Introduction
Weight loss should be looked at from a perspective beyond the actual pounds lost, but with a stricter focus on the amount of body fat lost. One of the most irritating things about the pound approach is that if you do things incorrectly, you will end up losing a substantial amount of muscle along with fat. Therefore, though your scale might say that you lost 10 pounds, you could still be at the very same body fat percentage that you started with. My approach is more focused on maximizing fat loss while minimizing muscle loss. If you follow this to the dot, you could lose 1-1.5lbs a week. Not an extreme number per se, but doing it properly could also mean gaining muscle along with the fat loss.
Basic metrics
Throughout dieting, you want to be keeping track of your weight. You also want to keep track of your measurements, and if you’re really cool about it, you want to keep track of your body fat % (BF%).
Any basic scale should work as far as simple weight measurements. I, however, would recommend this beast: http://www.amazon.com/Omron-Full-Sensor-Composition-Monitor/dp/B0020MMCDE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1243895059&sr=1-1 . In addition to measuring weight, it will estimate your BF%. The BF% isn’t going to be accurate, but if you’re consistent with your hydration levels when measuring, it will be consistent at showing your fat loss. I compared this with a BodPod over 3 months at some point the year before, and basically Omron came out about 2% off from my actual BF%, but accurate as far the consistent improvement.
As with the Omron BF% measurements, you want to be consistent with your weigh-ins. That is, your hydration level should be the same, the amount of food in your stomach should be the same, and your clothes should be the same. My recommendation is to weigh in every morning after doing your bathroom routine, but before eating, in nothing but underwear. Record progress daily; it will fluctuate, but ultimately you’ll see a trend.
For tracking, I highly recommend DailyBurn.com. This is also incredibly useful for tracking your calorie intake; an iPhone app is available, and AFAIK, an Android app is coming soon as well.
Basic nutrition
This is the key thing. You want to ensure that you are constantly tracking your calories on DailyBurn or an equivalent, both on cheat and non-cheat days, and you also want to ensure that you’re extremely particular about the carbohydrate content on non-lifting days. Here’s how I recommend approaching nutrition.
First, go to http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ and calculate your basal metabolic rate. For me, the BMR is 1824 calories. What this means is if I do nothing but stay in bed the entire day, I need approximately 1824 calories to *maintain* my body weight. After you’ve calculated your BMR, go to http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/ and multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity factor. For most, that will be 1.375; in my case, then, if applying this activity factor, I basically need 2508 calories per day to maintain my body weight.
Once you’ve determined your calorie needs, perform these two calculations:
• Calorie needs * 1.20. This will be the amount of calories you will eat on days when you lift weights. In my case, it’s approximately 3,000.
• Calorie needs * .70. This will be the amount of calories that you will eat on days when you do not lift weights (including cardio days). In my case, it’s approximately 1,750.
With these numbers in mind, you should have some idea of what your calorie needs are. However, simple calorie tracking is not enough (twinkie diet and potato diet guys can go fucking themselves). It gets more complex.
Simple rules applying to both is that you should eat many small meals (mainly for satiety, rather than the “stoking the metabolic fire†thing) and try to taper your meals towards the evening. That is, you can start with a 500 calorie breakfast, 200 calorie snack, 400 calorie lunch, 200 calorie snack, 300 calorie dinner, 200 calorie evening snack. I know these numbers don’t add up, but mainly it’s the logic of it. For those who are more advanced as far as these shenanigans, I highly recommend intermittent fasting as per http://www.leangains.com but I wouldn’t recommend this to someone who’s still in the stage where they’re trying to get their shit in order.
On your non-lifting days, when you’re limiting your calories to 70% of your calorie needs, you want to minimize the amount of carbohydrates you take in to as close to zero as you can possibly get. Make exceptions for vegetables, particularly leafy greens, but try to minimize even stuff like tomatoes. You really want to be strict here in order to avoid insulin spikes caused by carbohydrates, and frankly, these will be the days when you actually lose weight so you might as well see some progress.
On your lifting days, when you’re “limiting†your calories to 120% of your calorie needs, you want to minimize the amount of dietary fat that you take in, maximize the amount of protein, and try to moderate the carbohydrates to things like whole grains and other handy stuff. If I had to throw in a number, I would say 50% protein, 30% carbohydrate and 20% fat for this day. You’re probably not going to like the weigh-in the day after unless you’re good with your carbs.
Cheat meal: I have one meal a week where I eat like shit but still within my calorie limits. I probably would avoid this for at least the first month of a diet, but after that, it should be handy. My last cheat meal was on Saturday, for example, where I attacked a Viennese dessert buffet. I was back to my Friday weight by Tuesday.
Exercise
I recommend exercise at least 5 days a week, with 1-2 cardio days and 3-4 lifting days. For complete newbies, I would suggest full body workouts. I’m not going to detail a routine here since there’s probably shackers more capable at building routines than I am because ultimately I end up putting in a kitchen sink of everything and whoever does it gives up halfway through a workout. terath mentioned that he might write something, so I’ll let him go at it.
The workout club seems to be well into the Stronglifts routine at http://stronglifts.com/ which makes a lot of sense to me. I would also suggest looking into New Rules of Lifting for basically a year’s worth of decent sensible, newbie routines: http://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Lifting-Maximum-Muscle/dp/1583332383
One thing I will say, however, is about cardio. Steady state cardio (that is, rocking away on a treadmill for 45 minutes) is mediocre unless you’re going strictly for calorie burn. My recommendation is to follow Alwyn Cosgrove’s program as outlined here: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/alwyn8.htm
What to do when things aren’t working?
This approach isn’t going to work for everyone mainly because BMR numbers are a real estimate. The first step I would suggest is to cut out 100 calories from lifting days and watch for 2 weeks. If you’re still not making substantial progress, add 20 minutes of cardio in the AM before eating every other day.
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12 tagsHave we done a "Best of 2020" music thread yet? If we did, can someone link me to it? I I almost always find something new through those.
If we haven't, well then let's get motivated. My picks in reply, which are very metal-centric. I'm counting on you guys to show me what else was happening this year. -
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12 tagsSomeone got a stabilized 4K camera and walked around NYC during a thunderstorm (full of crazy rain and lightning) as well as crazy neon everywhere.
Super relaxing and looks like Cyberpunk!
https://youtu.be/BOa0zQBRs_M -
12 tagsPeople interested in PowerBI self serve training (free) :
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/diad/
It's mostly decent, and updated frequently. It's a great way to get started from nothing for anyone interested in data modelling / visualization! -
12 tagsPC games on your TV MENSES
I dunno how many of you this might help, but it's made my life a little bit easier. https://sourceforge.net/projects/tvgamelauncher/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8N5RPswlH0
A little executable that creates a shortcut to automatically switch your primary display from PC monitor to TV, and also switch the audio device. You can even create a shortcut to a game and it will launch the game, switch everything, and then when you exit the game switch everything back. So much nicer than manually doing all that nonsense. -
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12 tagsSci-fi Fans
You need to check out this trailer.
Aniara
https://youtu.be/3MIlE9R00ik
It's a German sci-fi movie that has an interesting premise from the trailer and an absolutely beautiful aesthetic. It looks like it's going to be cerebral sci-fi, which is something we don't get enough of. It popped up on my YouTube suggested list today so I checked it out, and I'm really impressed. Definitely something I'll have to check out when it releases.
