Thread: So here is what I'm planning on eating and excercising, thoughts.

Goals? Bulking, cutting - what?

What kind of training will you be doing?

How tall are you, how old are you and how do you eat now?

How many calories and how many grams protein, carb and fat does this turn into?

Well built I'm kind of scared considering the recent praise you've received lately

But, my goal right now is strength and a little bulking.

I'm 5'8" and weigh 212 as of today, I'm 31 years old. I have been on the HCG diet for 30 days tomorrow and have lost 31lbs. Therefore I'm eating very well, and very little, but my mind and body are already conditioned to eating only those lean proteins and veggies, adding carbs will just be a treat . My goal is to drop about another 30-40 pounds before I start this regimen.

I haven't got to the actual grams breakdown of the diet, this is more of a philosophical look at what I'll be doing. I'm hoping to do the typical break down of 40/40/20 or so and consume between 3,000-3,800 calories a day, depending on how the first few weeks goes.

Hopefully with what I'm doing supplement wise, ref: "What do you think of my 'cycle'" in Supplement forum, I'll be able to build a decent foundation for further building and eventually (maybe next year) cutting up.

I have a very large bone structure for my height and I think I could walk around at 185 with 13-18% BF pretty easily.

Love to hear your thoughts.

Oh yeah, I'm planning on doing Steve Shaw's Strength and Density workout, at least for the first 6 months or so.

Thought of another question. Do you think it would be ok for me to start training once I up my calories to the transition diet for the HCG? I will be eating the same just no size restrictions and slowly adding back in dairy and carbs?

personally, i think there are waaaaaay too many shakes in there......and not enuff of real food....especially postwo...regardless of diet goals, food should be more predominant in your set-up jmo

cwilson, kindly read the link in my sig on "getting started" and report back with your planned macros.

Macro breakdown for 3 days of just food is as follows based on fitday with no cooking oils added:

Carbs - 785g
Protein - 751G
Fat - 108

No shakes in these figures

751 grams of protein?

Why?

That's just how it worked out. According to fit day. I just tripled up a normal day to simulate 3 days of diet.

Oatmeal for breakfast (1.5 cups)
6oz. Skinless chicken breast, brown rice (1.5 cups) with mixed veggies (1.5 cups) 4 times a day

It did seem really high in protein to me too.

OH MY GOD.

<smacks forehead>

What is your average, actual intake per day? Calories, grams protein, carb, fat.

Ok, since this is seemingly reached a ridiculous level I went back and did one days worth of food with no shakes, here is what I got.

Carbs - 90.3 g (48%)
Protein - 68.3 g (36%)
Fat - 14.9 g (17%)

your protein intake is very low, you need to add more chicken, red meats, tuna into your diet and less shakes

Originally Posted by cwilson

Ok, since this is seemingly reached a ridiculous level I went back and did one days worth of food with no shakes, here is what I got.

Carbs - 90.3 g (48%)
Protein - 68.3 g (36%)
Fat - 14.9 g (17%)

But you'll also be consuming shakes, right? Add those in and report back. Include total calories as well. Why so little fat?

Ok, so I did some serious tweaking and this is what I came up with (still doesn't look right though):

Calories - 3,072
Carbs - 295gn (38%)
Protein - 287g (looks like to much) (39%)
Fat - 81g (23%)

Day consists of:

Breakfast:
1 cup oatmeal
4 egg whites
1 whole egg
2 whole wheat toast slices

Meal #1
Med Chicken breast boneless skinless baked or roasted
1 cup brown rice
1 cup veggies

Meal #2
Same

Shake

Meal #3
Same

PWO Shake
2 Bananas
1 cup cottage cheese

????????????? Am I even close?

Well, how much lean mass do you carry, and based on this, how much protein and fat should you consume?

What are your maintenance calories, and over what period of time do you intend to drop the 30 lbs you spoke of earlier?

How comfortable do you think you'll be on the diet you've proposed for yourself?

My plan is to drop the 40 lbs before I start the new bulking diet, with the HCG diet shouldn't take over 60 days. I've lost 32 (12% BF loss) in 28 days so far.

At that point I will be at 170 and hopefully around 20% BF, so that would be 136 lean mass.

So my maintenance would be 2,550 a day.

As far as comfort, I think I would be fine. Be more eating (time wise) than I have ever done but they are good cals and I think the diet is fairly solid???

You lost a lot of weight in a very short period of time. How many calories a day did you eat while you did this, and how many grams of protein, carb and fat?

What bodyfat do you figure you're at right now?

Ok, sounds crazy but this is a doctor prescribed hormone diet using HCG (Human Choriogonadotropin), invented by Dr. Simeons.

500 cals a day
Carbs - 44g
Protein - 41g
Fat - 10g

I'm currently at 34% body fat. Started at 46% 28 days ago.

Okay, so you started at 244 lbs and 46% bodyfat, ate 500 calories a day and dropped 32 lbs in 28 days. You ended up at 34% bodyfat and 212 lbs - which implies you somehow gained 8 lbs of lean mass, up to 140 lbs from the 132 lbs lean mass you carried at 244 lbs. You consumed 500 calories a day while you did this; if the first 7 lbs was water and you dropped 25 lbs of fat, you ran a deficit of 3100 calories a day - which was likely higher than your maintenance when you began. On such low calories, there is no possible way you gained muscle - more than likely, much of the weight you dropped was muscle. More than likely, you lost the water bound to glycogen, some fat, and some muscle (muscle doesn't hold as much stored energy as fat - where a pound of bodyfat holds about 3500 calories of stored energy, a pound of muscle is basically a pound of steak, and a pound of steak has about 500-600 calories).

Most non-obese folks maintain on about 13-15 times their bodyweight, as a rough estimate. Were you not obese when you started, your maintenance calories could have been around 3400. On 500 calories a day, even at this high maintenance you could not have dropped this much fat in such a short period of time. If your actual maintenance calories at 244 lbs was 3000 calories a day, the outside limit for fat loss would have been 20 lbs. My money says you dropped a substantial amount of muscle on this diet. How was your bodyfat assessed?

The way they test body fat is through a body composition scale that runs electrical current through the body while weighing.

Your numbers are pretty accurate as far as beginning and ending weights and percentages.

I realize that I probably lost some muscle but it's hard to believe it was a majority. The main reason being the loss in overall size in my body. Doesn't fat take up more volume than muscle? I've lost major inches like 3" or above around my chest, waist, bum and neck. I'm sure the diet isn't full proof but I think is legitimately working. Either way, when I'm done with it, still on it, I will have a need to build back or create new muscle.

Ah, this explains the bodyfat level. BIA is really, REALLY inaccurate. Based on the timeline, your starting and ending parameters, and the calories you ran, you probably lost about 5 or so lbs of water, maybe 15 lbs of fat and about ten pounds of muscle. You can expect your losses to slow as you continue with this diet, and I guarantee you will not drop what you expect in the timeframe you state. I would not continue to diet in the way that you have. Muscle is easy to lose, but very, very hard to gain.

HCG doesn't protect lean mass; neither does it increase the rate of fat-loss.

Ok, so here is the 55 million dollar question. When I do discontinue this diet. What should I do? I'm assuming some sort of transition diet will be necessary to acclimate my body back to normal eating, then what?

I hear that you should bulk then cut, but I would prefer something that will build lean and clean of the extra baggage.

I suppose your just going to tell me to follow the "start here" stuff right?

If you haven't read it yet, yes, please do. My personal opinion would be to take a two-week diet break at what should be your maintenance, then if you want to drop more weight quickly, try Lyle McDonald's "Rapid fat loss".

I have read it and will check out what your talking about. Thanks. Should I add a fat burner to my supps?

Investigate ephedrine + caffeine. Otherwise, no.

Originally Posted by Built

If you haven't read it yet, yes, please do. My personal opinion would be to take a two-week diet break at what should be your maintenance, then if you want to drop more weight quickly, try Lyle McDonald's "Rapid fat loss".

Is that better then UD2? Im looking into reading one of his books. Rapid fat loss or Ultimate Diet

UD2, you need to already be fairly lean.

Yep =) just found that out. Going to read some of this man's stuff, heard many great things.

Built, do I need to buy the book or is there a breakdown of the fundamentals online?

There are a few here who have run it (damayor comes to mind). Do a search, post up what you're thinking and I'll pop in and make sure you're gtg.