go, there's no need to complicate things with supplements or hard-core workout programs. The key here is calorie-counting and nutrition, with a physical activity like walking as an added plus, having the dual benefits of clearing your mind and offering opportunities for day gaming.

May the Force be with you.

Quote: (02-01-2015 06:37 AM)Hannibal Wrote:  

Alright, I finished rereading The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook by Lyle Mcdonald.

Since you're borderline (real close to 26% bodyfat), you could probably do the diet for two months straight with no ill effects. The book says that you get 2 cheat meals per week (you will likely center these around workout days), and that cardio is not a good idea, but weight training is. He recommends 3 days per week of pretty basic compound exercises with some higher rep bodybuilding type shit thrown in there for good measure (higher reps drain the muscles of glycogen, which will aid you in your fat loss journey).

To put my money where my mouth is, I started at 22% bodyfat and I did a combination of fasting, diet, and exercise (ie weightlifting) that took me down to 10% bodyfat in about a year and a half. During that time I started doing simple stuff such as
-never drinking soda (or drinking diet instead)
-fasting for an entire
-making protein the focus of my meals
-not going out to eat all the time
-getting drunk once per week on liquor as opposed to two-three times on beer (or just getting drunk once on beer, I really like beer)
-drinking more cold water (cold water burns calories)
-cutting down consumption of grains and sticking to vegetables and less offensive carbs like rice and potatoes

Over time I will force myself to enjoy salads, haven't gotten that far. Also, doing some form of training every day, whether it's a bodyweight circuit when you get out of bed or bringing some exercise bands to work to bust out some curls. Going for an early morning walk helps too, and getting at least 8 hours of sleep is critical.

The book will tell you how to lose fat rapidly, then how to keep it off. Doing it slowly by altering lifestyle habits over a long period of time works, that's what I did, but you're talking 90 days here.

If you're not the one buying groceries I figured I'd give you some other ideas for your weight loss journey. What you'll find in the book is that you're basically living off lean chicken breasts and non-fatty ground beef all day every day with some token vegetables and vitamin supplements thrown in for good measure. You'll need a little over 1.5 lbs of lean chicken a day to make it work if you're weight training. If you can't get your hands on 1.5 lbs of lean meat every day, it will be real hard to get leaner without losing muscle mass and it will take longer than 90 days to get to a decent level of leanness.

Sorry for the long post but I'm at work and bored off my ass.

I decided to work out three times a week, and do deadlifts on one day, squats on another, and bench press on another. After I finish the major compound lift, I'll snack on some iso type shit.

This plan seem really solid: basically just a focus on cutting out everything but the absolute essentials. Based on the calculations in the book, I'd have to eat about 201 grams of protein a day. I have 4 large bags of beef jerky which will last me quite a while, and will tell the shopper of the house to get me lots of tilapa, chicken breast, ground beef, and eye 'o round steak. If I start craving, I'll munch on a cucumber (ok that sounded wrong) or some carrots.

I got some OptiMen multi vitamins and fish oil in the house... that should be fine. Lotsa coffee with truvia, too.

I'll be drinking a gallon of water a day with some zero calorie flavoring.

I'm enjoying my last hurrah today with fast food for lunch and my great uncle's famous chicken cordon bleu for dinner.

Carrots are actually not recommend except in small doses, they've got a fairly high sugar content. The vegetables he says you can't have (other than the obvious ones like any potatoes, rice, and other starches) would be carrots, corn, peas, and beets. So as far as "easy" sources of greens, celery, spinach, bags of premixed salad (as long as there's nothing extra), cucumbers, and whatever else is in season where you live.

Your workout plan sounds just fine to me, sort of like a chopped down version of 5/3/1. Hitting each lift once per week is enough to keep your strength while you diet. In all likelihood, your absolute strength might even go up a bit.

Your best bet would be giant bags of frozen chicken breasts and cook enough for a couple of days at a time. Where I live they are $2 a pound.

Always keep your eye on the nutrition facts, there's a lot of shit out there with hidden carbs and fats. Good luck.

How to Lose Fat:

Training: On Monday and Friday, do a workout where you max yourself on 1 pushing movement (bench press, push ups, dips, or whatever), 1 pulling movement (bent over rows, pullups, lat pulldowns, or whatever), and 1 legs movement (squat, deadlift, leg press, lunges, or whatever). That's it. That's all you need.

Diet: Achieve a caloric deficit with a paleo diet. If you must have carbs then turn to baked or boiled potatoes (as they are super filling). Cardio is not necessary. But as you progress you can throw it in if you really feel like it. Do not binge food- and drink-wise on the weekends. Your brain will fuck you over and try to make eat and undo your work. Don't drink alcohol - if you must, then stick with liquor/diet mixed drinks, no beer.

Worrying about carrots in weight loss is crazy to me.

No one ever got fat from eating carrots. Carrots are no one's problem.

Quote: (02-02-2015 06:05 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

Worrying about carrots in weight loss is crazy to me.

No one ever got fat from eating carrots. Carrots are no one's problem.

Exactly, here is a nutrition profile for carrots.

Low calorie, high fiber, nutritious, filling, packed full of vitamins. Your carbs should come from vegetables! They shouldn't be coming from grains.

Well, day one completed. Squats were my main compound. The problem with squats and me is that I have an inch discrepancy between my leg lengths which makes me lose balance when I go ass to the grass, and I literally end up with my ass on the grass. So I did wide stance squats and went as low as possible. Managed to get in 225 for 6. Pretty good for me. Snacked on some isolation. The main goal is just to maintain muscle here, though, so I'm not really trying to destroy myself.

It was very hard getting the protein exact... I need about 201 g. I ended up with about 50 from beef jerky, and 2 and a half slices of cod. I finished off the day with a 4 egg omelette with some ham. Looks like I ended the day with about 250 grams... probably won't hurt me much if any.

Drank almost a gallon of water in all today. That will be exact once I get another water jug from the store.

My motivation is still high. I was tempted by junk food, but simply said "Nope. I want washboard abs." and that did the trick.

Looking forward to tomorrow. It's a rest day for me (though I will walk).

Also, what kind of physique is waiting under the fat if any based on my pic.

Tell you what, if you're able to do complete this 90 challenge, I will not fap for 90 days

At this point without muscle gain, between a long distance runner and a swimmer's physique.

You need a solid 15-20lbs of muscle if you want to people to just look at you and they know you lift.

A great cheat if you are looking to cut down on snacking is to chew gum. Kills cravings between meals.

So were I to cut to a lower bfp than 15 I'd look like this, except meso/endo and slightly bigger?

Quote: (02-02-2015 06:05 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

Worrying about carrots in weight loss is crazy to me.

No one ever got fat from eating carrots. Carrots are no one's problem.

It has nothing to do with getting fatter, but with maintaining nutritional ketosis for a short period of time.



Each decent sized carrot has 5 grams of sugar. The recommended amount of carbs you can have on a keto run is somewhere around 25-30 grams a day. So if you eat a large salad and a couple of carrots, you might have spun out of ketosis. You want your body to burn it's fat stores and it will not want to do that if you're feeding it carrots, corn, and peas. I don't know what happens if you decide to spin in and out of ketosis, I just followed the book to the letter, got leaner and lost no strength. I will do it again in the spring.

Quote: (02-02-2015 08:05 PM)The Reactionary Tree Wrote:  

Exactly, here is a nutrition profile for carrots.

Low calorie, high fiber, nutritious, filling, packed full of vitamins. Your carbs should come from vegetables! They shouldn't be coming from grains.

Lyle Mcdonald knows his stuff when it comes to nutrition. I agree that carrots aren't a problem for most people, it's just not a good idea to eat them during a protein sparing modified fast. Eating too many carbs (over 30 is too many) is counterproductive to maintaining ketosis.

I only recommend a crash diet to people who want to lose a lot of fat and water weight in a few weeks, or who want to see a noticeable improvement to their physique in a short time. For example, my sister could not fit into her wedding dress a month before her wedding. She did the diet for three weeks (I had to convince her first, haha) and went down a dress size. I did the diet for two weeks and went from 8 to 14 pullups in a set and reached a level of leanness that I haven't seen since. A lot of bodybuilders and athletes will do something similar to hit a weight class for their sport.

The rapid fat loss plan is simple: eat enough protein to stave off catabolism and fill in the blanks with low carb vegetables and zero calorie drinks. Slow and steady is better for maintaining weight loss, but Krusyos wants to get something noticeable done in 90 days.

There are plenty of guys his size who lost 30 lbs in three months with this extreme form of protein sparing modified fast. I don't know why more guys on the rvf don't know about it.

Quote: (02-03-2015 12:07 AM)Krusyos Wrote:  

Also, what kind of physique is waiting under the fat if any based on my pic.

Personally, I don't think you should care. You want to lean out before trying to add mass. I made the mistake of going the other way, following some nutritional advice from the Starting Strength crowd and let me say it really sucks to do it that way.

When you're just starting out you can add muscle and lose fat at the same time so take advantage of that.

Once you have your body fat down, stay at maintenance for at least a couple of weeks, and THEN if you want to get bigger start a slow bulk, that can go on for many many months.