Thread: Estimation of time to reach a fairly decent BF%? First cut..

Theres too many variables, but if you do lots of fasted cardio and eat the right amount of the right foods you should be able to cut around 10lbs per month but this is just an estimate you could do more depending on your calorie deficit but remember you will be cutting down muscle not just fat. As for 10% bf it really isn`t likely by june but that isn`t to say that you couldn`t cut down alot of bf by then.

Intermittent fasting is the way to do it, with cardio done in the morning when you've not ate for a good 10-12 hours.

I'm still lifting as well, so on training days I eat a surplus of calories (about 300) and on non training days I run a deficit of about 400.

So far I've lost 4lb in 2 weeks however, I now actually have abs My strength on my big lifts is the same or better so I'm happy that I'm not losing much muscle tissue, if any at all.

Take a look at leangains.com some very useful info

Originally Posted by redz

Theres too many variables, but if you do lots of fasted cardio and eat the right amount of the right foods you should be able to cut around 10lbs per month but this is just an estimate you could do more depending on your calorie deficit but remember you will be cutting down muscle not just fat. As for 10% bf it really isn`t likely by june but that isn`t to say that you couldn`t cut down alot of bf by then.

Yeah I was worrying about going catabolic, I've heard its better to do it sort of semi-fasted with a shake or small meal beforehand

Originally Posted by MrKeenan

Yeah I was worrying about going catabolic, I've heard its better to do it sort of semi-fasted with a shake or small meal beforehand

my last cut I did fasted cardio for 1 hr every morning and still continued to gain strength. I wouldnt worry about going catabolic to terribly much.

21% BF at 250 lbs = 52 pounds of fat, 198 pounds lean mass
You want: 11%
Goal fat mass = x:
x = (198 + x)*.11 --- solve for x
x= 24.5
52 pounds (current fat) - 24.5 (goal fat) = 27.5
Difference is about 28 lbs of fat.

Timeline is: June 1 = 14 weeks
Average fat loss is 2 lbs per week.
1 pound of fat is 3500 calories, so you need a 7000 calorie per week deficit.
That's a deficit of 1000 calories per day.

Catabolism/sanity check:
Using information from the following study:
A limit on the energy transfer rate from the hu... [J Theor Biol. 2005] - PubMed - NCBI

"A limit on the maximum energy transfer rate from the human fat store in hypophagia is deduced from experimental data of underfed subjects maintaining moderate activity levels and is found to have a value of (290 +/- 25) kJ/kg d"

The above, in layman terms:
Your daily energy deficit can only be 290 kilojoules per kilogram of fat you have before your body starts catabolizing itself.
Let's turn kilojoules into kilocalories (e.g. 'food calories') by dividing by 4.19
So about 69 calories per kilo of fat. Or divide by 2.2 for 31 calories per pound.

That's the maximum fat loss rate possible. If you push it, and everything is perfect. It works out to 9 tenths of a percent of your current fat mass can be lost, per day, without losing too much lean mass. If everything is perfect. But since nothing is perfect, my rule of thumb is half a percent, per day.

Half a percent of 52 lbs is about 1/4 of a pound, per day. Or 1.75 pounds per week. That's your "safe and sane" *beginning* weight loss.

But, as you lose more fat, there's less fat to supply energy. So you can't lose fat as quickly. Your end goal is about 25 lbs of fat, so at the end of your diet, your "safe and sane" weekly weight loss limit will be about 3/4 to 7/8 of a pound.

28 lbs in 14 weeks is about 2 lbs per week. That's more than the above numbers. If you push the envelope, you might be able to hit 3 pounds per week in the beginning, and a pound a week at the end, which will give you your average of 2 pounds a week.

So a 1500 calorie per day deficit in week 1, with the daily calorie deficit lessened by 75 calories per week.
1425 cal deficit in week 2. Then 1350, 1275, 1200, 1125, 1050, 975, 900, 825, 750, 675, 600, and finally a 525 calorie daily deficit in the last week of May.

But, that's really pushing the limits. You will be keeping your body right on the edge of catabolism for 14 weeks. You'll need to be absolutely sure of how many calories you've eaten, how many calories you burned in a workout, your resting metabolic rate, and your basal rate during the day. Being off by 100 calories might cost you some muscle.

Personally, I'd just go for a 1000 calorie deficit until the end of March, and then a 500 calorie deficit for April and May, and be happy with the 19 lbs of fat loss. If you decide to push it, good luck.

Great reply mate, my calories at the moment are around 3500 cal a day which according to the calorie calculator I'm using I'm just above maintenance level, however I have made steady gains with this amount of calories (this is only due to being on a budget). So would you suggest the deficit coming from this number? Or the specific number of calories I should be taking in, this being .. 4016 cal? Because a deficit of 1000 cal in March would mean I am basically only 500 cal off my normal bulking diet. Also may I ask on how much cardio a week you would recommend?

Your calorie intake will (should) change each day depending on whether you worked out or not, and also might change depending on your activity level. If you're active at your job, you need to eat more on those days. Desk jockey and weekend warrior? Adjust accordingly.

Step 1: figure out your resting metabolic rate so you know how many calories your body needs simply to exist.
Step 2: figure out how many additional calories you need above resting for each acivity you do. e.g. if you walk around at work a lot, add 200-400 or so calories. If you're a desk jockey, maybe add 100. Figure out how many calories you burn on leg day, back day, etc.
Step 3: Add up the numbers for each day and eat accordingly.

For example:
Your base rate is 2500 kcals. You're a car mechanic, so you're active at work and burn an extra 400 kcals on work days. You're doing German volume training on leg days, plus accessory work, for a whopping 700 calories. Chest days you figure 300, back days 400.

Monday you go to work and hit the gym for leg day, so:
2500 + 400 + 700 = 3600. Now subtract whatever deficit you figured out, say 1000. So Monday you eat 2600 kcals.
Tuesday is just work and no gym. So 2500 + 400 - 1000 = 1900.
...finish the week...
Now Saturday, you don't work. But maybe it snowed and you had to shovel. Or cut the grass. Or the wife found you and gave you a honey-do list. So even though you're not working that day, you still need to account for the additional energy needs. So the 400 you didn't add for work becomes 250 or 500 or whatever you figure you used.
Sunday... aaahhhh Sunday. No work, no gym, just football on TV. So Sunday is 2500 - 1000 = 1500.
So you see how your daily intake will vary. In the above example, it goes from 1500 kcals to 2600 kcals. If you make the mistake of just averaging it out and eating the same every day, you'd be losing no fat on Sunday, and catabolising lean mass on Monday.

As for cardio, do as much as you want, but don't forget to take it into consideration when eating. Personally, I like cardio because I can eat MORE food, yet still lose weight. And cardio helps spare lean mass, so on the whole I'd say it's a plus. Up to you how much you do though.

What would you suggest my base rate is though? It should be 4016 cal but I've been on 3500?

Post some full body pictures. Just going by your avatar I would say you are 25-28% bodyfat.

Originally Posted by MrKeenan

What would you suggest my base rate is though? It should be 4016 cal but I've been on 3500?

4000 sounds really high for a base rate. It might be your rate on training days, but I doubt it's your true base rate.

Plugging your stats in, I come up with about 2900 calories for you as a base rate (i.e on non-workout, non-work days).

Now modify that rate *day by day* by adding calories burned at work, training, working around the house, etc.

I think you used a calculator that asks you about activity level. If you answered "very active", then you need to be "very active" every day. Remember you'll have to adjust your calorie intake to match each day's activity level, if you want to really push the speed of your weight loss.

I can tell you this...start last month!

Running a 1000 calorie deficit per day will get old super fast, and you'll feel like shit. I've been cutting basically since last year about this time. I was gonna compete, then about april I figured it wasn't going to happen, so for a few months I just maintained, but pretty much kept cutting. I realized two things. 1. Staying lean, or a lean bulk, if any, for me, will be the way to go from now on. 2. Losing weight slowly is way easier for the body and you can keep way more muscle.

Oh and yea, "IF" is that shit! 10 grams of BCAA's though before your fasted cardio.

Originally Posted by Merkaba

I can tell you this...start last month!

Running a 1000 calorie deficit per day will get old super fast, and you'll feel like shit. I've been cutting basically since last year about this time. I was gonna compete, then about april I figured it wasn't going to happen, so for a few months I just maintained, but pretty much kept cutting. I realized two things. 1. Staying lean, or a lean bulk, if any, for me, will be the way to go from now on. 2. Losing weight slowly is way easier for the body and you can keep way more muscle.

Oh and yea, "IF" is that shit! 10 grams of BCAA's though before your fasted cardio.

How come you decided not to compete mate?

intermittant fasting pushes your body into starvation mode. Dont give you metabolism a rest, keep feeding it every 3 hrs (6 times a day).
I've tried CKD with great success.
Cardio first thing in the morning with a calorie deficit should do it. You will not lose 10% bf in 12 weeks so dont put that as your goal. A realistic goal of something like 1 pound of fat a week is what you should be aiming for.
Diet + cardio + weights is all that you need.
green tea, cla, fish oil are good healthy supplements. For accelerated fat loss you can try ECY stack.

Originally Posted by melvinakshay

intermittant fasting pushes your body into starvation mode. Dont give you metabolism a rest, keep feeding it every 3 hrs (6 times a day).
I've tried CKD with great success.
Cardio first thing in the morning with a calorie deficit should do it. You will not lose 10% bf in 12 weeks so dont put that as your goal. A realistic goal of something like 1 pound of fat a week is what you should be aiming for.
Diet + cardio + weights is all that you need.
green tea, cla, fish oil are good healthy supplements. For accelerated fat loss you can try ECY stack.

Not true. Are you familiar with leangains.com and the principles behind the 16/8 fasting/feeding regime?

LOTS of people have mad awesome results, myself included. I'm dropped about 7lb in 5 weeks and my big lifts have gone up! It actually promotes fat loss when you work out after a period of fasting.

You will be keeping your body right on the edge of catabolism for 14 weeks. You'll need to be absolutely sure of how many calories you've eaten, how many calories you burned in a workout, your resting metabolic rate, and your basal rate during the day.

Originally Posted by melvinakshay

intermittant fasting pushes your body into starvation mode.

Intermittant Fasting can be an effective tool in cutting body fat and adding muscle.

There is pleny of documentation on it.

Here's a good article by Dr John Berardi (PhD Nutrition).

Berardi's results and his clients.

T NATION | John Berardi's Great Fasting Experiment

Kenny Croxdale

John Berardi released a pretty good ebook for free about different IF protocols, go search for it. Very interesting read.

Originally Posted by lee111s

Not true. Are you familiar with leangains.com and the principles behind the 16/8 fasting/feeding regime?

LOTS of people have mad awesome results, myself included. I'm dropped about 7lb in 5 weeks and my big lifts have gone up! It actually promotes fat loss when you work out after a period of fasting.

I'm trying to find the link on the site but I can't find it, could you post it up mate?

Take a look here Intermittent fasting diet for fat loss, muscle gain and health: Training

I'm still lifting as well, so on training days I eat a surplus of calories (about 300) and on non training days I run a deficit of about 400.

Originally Posted by lee111s

Not true. Are you familiar with leangains.com and the principles behind the 16/8 fasting/feeding regime?

LOTS of people have mad awesome results, myself included. I'm dropped about 7lb in 5 weeks and my big lifts have gone up! It actually promotes fat loss when you work out after a period of fasting.

I tried IF for 4 weeks and it didn't do shit for me -_-

and yes I did fasted cardio/lifting. but I ate close to maintenance.

Here is another opinion on fasted cardio. I think it's best to read both sides of a story in order to become better informed of the differing opinions!

Quoted from rippednaturally.com

Myth: Doing cardio first thing in the morning is the best way to lose fat from cardio.

This has to be the biggest myth around! Do cardio when you feel like you have the most intensity to do it (which for me is in the evening). Also, keep your cardio workouts short and intense. You don't have to do it on an empty stomach, have a protein/fat meal before you do it, this allows more GH to be secreted efficiently while you do it, then eat carbs after. Remember the hormone insulin prevents GH from being secreted, eating too many carbs (especially simple carbs) before an intense workout is not smart.

The fat loss benefits you will get from cardio is hormonal benefits that speed up your metabolism to burn fat afterwards. The more intense you do your cardio the more hormones will be secreted, specifically GH, TSH, T4, T3, and testosterone. Try interval training or short intense runs that are only like 10 - 20 minutes. Also do cardio only several times a week, not every day.

Remember, burning fat during cardio is not the real fat loss benefits you get from cardio, its all about adaptations to your environment, and this is all done by hormones.







edit: not saying anyone is wrong or that I believe this or that. I am unsure of which method works best, but I like to know both sides of a story.