Turning 30 and IIFYM

upgradeddiddy

Hi my name is Anthony and I am about to move closer to Boston with girlfriend and 2 puppies, work in finance and am approaching 30's doorstep. With my job alone I am utilizing myfitnesspal to track my diet as a lot of days in my field food has to on the go but my whole days diet can be managed with this tool. I am pretty good with gaining weight for muscle mass (bodybuilding) and losing PROPER weight for overall lifestyle and athleticism (I used IIFYM when I used to have to cut weight for kickboxing and jiu jitsu). Now I am using IIFYM to get back into shape and mold my lifestyle for when I turn 30 and beyond. Started March 3rd at 241 pounds and today ( March 25th) I am already down to 234. I would like to keep up with others in the community to trade ideas, recipes, exercises or you name it. I try my best to track EVERYTHING even the bad so even if you want to friend me to see how I lay things out I'm an open book. Hope to hear from others and share!

fiestyflower1

Hi Anthony, Nice to meet you. I'm turning 30 this year. I have a boyfriend and a 5 year old. My journey into fitness started when my son was about 2 yrs old. I started at home then worked my way to the gym and lifted heavy for a while. Then I started doing crossfit and basically just "ate clean" also tried the paleo diet for a while. My performance was good and endurance as well. I loved the way I felt. However, I was diagnosed with bells palsy may 2014 and my confidence went down with the sickness (pun intended). I couldn't work out because my face was in pain and then I started school in August (more stress). Long story short, I went from about 125 lbs to 145. It just creeps up on you. I have been trying to make it a priority to get back down to where I was now that my face has healed about 80%. Looking to get into IIFYM but everyone I ask holds it like it's a secret they can't share with anyone else. I just want to know the basics you know. How do you do it? You have made some incredible progress. almost down 10 lbs in less than a month. According to MFP I'll be luck to lose 5 lbs by April 29th. lol I'd love to hear how you do it!

upgradeddiddy

No worries, it's mainly about knowing your BMR (Basal metabolic rate - the bare minimum calories you need daily to maintain your weight if you were bedridden), activity level and what your goal really is (gain weight, lose weight, maintain. Now MFP makes it VERY easy and they actually use one of the most recent and most accurate BMR calculation formulas known today (Mifflin St Joer to be specific) so if you are using the app make sure you are updating your weight frequently as your macros will change as your weight changes. For activity level I don't bother pre-setting it since everyday is different (you are not at the gym everyday and even if you are you don't work out the exact same amount of time each time moving the exact same weight) so I put that as sedentary and log my workout and let my iPhone track my steps. Final part of the basics of IIFYM is macronutrients. It's basic breaking down the percentage of your calories coming from protein/carb/fat. This is where EVERY diet on the planet stems from. Regardless if it's paleo/south beach/high fat whatever, but it's all about switching up macros. I actually semi follow Chris Jones from YouTube on the percentage breakdown because his are really good. But whenever I want to lose weight without sacrificing muscle I go for 40% carbs, 40% protein and 20% fat or if I want to gain weight for the sake of gaining muscle 50% carbs 30% protein and 20% fat. To get your calories right you have to remember that for every gram of one macro nutrient correlates to a certain number of calories (you see this on every nutrition label every but for 1g of carbs/1g protein is 4 calories and 1g of fat is 9 calories) putting this all together, say I need 2000 calories a day using 40-40-20 the I need the following (200 g of carbs - 800 calories, 200 g of protein - 800 calories, 44.44g of fat - 400 calories). Again MFP does wonders for helping you assign macro percentages and tracking so once you know what percentages to use (40-40-20 May not work for all so you do have to play around and see what works for you) it's all about keeping track, being strict with yourself and knowing the foods that work best too. I could go on forever on this but I'll leave it at this. If you want examples of how to make macros work for you or what foods work best to fit macros and keep full feel free to message me. Hope this helps I know it's a lot haha

fiestyflower1

Thanks Anthony. Yes, it is a lot. Kinda lost me at the percentages. LOL I'll get it eventually after I re-read your post 1 billion times. Ha. Jk. I'll message u!

upgradeddiddy

If you watch YouTube, follow beastmodetrainingcamp with Chris Jones. Yes he mostly applies it for bodybuilding but he gives good examples of how to apply IIFYM. Also beastmodetrainingcamp.org has a spreadsheet of a similar example that I posted above.

fiestyflower1

Hey I watched his videos on Youtube. However, the website is not funtional. Anyway, what calculator do you use to calculate your macros?

upgradeddiddy

fiestyflower1 wrote: »

Hey I watched his videos on Youtube. However, the website is not funtional. Anyway, what calculator do you use to calculate your macros?

I haven't been ignoring you I just finished moving (probably already know that by my posts). I actually made a new spreadsheet at work (stemmed from a discussion at work about the ESPN post about "The Rock" eating 821 lbs of cod a year and breaking down a sample day of eating for him compared to the "average" 40 year old male). It basically mimics both the Mifflin-St Joer and the Harris-Benedict calculators for BMR and then breaks down caloric needs for all lifestyles and calculates 40-40-20 with a 500 calorie deficit (what I am on right now until late June/July), 50-30-20 with a 300 calorie surplus and 45-35-20 with no calorie adjustment (The exact macro breakdown as The Rock however he is in a 900+ calorie surplus according to the article. Most likely due to his roles on Fast 7, Hercules and San Andreas) Once I get closer to June/July I'll post formulas because I would rather show that it works first before throwing all of my calcs on here.