So I've sort of hit my first "plateau"

thirdeye11

I started my journey at 295 lbs, and began working out and logging all my food in MFP back on December 14, 2010. Fast forward to July 1, 2011 and I had lost 70 lbs and gotten down to 225 lbs.

In the last month my weight has stayed consistently between 222-224 lbs. I decided I don't really want to lose any more muscle on this journey. I've been following a Bodybuilding.com "fat cutting" program found here:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/guides/male-20to39-fat-loss/training

I've done this for months (with small changes here and there, plus added cardio for additional burn). The amount of weight I can lift on the various exercises has gone up, but not as quickly as I'd like. I assumed that I could change to this plan:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/guides/male-20to39-muscle-building/training

Which would help me add additional muscle and burn more fat. Any thoughts on things I should or shouldn't be doing to achieve my goals? My body fat percentage at this point is 21.5%, but ideally I'd like to be closer to 15% and see how I look/feel then. I still have room for improvement around my midsection (I want to see my abs!) and plenty of room for muscle growth everywhere.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions? Right now I'm not really "losing" weight, but eventually I think as a 6'4" 33 year old male I'd like to weigh 205-210 and be around 15% body fat. I'm only making guesses right now though. Comments are appreciated.

-Chad

jimkoch

I can't see your exercise or food diary, so I don't know your current habits. That said...

Even more important than your workout routine, how's your diet? If you're not doing so already, I'd definitely recommend tracking your food on this website for a couple of weeks. During that time, try to do the following:

- Minimize the number of times that you eat out. If you do eat out, eat at a place that has accurate, readily-available nutritional info (Subway, Chick-fil-A, etc). It can be really difficult to estimate fat / carbs / protein at the local Mexican joint or sports bar.

- Measure EVERYTHING that you eat. For example, if you have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, measure it out when your pour it. The "standard serving size" for a bowl of cereals is sometimes a half-cup.

And based on your past results and your current goals, you may want to start looking at the diet that body builders follow... most of them eat six small meals per day, one every three hours. Bodybuilding.com has an example diet listed here:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/guides/male-20to39-muscle-building/nutrition

If you really want to get it right, go buy the books "Body For Life" and "Eating For Life". BFL explains the diet and why it works. EFL provides hundreds of recipes that follow the BFL diet, and actually taste pretty good.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you want any more input.

thirdeye11

I suppose I should have included more info. My eating habits are really good. I eat 3 meals a day and average about 2,000 calories on most days, with a net caloric impact of 1,500-1,700 daily. Not really so much trying to lose right now, as I am trying to build muscle and shed fat.

I've been logging all my food on MFP since December 14, 2010 and haven't missed a day.

jimkoch

Yeah, it sounds like your eating habits are pretty clean then. Still consider Body For Life... your body will process six 300-calorie meals differently than it would process three 600-calorie meals.

For the workouts, the new plan (http://www.bodybuilding.com/guides/male-20to39-muscle-building/training) looks pretty good. If I were doing it, I'd cut out a couple of the quad exercises on Training Day 1, and I'd add in 20 minutes of light cardio afterwards... either bike or elliptical.

I'd probably do the same on Training Day 2. There's no reason to hit chest with 14 sets. It's diminishing returns after a while. After the first 10 sets, the last 4 don't provide much benefit. So I'd do three chest exercises, and then add another 20 minutes of light cardio onto the end of the workout.

This means that the Days 1, 2, and 3 routines all have cardio now. If you don't want three days of cardio in a row, you could instead do the workouts in this order:

- Day 2 (modified w/ 20 minutes of cardio)
- Day 1 (modified w/ 20 minutes of cardio)
- Day 4 (no cardio)
- Day 3 (cardio)
- Day 5 (no cardio)
- Day 6 (cardio)
- Day 7 (rest)

This order would be good, since it splits the two upper-body workouts (Day 2 & Day 4) with a lower-body workout (Day 1). Similarly, Day 4 & Day 5 are upper-body workouts, and they'd be separated by the Day 3 cardio.