First off, I want to thank everyone for the kind comments regarding my progress! I have received quite a few questions asking for details on what I did, thus the motivation behind this blog entry…
Nutrition:
I am convinced that the biggest impact and catalyst for my success was in changing my eating habits. Notice I didn’t say "diet." When I hear the word diet, things that come to mind are severe calorie restriction and/or drastically cutting (or even eliminating) an entire macro-nutrient ("low-carb" anyone?). Based on my research (and real-world observation), the "dieting" approach is highly ineffective at achieving permanent fat loss. Diets can be very effective at weight loss, but even with that, usually only in the short-term.
My eating habits center around consuming 6 full meals/day. This was very difficult to do at first, simply because eating that often (and doing it properly) requires a lot of pre-planning. Now, don’t get me wrong. Just sitting down and eating 6 times/day in and of itself is not all that difficult to do. It’s the combination of making sure that you’re getting the appropriate ratios of macro-nutrients in each meal, the appropriate number of calories, and spacing them out evenly every 2-3 hours that is the hard part. Make no mistake: THIS WAS THE SINGLE HARDEST PART OF ANYTHING I DID. The sheer planning of it all can become very cumbersome.
I happen to be a highly skilled user of Microsoft Excel, so I chose to manage the nutritional side of all this in a spreadsheet. There exists a free online database of food information managed by the USDA. Nutrient content for just about any food you can imagine is contained therein, so I downloaded it and put all the raw data into my Excel workbook. Next, I created what some may call a "dashboard" page, where I can input all my personal body stats and goals. Using the same formulas I posted in a previous blog entry, the spreadsheet automatically calculates how many calories I should be taking in, and breaks them up by meal. I even incorporated an option to taper calories and/or carb intake throughout the day (I tapered off both, by the way), so the spreadsheet accounts for that as well.
Using the raw food data from the USDA source, it is now very easy for me to plan my meals out. Basically, I just select different foods from drop-down menus that I have built-in, and the calories and macro-nutrient ratios for those foods are automatically shown. I can adjust serving sizes on the fly, and all the nutrient info updates automatically. Put a few foods together, and presto, I have a meal! The spreadsheet automatically calculates the nutritional sum total of all the foods I select, and by making simple adjustments to serving sizes of each food, I am able to hit my target amounts of carbohydrate, protein, fat, and calories at each meal.
I make up a lot of food ahead of time in bulk. For example, I oven-roast many chicken breasts all at once, then slice them up for later consumption. I can put it into pastas, on sandwiches, or just about anything really. I also bake potatoes ahead of time. After cooking, I chop them up into cubes and refrigerate them. I can then just weigh out what I want at a later point, throw them under the broiler for a few minutes and they’re done. I know you shouldn’t store raw potatoes in the fridge (all the carbs turn to sugar), but I’m not sure about cooked potatoes. All I know is it worked fine for me. I usually ate them as part of a breakfast meal. Anyway, you get the idea. Basically, anything that takes a long time to cook, I did ahead of time and made in bulk.
As far as my macro-nutrient ratios are concerned, I was on about a 50/30/20 (C/P/F) for the first two months, and then dropped to 40/40/20 for the third. I am currently eating in the middle, at 45/35/20 (I have also since switched to a "bulking" phase). My body type resembles that of an ectomorph the most, so while those ratios worked great for me, they may not be the best choice for everyone. Endomorphs and/or carb-sensitive individuals may have better luck with a slightly lower ratio of carbs - you’ll just have to experiment with it. Be that as it may, I am convinced that your total calorie intake is still more important than your macro-nutrient ratios. For that reason, I always stayed rigidly close to my calorie target at each meal, even if my macro-nutrient ratios flexed a bit.
My post-workout meal deviated from those ratios in that I basically ate 2:1 carbs to protein, with as little fat as possible. It is best to get in a meal as quickly as possible after a workout, and this is the one time you would prefer simple, fast digesting carbs to the slow ones (along with a good whey protein). There are varying opinions on whether or not you should consume fats right after a workout, but it is a fact that fats slow down the digestion of food, something you’re not looking for in this case. As such, many suggest limiting your fat intake in a post-workout meal. Others make the opposite argument. My suggestion would be to do your own research and decide for yourself. This approach worked for me, but that doesn’t mean I would have had any less success had I chosen to include the fat. Only experimentation will let me know for sure.
Another thing I did was to rotate in a "HI" day every 4th day (also detailed in my previous blog entry). The theory is that if you stay on a calorie deficit for too long, your body will simply adapt by slowing down its metabolism and you will have diminishing results (a big reason traditional "diets" fail). By coming off the deficit every 4th day, and eating my "maintenance level" of calories, I essentially gave my metabolism a boost and prevented adaptation from setting in. These new eating habits and their underlying principles all combined to do one thing: RAISE MY METABOLISM! And that, as I stated above, is what I believe to have made the biggest impact in shedding the fat from my body. Make sure you’re getting your carbs from good sources; whole grains, vegetables, etc. Limit saturated fat intake and never eat any transfat. My protein comes predominately from fish, eggs, chicken, skim milk and protein powder. And drink lots of water!
Cardio:
Let me just say I HATE cardio, in general. While its not entirely accurate to say I hate running, going out for a run just for the sake of running is one of the last things I would like to do. Regardless, when I started back in February, I planned on doing early morning fasted cardio on my "off" days from the gym. That meant 4 days/week, and it was to be in the form of running the neighborhood streets. I wanted to do it in the morning on an empty stomach because the theory is that you will start burning fat for energy right away, as opposed to having to burn up any food you just put into your system first. Thinking back over the last 4 months, I would say I probably ran a grand total of about 6 or 7 times, no more than 20 minutes each! It wasn’t exactly easy to have the motivation to get out of bed and go run, something I wouldn’t even want to do if I was fully awake!
Fortunately, it turns out I needed very little cardio to achieve my fat loss goals. Once I realized I was still losing 1-2 lbs of fat each week without running, and retaining my lean muscle, I simply quit trying to force myself to do it - I didn’t have to. Granted, I rode my bicycle to and from the gym 3 days/week (about 15 minutes each way), but that is basically it. One of the advantages to having an ectomorph body type is that you can get away with less cardio than most. However, it remains to be seen if I can actually put on significant muscle mass with the same relative "ease" as I was able to shed fat. Stay tuned!
My point to all of this is that I think most people overestimate the role that cardio plays in fat loss. While it is definitely important (to varying degrees depending on body type), it is not the end-all, be-all solution. Admittedly, cardio is the only type of exercise that burns fat directly. But, research has shown that doing cardio combined with weight training and proper eating habits is a superior strategy for losing fat than cardio alone. Why? Because weight training and proper eating habits attack fat in an indirect way that cardio can not - by raising your metabolism! Which do you think would have a greater impact? Doing 60 minutes of fat-burning cardio every day, or increasing your metabolism so that you’re burning an ever-increasing amount of calories ALL DAY LONG, even while you sleep? Work SMARTER, not HARDER!
Weight Training:
My workouts were actually pretty simple. I had two main goals in the weight room:
- Get in and out in an hour or less
- Progression
Training for more than an hour puts you at increased risk of over-training, and that is also the point where you start seeing diminishing returns on your effort. Again, everyone is different, so that is just a common guideline that I used. By progression, I simply mean that I went into the gym with the goal of doing something, anything, more than my previous workout. More reps, more weight, same of each in less time (less rest between sets) - didn’t matter. As long as it was something.
For the first 3 months I did whole-body workouts, three times/week. Given my hour time limit, that meant 1-2 exercises per muscle group, 2-3 sets each. I also made extensive use of supersets in order to get as much work in as possible in the time allotted. Basically, I used my rest time between sets to work another completely different muscle. For example, after finishing my 1st set of a chest exercise, I might immediately go do my 1st set of biceps. Then back to chest, and so on. The specific muscle groups are still getting rest between sets, but I am making more efficient use of my time. I stuck primarily with free weights - the only machines I really used were the cables for seated rows, triceps pushdowns, and lat pulldowns (eventually graduated to pullups).
I chose to go with whole-body workouts because I hadn’t done any weight training in almost a year, and was still relatively new to it anyway. However, I believe any kind of weight training program, anywhere from full-body workouts to 4-day splits (which is what I do now) will accomplish the intended objective - PRESERVE LEAN BODY MASS. The thing to remember here is that the whole point of working out while trying to lose fat is to preserve as much lean mass as possible, not to build more. It is very difficult for most individuals to add muscle mass while in a calorie deficit, a state which you must be in if you want to shed fat. However, weight training will certainly help you preserve most of it, and some individuals can even experience some incremental muscle gain. If you are lucky enough to be a part of the latter group (I am not), consider it a bonus!
Not weight training at all (doing only cardio) is a bad idea, because you will lose significant muscle right along with the fat. It is actually easier for your body to burn muscle for energy than it is to burn fat! Muscle is metabolically active tissue - fat is not. The more muscle you have, the more energy is required to sustain it. In other words, the more muscle you have, the HIGHER YOUR METABOLISM (do you see a recurring theme yet?)! That is why it is so important, and yet another reason traditional diets fail.
Tracking:
Tracking my progress has been instrumental in my success! Seeing my results over time not only served as a great motivational tool, but a wonderful feedback mechanism to let me know if/when I needed to alter anything in my approach. First thing every Monday morning I weigh myself on the scale and take a skin fold to measure my body fat. I also took monthly progress photos. For the skin folds, I use Accu-Measure 3000 calipers. They are designed for self-testing, very easy to use, provide consistent measurements, and are inexpensive. I highly recommend them to anyone who is ~30% body fat or less (40% if you are female). Those over that would be better served by taking body circumference measurements, as calipers tend to give less consistent readings in those with higher body fat percentages.
My goal was to lose 1-2 lbs of body fat each week while retaining lean body mass. By taking weekly readings, I was able to see if I was actually accomplishing that. For the first two months, that is exactly what I did. However, once I started approaching single digits, the fat loss rate slowed. That was part of the motivation to alter my macro-nutrient intake the final month. I probably would have been equally served (probably better) by just increasing my cardio, but you know me!
Notice I didn’t cut calories more. That approach almost always backfires. The more restricting a diet, the more quickly your body will adapt. In this case, “adapt” can be translated into “slow down your metabolism.” It is almost ALWAYS a better idea to increase activity instead of decreasing calories. It’s what I should have done - I probably would have hit 7% body fat if I had done so.
What I want you to take away from this is that without the weekly tracking, I wouldn’t have known to do anything! Worse yet, I wouldn’t have even known if I was on the right track after the 1st couple weeks. That may very well have led to me abandoning the effort entirely, due to the cumbersome nature of planning out all those meals. Knowing that what I was doing was working is what kept me in the game. You won’t be able to see the subtle changes from week to week simply by looking in a mirror, and a simple scale reading isn’t going to tell you anything about your body composition. You must measure where you’re at each week, and make minor tweaks when necessary to make sure you keep heading in the right direction.
Summary:
Thank you for reading my blog entry! Again, this is intended to serve as a narrative of what worked for ME. I whole-heartedly believe that these principles and strategies can be applied to almost anyone, and they too will experience the same success as I have, provided they are willing to put in the effort. The concepts are simple, but putting them into practice is far from easy. That said, everyone is different, and it would be rather arrogant of me to suggest that the way I did it is the only way, or that the tactics I employed will work for absolutely everybody.
If you are currently trying to shed unwanted body fat, I hope you have at least found the above information helpful in your quest. Summing up:
- Eat frequent meals (of proper calories and macro-nutrients from good sources)
- Drink plenty of water
- Weight train at least 3 times per week (no more than 1 hour per session)
- Do appropriate amounts of cardio
- Track your results!
- REST (8 hours, EVERY NIGHT)
Good luck in all your pursuits!
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