Lifting day

2376 cal. 344g protein 63g fat

Hit all my numbers. Made this delicious cajun ny strip steak too.

Cleanses are really horrible pseudo science, no reason to do one, ever. I would very definitely not do an RFL at the tail end of a long diet, strength levels are likely to plummet. Also, remember to take diet breaks unless you're doing IF or other cyclical approaches.

What is IF?

Yeah...you almost have to be right about not doing an RFL at the end of dieting. And I just started this diet, so I'm not worried about taking a break just yet. But when taking a "diet break" like what necessarily do you do? Do you just eat whatever you want all the time, or do you structure your break too? And how long should a diet break be if you're goal is still to drop lbs. when you're done?

1720 cal. 211g protein 25g fat

IF is intermediate fasting.

I'd recommend getting Lyle's book "a guide to flexible dieting". A diet break is basically a two week (or longer) stretch where you eat at maintenance. In addition, on a regular diet, you should probably include a weekly refeed. It's all in that book.

Intermittent fasting - check leangains.com. Basically you only eat in a 8 hour window each day. That means you generally skip breakfast, allowing for a bigger lunch/dinner with the same amount of cals. It also generally means eating more on workout days and less on off days. Martin has a primer on his site.

Okay, I'm going to look into that book. To be honest, I have before, and have it on my "things I should be buying soon" list.

But how long should you diet before taking a break?

Looked it up in Lyle's book - depends on fatosity. < 15 BF % 4-6 weeks, 16-25% 6-12 weeks, 26%+ 12-16 weeks.

Thanks Soul, you are the man. The Soulman! That was totally organic, I did not plan that, it just happened.

So, I'm going to go 6-12 weeks before a real break? That sounds ghey. I'm approximating BF too. How do you measure yours Soul? Calipers?

Also, what about cheat days/meals? Are those acceptable? Because I have a few things coming up, and tomorrow starts the NFL season, so I'm getting a big group of people together and getting absolutely hammered like a box of nails. Hopefully I won't make too many terrible dietary decisions...and many awesome gambling ones. Likelihood of each is perilously low.

1686 cal. 212g protein 43.5g fat

I don't measure my BF, can't be bothered. Gonna diet two weeks more then start back "bulking" in a Lyle-esque sense again. Cheat meals are ok ldo.

Squats 3x5 225. Did a little bit of a reset today so that I can get my form and bar positioning right. Also got more volume in than usual which I felt was a good thing. One thing that I was noticing on my later reps of my set was that the bar was rolling down my back a little bit when I was descending. I will work on addressing this and I think that will help a lot. I felt like my form was pretty good though.

Bench 1x3 185. My elbow was twinging, so I decided to forgo the other two sets of benching for a weaker, lamer chest exercise.

Fly machine 3x10 160. I know, it's lame, but I worked in with a cute girl with a nice body, so at least that was cool(ish)

Deadlifts 1x2 265. These felt way better than last time. And gave me confident in getting more weight up next time.

After stretching I did 25 push ups just because I was so salty with myself for not benching harder today. The push ups felt better than they have in over a year at least.

2751 cal. 315.5g protein 54.5g fat

Went over my desired amount of calories, but whatever, got all my other numbers. Not too worried about it. I guess I'm a little bothered. Dieting is so ghey.

I think the 12-16 is sanity related. Just break when it fits your life IMO.

Do you think those guidelines I set are good for losing fat Thremp, or should they be adjusted?

1870 cal. 252g protein 42g fat

I dunno. Are you losing fat? If so, k.

Too soon to tell...but probably?

Umm... Is your weight going down? Are your strength levels similar to before or better?

Sup gais?

I'd say shift a little more focus to maintaing/gaining on your
lifts.

How much have you lost and what are you at now?

35 minutes on elliptical at 11 resistance, doing 5 tabata intervals during that time. Was tough today, legs were still stiff from lifting the other day.

Thremp- Yeah, I've only been on the diet for like a week now really...and yeah I've probably lost a lil' weight and I haven't lifted that much in this week, but so far no noticeable strength loss. It's probably early to tell on that. I was just wondering if you saw any real issues with my numbers, anything like that. I suppose I should just go for a while and see what kind of results I'm getting and then adjust from there.

Khalyn- I don't really care about lifting more vs. losing fat. That's the most important thing to me. Not gaining more weight on my lifts. At some point that could change and I could want to increase my lifts and all that stuff, but I don't want a Rippetoe body, and I don't want the fat body I have either. I started at 245.5, and this morning I was 208. This is since January.

1835 cal. 217g protein 36.5g fat

I definately don't want a rippetoe body.

So you can prob drop closer to 8/10 lbs a month with those numbers right?

Goal weight is, 180ish?

I was suggesting a more gradual weight loss plan, one where you keep
more lbm. I dunno what's worse starving while trying to maintain/build muscle or starving while losing muscle. I'm going with the former.

Do you think with those numbers that I'm starving myself though? I mean, are they too low?

I don't think that I could drop 8/10 lbs. a month with those numbers, but I guess I'll find out. I mean, I don't really know. 8/10 lbs. a month at my weight certainly isn't sustainable, unless I go from this diet to a crystal meth one.

180 wouldn't be bad. I think I could deal with that.

But I'm eating quite a bit of protein, 1g/lb on non-lifting days and 1.5g/lb on lifting days won't I be able to keep muscle at this rate while losing fat?

What do you suggest?