Body fat loss
- Thread starter Leigh
- Start date
Excellent write-up.
Despite being unhealthy as fuck (smoke and drink a LOT) I still manage to look and feel decent (c'ept for the leever) at 80kg just by keeping rice, potatoes, pasta and bread restricted. One of my favorite dishes is larb, which is a minced spicy salad made on beef, chicken, pork or duck. I'm big on the duck. That with some basil is a hearty meal.
Despite being unhealthy as fuck (smoke and drink a LOT) I still manage to look and feel decent (c'ept for the leever) at 80kg just by keeping rice, potatoes, pasta and bread restricted. One of my favorite dishes is larb, which is a minced spicy salad made on beef, chicken, pork or duck. I'm big on the duck. That with some basil is a hearty meal.
I just posted a thread about my weight loss and I was asking about how to get leaner. This is awesome, thanks so much. I follow almost 100% what you outlined above in terms of how to eat. I read a lot when I was fat so I could learn about the proper ways to lose fat, keep muscle, and not get discouraged. My results have been absolutely mind-boggling. Two years and I've lost over 150 lbs of fat and put on about 15-20 pounds of muscle.I'm going to explain how I drop body fat. This is different to how I cut weight (but not THAT different) -@vermonter has helped me a lot with weight cutting but that's his profession, so I'm not going to post up his stuff. In any case, weight cutting isn't relevant to most people.
The main principles I'm going to explain are calorie restriction and insulin control. In very basic terms, calories in vs calories out can be used to control body weight but insulin management is hugely important in controlling hunger (calories in), metabolism (calories out) and where burned calories come from.
If you burn more calories than you consume, you lose weight. That is very simple. However, a 6 mile run will burn around 700 calories (depending on body weight) so relying on exercise alone to burn calories is going to be a slog. You also want to preserve muscle, so just cutting calories is not enough. You also want to keep your metabolism working - starving will drop your BMR (basal metabolic rate, the number of calories you burn with every day bodily functions).
Let me talk about insulin very briefly. It is the most anabolic hormone in the body, more so than testosterone, and is released in the pancreas whenever you eat carbohydrates and, to a lesser extent, protein, with high glycemic carbs having a bigger response. Insulin forces nutrients into body tissue. This is good for building muscle but for fat loss, it's horrendous. Insulin also causes you to burn glycogen ("blood sugar"). This has a disastrous effect on fat loss. You store fat and lower blood sugar, making you crave more sugar. So eat something sugary, get an insulin spike and the cycle repeats.
The most effective method I have found to utilise these principles is the Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF). Eat high levels of protein (usual number given is around 1g protein per lb of lean bodyweight per day) and basically nothing else. Lifting weights will also be a big help in preserving muscle. I do this for my weight cuts but it's not sustainable and therefore not practical for long term weight loss - when you go back to regular eating, you will put the weight back on again. It's also not very nutrient dense, with little essential fatty acids (EFAs), vitamins, minerals etc. However, we will use it as a basic template.
So the ideal (but unsustainable) fat loss diet would be something like a 50g protein shake for breakfast and 400g of chicken breast per day with as much green veg as you like. You would try to use Intermittent Fasting (IF), where you eat your daily calories within a small window of time so that your insulin levels are not elevated all day. Something like a shake at 9am, lunch at 1pm and dinner at 5pm. Even better if you can drop the shake and have your protein in 2 meals instead. We're eating high protein to preserve muscle mass, low calories at well under 1,000 and low insulin with no sugary carbs.
However, to make your fat loss more tolerable, I would instead suggest using this as an extreme example and simply making minor modifications to your diet that trend towards the PSMF. It's much easier to sustain your normal lifestyle with small changes than to make a huge jump. So start by dropping the garbage. You know what junk food is: crisps, chocolates, cakes, alcohol, soft drinks etc. The next step is to drop bread, pasta, dairy and fruit juice. These are also horrendous for fat loss (actually, cheese isn't too bad at all). Fruit is quite high in sugar but the pulp slows absorption. However, the juice alone is basically a soft drink. Rice and potatoes should also be controlled or eliminated.
These foods are so ingrained into people's diets that they often tell me that they don't know what else to eat. In reality, we have only removed processed foods, which are high glycemic. You can still eat meat, eggs, nuts, fruits, vegetables, berries etc. During a weight cut, I'd remove fish and nuts due to the fat and fruit due to the sugar but they are great for everyday healthy eating. A typical daily diet might be:
Breakfast: 2-3 eggs and a couple of apples
Lunch: chicken, steamed mixed veg and a sweet potato
Dinner: salmon and veg
I can lose 1lb per day eating over a pound of home made burgers. I enjoy steaks and roast pork. I get my carbs from fruit and veg. I snack on nuts and fruit.
Make the adjustments gradually and when you get results, maintain the changes. If you want more extreme results, make more extreme dietary changes but switching into ketosis (fat burning) can be rough; it's much easier after a week or so once your body has made the adaption. Until you switch into ketosis, you do crave junk. Be strong.
If you want to use exercise to help, you will burn the most calories using steady state cardio. Try to do your cardio before breakfast, when your insulin levels are low and you are not in fat storage mode. I draw a small spreadsheet for my fat loss programs and aim to lose around 0.5lbs or 0.2kg every day. I find this sustainable but you may want to go up or down on that number. If you lose any more than that, it's probably water.
Let's run through a quick example. A 300lb man eats bacon sandwiches for breakfast, burger and fries for lunch, pizza for dinner, snacks on crisps and biscuits and has a few beers with his friends in the evening. Does he need to switch to broccoli and chicken and run 6 miles before breakfast? No, he can probably drop 0.5lb a day by swapping his breakfast for bacon and eggs. When he stops dropping weight, he can swap the crisps for fruit. He can keep making incremental changes until he reaches his goal.
So in summary, draw up a plan/schedule to lose weight gradually, cut out crap, cut out sugar and starches and keep protein high. If you exercise, do it before breakfast.
As always, feel free to ask questions.
Thanks for this, the info is superb.
Yes but no diuretic for me but maybe an otc water pill
I did a test to compare OTC water pills (dandelion etc) with Lasix. I stopped drinking for 24 hours and then took 40 times the recommended dosage of OTC pill and nothing happened.
I rehydrated, then did another 24 hours with no fluids, took 20mg if Lasix and I pissed a litre. Another 20mg and I pissed another litre. And I felt fucked.
Yeah Lasix would def be the best thing to use. I'm thinking of using a small amount of that.
If you haven't used it before, be careful. Make sure your electrolyte levels (potassium, calcium etc) are ok
I used it once after a surgery, and yeah thanks I would def go low dosage and factor in those elements. You're a smart guy I love it lol
What's the best time to weigh oneself? Morning,Evening before bed?
Podcast about female fat loss and the differences
View: http://youtu.be/o7eIZWKkBq0
View: http://youtu.be/Iqw-RJzrOjI
View: http://youtu.be/o7eIZWKkBq0
View: http://youtu.be/Iqw-RJzrOjI
good thread. I'm adding weight now at about 3500 calories / day, but in about 10 weeks will be looking to cut. Subbing for future use.
Wow what awesome info. I really want to incorporate sine of this stuff but wasn't sure how. This is a great start thanks!!!
Just in on this, way late. I am just going through getting back in shape. I might be the only one here but...
I live with my missus. Her family are super unhealthy. Every meal has lashings of mayo or chips or something and they're all super un fit. Now she has changed when I have met her, she tries to get fit but years of being incredibly unathletic mean... well it's gonna take a while. She's not fat at all, not one bit, but I can get really fat really quickly. Best description is she wont workout on a weekend when she isnt working, because working out is something she has to do, not something she wants to do. I do some sort of exercise basically every day.
So I do all the cooking in our house cos otherwise it's deep fried or mayo based food only. However trying to feed her meals that she doesnt absolutely hate is so hard. There is no way I can feed her a chicken breast and some green veg. No way. She would hate it. I can get away with it if I add some sweet potato. But that meal will only work 2 days a week maybe.
I do stir fry food a lot, using rice noodles. But I would prefer to change that up.
I home make dishes of all types but getting them to be different, reasonably quick to make (under 90 minutes) and acceptable to someone not interested in getting in fighting fit shape is so tough.
Anyone got any ideas for trying to keep it lean without her having a face like thunder when she eats it?
I live with my missus. Her family are super unhealthy. Every meal has lashings of mayo or chips or something and they're all super un fit. Now she has changed when I have met her, she tries to get fit but years of being incredibly unathletic mean... well it's gonna take a while. She's not fat at all, not one bit, but I can get really fat really quickly. Best description is she wont workout on a weekend when she isnt working, because working out is something she has to do, not something she wants to do. I do some sort of exercise basically every day.
So I do all the cooking in our house cos otherwise it's deep fried or mayo based food only. However trying to feed her meals that she doesnt absolutely hate is so hard. There is no way I can feed her a chicken breast and some green veg. No way. She would hate it. I can get away with it if I add some sweet potato. But that meal will only work 2 days a week maybe.
I do stir fry food a lot, using rice noodles. But I would prefer to change that up.
I home make dishes of all types but getting them to be different, reasonably quick to make (under 90 minutes) and acceptable to someone not interested in getting in fighting fit shape is so tough.
Anyone got any ideas for trying to keep it lean without her having a face like thunder when she eats it?
If she won't make healthy meals herself, I think you're wasting your time tbh. You can't help someone who won't help themselves. You worry about you and think hard before you have kids with someone in a family that doesn't care about health.
Yea I know. It's not that she doesn't care as such, but her mum tells her to cook one way. I tell her the other. She was with her mum before me. Habits are hard to break. I found it easy. In fact I embraced it.
Still trying. But it's such a weird situation. Her dad is fat as shit. And I some comment about I wouldn't take diet advice from him and she couldn't understand. You get blinkered to family.
Body fat loss is the most common and popular topic according to health there are many ways to control this and also to lose weight like you can do this with diet and exercise. Make a complete schedule of the day and strictly follow this full chart plan and also include exercises and Yoga which also helps you to lose weight.