The Quest for the 8% Body Fat!

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Juanito1983
Juanito1983 Posts: 7 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
trying desperately to shed stubborn abdominal fat. Currently at 13.7% aiming for 10% by the end of this year or sooner. Concentrating on lowering carbs and eating a 500 calorie deficit below my BMR. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Don't know if I should give up and change diet to muscle building or keep pushing the body fat at the expense of muscle.

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  • galgenstrick
    galgenstrick Posts: 2,086 Member
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    Juanito1983 wrote: »
    trying desperately to shed stubborn abdominal fat. Currently at 13.7% aiming for 10% by the end of this year or sooner. Concentrating on lowering carbs and eating a 500 calorie deficit below my BMR. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Don't know if I should give up and change diet to muscle building or keep pushing the body fat at the expense of muscle.

    Hopefully you meant TDEE, creating a 500 calorie deficit below your BMR at 13.7% BF is likely to cause some issues.
  • Marcia661
    Marcia661 Posts: 183 Member
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    troll
  • Juanito1983
    Juanito1983 Posts: 7 Member
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    galgenstrick wrote: »
    Juanito1983 wrote: »
    trying desperately to shed stubborn abdominal fat. Currently at 13.7% aiming for 10% by the end of this year or sooner. Concentrating on lowering carbs and eating a 500 calorie deficit below my BMR. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Don't know if I should give up and change diet to muscle building or keep pushing the body fat at the expense of muscle.

    Hopefully you meant TDEE, creating a 500 calorie deficit below your BMR at 13.7% BF is likely to cause some issues.

    Yes below my TDEE, that's what I meant hehehe
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    I've been at 10%... but never 8%. For me, it just came down to greater consistency and greater attention to detail with my logging. When you get down that low, you typically have less wiggle room... less margin for error. So you don't really have to do anything differently, you just have to make sure you're dead on with what you are doing.

    IME.
  • jeffpettis
    jeffpettis Posts: 865 Member
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    If you were to continue to cut to achieve a lower BF% it shouldn't be at the expense of ANY muscle. If you are losing muscle while losing fat you are doing something wrong.

    Your goal while cutting should be to hang onto the muscle you have or else you'll just end up in a yo-yo situation where you gain muscle (and fat) in a bulk then turn right around and lose muscle and fat in a cut, and on and on it goes. Muscle is harder to gain than fat is to lose so eventually you will end up with much less muscle even after repeated bulking and cutting cycles.

  • yusaku02
    yusaku02 Posts: 3,476 Member
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    maybe check out scooby's workshop. Scoobs just cut down to 5.5% bf for a competition and I'm sure he's posted a lot about his cut.

    The lowest I've been recently was about 9% a year and a half ago. I was insanely strict about logging absolutely everything I ate and generally would have only eaten about 600-800 calories by 9pm. Then I'd make the 1,000 calorie meal I'd been drooling over in my head all day.
  • betuel75
    betuel75 Posts: 776 Member
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    yeah, just keep the 500 calorie deficit until you get down to where you want to be. Keep working out and getting plenty of protein so you dont loose muscle. If you've been leaning out doing what your doing continue and you will get lower.
  • Juanito1983
    Juanito1983 Posts: 7 Member
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    Thanks for the pointers! Gonna start the men's fitness 21 day shred program in June and see where it takes me. Hopefully I can shed those 5lbs I've been wanting. Any other programs you guys might know about please share
  • Juanito1983
    Juanito1983 Posts: 7 Member
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    yusaku02 wrote: »
    maybe check out scooby's workshop. Scoobs just cut down to 5.5% bf for a competition and I'm sure he's posted a lot about his cut.

    The lowest I've been recently was about 9% a year and a half ago. I was insanely strict about logging absolutely everything I ate and generally would have only eaten about 600-800 calories by 9pm. Then I'd make the 1,000 calorie meal I'd been drooling over in my head all day.

    Thanks I'll look into it!
  • galgenstrick
    galgenstrick Posts: 2,086 Member
    edited May 2015
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    You could try fasted morning training. Supplement with L-Leucine beforehand.

    BTW, I don't think there's much research on this topic besides the Leucine part, but it makes some sense that it would help.
  • betuel75
    betuel75 Posts: 776 Member
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    what does the 21 day shred program entail? eating in a calorie deficit? Thats the most important thing. If your not in a calorie deficit it wont matter how intense the program is, you wont shred as you wont lose the body fat.
  • Juanito1983
    Juanito1983 Posts: 7 Member
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    Yes they specifically mention the importance of the deficit. They also talk about macro's and what numbers to aim for on ur diet. It seems very well put together and complete. They alternate traditional weight lifting days with short high intensity cardio and bodyweight circuits. It's 21 days with only 3 rest days one per week and, I guess it goes without saying, not cheats for the duration of the plan.

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