Call me Emo! I want to cut!

L

LegoMyGrego

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Hey guys!

I'm looking to shred a few lbs. in order to give myself a ripped look. So I won't be embarrassed to take my clothes off, have a girl see me naked, wear tight clothes, etc. I'm also taking a few physical tests to enter the police academy...and I'd like to be in great shape when I go in.

Heres my routine & diet.

Mon. Legs
Tue. Cardio
Wed. Chest & Back
Thur. Cardio
Fri. Arms & Shoulders
Sat. & Sun. Rest

Breakfast- Bowl of whole grain cereal & 2% Milk, banana, sugar free coffee
Brunch- Protein Bar
Lunch- Egg, Potatoe, Cheese Burrito
Dinner(Immediately following workout)- Protein Shake, handful of pistachios, bowl of lettuce, Beef jerky, peach.
Night- Lettuce, Peach, banana

Now lately it seems I've been maintaining my weight instead of losing. Should I increase my Cardio to 3x a week? I'd really hate to cut anything out of my diet since on occasion I can get hungry with what I have.

I'm 5'10, 162 lbs. and would like to lose a good 8 lbs.+ of blubber to get that cut looked. I have a bit of muscle...Bench 245, Squat 285, Dead 345. So I don't want to lose that muscle that I do have.
 
Take the carbs out of your night time snack/meal, replace with casein protien or cottage cheese. Right now your body stores those carbs as fat when you sleep, and your muscles dont have the protein to keep from wasting away all night. Casein protein and cottage cheese are great for taking the edge off of your hunger and they are slow burning sources of protein, which will help keep your muscles from entering a "catabolic" state while you sleep. In turn this will keep you from feeling hungry before bed and will help you to keep the muscle you have. It's only a small adjustment but in my opinion its the most crucial change you should make with the plan you have now.

What does your daily caloric intake look like?
 
Do you think it might be more effective for you to work on building muscle to get the ripped/cut look than losing fat? From your stats, it doesn't sound like there's a whole lot of fat there to lose--I'd add a little muscle and you might get what you're looking for!
 
LegoMyGrego said:
I'm 5'10, 162 lbs. and would like to lose a good 8 lbs.+ of blubber to get that cut looked.
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OMG.....I'm 5' 8" and weigh 235 and everyone tells me I'm about 10-15 away from being "ideal". Dude, you're 2" taller and weigh 73 pounds less then me. GG is right, you're pretty lean as it is. I guess you're what they call "skinny-fat"?

Well, it's simple....keep-up the weights because a calorie deficit can and will usually drive your body to shed lean muscle, otherwise a simple diet should drive those few "vanity" pounds off ya. Honestly, my hunch is that you're already in the top 10% best-conditioned people entering the academy already.

Just remember; you can do ANYTHING you want, just don't let yourself be video-taped doing it! :D
 
BikeSwimLaugh said:
OMG.....I'm 5' 8" and weigh 235 and everyone tells me I'm about 10-15 away from being "ideal". Dude, you're 2" taller and weigh 73 pounds less then me. GG is right, you're pretty lean as it is. I guess you're what they call "skinny-fat"?

Well, it's simple....keep-up the weights because a calorie deficit can and will usually drive your body to shed lean muscle, otherwise a simple diet should drive those few "vanity" pounds off ya. Honestly, my hunch is that you're already in the top 10% best-conditioned people entering the academy already.

Just remember; you can do ANYTHING you want, just don't let yourself be video-taped doing it! :D
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Haha thanks man.
Yeah I suppose I could be classified as skinny fat...I'm a mostly ectomorph person with genes that make it hard for my definition to come out like a mesomorph.

Heres another question for you guys.
----
During the first few hours of morning I LOVE the way my body looks...Muscle definition, no excessive flab, etc. After a few hours of getting hydrated/fed I'm back to the way I don't like my body. Is it safe to say theres a 8 Lb. difference between these two looks?
 
LegoMyGrego said:
During the first few hours of morning I LOVE the way my body looks...Muscle definition, no excessive flab, etc. After a few hours of getting hydrated/fed I'm back to the way I don't like my body. Is it safe to say theres a 8 Lb. difference between these two looks?
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No, it just means you've been watching Apocolypse Now one too many times! :D

Everyone wakes-up feeling light n' lean, especially if you spend some time in the bathroom. Your stomach is empty, your upper intestinal tract fairly clear and you're probably on the low-side of dehydration. Then we get up, move around, eat some food, put-on some bulky clothes and that lean n' mean feeling sorta drifts away. You can also feel that light n' lean feeling when you finish a good workout, bike ride or whatever else drives ya leaner.

8 pounds? Nahhh....I doubt you ate/drank that much, but you may certainly feel like it.

Let me share with you something I asked & found-out about. Ya know those really thin people who are in great shape.....you (like me) probably figure those folks feel light n' lean ALL the time 24/7. Dude; they don't. When they eat a heavy meal they feel lathargic, sluggish and heavy as well. When they sit down on the toilet, their stomachs form some small rolls and if they push outward they can even form a little "pot" for a belly.

Been there, thought that....I know where you're coming from. Most of it is in your head. Like me, you may have unrealistic goals and false expectations...we just set the bar too high and figure that's where other people are at.

Just clean-up your diet a bit, push your exercise a bit harder & longer and come to terms with what you can realistically expect from your body.
 
BikeSwimLaugh said:
No, it just means you've been watching Apocolypse Now one too many times! :D

Everyone wakes-up feeling light n' lean, especially if you spend some time in the bathroom. Your stomach is empty, your upper intestinal tract fairly clear and you're probably on the low-side of dehydration. Then we get up, move around, eat some food, put-on some bulky clothes and that lean n' mean feeling sorta drifts away. You can also feel that light n' lean feeling when you finish a good workout, bike ride or whatever else drives ya leaner.

8 pounds? Nahhh....I doubt you ate/drank that much, but you may certainly feel like it.

Let me share with you something I asked & found-out about. Ya know those really thin people who are in great shape.....you (like me) probably figure those folks feel light n' lean ALL the time 24/7. Dude; they don't. When they eat a heavy meal they feel lathargic, sluggish and heavy as well. When they sit down on the toilet, their stomachs form some small rolls and if they push outward they can even form a little "pot" for a belly.

Been there, thought that....I know where you're coming from. Most of it is in your head. Like me, you may have unrealistic goals and false expectations...we just set the bar too high and figure that's where other people are at.

Just clean-up your diet a bit, push your exercise a bit harder & longer and come to terms with what you can realistically expect from your body.
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Great advice! Thanks!
I've cut out carbs before bed...Now after 4 hours of bed I'll snack on seeds or jerky. I'm also going to extend my cardio from 15 min. to 20 min.
 
Glad to help LMG!!! :)

May I make another suggestion; you need to do more the 15-20 minutes of cardio to really tap into some fat burning. Your blood & liver and what-not have enough sugar/glucose/glycogen to inhibit your bodies need to tap into fat for energy when you only work 20 minutes of less....this is why popular lore has it that you only start burning fat after 20 minutes. It's not entirely accurate, we're always tapping into a combination of sources, but you're more-so tapping into fat as a means to fuel your cardio when you get into it for more then 20 minutes.

I'm going to ask you for at least 30 minutes and push you to work towards a solid hour. Visualize your fat melting away. You'll be all hot, sweaty and feeling really lean when you get done....but that's what it takes. You're not really getting anywhere with just 15-20 minutes. AND you'd best get on it AT LEAST 3x per week.

This forum is big on muscle...but let me tell ya, weight-training is excellent for so many reasons I couldn't begin to start. Yes; it adds calorie-burning muscle and Yes; it stimulates the metabolism....but the one thing it doesn't do as much is sit there and burn away the stored fat as fuel. Lifting weights is to intense & demanding that very little energy comes from fat, most of it from glycogen and Creatine-Phosphate/ATP....the more explosive fuel. Fat...well fat can't be burnt fast enough to fuel heavy muscle work...but fat is burnt nicely with cardio & aerobics. Honestly, I had no idea you were doing such little time on cardio. Cardio doesn't really build muscle, it burns calories along with a host of other benefits that are equally as important as weight-lifting...but yeah: working those big legs will burn some calories and help you reach your goal.
 
Gotcha! I always heard that doing elongated times of cardio could cause the muscles to be used up as energy; thats why I tried to stay low on it. But I'll start revamping the cardio too!
 
LegoMyGrego said:
Gotcha! I always heard that doing elongated times of cardio could cause the muscles to be used up as energy; thats why I tried to stay low on it. But I'll start revamping the cardio too!
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You're referring to Catabolism....

Truth is, our bodies are constantly going back & forth between anabolism and catabolism....BUT in the grand scheme of things, you really don't have to worry about that at all. It would only be under EXTREME circumstances that your body will burn muscle in order to fuel itself. Seriously, you'd have to be eating ultra-low calories AND exerting yourself for long & intense periods before any real catabolism would enter in the equation.

If you eat a well-balanced diet, keep your calorie deficit no greater then 30% and keep things resonable, you'll be fine; you could do hours of cardio and not lose any muscle. Everyone is different, but I run about a 30-40% calorie deficit. I weight-train 2-3x per week and do cardio 2-3x per week....my cardio looks like this:

1-hr spin-class
2 miles on the treadmill (22 minutes)
1.25-hr 2nd spin-class
1 mile swimming (various strokes, ~40 minutes)

In all, about 3.5 hours of cardio and my HR-monitor says I burn about 2,250 calories on average.

I eat some oatmeal and fruit for breakfast (~250 calories), drink a protein shake with fruit-juice throughout (~280 calories) and sometimes a zone-bar (190 calories) just before swimming. I also drink diluited low-glycemic accelerade, about 160 calories spread over 5 water bottles. I also pop some Branch-Chain amino acids here and there cause clinical studies show it reduces catabolism. So throughout my 3.5 hours I'm pre-eatinag about 250 calories and taking-in 440-630 during. Lunch follows to the tune of a tuna-salad with 2 pieces wheat bread.

Each visit to the dietician shows weight-loss, fat-loss AND muscle-gain.

Keep on your weights to ensure your body doesn't cut/lose any lean muscle to cope with the calorie deficit. Gaining muscle while in deficit is difficult, but not impossible: I and many others have done it.

Cardio is your key to burning fat; after 20 minutes your body more-so shifts into using fat as a fuel and I've read several studies that support that after an hour the body really shifts more into burning fat and starts easing-up on the glycogen in the form of trying to conserve it. I can't say it's accurate, but I've read where after an hour your body can be burning up to 7x more fat than prior to that hour. I don't entirely believe that, but I do think there is some amount of validity to that theory. The body constantly burns and taps from a mixture of fuel sources and low-intensity steady-state is a prime means of burn burn burning fat. :)

The MOST effective way to burn fat is to eat less...in the end, it's what you put in your mouth that really makes the difference. My nutritionist says that an hour of exercise only burns about 1-1.5 ounces of real fat, whereas reducing your caloric intake by 500 calories per day will burn 2-ounces!!!

You know what you need to do:

1) Start keeping a food journal...it's a pain but it will make you more accountable for what you put in your mouth and it will make you think twice AND realize how you may be eating a bit more then you think.

2) Increase your cardio. I want you up to an HOUR at least 3x per week. It will drive-down your cholesterol, lower your blood-pressure, increase your respiratory efficiency and a HUGE list of other benefits (some of which weight-lifting won't do).

Questions?...NO, no time for questions: start burning fat now! :D
 
Strange update...

I've lost about 2 lbs. since cutting the carbs at night, upping the cardio and maintaining the weight lifting...

AND I've put on 1/4 inch on my Arm...Could it be from the N.O. Explode or O.N. Protein?

My current motivation is sky high though!:SaiyanSmilie_anim:
 
samurai1331 said:
Man... you're hardcore. I consider 30 minutes of intensive cardio (HIIT type) a good solid workout.... I feel like a wuss now...
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Don't be impressed, I hire a body-double to take my place when I get tired! :D

To each their own. I slowly built upto it and anyone can do it too. There are many triathletes who train 25-40 hours per week; my 15-17 is tiny by comparison to many. It's all perspective. Just aspire to perspire and it'll happen!

LegoMyGrego said:
Strange update...

I've lost about 2 lbs. since cutting the carbs at night, upping the cardio and maintaining the weight lifting...

AND I've put on 1/4 inch on my Arm...Could it be from the N.O. Explode or O.N. Protein?

My current motivation is sky high though!:SaiyanSmilie_anim:
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Good deal.....

You've probalby lost more then 2 pounds of fat. I bet you've lost more like 3.2 pounds of fat and gained 1.2 pounds of lean muscle....for a net result of what registers as 2 pounds on the scale. When you're doing weights and even cardio, it's quite common for the body to put-on a lot of muscle while losing fat....I went many weeks with continual body-fat loss and yet no loss (and even sometimes gains) on the scale! The scale is a blind instrument, it merely tells you what you weigh....it can't tell you your composition, bone-density, hydration-level, etc. More ofthen then not, it's a blind measure.

You know muscle weighs more then fat. In one of my months I did hours of hardcore cardio and went heavy on the weights....when I got weighed, I had GAINED 2.8 pounds, yet I had lost 2.4% body-fat. Fat got burned, but muscle-gains offset that apparently loss on the scale. F the scale! Especially if you are doing weights!!

The fact that you've lost weight on the scale and gained lean muscle if AMAZING....take your "sky-high" motivation and multiply it by 100: someone found the ass and is kickin' it but good!!!!!!! Stay on it dude, stay on it!!! :D
 
I've hit a plateau.

Can't lose a pound now. >_<
Doing weights 3x a week and cardio 4x a week. Cardio is usually 35 min. to 1 hour.
Keeping my diet SUPER clean...

Argh!
 
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Great job!!! It's exciting to lose body weight and gain muscle mass. Just a suggestion but weekend, instead of resting do something outdoor; for example, hiking, biking, beach, yard work, etc. It's fun and burns a lot of calories. Also do your cardio in the morning before you eat; it's a pain in the ass but since your body does not have carbs from food, you can burn more fat (and some muscle, but it's okay).
 
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