Hi from someone successful

M

Mitch1234

New member
Hello all, names Mitch.

I have lost a fair bit of weight now totalling 38kg with a current weight of 98kg. I have been losing weight now for just under 2 years. I wasn't after drastic weight loss, mainly a change in lifestyle. I don't really have a goal weight. I just want to keep losing until my body fat is somewhere around 10% which I am guessing will be 85kg (187lb). A lot of people are telling me to stop losing more weight already though and virtually everyone freaks out when I say I want to lose another 13kg (naturally 6'1' with large frame and a lot of muscle so 85kg is a very low weight for me) but reaching near single percent body fat is an important goal.

I don't just aim for weight loss, my fitness has became very important to me as well. I tend to talk over 20km a day with running 4 times a week but a knee injury at work 2 weeks ago means I have to cutout most of that until next year (will have minor surgery in ~6 weeks). For now I have taken up swimming twice a day aiming for 90 minutes total each day. From what I have seen so far it seems my fitness levels will shoot up. I also tend to do pushups/situps fairly often over the last 2 months and have noticed a lot of gains in upper body strength.

My health/fitness markers are very good at the moment, BP is at 120/58, resting heart rate is 54, and it only takes 90 seconds for my heart rate to drop fro 160 to under 100.

My weight loss has been through both diet and exercise. On a normal day of the week I tend to eat around 2000 calories with them coming from around 60% carb, 25% protein, 15% fat. I have based what I eat heavily around whole grains, lean meats, veggies, and (some) fruit. I find it fairly easy to stick to as my health has become so important to me. I do not look at what I eat as a diet, it has just been a lifestyle change.

I look forward to hearing from other members of this community.
 
Welcome aboard... I think you'll find you aren't alone. This is one community where there are a good number of successful people.

I'm not sure if you're looking for suggestions or not but figured I'd throw a couple at you...

1. If you're seriously interested in hitting single digit bf%, I'd throw much more resistance training into the mix. As you lose more and more fat, you're body is going to ditch more and more muscle.

2. Protein intake is important. About 1 gram per pound of lean body mass actually. Why? Extra aminos in the bloodstream promote muscle maintenance.

Best to you.
 
I was going to start resistance training just under 2 weeks ago but the knee injury sort of put a hold to that. It is planned, will start lifting 4 times weekly fairly soon just at the moment swimming is taking a bit of getting used to. I am a very poor swimmer and 90 minutes a day is giving my body a hard workout. I push myself as hard as I can while swimming, so once I am accustomed to that I will start my resistance training.

At the moment I eat around 115g of protein a day and with such a low calorie intake I find it hard to add more. My goal body weight (the one I am guessing I need) is 187lb which is 70g more protein needed daily. I already have a protein shake daily which I pour over Weetbix for breakfast, I snack on low fat tinned tuna, etc.

If you had suggestions on how to get my protein up to ~40% of daily calories I would be keen for ideas. At the moment what I eat is working very well for me.
 
1 gram per pound of lean body mass.

not total body mass.

I structure my diets on protein.

first i set protein

then fat

then I fill in the rest of my caloric requirements with carbs and/or more fats.
 
Turkey Breast!! the little foster farms tubs or store brand or sliced from the deli
Doesnt taste as bad as tuna and has a nice ratio of protein to fat and easily available in a pinch :)

All time favorite is Chicken breast very nice ratio

For emergencies I keep some ready to eat frozen chicken breasts you can pop in the micro and eat in 5 mins. doesnt taste as good, but its convenient

Bottom line watch the ratios. look for meats with low fat not that fat is bad... its just easier to use up your calorie allowance on it real quick.


For the resistance training some pull ups works a tremendous amount of muscle and doesnt require your knees. pulldowns almost as good but not the same thing
 
Steve said:
1 gram per pound of lean body mass.

not total body mass.

I structure my diets on protein.

first i set protein

then fat

then I fill in the rest of my caloric requirements with carbs and/or more fats.
Click to expand...

I would have to re-structure everything I eat to eat like that. As for lean body mass that is basically everything that isn't fat right? I am aiming for 10% body fat, and am guessing that will be at ~187lb so lean body mass woulb still be somewhere between 165-170.

As for RJAZ520's suggestion I could change my morning snack from fruit to breast meat (I do enjoy tuna, but already have it as afternoon snack) but that is the only fruit I get in my day. Eating more calories to get more protein isn't really an option for me.

How would less carbs in my diet affect my energy levels? I tend to have wholegrains with breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have always been very cautious about low-carb eating. Eating how I do stops me from being hungry while only on such low calories.
 
Mitch1234 said:
I would have to re-structure everything I eat to eat like that. As for lean body mass that is basically everything that isn't fat right? I am aiming for 10% body fat, and am guessing that will be at ~187lb so lean body mass woulb still be somewhere between 165-170.
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You can do what you want. The suggestions that have been made are for optimizing muscle maintenance. If that's not your primary goal, don't sweat it.

At your size, you should be eating 2000-2200 calories per day.

Suppose you stick with 2k

165 grams of protein = 660 calories.

Set fat at something like 25% of total cals which would put you at 55 grams or so or 500 calories.

That leaves you with 840 calories or 210 grams of carbs which in my world for your general person, sounds just about right.

It's your call.

How would less carbs in my diet affect my energy levels? I tend to have wholegrains with breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have always been very cautious about low-carb eating. Eating how I do stops me from being hungry while only on such low calories.
Click to expand...

200+ grams of carbs if far, far from low carb dieting. Two hundred grams of carbs is more than enough unless you're running marathons or something.
 
Steve said:
You can do what you want. The suggestions that have been made are for optimizing muscle maintenance. If that's not your primary goal, don't sweat it.
Click to expand...

Muscle maintaince is important, not my primary goal but still important to me. Muscle strength and endurance are both goals, there is no real point aiming for 10% body fat if I ended up losing a lot of my muscle mass as I would likely have a better body at 15% body fat but keeping my muscle.

I don't mind changing how I eat, am open to suggestions. It is just there is so little information out there for people in my situation. Most information on weight loss is designed for women trying to lose a few kgs, very little information for males trying to cut body fat really low (most of the time its people trying to sell you new wonder items/foods/etc). For example I can find next to no good information on things like muscle atrophy as my body fat percentage drops.

Steve said:
200+ grams of carbs if far, far from low carb dieting. Two hundred grams of carbs is more than enough unless you're running marathons or something.
Click to expand...

Just thought I would check. One of the biggest benefits I have from how I eat + my exercise is that I have constant energy. I feel great and wouldn't want to lose this.
 
Mitch1234 said:
Muscle maintaince is important, not my primary goal but still important to me. Muscle strength and endurance are both goals, there is no real point aiming for 10% body fat if I ended up losing a lot of my muscle mass as I would likely have a better body at 15% body fat but keeping my muscle.

I don't mind changing how I eat, am open to suggestions. It is just there is so little information out there for people in my situation. Most information on weight loss is designed for women trying to lose a few kgs, very little information for males trying to cut body fat really low (most of the time its people trying to sell you new wonder items/foods/etc). For example I can find next to no good information on things like muscle atrophy as my body fat percentage drops.
Click to expand...

That's b/c muscle maintenance takes hard work and most diets or articles don't like selling that stuff. It's icky.

The research is out there, though. Plenty of it. But research and articles on the web are entirely different animals.

I've got a ton of anecdote too.

Just thought I would check. One of the biggest benefits I have from how I eat + my exercise is that I have constant energy. I feel great and wouldn't want to lose this.
Click to expand...

You seem to fear change.

That's a tough mindset to adopt.

You have to remember that you aren't signing any contracts here. Toy around with the variables. If you find you don't like it, you can always go back to you old way of doing things.
 
Steve said:
That's b/c muscle maintenance takes hard work and most diets or articles don't like selling that stuff. It's icky.

The research is out there, though. Plenty of it. But research and articles on the web are entirely different animals.

I've got a ton of anecdote too.
Click to expand...

Thats the biggest problem with weight loss. So very few people out there to help you but so many out there to make a dollar. If you removed all the misinformation on the web that tries to sell products then the internet might actually be a bit more useful.


You seem to fear change.

That's a tough mindset to adopt.

You have to remember that you aren't signing any contracts here. Toy around with the variables. If you find you don't like it, you can always go back to you old way of doing things.
Click to expand...

Yea I guess I hadn't realised that until you said it, but I have been fearing change. Pretty bad spot to be I know especially considering that by the end of year my loss will be complete (which is a pretty major change) and I will focus more on weight maintaince and fitness. Despite losing so much I realise I have 0 experience with weight maintaince.
 
Mitch1234 said:
Thats the biggest problem with weight loss. So very few people out there to help you but so many out there to make a dollar. If you removed all the misinformation on the web that tries to sell products then the internet might actually be a bit more useful.
Click to expand...

Oh it's out there.

Finding it is something different.

I've been educating myself a long time in this field and I can tell you that some of the best knowledge I have came from talking with other professionals on forums just like this.

Yea I guess I hadn't realised that until you said it, but I have been fearing change. Pretty bad spot to be I know especially considering that by the end of year my loss will be complete (which is a pretty major change) and I will focus more on weight maintaince and fitness. Despite losing so much I realise I have 0 experience with weight maintaince.
Click to expand...

Well one of the most important things I've learned regarding weight loss if flexibility. You have to be willing to adopt a mindset where you aren't locked into any particular way of doing things.

What worked when you were 50-100 lbs overweight (not you specifically) probably isn't going to work (as well or maybe not as all) when you're trying to refine that last bit of change.

Being flexible is critical, as is maintaining an unbiased viewpoint. So many seem to become married to their preconceived notions. Unfortunately many of those notions were born from half truths and misinformation.

And yea, you're right... life after goal attainment is where a lot of people go wrong. They become lax and fall back into old habits never stopping to think that said habits are what got them to fatness in the first place. But once they start being lax, it builds upon itself.

That's why I believe it's very important to not be too rigid in your approach either... pre or post goal attainment. You have to enjoy it and be able to live it consistently.
 
Not being rigid is how I have gotten this far. I have to be able to live happily and if I was too strict on myself I would never last long. I found a way to lose bulk weight quite easily (for me) and it has been good. It hasn't been the quickest (speed depends a lot on exercise and that was never consistent until recently) but it has been steady.

However I set myself a pretty difficult goal when I decided to aim for 10% BF. Not sure if I could feasibly sustain that goal while living a normal life considering how easy I put weight on but it is something I would like to reach even if only for a brief time. After that I will most likely start setting fitness related goals as that is becoming more and more important to me.
 
Mitch1234 said:
Not being rigid is how I have gotten this far. I have to be able to live happily and if I was too strict on myself I would never last long. I found a way to lose bulk weight quite easily (for me) and it has been good. It hasn't been the quickest (speed depends a lot on exercise and that was never consistent until recently) but it has been steady.
Click to expand...

Rigidity is multifaceted.

Sure, you weren't rigid in that you weren't following some crazy ass diet where you couldn't do this or that.

But you don't seem very flexible when it comes to ideas of changing what you're currently doing in order to optimize your goals.

Essentially you aren't adhering to a rigid approach, but your inflexible with your flexible approach... if that makes sense, lol.
 
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