Please help me past this plateau.

[anyuser]

Hello all,

For the past year I've been dedicated to diet and exercise. I'm 32 years old, male, 6' tall and at my peak a year ago I weighed 270 lbs. Now I'm down to around 206 (it varies from 203-209 lbs) and seem to be stuck here for the last several weeks. The cheap plastic body fat calipers say I'm around 20% body fat.

My routine has been 30 minutes of walking/jogging on my treadmill every morning. I rarely ever skip a day. So far I haven't lifted weights but I'd like to start.

My diet has been just sort of "common sense" so far. I quit eating fast food and junk food and only eat what I get from the grocery store. I only drink water or black coffee. On a typical day I eat 2 packs of ramen noodles, a chicken breast, a can of tuna, several ounces of cashews, and lots of fruits. I sometimes eat several bananas, apples, and oranges in a single day. I estimate my total caloric intake to be around 2000.

My goal is to be as lean as possible. I wouldn't mind building muscle mass in the process but it's not a priority. I'm happy with the progress I've made so far but I'm ready to step it up a notch and get rid of the rest of this fat. What should I do? Would supplements and/or steroids help me?

Thanks,
anyuser

 

[Endo MD]

First let me say congratulations on losing 60+ lbs. That's a really nice accomplishment.

I think what you'll hear a lot from on this board is to incorporate some lifting. Weight training will build muscle mass, which increases metabolism, and therefore helps to lower body fat. Since it sounds like you workout at home, even if you just mix in a little combo of pullups, pushups, and air squats, that will be something to make your body work a little harder. Don't just do pushups. That's a big mistake that can lead to major shoulder problems. You need to counter it with a back lift, like pullups.

I'd say your diet is consisted of mostly the right things, but maybe the wrong quantities. Ramen noodles (I could be wrong about this) are full of sodium and are probably making you hold excess water that could hamper your working out. Also, "several ounces of cashews" is a lot of cashews and to be honest not really the best choice. Cashews (and I could be wrong about this too) I believe are a legume, so they are more like a bean than a nut. They have a fair amount of carbs and if you're eating 6 ounces a day then that's 900 calories! I'd switch to almonds or walnuts and cut down to 1-3 ounces a day. The other thing I'd say to watch out for is bananas. It's great that you eat so much fruit but bananas can be considered pretty calorie dense. Try to stick with more apples and oranges.

2000 calories would be a decent number to shoot for if you're still trying to lose weight. Do some research and use a website like calorieking.com to actually count the number of calories you're eating in a day. You may be way over what you think.

 

[Castro_bigdog]

2 packs of ramen noodles a day? dude them things are not really that good for you.... everything in your diet other then that looks to be in check... you mite want to start lifting 3 days a week for a half hour... it will not take that much time to do it and you will love your look

 

[Ami1]

Not sure about the noodles. Looks like you need to add some weight training
Helps burn any fat your body lays down

 

[joe d]

eat 4-6 well balanced meals per day.

your last 2 meals should be zero carb

do your cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach

mix up the intensity on the cardio try run, jog, walk, run, jog, walk all within that 1 cardio session.

do pushups, situps, and dips 3x per wk after your last meal

 

[joe d]

i would cut some fruit also stick with 1 apple and 1 bananna per day. add some green veggies. spread thenuts out throughout the day between meals

 

[George Spellwin]

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