Questions about cardio,

[jbish8]

I understand the need to question information, but why don't you question Venuto's information? That information has, in fact, been questioned, and some of it has proven to be incorrect. I mean, it's OK to question when someone presents you with new, uncomfortable ideas. But you have to constantly evaluate your current ideas to make sure they're correct and beneficial.

BFFM has worked for you - that's fine. The main idea of dieting is calories in - calories out, so as long as one follows that rule, he/she will lose weight. You started out significantly overweight and you have made progress, which is most important. However, you have to evaluate whether a diet like BFFM will be successful in dropping your body fat now that you don't have an excessive amount of it. I'd argue that a person who is significantly overweight could choose many different plans to diet down to leanness. It's much harder for a lean person to diet down to very low levels of body fat, which is where I think information like that in BFFM fails.

I think there is no dispute that some of BFFM's ideas are somewhat outdated, at least as far as what Tom claimed they did, and for the reasons why they worked. He himself has admitted to some of these (such as the six meals a day thing), which is commendable IMO. As far as BFFM failing to get people to low BF levels, my personal experience says otherwise. His program is exactly what I used to get in the 5% range (and stay close to it for a good year so far I might add). Is there a BETTER way (as I lost some LBM in the process)? I hope so, and am willing to experiment to see, but to say it fails is completely false.

Look....so far from what I've learned here, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and I don't know if you've even read BFFM, but from what I've seen of Lyle's stuff (which hasn't been a whole lot yet: UD2 only) the programs aren't really that much different. One just takes it a little farther, and explains the reasons a bit better (this being Lyle). I may be a little naive and or superficial, but I based my decision on using BFFM on the impressive physique Tom claimed to have gotten from using his own program. Cause of this same attitude, I had some skepticism about Lyle's program, as the dude doesn't really have much a physique to speak of (he works at place I used to frequent), but I know he's a scientist, not a bodybuilder. Since then, I've changed my opinions based on the success people on this forum have had using his programs, and am planning to use his program on my next cut.

Bottom line.....to say that BFFM fails is wrong, however, I believe it isn't for everyone. It obviously works for many, as I know I'm not an anomaly. I also believe Lyle's program works for many, so who cares as long as we all get what we want?

 

[gigaplex]

See this is what I wanted to know in the other thread but was ignored. There is something you need to know about this health crap. It can get old really fast, believe me (us) we have been there. I'm, personally, not going to argue the scientific intricacies of meal frequency or ratio dieting or whatever. I'm going to let you in on a little secret...If you feel tortured sometimes now, when your results are astounding (because you're new to this) and while the passion is burning deep inside you because this is all new and interesting stuff. Imagine yourself years from now, the results will be be barely noticeable, the novelty will wear off, but the torture will stay. I'm going to tell you something that you probably think you'd never hear on a BB'ing board. Eat 3 square meals a day not because its better or worse...but because it allows you to actually live your life without having to worry where or how your next meal is going to be eaten. Have a cheat meal with your buddies, hit the bar, get drunk, maybe get laid. You'll be much better off in the long run. Take it from someone who's been there, back, there and back again, then around the block a few times, then to some other place and back again...Balance is the key and the neurotic ratios and weekly skin folds and such will get old pretty fast.

It is actually kind of a relief to hear you say that. Alcohol was the first area where I deviated from the strict BFFM diet. It was last year around this time (yes I did this diet before but threw my back out and so stopped). I was going to go on a float ride with my friends and if you've ever been on one of these you know that it involves very large amounts of alcohol. I knew it could set me back a week or two but didn't care because I hadn't drank anything in months and hey I deserved at least one party weekend that summer. So I went to the BFFM forum and started asking how to minimize the damage assuming I am going to put down at least a 12 pack and oh my god you would have thought I said I worship Satan. Very little advice, but lot's of "Shame on you" type talk. It really ticked me off. I ended up going anyway and drinking heavily

I do think it was a good idea though to stop drinking all together at the beginning. You have to understand I was putting down well over a case every single weekend and sometimes drinking during the week. Quitting all together like that kept me focused. I ended up using my weekends to study this information and perfect my diet and make it easier with spreadsheets and so on. For me, it just seemed like the right path to aim for the perfect diet and make sure that I got it down and am getting good gains THEN start modifying things and seeing what I can get away with. So knowing the relative importance of the different elements seems important so I can slack off strategically But yeah, now I do go out occasionally and drink with my friends. I am largely over the phase you are talking about although not completely.

 

[gtbmed]

True, there are many ways to train and diet. Venuto himself has stated that diets really need to be tailored to fit individual needs like satiety and lifestyle. The best rule of dieting, IMO, is that if you can't adhere to it, then it's not an effective diet. We all differ in the style of diet we can best adhere to. For me, that diet would not be one with 50% of the calories coming from carbs. So for me, a diet like that would fail.

I suppose I was speaking more from personal experience and what I said wasn't really extendable to everyone. I just know that eating a diet with those ratios would leave me hungry. After restricting my carbs a bit, I found myself much more satiated throughout the day.

 

[jbish8]

True, there are many ways to train and diet. Venuto himself has stated that diets really need to be tailored to fit individual needs like satiety and lifestyle. The best rule of dieting, IMO, is that if you can't adhere to it, then it's not an effective diet. We all differ in the style of diet we can best adhere to. For me, that diet would not be one with 50% of the calories coming from carbs. So for me, a diet like that would fail.

I suppose I was speaking more from personal experience and what I said wasn't really extendable to everyone. I just know that eating a diet with those ratios would leave me hungry. After restricting my carbs a bit, I found myself much more satiated throughout the day.

Sounds like we're on the same page, and I do understand that lower carbs are more satiating for some.

 

[jbish8]

See this is what I wanted to know in the other thread but was ignored. There is something you need to know about this health crap. It can get old really fast, believe me (us) we have been there. I'm, personally, not going to argue the scientific intricacies of meal frequency or ratio dieting or whatever. I'm going to let you in on a little secret...If you feel tortured sometimes now, when your results are astounding (because you're new to this) and while the passion is burning deep inside you because this is all new and interesting stuff. Imagine yourself years from now, the results will be be barely noticeable, the novelty will wear off, but the torture will stay. I'm going to tell you something that you probably think you'd never hear on a BB'ing board. Eat 3 square meals a day not because its better or worse...but because it allows you to actually live your life without having to worry where or how your next meal is going to be eaten. Have a cheat meal with your buddies, hit the bar, get drunk, maybe get laid. You'll be much better off in the long run. Take it from someone who's been there, back, there and back again, then around the block a few times, then to some other place and back again...Balance is the key and the neurotic ratios and weekly skin folds and such will get old pretty fast.

Yanick, I really like you based on what I've heard from you at this forum. Infact, many of my best friends have your same attidude and they are definetly my favorite guys to hang around. Because of that, I hope you don't take what I say negatively. First of all, you'll have to excuse me if I don't put a whole lot of stock in all your vast "around the block" dieting experinece unless you were logging your breast milk on fitday straight from the womb. Your 23!! I realize you've been a member here for a while, but it's not like everyone else has just been stuffing their faces thinking that it was healthy.
Ok, maybe some people have. Believe it or not, I've been around the block too and I can do it on a 2 wheeler, without training wheels!! Yaaaaaay! I agree with you balance is the key, but you may need to realize different levels of balance work for different people. I've actually tried your "laid back, Matthew Mchonahey" approach. So are the guys I mentioned earlier, (they're all overweight, by the way), and that may work for you, but it certainly doesn't for me. Luckily, I've never experienced this torture you speak of, infact, it is only getting easier as I go. I have never enjoyed life more now that I have the energy to keep with my 4 energetic kids and I never feel hindered by the few minutes a day it takes to maintain the healthy habits I've learned. I don't mind taking away from my beer drinking and barhopping to do so, and I'm getting laid far more than I was previously.
I can also guarantee that when I'm older and skydiving and barefoot skiing in between my visits to my "chill" friends gravesites and resthomes, that I will be glad I stuck to my structure.

I guess my point is that my level of structure may not be "badass" and I may not be in harmony with the universe, but I am living life fuller by far than when I wasn't.

 

[Built]

It is actually kind of a relief to hear you say that. Alcohol was the first area where I deviated from the strict BFFM diet. ...<snip>...

So I went to the BFFM forum and started asking how to minimize the damage assuming I am going to put down at least a 12 pack and oh my god you would have thought I said I worship Satan. Very little advice, but lot's of "Shame on you" type talk. It really ticked me off. I ended up going anyway and drinking heavily

These kinds of people think very small. They focus on your failures and not on your successes.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "THE" PERFECT DIET.

There is no way to diet perfectly. Six meals or one, no carb, low carb, low fat, high fat, ketogenic, cyclic... they're all good for some reasons, not good for others.

And for the love of GOD, have a donut sometime. Shit. I mean, I didn't get into this lifestyle so I could suffer and eat sawdust for the rest of my days! You wouldn't believe the grief I've taken on some boards for eating butter <gasp!>, or on other boards for using dextrose and white rice as part of my diet.

I do think it was a good idea though to stop drinking all together at the beginning. You have to understand I was putting down well over a case every single weekend and sometimes drinking during the week. Quitting all together like that kept me focused.

This was wise. I'm not a drinker, but I can see how getting out of "the lifestyle" for a while takes a lot of other bad habits along with it.

I ended up using my weekends to study this information and perfect my diet and make it easier with spreadsheets and so on. For me, it just seemed like the right path to aim for the perfect diet and make sure that I got it down and am getting good gains THEN start modifying things and seeing what I can get away with.

Having lost a lot of weight many times, and this last time having lost it and kept it off, I think I hear you - by "perfect" you mean "OH MY GOD IT'S ACTUALLY WORKING - NOBODY BREATHE!"

I went through this with Atkins, which was where I started this journey. And I'm sure I was just as irritating with MY diet as you have been with YOUR diet. LOL. I suppose I cringed a bit reading your first posts here. They could have been mine with "Atkins" subbed for "Venuto" and "low carb" subbed for "clean eating". <shudders> Yanno, we grow.

So knowing the relative importance of the different elements seems important so I can slack off strategically But yeah, now I do go out occasionally and drink with my friends. I am largely over the phase you are talking about although not completely.

I'll all about the strategic slacking.

To address Yanick's post, I take this as the sentiment: if you CAN eat and train by feel, and make it work, DO SO.

But to also address jbish, some of us can't really get away with that - not for extended periods of time. I can for a month or two, but I invariably gain weight and have to diet again. The good news is that I know HOW to diet, now, so when I DO relax and go off plan I actually CAN relax and go off plan. I know what to do when it's over, I have an end-date and an exit plan, and I just diet off what I put on during my break. No biggie.

Peace.

 

[Yanick]

Yanick, I really like you based on what I've heard from you at this forum. Infact, many of my best friends have your same attidude and they are definetly my favorite guys to hang around. Because of that, I hope you don't take what I say negatively. First of all, you'll have to excuse me if I don't put a whole lot of stock in all your vast "around the block" dieting experinece unless you were logging your breast milk on fitday straight from the womb. Your 23!! I realize you've been a member here for a while, but it's not like everyone else has just been stuffing their faces thinking that it was healthy.
Ok, maybe some people have. Believe it or not, I've been around the block too and I can do it on a 2 wheeler, without training wheels!! Yaaaaaay! I agree with you balance is the key, but you may need to realize different levels of balance work for different people. I've actually tried your "laid back, Matthew Mchonahey" approach. So are the guys I mentioned earlier, (they're all overweight, by the way), and that may work for you, but it certainly doesn't for me. Luckily, I've never experienced this torture you speak of, infact, it is only getting easier as I go. I have never enjoyed life more now that I have the energy to keep with my 4 energetic kids and I never feel hindered by the few minutes a day it takes to maintain the healthy habits I've learned. I don't mind taking away from my beer drinking and barhopping to do so, and I'm getting laid far more than I was previously.
I can also guarantee that when I'm older and skydiving and barefoot skiing in between my visits to my "chill" friends gravesites and resthomes, that I will be glad I stuck to my structure.

I guess my point is that my level of structure may not be "badass" and I may not be in harmony with the universe, but I am living life fuller by far than when I wasn't.

You misunderstand my point a bit. I sit home all day and read, I weigh all my food, I log onto fitday everyday (sans refeeds), I have journals upon journals of workouts. I'm also probably the oldest 23 y/o you'd ever meet, I'm a goddamn old man. I don't go out anymore, I barely ever drink, I train, read and look for work. I've been around forums and BB'ing for close to 10 years now, seriously logging and tracking and reading for probably 8 or so (I started at 16 and will turn 24 in a few weeks). I haven't and won't try all the different diets out there and I'm not trying to sound as if I have. My there and back comment was based on how I started as a 230lb fat ass 13 y/o, trained and dieted down to 160, trained and dieted up to a muscular 235, then down to 190, then 205 and just recently I came back from a 1 year lay off where I peaked at a fat 242...I'm currently pushing 220. Some of those transformations were with the typical BB'er, 6 meals, calipers every week blah blah blah. It was great for a year or two, then I burnt out on the constant structure and stress of an extra millimeter here or 5 less grams there. Maybe it was youth or my personality but as far as lifestyle goes, its unmaintainable for me because I don't make a living off of it and can't justify spending almost all of my free time preparing foods, doing measurements, planning diets, eating and training. I'm still searching for that perfect mix of healthy, but not neurotic eating which will allow me to maintain myself in the long term. My favorite way of dieting up to this point was carb cycling, I was pretty lean, strong, and big and I drank 3 days out of the week, went out, made out with women and had fun. Not the most optimal way but it was balanced and maintainable. I don't want all that BS anymore and I sit my ass home and weigh out everything that goes in my mouth. When I start working 12 hour shifts and going to school full time you damn well better believe I won't have the time/energy to cook and eat 6 meals, train, read/study etc. Life is dynamic and the word diet should be eliminated and replaced with lifestyle...otherwise you're just kinda spinning your wheels.

EDIT; I also just realized I've been at IM for 7 years. Holy shit, I need to get a life.

Just to summarize really quickly, I want to say that when I give advice its geared toward a regular joe. Not the next Mr. O. Regular Joe's have tons of commitments outside of the gym/kitchen and life throws them curveballs left and right that bumps dieting/training down a couple of notches. An appropriate lifestyle needs to factor these things in. What does BFFM (or anyother 'hardcore' BB'er diet) say when you need to work for 12 hours, then take your kid to a soccer game, then take em out for pizza afterward and then maybe get a bit of studying or something else in before you pass out to only get 6 hours of sleep for the night?

 

[jbish8]

You misunderstand my point a bit. I sit home all day and read, I weigh all my food, I log onto fitday everyday (sans refeeds), I have journals upon journals of workouts. I'm also probably the oldest 23 y/o you'd ever meet, I'm a goddamn old man. I don't go out anymore, I barely ever drink, I train, read and look for work. I've been around forums and BB'ing for close to 10 years now, seriously logging and tracking and reading for probably 8 or so (I started at 16 and will turn 24 in a few weeks). I haven't and won't try all the different diets out there and I'm not trying to sound as if I have. My there and back comment was based on how I started as a 230lb fat ass 13 y/o, trained and dieted down to 160, trained and dieted up to a muscular 235, then down to 190, then 205 and just recently I came back from a 1 year lay off where I peaked at a fat 242...I'm currently pushing 220. Some of those transformations were with the typical BB'er, 6 meals, calipers every week blah blah blah. It was great for a year or two, then I burnt out on the constant structure and stress of an extra millimeter here or 5 less grams there. Maybe it was youth or my personality but as far as lifestyle goes, its unmaintainable for me because I don't make a living off of it and can't justify spending almost all of my free time preparing foods, doing measurements, planning diets, eating and training. I'm still searching for that perfect mix of healthy, but not neurotic eating which will allow me to maintain myself in the long term. My favorite way of dieting up to this point was carb cycling, I was pretty lean, strong, and big and I drank 3 days out of the week, went out, made out with women and had fun. Not the most optimal way but it was balanced and maintainable. I don't want all that BS anymore and I sit my ass home and weigh out everything that goes in my mouth. When I start working 12 hour shifts and going to school full time you damn well better believe I won't have the time/energy to cook and eat 6 meals, train, read/study etc. Life is dynamic and the word diet should be eliminated and replaced with lifestyle...otherwise you're just kinda spinning your wheels.

Ok Yanick, maybe what I said was a little harsh, or at least the way I said it. I can be a little sarcastic sometimes, so I apologize (for in the future too.....to everyone). As far as being the oldest 23 year old I'd know, I've already met him. It was me.....and every other currently 23 year old in the world. Oops, I did it again. I kid...I kid!! Seriously though, it's possible that I may be a little sensitive to this subject, as I receive crap constantly from the same buddies I mentioned previously. Like I said, I've tried this method of living and honestly it wasn't bad. I never got over 15% (I'm guessing) while living this way and would probly' not be much heavier now had I continued living that way. I was happy and fairly healthy I think. I do think that there are those that can get away with this "lifestyle", but after trying both, I honestly feel much happier and much healthier. I also understand that it can be hard to fit in time wise what it takes to reach and maintain your goals, but I do think it can be done. I too have a job, bills to pay, four demanding kids, 12 brothers and sisters, 33 pets to feed..............You get the point. The trick IMO is finding what works for you, and planning a bit and preparing a bit and even if ya want too...only if ya think it helps....and can spare the extra minute.....pull out the calipers once a week. Arrrrrgggg I said it. Oh yeah, I was being serious. Look, I'm not trying to judge you, cause it does sound like you've been at this a while but all I know is Ya get out what ya put in and some of what you're saying just sounds like excuses to me. Maybe I'm just lucky, as it really is getting easier for me as time goes on. Sure, I'll have some nachos and even a doughnut, but honestly I actually like healthy food at this point. It's so much more satisfiying to me and I love finding creative ways to make it even better. Maybe I'm weird.
Anyways, I read ya and hope ya find what works for you for the long term.
It sounds like you've been through alot. Good luck.

 

[gigaplex]

Oh man, there is probably nothing that ticks off 23 year olds more than the age card. In fairness, you did pull it out first though, Yanick.

Now in my wise old age of 26, this is what I would always say when people pulled this on me: Take a look around at the world. Now what was this you were saying about your generation being smart? Yeah, exactly.

As old as you are intellectually or physically, you will get even older and then realize that when you say you are as smart as older people, you're not really giving yourself a compliment. So people just eventually stop saying this.

The important thing though that I get out of jbish8's post is that while we can make our diet's a little lax so that we can at least have a life to some degree, we can also work on finding more efficient and better ways of doing things so that we can still keep a lot of good things in our diet that would otherwise be too inconvenient.

For example, when I started BFFM, I was cooking for 18 hours to get everything ready for the week. That was my entire weekend. You want to talk about torture? That's torture. Perhaps you are familiar with this kind of torture? Anyway, I kept working on getting more efficient methods down and better meals and now I can get all my food ready (cooking and all) for the whole week in about 2.5 to 3 hours. How ever many of those meals I need portableportable and everything else I just microwave for a few minutes before eating it. That COULD fit into a college schedule without a problem.

So it's perhaps a little bit of both. Make some things efficient enough that you CAN do them and also weed out things that are just far to difficult to fit into your life which don't offer that much benefit.

 

[Built]

You spent 18 hours a week cooking lowfat food?

I don't even cook that long for things that taste GOOD!

 

[gigaplex]

You spent 18 hours a week cooking lowfat food?

I don't even cook that long for things that taste GOOD!

I had basically never cooked until I started BFFM. So this was coming from ground zero and initially it was an extreme disaster. I remember the first couple months I would screw things up so bad I could hardly choke the meals down. I mean we are talking some gross stuff - at least the way I cooked it. And I did all my cooking in the most inefficient way possible. Like, I would spend maybe 2 hours peeling the petals off of onions and cutting them individually. Eventually, I did actually learn how to cook. Man am I glad that's all over.

 

[Built]

OMG you sound like my husband making chicken and rice.

1. Boil water
2. Once the water is boiling, measure out the rice.
3. Measure out the water because some of it boiled off while you were measuring the rice.
4. Add more water
5. Wait again for it to boil
6. Add rice
7. Measure out salt
8. Add salt
9. Look for spoon
10. Stir pot
11. Look for lid
12. Put lid on pot
13. Turn down stove
14. Set timer
15. Wait
16. <ding!> rice is now cooked.
    
17. Now make chicken???

 

[jmorrison]

Oh man, there is probably nothing that ticks off 23 year olds more than the age card.

Which makes no sense. I am only 29, and I would kill to be 23 again, 21 would be better!

I am trying a new anti-aging program called "sleeping with much younger girls". It seems to be working, and I feel that I am aging in reverse.

Question: If lovemaking metaphorically makes two people into one, and I nail a 20 year old, does that make me:

1. 20 along with her
2. 24.5 as an average
3. slightly perverted

 

[Built]

1. No
2. Yes
3. More than slightly.

 

[jmorrison]

Does it help that she calls me her "personal pedo?" and that this doesn't bother me?

I need to reevaulate my life.

Someday.

 

[jbish8]

OMG you sound like my husband making chicken and rice.

1. Boil water
2. Once the water is boiling, measure out the rice.
3. Measure out the water because some of it boiled off while you were measuring the rice.
4. Add more water
5. Wait again for it to boil
6. Add rice
7. Measure out salt
8. Add salt
9. Look for spoon
10. Stir pot
11. Look for lid
12. Put lid on pot
13. Turn down stove
14. Set timer
15. Wait
16. <ding!> rice is now cooked.
    
17. Now make chicken???

Thanks. My rice is done.....but where's the instructions for the chicken??

 

[gigaplex]

OMG you sound like my husband making chicken and rice.

1. Boil water
2. Once the water is boiling, measure out the rice.
3. Measure out the water because some of it boiled off while you were measuring the rice.
4. Add more water
5. Wait again for it to boil
6. Add rice
7. Measure out salt
8. Add salt
9. Look for spoon
10. Stir pot
11. Look for lid
12. Put lid on pot
13. Turn down stove
14. Set timer
15. Wait
16. <ding!> rice is now cooked.
    
17. Now make chicken???

Yeah right. There are so many more steps than that! You make it sound overly-simplistic.

 

[Built]

Shit. I need to youtube "cooking for meatheads"... damn.

 

[gigaplex]

When I first started, I actually considered taping my cooking sessions as a comedy show for youtube. I'm telling ya, it would've been a hit.

 

[gigaplex]

I went through this with Atkins, which was where I started this journey. And I'm sure I was just as irritating with MY diet as you have been with YOUR diet. LOL. I suppose I cringed a bit reading your first posts here. They could have been mine with "Atkins" subbed for "Venuto" and "low carb" subbed for "clean eating". <shudders> Yanno, we grow.

Although I have decided to give the forum a chance and be a little less confrontational I do still think that cardio is beneficial for many even if just for the caloric advantage. The problem with just taking some extra calories out of a person's diet to get the same effect as the cardio is that in order to do that, the deficit percentage has to increase. So to achieve that same calorie deficit without increasing the deficit percentage, you can add cardio and eat a bit more so you are at the same percentage deficit but yet have more of a calorie deficit. If a person does not have hunger issues when doing cardio and is not losing muscle mass, they can actually get a bigger deficit doing cardio and so cardio would fit with their goals rather nicely. Now for a person in that situation, maybe cardio would be an easy thing for them to drop if they wanted to slack off a bit but as we just talked about, everyone has a different balance.

This is not even to say that the calorie deficit is the only thing that makes cardio fit with a fat loss goal but it is certainly an obvious one in my mind.

Also, I read the "Daredevils are Shredded" article. Interesting, perhaps true. Something that came to mind while reading it is that swimming is one of the best forms of cardio that I know of to increase mitochondria and the original question was about doing swimming as cardio. The reason I bring it up is because if I remember right the article said that it's method works better if you increase your mitochondria or something along those lines?

As far as where I stand with all this, well understand that I see Lyle, this forum, the thousands of new diets out there, and so on as I see a nightly build in the software world. Whereas I see Venuto's work more as a "stable release" in that it is a culmination, a separating of the wheat from the chaff, a filtering, the setting of a standard, getting common principles established. Releases don't come out as often as nightly builds do. You wouldn't want Venuto to come change the whole routine every 5 minutes in response to each bit of data that comes in - that is not the purpose of Venuto. I don't think that the Venuto bashers that bash Venuto just for the sake of bashing Venuto understand this.

There are a lot of people that know more about biochemistry than me, and they have all kinds of different ideas - some good, many bad, some correct, many incorrect, but they all have "good reasons" and many sound convincing and nearly all cite research. So while the cutting edge is new and exciting to many, to me it is the bleeding edge until I actually review the research that backs it all up, am forced to try something different, am convinced enough by anecdotal evidence to give it a quick try or something along these lines.

But with that said, I am at least interested enough to poke around in the forum a bit rather than shrug and walk away like any other forum. I will at least stick around the forum long enough to see what happens with jbish8's cut and if all that goes well maybe I'll buy the book and devote some time to serious study and then MAYBE I'll consider taking a different path. But for right now, my plan is still the BFFM cut even at the lower body fat levels. It doesn't mean my plan can't change and it is nice to see another viewpoint. But if I changed my mind without going to these lengths, it would just seem irresponsible and a possible waste of time. I dont' have enough time to try all the thousands of diets out there in the world so I first pick the well established.

 

[jbish8]

Although I have decided to give the forum a chance and be a little less confrontational I do still think that cardio is beneficial for many even if just for the caloric advantage. The problem with just taking some extra calories out of a person's diet to get the same effect as the cardio is that in order to do that, the deficit percentage has to increase. So to achieve that same calorie deficit without increasing the deficit percentage, you can add cardio and eat a bit more so you are at the same percentage deficit but yet have more of a calorie deficit. If a person does not have hunger issues when doing cardio and is not losing muscle mass, they can actually get a bigger deficit doing cardio and so cardio would fit with their goals rather nicely. Now for a person in that situation, maybe cardio would be an easy thing for them to drop if they wanted to slack off a bit but as we just talked about, everyone has a different balance.

This is not even to say that the calorie deficit is the only thing that makes cardio fit with a fat loss goal but it is certainly an obvious one in my mind.

Also, I read the "Daredevils are Shredded" article. Interesting, perhaps true. Something that came to mind while reading it is that swimming is one of the best forms of cardio that I know of to increase mitochondria and the original question was about doing swimming as cardio. The reason I bring it up is because if I remember right the article said that it's method works better if you increase your mitochondria or something along those lines?

As far as where I stand with all this, well understand that I see Lyle, this forum, the thousands of new diets out there, and so on as I see a nightly build in the software world. Whereas I see Venuto's work more as a "stable release" in that it is a culmination, a separating of the wheat from the chaff, a filtering, the setting of a standard, getting common principles established. Releases don't come out as often as nightly builds do. You wouldn't want Venuto to come change the whole routine every 5 minutes in response to each bit of data that comes in - that is not the purpose of Venuto. I don't think that the Venuto bashers that bash Venuto just for the sake of bashing Venuto understand this.

There are a lot of people that know more about biochemistry than me, and they have all kinds of different ideas - some good, many bad, some correct, many incorrect, but they all have "good reasons" and many sound convincing and nearly all cite research. So while the cutting edge is new and exciting to many, to me it is the bleeding edge until I actually review the research that backs it all up, am forced to try something different, am convinced enough by anecdotal evidence to give it a quick try or something along these lines.

But with that said, I am at least interested enough to poke around in the forum a bit rather than shrug and walk away like any other forum. I will at least stick around the forum long enough to see what happens with jbish8's cut and if all that goes well maybe I'll buy the book and devote some time to serious study and then MAYBE I'll consider taking a different path. But for right now, my plan is still the BFFM cut even at the lower body fat levels. It doesn't mean my plan can't change and it is nice to see another viewpoint. But if I changed my mind without going to these lengths, it would just seem irresponsible and a possible waste of time. I dont' have enough time to try all the thousands of diets out there in the world so I first pick the well established.

Ok...that's alot of words. I think my brain just exploded...<sniffs>...nevermind. It wasn't my brain. Guess I'm officially a guinea pig <snorts>

 

[jbish8]

I'm actually feeling bad that I've helped hijack the poor guy who started this thread, so I'm gonna save my comments for another place from now on. See ya everyone.

 

[Built]

I don't think it's bad to exercise your heart. It's just a poor thing to focus on for fat loss. It simply doesn't burn very much.

Now, the mitochodrial density is to burn off mobilized FFAs before they re-esterify. You only do stubborn fatloss protocol when you're very lean and looking to get the last little bits off - you're not going to mobilize much fat, but you want to mobilize the fat and not the muscle. SFP allows you to do this, a few grams of fat at a time, and in doing so, you give the mitochondria something other than muscle tissue to chew on.

Any kind of cardio will build mitochondrial density. So does high rep training. My feeling is that you do this part up front, so you're well conditioned enough to have SFP work well once you're there.

Put it this way - you do NOT want to be trying to build your endurance base on no food.


I honestly think there's a bigger place for regular cardio when bulking. That's when you're eating more, eating more carb, gaining a bit of fat. You need the help with your insulin sensitivity at this point. Plus it gets more nutrient flow - improved capillary density etc.

 

[jbish8]

I'm actually feeling bad that I've helped hijack the poor guy who started this thread, so I'm gonna save my comments for another place from now on. See ya everyone.

This is where I made my comments http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/diet-nutrition/101339-what-i-think-what-i-m-gonna-do-about.html#post1913738