Thread: Maintenance @ 1500?

Another one that's a good one is selenium, which is required for proper deiodase enzyme function (T4 deiodates to the active T3 through deiodase enzyme in muscle and liver tissue). I take 200 mcg selenium daily.

Indeed, keep the salt in your cutting diet, for sure.

Originally Posted by Built

I like your idea, Yanick - I'm thinking "lean on the carbs" for those couple of weeks, to stimulate leptin/thyroid. Thoughts?

Depends on what you mean by lean. I'd say at the very least 150-200g/day, if I up my kcals I want the carbs there so I can train my ass off and create an environment conducive to some lean tissue gains.

To the OP, don't do it for a 'few days.' You're just spinning your wheels if you do it for a day or two. You need to pick the Kcals up for atleast a week (no data behind this, just my anecdotal experiences). To be completely sure I'd do it for 2 weeks personally. With clean food, you'll get stronger in two weeks, maybe put on a bit of muscle, reset your metabolism, and the fat loss acceleration will absolutely make up for the two weeks you might feel you lost.

alright thanks for your help so far everyone

my plan
2000 calories a day for the first week starting today and bump up to 2500 next week

what are some things i shold be eating (types of lean carbs, more protein)

would an extra whey shake help?

oh and cardio? yes no maybe so?

Opinions vary, but overall for carbs you have; WW bread, Brown Rice, Fruit, Berries, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes. I eat a cup of pasta here and there, go whole wheat if you are nervous.

Protein you have your chicken breast, lean cuts of beef (i eat eye of round), fish (salmon, tuna, pretty much any fish is full of protein and fairly lean or full of omega 3's), Turkey, I'll eat lamb every so often (its fatty so account for that in your daily macros), protein shakes, eggs/egg whites.

For fat you have all the naturally occurring animal fats from your protein sources, olive oil, heavy cream/half and half, peanut butter (it also has a good amount of protein and carbs so account for that in your daily macro's), salad dressings.

Don't forget to get in your veggies, the more the better and start tracking daily at FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal

Sign up for free, and put your food in at the end of the day. Keep a piece of paper and pen with your, scribble down everything that passes your lips, estimate portions when you need to and put start tracking your BW relative to your intake. Things will start making sense in no time.

awesome and what do i do if i start putting on weight/ fat?

Originally Posted by bodom

awesome and what do i do if i start putting on weight/ fat?

Keep lifting hard and get stronger.

You will gain weight there is no question. There will be a pretty drastic increase in the first few days, its all water and glycogen. Don't freak out and cut calories. After a few days, with fluid/glycogen balance reached, you will plateau. At the end of the two weeks you may gain a bit of weight, do not freak out and cut calories drastically. A clean diet, a proper training regimen and adequate rest will ensure that those pounds will be mostly water and glycogen with muscle coming in at third and maybe an oz or two of fat. You want to over shoot at this point, because it means you will have reached your 'roof' so to speak of your metabolism. Once you hit it, your body will sort of 'reset' and you can then drop 500 or so to create a deficit to start shedding the fat.

NB; the minuscule amount of fat you might gain will be gone in no time flat and the return on fat loss with an accelerated metabolism will be worth a lot more than trudging along eating like a teenage girl.

Oh and as far as activity. You can keep it how it is. The extra food/carbs will help you train harder, you'll probably be able to progress your lifts. If you have been doing cardio, you can keep doing it, or you can cut it down but I wouldn't leave it out completely. I try and get atleast 2 cardio sessions in per week, mostly though I do low intensity cardio on my days off but leave one day of complete rest per week.