Trying to lose ~8 lbs of fat.

tensyume
tensyume Posts: 4
in Getting Started
Hi guys, I have been training for the summer and want to get a pretty cut body.
I have been eating pretty healthy for the past 2 weeks.
I just started logging on myfitnesspal and wanted to know if my diet was good enough so i can continue on with this.
I am 5' 7'', 148 lbs right now. I work out pretty hard 3 days a week, and do 1~2 days 40 minutes of cardio every week.

These are what I have been eating lately:

Breakfast:
-Oatmeal
-Egg white omelet

Lunch:
-Tuscan Chicken breast wrap

Dinner:
- 2 Chicken breasts
- So sauce salad
- wheat pasta (with a little bit of marinana)

Post workout:
-2 scoops of Protein shake

This comes out to:
1800~2000 Calories
160~200g Carbs
160~200g Protein
40g fat
18g sugar
2700mg sodium
--

My goal is to lose 8 lbs of fat (or more) in 10 weeks, while retaining muscle.

Could you guys critique my diet or give me recommendations? Is this fine and can I just continue on eating this everyday ? (Which I am completely fine with.)

Thanks for your input in advance!

Replies

  • JTick
    JTick Posts: 2,131 Member
    What do you mean "work out hard"? Is this strength training? What routine do you follow?
  • tensyume
    tensyume Posts: 4
    Yes strength training.

    I lift for 1hour 30 minutes on MWF.

    Monday is my Back, Biceps, Abs
    Wednesday is Chest, Triceps, Shoulder
    Friday is Legs, Abs
  • tensyume
    tensyume Posts: 4
    anyone?
  • tensyume
    tensyume Posts: 4
    BUMPS
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    Really all you need to do is have a small deficit (weekly goal to lose 0.5lbs/week, and eat back cals burned from cardio); strength train to maintain muscle mass; and get adequate protein intake, again to maintain lean muscle mass (120+ grams/day with your stats)

    what lifting program are you following. If it is just your own I would suggest looking into starting strength or stronglifts 5x5, don't try and reinvent the wheel by creating your own program.
  • Bult816
    Bult816 Posts: 4
    Hey man. I'll give you some advice based on personal experience and a few friends that have done similar things. First off, your diet looks pretty darn good. You look like you have things under control. You will probably lose that 8 lbs no problem in 10 weeks.

    I've had good luck doing things a bit different though. I did the 'shortcut to shred' program on bodybuilding.com which intensifies your lifting sessions and gets cardio into it. GO buy a heart rate monitor that calculates your calories burned also. That will help you. This week, I went the past 4 days eating 1200 calories per day, less than 100 grams of carbs and dropped a 1.5 lbs and really leaned out in basically 5 days. This is after consistently losing 1 lb per week. So if you need a jump start, try it. Most people would advise against it, but I don't care. It's always worked for me, and alot of my friends. We've coined it the 1200 calorie protein diet and you will certainly drop probably 2 lbs a week on it. The concern being losing lean body mass, but as of yet, i haven't seen that fall off. I'm staying steady at 150lbs of lean mass and my strength is up also.

    Either way, you will probably be good, but I can vouch for the really low calorie diet for a week or two to get you that nice jump on it.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    Hey man. I'll give you some advice based on personal experience and a few friends that have done similar things. First off, your diet looks pretty darn good. You look like you have things under control. You will probably lose that 8 lbs no problem in 10 weeks.

    I've had good luck doing things a bit different though. I did the 'shortcut to shred' program on bodybuilding.com which intensifies your lifting sessions and gets cardio into it. GO buy a heart rate monitor that calculates your calories burned also. That will help you. This week, I went the past 4 days eating 1200 calories per day, less than 100 grams of carbs and dropped a 1.5 lbs and really leaned out in basically 5 days. This is after consistently losing 1 lb per week. So if you need a jump start, try it. Most people would advise against it, but I don't care. It's always worked for me, and alot of my friends. We've coined it the 1200 calorie protein diet and you will certainly drop probably 2 lbs a week on it. The concern being losing lean body mass, but as of yet, i haven't seen that fall off. I'm staying steady at 150lbs of lean mass and my strength is up also.

    Either way, you will probably be good, but I can vouch for the really low calorie diet for a week or two to get you that nice jump on it.

    cutting carbs the biggest weight loss would come from water the first couple weeks as your glycogen stores would get depleted, glycogen stores water, so less glycogen less water scale goes down, but most is not fat loss, in the first couple weeks.
  • Bult816
    Bult816 Posts: 4
    erickirb makes a good point about the water and Glycogen. However, I've been low carb for the better part of 8 weeks now, only carbing up most Sunday's (and the occasional Friday night drinking). My point is simply that if you drop to around 1200 calories for a week, or two, you will likely lose weight in a hurry if you exercise vigorously 5 - 6 x per week. Like I mentioned before. I haven't seen much of a drop in muscle mass either. For me, at 165 lbs, I find 1600 - 1800 calories generally yields about a lb a week weight loss. That is with exercising 6x per week. When I drop to 1200, I can drop another lb a week. Most experts wouldn't agree, always citing the 'u need carbs' stuff, but it works for me, so i thought the OP might try it.

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