Shedding off the wieght.

[Gymbecile]

I'm a 17 year old Male.. And over the past 6 months, I've gained about 40 pounds, making me 196 pounds. I tell people how much I wiegh, but they usually don't believe me *in a good sense* So It's not like I'm obese, but I'm not happy with this wieght at all. So about 2 months ago, I decided I was gonna take action and lose the wieght. I joined the forums at http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/ and asked how I should go about it. They gave me a list of supplements that were invaluable or helpful, and told me what they did and such. I got LOTS of supplements. Calcium, Chromium, Vitamin B, Vitamin C, ZMA, Flax Seed Oil Pills, Protein, Creatine, Glutamine... And it was time to make a meal plan... And suddenly, no one would help me over there anymore.. So 2 months later, I wiegh the same *or more*, I have all these supplements... And I don't know what to do! There are so many different diets.. I basically just want to burn this fat off as fast and efficiently as possible, and I'm willing to work as hard as it takes to do it. The stats I got are basically...

Age: 17
Wieght: 196 LBS.
Gender: Male
BF% *estimate.. sorry* 20%

I just want some help making a meal plan and.. Generally getting me on the right track. I was told about these forums.. And since ABCBodybuilding sucks, and I've heard good things about this place, here I am .

 

[javaguru]

What is your current diet? If you don't know then you need a food log to track EVERYTHING you eat. Some people, like myself, do better on a high protein moderate fat and carb diet while others require a keto diet. A few do very well on high carb low fat diet. You need to figure out which type you are and go from there. That's why it's important to keep a food log.

 

[trialbypinoy]

if you don't know your bf %.. you can checkout mybodycomp.com, start a free account and it'll take you through steps on how to figure out your bf%

 

[Gymbecile]

The thing is.. Right now I don't really *have* a diet plan. What I'm taking in shouldn't really be taken into consideration because I can tell you right now, I shouldn't be eating it. That's exactly why I want to start a diet plan.. If I fail to plan, I'm planning to fail >_<.

 

[javaguru]

You should know your current KCal requirements as well as the levels of macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats) you're taking in. Randomly assigning a caloric level is not optimal IMO.

 

[Fantômas]

A good starting point (until you know better how your body responds to various macronutrient ratios) is to first identify how many calories you you need daily. You gotta have a deficit or you won't lose anything. ROUGHLY 12-15x body weight is maintenance level. So about 500 calories less than that should be your daily total. Within your caloric needs, make sure you're getting at least 1g protein/lb body weight. Eat like 5-6 times a day (divide calories into small meals every 2-3 hours) so you're gonna have to do a little homework on the nutrients/calories in different foods. Keep it clean as you can.

You probably didn't get a lot of advice on how to take all those supplements (which arent wholly necessary anyway, imho) because they either don't take them themselves or they don't wanna be responsible for how YOU take them. Read the bottles, act accordingly is my advice.

 

[Gymbecile]

Then my maintenance would be 2352.. Minus 500 / 6 = 308.. So six meals a day, at 308 calories each? Should I evenly spread 196 of protein over the 6 meals? How many carbs should I be getting?

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Find you BMR, and eat 500 less than that. You'll lose roughly a pound a week.

To find your BMR either multiply your bodyweight by 12 or...

-Divide your weight by 2.2 (to get your weight in kilograms).
-Multiply that by 24 (hours in a day)
That's your BMR.

Then determine activity level. So...
BMR x AL
---1.0-1.1 Rather sedentary all day
---1.1-1.2 Light office work, on feet some of the day
---1.2-1.3 Heavier work, on foot most of the day - carpentry and such
---1.4-1.5 Prof. athlete

Not exact with the activity levels, but it'll give you a good idea. Multiply your BMR by 1.1 if you're sitting most of the day. That's how many cals you need to maintain. Subtract 500. Eat that much. Lose weight.

 

[Gymbecile]

Hmmm, ok *nods* But how should I allocate my protein throughout the day? And how many carbs should I get? How much of the protein should be from supplements? Sorry I'm bombarding with questions.. I just hunger for information .

 

[Fantômas]

Don't get too caught up in the details right away. Get the basics down, then tweak.
Try to evenly distribute your protein into each meal (post workout shake excluded). Get as musch of it from real food as you can. If it's more convenient or needed to make up the difference somewhere, then go for supplements. Carb/fat/prot ratio is pretty subjective. Different people get different responses on high/low carb diets. Start with "moderate" carbs. Then when you start to get a gauge on how your body is responding, you can move ratios around.
Thats my $0.02 anyway.