My diet needs an adjustment - muscle growth/fat loss

[ddzc Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close ddzc]

Hi all.

Hope you can help out. I'm originally a skinny toothpick and I've been working out and training for over 8 years. I've bulked, cut, had trainers, coaches, etc throughout the years and I've never been able to reach any decent goals and look good. Every time I bulk, I put on a lot of fat at the same time and not so much muscle. When I've cut, I looked like a lean thin toothpick with no muscle or size at all. I can never find a program or routine which gives me quality muscle and size with at a lower bf%. I've been at this for almost a decade now.

Anyways, I can usually drop my bf% quite low only when I hit around 160lbs...but I look like a stick so I hate the look. I've tried slow bulking for the past year and I've hit 190lbs but I put on a lot of fat and look like crap. I'm 5'11".

I want to keep my weight or not drop much and I want to keep the mass which I have and pack on lean muscle and lower my BF%. I did a test with the digital machine and self tested with my calipers and both showed me 24%. I would like to drop to 15% and pack on some lean muscle and look better. I can show you pics if you want. My gym routine is pretty solid..I've increased weights significantly for all body parts and exercises in the past year. The only supplement I've been taking in the past few mths is creatine and l-glutamine with my PWO shake.

Below is my diet. I usually follow it 6 days a week and the 7th day is clean food but not 100% of what I eat regularly. With the below diet, my weight fluctuates from 190lbs-195lbs. If I'm busy and don't follow it or skip a meal here and there, I drop weight fast due to my genetics and high metabolism. Diets have been given to me throughout the years by trainers and nutritionists and I never broke it down in to calories/protein/carbs/fat until today. I believe it may be off. Should I follow the 40/40/20 rule when it comes to dropping bodyfat% and keeping/adding size/muscle?

With regards to my diet, the chicken and beef is stir fry cooked with low sodium soya sauce, oyster sauce, sesame seed oil, olive oil and vegetables (carrots, broccoli, celery). I usually cook a batch, weigh it and freeze it for work. I then cook my rice with nothing in it and mix the stir fry meat with it and there's my 2 meals per day...it's just enough flavor which makes it all taste good.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Here is my diet:

Meal 1 – 8:00am
1.5 cups Egg whites - 180 Calories, 42G Protein
1 whole egg - 70 Calories, 6G Protein, 1G Carbs, 5G Fat
1 cup oatmeal (measured dry) - 360 Calories, 60G Carbs, 12G Protein
1 tbsb olive oil - 120 Calories, 13g fat

Meal 2 – 12:00pm
120g Chicken - 107 Calories, 24.6G Protein, 1.6G Fat
1 cup long grain rice (measured dry) - 680 Calories, 148G Carbs, 12G Protein

Meal 3 – 4:00pm
No-Fat Cottage Cheese (1 cup) - 200 Calories, 16G Carbs, 32G Protein
1 plain large rice cake - 35 Calories, 7G Carbs, 1G Protein, 0.4G Fat

Gym Workout – 5:15pm – 6:30pm

Meal 4 – 6:35pm
2 scoops whey protein - 240 Calories, 48G Protein, 8G Carbs, 2G Fat

Meal 5 – 7:00pm
120g lean beef - 220 Calories, 36.7G Protein, 6.9G Fat
1 cup long grain rice - 680 Calories, 148G Carbs, 12G Protein

Meal 6 – 10:00pm
2 scoops whey protein - 240 Calories, 48G Protein, 8G Carbs, 2G Fat
28g almonds - 165 Calories, 6G Carbs, 5G Protein, 13.5G Fat

Total:

3297 Calories
279.3G Protein
402G Carbs
44.4G Fat

Thanks,
Dan

[xamo Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close xamo]

The key to losing fat and minimize muscle loss is to make a small deficit out of your maintenance diet... if you must eat 2000 calories to maintain and burn 1000 calories then aim for 2800 calories a day... you must first find out what your maintenance is... and make an approximate of what you burn every day which shouldn't be too hard, then simply take a look in the mirror every week or 2 weeks...

Something you seem to forget as well..;

You CANNOT both LEAN BULK + LOSE FAT. You either bulk or lose fat. By cutting you'll always lose some muscles anyway

[ALEX.18 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close ALEX.18]

If you cut out some of the cals you get from all those carbs down to say a total of 2-2.5k cals a day you should be able to lose fat. Your maintenance diet is right at 2k cals daily. Protein levels are right where they should be for you. If dropping cals from carbs doesnt work, i would question your training, especially cardio.

Xamo is right though in both of his points. You have to pick one or the other when you get down to it, cut or bulk, cant do both. If we could, everyone would be walking around looking like jay cutler. In the end, losing fat comes down to cals in vs. cals out. As long as you keep the defecit in your favor and know how to use you food and when to use it, it will happen. It wont be easy at first but once you get used to it, it comes to you without thinking

And as a last note, your diet could use some work TBH

[ddzc Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close ddzc]

Thanks guys, I'm going to clean my diet up a bit with more fat, less carbs and maybe a tad more protein.

As for losing fat and adding muscle at the same time. I work out 4 days a week. Can't I bulk on the 4 days which I work out and do cardio and cut on the 3 days off? I'll adjust my diet accordingly to eat above maintenance on workout days and eat at a deficient level on the non workout days?

[xamo Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close xamo]

Nope... it doesn't work that way. To build muscles you need more calories than you're actually burning. So you need a surplus. You can minimize the fat gain but you need to gain fat in order to gain muscles. That's what a surplus of calories does. If you are cutting you're having no surplus but a deficit so not enough calories to actually build new muscle fibers. Cutting means losing the fat + the least amount of muscle mass. But it's not possible to both keep the muscle + lose the fat. You can tone by Eating maintenance + like 100 or 200 calories but these have to be exact numbers. Plus it'll be extremely slow... and not motivating at all.

I explained how it worked, now you've got to make the math as far as your own body is concerned. Find out your maintenance intake, I personally did starting at 2000 calories a day and after weeks and weeks of tweaking and looking in the mirror, found my ideal maintenance diet. Once you've found that one number it all becomes extremely easy.

[andrrew321 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close andrrew321]

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