Help Former Athlete Get Back To His Glory Days

[TomLo]

I'm looking for some guidance here; mostly as to whether I'm on the right track or not. Also open to any suggestions / advice that would be helpful.


A bit of background about me :


I'm 31 years old and currently weigh 315lbs at 6' tall.


I wasn't always fat. In fact, for the majority of my life I've been a highly competitive athlete and maintained a good physique. I played AAA baseball and was headed for a professional career when a brutal rotator cuff injury ended that dream. That was when I was 19.


In the years following, I managed to stay in good shape. But around age 25 after graduating and taking an extremely demanding job, I began to live a very unhealthy lifestyle that involved quite a bit of drinking, smoking and, worst of all, gluttonous eating. In the past six years, I've gone from a muscular 200lbs at my heaviest to my current weight.


I've managed to curb the drinking and have completely quit smoking in the last year and am now prepared to lose the weight, especially given my upcoming wedding in summer of 2013. My goal is to get down to a solid and defined 185-190lbs.


I obviously knew how difficult it is to lose such a massive amount of weight. As a result, I spent a few months researching how I'd do it. I also wanted to kick smoking first as it would simply be too stressful to aim for that as well as an approx. 130lb drop.


My diet has gone from daily takeout (absolute pure garbage with no nutritional value) to a diet rich in complex carbs, lean protein, etc, etc. in the past one week. I used to have close to five cans of Coke a day and have cut all soda out completely. I now drink only water, a morning shake consisting of spirulina, flax oil, bee pollen, almond milk, banana and blueberries, and black, sugarless espresso (and green tea before bed). I almost exclusively eat only chicken and fish and very rarely pork. I never eat red meat and never have. As it stands, my daily caloric intake hovers around 1400 minimum and 1600 maximum.


I'm lucky to be in a position where I now make my own hours and work from home (likely the only plus to come from getting so lost in my career the past six years). I live in a condo with a full-service gym that I use twice a day six days a week.


My fitness routine so far is as follows :


- Wake at 6:30am.
- At gym by 7am.
- 10min of light squash warmup by myself, followed by 20min of intense squash.
- 30min of speed walking on treadmill (usually burn around 350 cal; will eventually work up to a running HIIT).
- 1hr of lane swimming using webbed swim gloves. I keep my head and shoulders above water and alternate between an improvised front and back crawl using ONLY my arms. My legs do no work*. I do roughly 20-30 laps each time.
- 15min of sauna.
- After dinner, around 8pm, I return to the gym with my fiancé and complete 1hr of speed walking on treadmill, burning around 700-800 cal.
- Asleep by 10:30pm. Getting solid 8hr sleeps now compared to the 4hrs I would get before due to sheer workload.


I plan on doing this fitness routine for the next two months and am looking to lose approx. 35-40lbs in that time.


Beginning month three, I am looking to incorporate a weight routine. Also beginning in this month, I would like to taper off considerably from the first two months, and lose something more along the lines of 5-10lbs per month for the next year.


So, starting in month three, I'd like to work on the same schedule of being at the gym by 7am, but I'd like to replace the hour I spent playing squash and on the treadmill with an hour of weight training (still to be followed by an hour of swimming and the sauna). At night I would continue with my hour of cardio.


My problem areas are my huge gut, but even worse my love handles, back fat and man boobs. This is where I need your advice. I'm looking for a routine that'll target the hell out of these areas. Also, please consider how long it's been since I seriously lifted (close to seven years).


Questions :


- What are the best routines for targeting a gut, love handles, back and especially man boobs?
- Is it wise to swim following weight training?
- Right now, I'm drinking the above mentioned shake and crushing a power breakfast after my morning workout. Should I continue on this path or be filling doing the shake and/or breakfast BEFORE I hit the gym?
- What kind of shake should I have once I incorporate weight training?


My end goal is to be muscular, but lean. I know the first two months' weight loss seems intense, but I want to accelerate the loss and then do a combo of losing fat and building muscle over the next year.


I used to be able to throw a 90mph fastball and bench 250 (I know, not that impressive compared to most of you). Nowadays, I'm lucky if I can lift a chicken nugget up to my fat face without wanting to take a rest. I'm tired of looking the way I do, feeling the way I do and being so damn restricted in every aspect of life, especially since I once knew how it felt to be truly confident, athletic and ready for anything.


Any help is hugely appreciated. I'm dead serious about making a change. I hope you guys can respect that.


Thanks.

 

[exphys88]

Bro,
Your cals are way too low, you're going to lose muscle mass quickly. And your body is going to slow its metabolism way down.
You seriously need to do some strength training as well. It's difficult to maintain muscle when dieting and weight training, so without it your going to really lose muscle. If you lift, you're going to speed up your metabolism and burn even more fat.

 

[ThreeGigs]

exphys, I disagree. Tom, pay attention too, because as the weight comes off you won't be able to lose as much each month without cutting into muscle.

Ex, do a Google search and find this study:
A limit on the energy transfer rate from the human fat store in hypophagia
by Seymour S. Alpert

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1156, USA

In a nutshell, each pound of fat carried can supply about 30 calories per day before cutting into lean mass.
Tom is holding something like 120 lbs of fat, so the fat he has can supply about 3600 calories a day. That means he can run a 3600 calorie deficit. As he loses the fat, he'll be able to get less and less energy from fat, so he'll have to adjust his calorie deficit. However he indicated that he's planning to diet hard for only the first 3 months, and then start weight training and taper off the diet to lose 5-10 lbs a month. If his maintenance with exercise is 4000 calories, and he's eating 1400, plus 3600 available from fat, he still has a good safety margin of 1000 calories. Once he loses 30 lbs of fat though, he'll have to change up a bit so he's not demanding more energy than the fat can supply.

I think the plan Tom has laid out looks okay, although he seems to be pushing things really hard. If he keeps to it, and changes his diet and training once he's lost 30-40 lbs (which might be in less than 2 months from the look of things), he'll be okay.

Tom: Use your legs when swimming. The more muscles you engage, the more fat will be burned. Legs are BIG muscles, use 'em.
The gut, boobs and love handles will go away along with the fat, but you'll be left with extra skin, which may take awhile to shrink. Brace yourself for a year of droopiness, even after you've lost all the fat. It'll go away, but it takes time. Also, make sure you're getting plenty of calcium in your diet. 1500 milligrams a day, for sure. And it's better to get it from food than from supplements. Calcium helps accelerate fat loss, especially from the trunk region of the body. If you don't believe me, Google "calcium and fat loss" and look through the huge pile of studies on it. Also, what exphys88 said about weight training is true. Bigger muscles burn more fat, and weight training will help you keep as much muscle as possible while you're dieting.

 

[exphys88]

Even if what the study suggests is true, I still believe that that plan is a recipe for failure.

First, The more severe a diet is, the more likely it's going to fail. Do some people do it with such a drastic reduction in calories? Of course, but the majority will fail because of how strict the diet is.

secondly, In order to eat enough carbohydrates to fuel your workouts, enough fat to get your essential oils and enough protein to maintain your muscle mass, let alone add mass, you're going to have a tough time doing that w 1400 calories IMO.

I'm not saying that this is not possible. In fact people have done it (very small minority), but I think there is a more reasonable and realistic way to go about it.

 

[pjreiff]

Using myself as an example, here's my experience... I made the mistake of restricting calories off an already too low daily intake and ended up storing fat. Since the end of November 2012, I've almost tripled my daily caloric intake to approx. 3600 mainly from red meat, chicken, fish, and all the greens I want. I've gone from 20% to under 10% body fat while gaining muscle. I'll be competing in my first bb show in over 20 years and have never been in better shape.

 

[ThreeGigs]

Exphys, your point about getting enough vitamins, minerals and good fats is a good one. However, going by what he posted about the kinds of foods he's eating, I think he's got those bases mostly covered. As for carbs, his workouts are fast walking and swimming. He doesn't need carbs for those, and he did say his diet had complex carbs, so his body will get enough without having to resort to gluconeogenesis. And for the few months he's planning on keeping things the way they are, his body fat will protect his muscle mass.

pjreiff, you posted experience about 20% body fat. The OP is roughly 50% body fat. People really only have to worry about their metabolism when the ability of their fat mass to supply energy is exceeded by the energy they use each day. In the OP's case, his fat will supply him with 3600 kcals a day. He's eating 1400. So as long as he doesn't burn more than 5000 calories a day, his body will never have a shortfall of energy, and thus no need to suppress metabolism.

And all that said, yes the OP *will* have to change things as he loses fat. Once he's down to around 30% BF, everything exphys and pj said will begin to be important. But for now, even though it may sound very drastic, doing the math tells me he has a good safety margin.