Reducing BF% ?!

[Blitz_]

Hey everyone, I've been searching through the forums for a while and finally decided to register. Would have done it easier but it gets a bit overwhelming when I've joined and currently quite active on other forums for cars, sports, audio/ visual componentry etc.

Over the past year and a half I've managed to get myself into a much better state of fitness. I was lagging at 108kg and a massive bf%. Today I'm happy that i've gotten to 17% bf and 83kgs.

So far, I've reached a sort of plateau. Going through a stack of articles and what not, I've tried to overhaul my cardio, weight training and nutrition. Some of it has worked, mentally I feel fantastic and rarely wake up anymore feeling like crap!

Anyway, I'm really eager to get going and drop down to at least 12% BF.

--------------------

These are my stats
1. 83kg
2. 17% Body fat
3. Weight training every two days ( whole body workout ) HIIT cardio inbetween and steady cardio everyday
4. 19 and 6ft (182cm?)
5. Goal - 12$ BF, 80kg

--------------------

Any suggestions or advice to dropping down? What would be the optimum plan for attacking this problem?

--------------------

Nutrition wise I eat 6 meals a day. It gets a bit slack sometimes, especially in the afternoon. However I do make sure not to eat any fast foods, or generally crap that is high in saturated fats and high GI.

A typical day

Meal 1.
3 Weatbix + one cup blueberries + one cup low fat milk

Meal 2.
Small container - brown rice + one tin tuna

Meal 3.
Wholemeal roll - baby spinach + turkey + assorted vegetables

Meal 4.
Up and go. Basically two weetbix and milk in a drink. Good mix of protein and carbs, low fat.

Meal 5.
Lean chicken / Red meat + lots of green vegetables

Meal 6.
Post workout out shake, approx 30-40g Protein

--------------------

Weight training consists of a hour or so session involving compound exercises. I usually do either a session whereby I do 3 reps of 6, increasing the weight when I can reach 10. Or doing a 6 or 7 exercises, 2 reps of 6, and doing it all over again to make it two circuits.

--------------------

Cardio is mixed. I will admit whole-heartidly I skip it at times due to being tired after work. I am a warehouse picker and go very quick for 9 hours, we get incentive based pay, and being 19 and earing AUS$40 an hour is the tits. I want to see if 30 minutes of brisk walking and 20 minutes elliptical every day, mixed in with 20 minutes HIIT every other day will improve with calorie burn and fitness.

--------------------

A few questions popped up into my head

1. Is brisk walking considered a decent form of exercise to fill in time and increase general well-being and fitness?

2. I do HIIT on a bike machine, is 1 minute on, two minutes off, for 20 minutes a good routine to burn calories quick and have a decent afterburn?

3. What would be the best way of calculating the amount of calories you should consume each day? As well as ratio of Protien / Carbs / Fats. There are numerous 'calculators' out there.

4. Worth investing in a Heart rate monitor?

Cheers for any help and advice guys. I'll post up my program rogress pictures soon and see how it goes. If I'm able to lose over 20kgs, I know I can get my BF% lower..just need to get over this plateau

 

[Tatyana]

Hey everyone, I've been searching through the forums for a while and finally decided to register. Would have done it easier but it gets a bit overwhelming when I've joined and currently quite active on other forums for cars, sports, audio/ visual componentry etc.

Over the past year and a half I've managed to get myself into a much better state of fitness. I was lagging at 108kg and a massive bf%. Today I'm happy that i've gotten to 17% bf and 83kgs.

So far, I've reached a sort of plateau. Going through a stack of articles and what not, I've tried to overhaul my cardio, weight training and nutrition. Some of it has worked, mentally I feel fantastic and rarely wake up anymore feeling like crap!

Anyway, I'm really eager to get going and drop down to at least 12% BF.

--------------------

These are my stats
1. 83kg
2. 17% Body fat
3. Weight training every two days ( whole body workout ) HIIT cardio inbetween and steady cardio everyday
4. 19 and 6ft (182cm?)
5. Goal - 12$ BF, 80kg

--------------------

Any suggestions or advice to dropping down? What would be the optimum plan for attacking this problem?

--------------------

Nutrition wise I eat 6 meals a day. It gets a bit slack sometimes, especially in the afternoon. However I do make sure not to eat any fast foods, or generally crap that is high in saturated fats and high GI.

A typical day

Meal 1.
3 Weatbix + one cup blueberries + one cup low fat milk

Add whey protein or boiled eggs, some source of protein. You do realise wheatabix has sugar in it. Switch to shredded wheat or oats.

Meal 2.
Small container - brown rice + one tin tuna

Add veggies or salad

Meal 3.
Wholemeal roll - baby spinach + turkey + assorted vegetables

Meal 4.
Up and go. Basically two weetbix and milk in a drink. Good mix of protein and carbs, low fat.

See meal one

Meal 5.
Lean chicken / Red meat + lots of green vegetables

Meal 6.
Post workout out shake, approx 30-40g Protein

You need carbs post workout, as well as another proper meal about 1 hour later. This is a good time to have red meat.

--------------------

Weight training consists of a hour or so session involving compound exercises. I usually do either a session whereby I do 3 reps of 6, increasing the weight when I can reach 10. Or doing a 6 or 7 exercises, 2 reps of 6, and doing it all over again to make it two circuits.

--------------------

Cardio is mixed. I will admit whole-heartidly I skip it at times due to being tired after work. I am a warehouse picker and go very quick for 9 hours, we get incentive based pay, and being 19 and earing AUS$40 an hour is the tits. I want to see if 30 minutes of brisk walking and 20 minutes elliptical every day, mixed in with 20 minutes HIIT every other day will improve with calorie burn and fitness.

--------------------

A few questions popped up into my head

1. Is brisk walking considered a decent form of exercise to fill in time and increase general well-being and fitness? Yes

2. I do HIIT on a bike machine, is 1 minute on, two minutes off, for 20 minutes a good routine to burn calories quick and have a decent afterburn? Yes

3. What would be the best way of calculating the amount of calories you should consume each day? As well as ratio of Protien / Carbs / Fats. There are numerous 'calculators' out there. Katch McArdle formula based on lean body tissue, it is on this site on a thread called help to sort out your diet. The ratio of carbs/fat/protein is more down to biochemical individuality, you will have to sort that out with experimentation, trial and error.

4. Worth investing in a Heart rate monitor? I have one, quite useful, not exactly an essential but I am fond of gizmos.


Cheers for any help and advice guys. I'll post up my program rogress pictures soon and see how it goes. If I'm able to lose over 20kgs, I know I can get my BF% lower..just need to get over this plateau

If you are doing a full body workout every second day, you may be overtraining.

I would say full bodyworkout for most people twice a week.

This is more likely to increase lean tissue, therefore decreasing bodyfat.

 

[Blitz_]

Hey! Thank you for your reply. Weetbix, at least the stuff we get here in Australia, has 1.1g of sugar for the serving I have. Is this too much? Initial thoughts were that it was rather small considering other cereals or forms of typical breakfast. Better of eating oats + bluberries + whole eggs?

Cheers for the thread, insane write up. Using Katch-McAdle I worked out that I am 151lbs in lean mass, and 31lbs in fat, based upon my 17% BF.

Using the calculations my TDEE is 2883 calories, and for fat loss I will start by gradually reducing my caloric intake by 15%. This leaves me with approximately 2380 calories per day. I reduced it slightly more because I read further and noted in the article that there is 3500 calories in 1lbs of fat.

I hope this seems right, pretty sure I wasn't that bad at maths at school

Hopefully a 5% BF reduction in 3 months is viable, I know I have the mindset but nutrition and sticking to a cardio program seem to be letting me down. I'm not so much wanting to bulk up, but tone and keep flexibility and such for soccer, etc.


Cheers for the reply Tatyana.


p.s. damn you americans and your non-metric nonsense
lbs, left hand drive cars? damnnnn

 

[Blitz_]

Went and got measured on proper scales and what not today.

In a couple of weeks I've basically stayed the same weight just about, dropping only half a kilo. However, my body fat percentage has dropped from 17.8% to 16.3% in two weeks. Bumping up cardio really does work, as does keeping workout sessions efficient and to schedule

 

[princesa]

hi

welcome to EF!

 

[Blitz_]

Thankyou! I'll try and be more active in the forums, just been caught up with cars and what not

Can't wait to really hit the cardio and refine what I do at the gym! Might need gyno surgery though if the moobs don't disappear

 

[jagerbombme]

Hey everyone, I've been searching through the forums for a while and finally decided to register. Would have done it easier but it gets a bit overwhelming when I've joined and currently quite active on other forums for cars, sports, audio/ visual componentry etc.

Over the past year and a half I've managed to get myself into a much better state of fitness. I was lagging at 108kg and a massive bf%. Today I'm happy that i've gotten to 17% bf and 83kgs.

So far, I've reached a sort of plateau. Going through a stack of articles and what not, I've tried to overhaul my cardio, weight training and nutrition. Some of it has worked, mentally I feel fantastic and rarely wake up anymore feeling like crap!

Anyway, I'm really eager to get going and drop down to at least 12% BF.

--------------------

These are my stats
1. 83kg
2. 17% Body fat
3. Weight training every two days ( whole body workout ) HIIT cardio inbetween and steady cardio everyday
4. 19 and 6ft (182cm?)
5. Goal - 12$ BF, 80kg

--------------------

Any suggestions or advice to dropping down? What would be the optimum plan for attacking this problem?

--------------------

Nutrition wise I eat 6 meals a day. It gets a bit slack sometimes, especially in the afternoon. However I do make sure not to eat any fast foods, or generally crap that is high in saturated fats and high GI.

A typical day

Meal 1.
3 Weatbix + one cup blueberries + one cup low fat milk

Meal 2.
Small container - brown rice + one tin tuna

Meal 3.
Wholemeal roll - baby spinach + turkey + assorted vegetables

Meal 4.
Up and go. Basically two weetbix and milk in a drink. Good mix of protein and carbs, low fat.

Meal 5.
Lean chicken / Red meat + lots of green vegetables

Meal 6.
Post workout out shake, approx 30-40g Protein

--------------------

Weight training consists of a hour or so session involving compound exercises. I usually do either a session whereby I do 3 reps of 6, increasing the weight when I can reach 10. Or doing a 6 or 7 exercises, 2 reps of 6, and doing it all over again to make it two circuits.

--------------------

Cardio is mixed. I will admit whole-heartidly I skip it at times due to being tired after work. I am a warehouse picker and go very quick for 9 hours, we get incentive based pay, and being 19 and earing AUS$40 an hour is the tits. I want to see if 30 minutes of brisk walking and 20 minutes elliptical every day, mixed in with 20 minutes HIIT every other day will improve with calorie burn and fitness.

--------------------

A few questions popped up into my head

1. Is brisk walking considered a decent form of exercise to fill in time and increase general well-being and fitness?

2. I do HIIT on a bike machine, is 1 minute on, two minutes off, for 20 minutes a good routine to burn calories quick and have a decent afterburn?

3. What would be the best way of calculating the amount of calories you should consume each day? As well as ratio of Protien / Carbs / Fats. There are numerous 'calculators' out there.

4. Worth investing in a Heart rate monitor?

Cheers for any help and advice guys. I'll post up my program rogress pictures soon and see how it goes. If I'm able to lose over 20kgs, I know I can get my BF% lower..just need to get over this plateau

brisk walking for 30 minutes straight would be good
HIIT works. i like sprinting better. or an elliptical, from what i've read standard hiit is 30 seconds on 30 seconds off
writing down what you ate is a good way to count your calories
hr monitor for what? are you cycling? if so get a omron auto digital bp monitor and check it 3X per day. it'll also tell you your hr. im thinking of getting a hr monitor myself however it's cause half of them on the ellipticals in my gym don't work

i don't know what time of day your training but your eating alotta sugary carbs. try this, this has been working amazing for me

cardio in am on empty stomach 30 minutes
meal 1
eat protien and fat shoot for 50g protien 15g fat, good fat
meal 2
whey shake 50g protien and pick up 15g more fat
meal 3
food again same as meal 1
pwo
whey shake with some carbs, no fat and take an ala
meal 5
food here, 50g protien and some long acting carbs like oats/whole wheat, no fat here
meal 6
50g protien and 15g fat

do this 3 days in a row, and then eat your diet on the 4th, then go back to this for 3 days. try that and see.

 

[DJLegacy2k1]

^^^Normally when cutting you want your carbs in the EARLY part of your day and cut carbs LATER in the day. Your last 2 meals should normally be Lean protein and healthy fats.

But if its working for you thats all that matters! :-D

-Legacy

 

[Sim882]

While Tat's diet advice is all good, I think wheetbix in Aus is different to UK, as its 99% wholegrain and doesn't really have any significant added sugar in it (http://www.weetbix.com.au/weetbixfamily/weetbix-original.aspx).

The up and go though is a different story and MUST be removed from your diet. If you want something sweet, consider nestle non-fat diet yogurt, but you could still do lot better (meat and veggies)

 

[Blitz_]

I had a better look at the up and go and it's definitely off now, what threw me off straight away was the ridiculously high level of sugar in it.

I've reworked a few things and came up with this. Bearing in mind I can only go to the gym mid to late in the afternoon, around 6 - 8pm because of how work and other commitments go.


Meal 1

4 egg whites + 2 egg yolks
2 slices wholemeal or grain bread
OR
oatmeal .lol Australian weetbix with berries

Meal 2
Tuna + salad OR brown rice
1 scoop of protein shake - bumps the meal up to 400 calories and also protein

Meal 3
Lean protein + salad OR w/meal roll

Meal 4
cottage cheese OR oats OR tuna again

Meal 5
pre workout meal - lean protein + complex carbs

Meal 6
Post w/o shake
approximately 50g protein, 12g fat, 2g sugar, 20g carbs



Around 2400 calories as mentioned before.