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      11-07-2019, 12:10 PM   #1436
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Now_Rudi View Post
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my game plan has been that once I hit 15% body fat to increase calories by 200/day. I figure at this rate, this should add close to 2 pounds of lean muscle/month. As my weight/muscle increases, I will need to adjust my calories. I figure if I do this slowly, it should keep me relatively lean as I start to bulk at a gradual rate. As of now, I'm 139 and 17.5% body fat; I know, crazy skewed numbers but I went too hard on the cardio in the beginning and realize that now. That's really high bf% for that low of weight. I'd like to get to around 150-155 @ around 10-12% BF by May or June.

Does this seem realistic?

Also, as for carbs, I don't neglect them, but I make better choices in what I eat. Rice with quinoa, wheat based stuff, etc. I've been more focused on trying to keep my fats low, which is tough, and stay around .8 - 1g of protein/pound of body weight.
I think 200 calories a day is good. But I would find your baseline first. It may take you a few weeks, but I would first drop all of the cardio like you said...and see how your bodyweight is affected after a week at the calories you are eating. If you can get the scale to stop moving in one way or the other...then I would stay there and start pounding the weights with the intensity of how you approached your diet. Since you are not doing a ton of cardio...your body will recover better from the weight training.

The reason I say that is I still believe that you will be able to recomp your body on that amount of calories. You will build some muscle, and after awhile you will see the scale start to slowly trend downward again.

That is the time when you want to back-add 100-200 calories per day to keep the gym progress going and keep building muscle.

As for macro breakdowns...I found a 40% Protein, 40% Carb, and 20% fat ratio seems to work the best. When bulking...carbs are protein sparing so you can get away with less protein. But when I diet, I always up my protein and drop my carbs...more of a 50%, 30%, 20% ratio.

As for fat intake...that ratio puts me at about .5 grams of fat per lb of bodyweight. Healthy fats have been shown in numerous studies to be instrumental in testosterone production. Below is a PubMed excerpt:

The possible effect of dietary fat content and the ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated fatty acids (P/S-ratio) on serum sex hormones was studied in 30 healthy male volunteers. The customary diet of the subjects, which supplied 40% of energy as fat (mainly from animal sources, P/S-ratio 0.15) was replaced for a 6 weeks period by a practically isocaloric experimental diet containing significantly less fat (25% of energy) with a higher P/S-ratio (1.22) and other environmental factors were stabilized. Serum testosterone and 4-androstenedione decreased from 22.7 +/- 1.1 nmol/l to 19.3 +/- 1.2 nmol/l, (SEM, P less than 0.001) and from 4.6 +/- 0.2 nmol/l to 4.3 +/- 0.2 nmol/l (SEM, P less than 0.01), respectively. These changes were paralleled by a reduction in serum free (non-protein bound) testosterone (P less than 0.01) suggesting a possible change in biological activity. During the low fat period a significant negative correlation between serum prolactin and androgens was observed. All the changes in androgen levels were reversible. With the exception of a small but non-significant decrease in serum estradiol-17 beta, the other hormone parameters were practically unaffected by the dietary manipulation. Our results indicate that in men a decrease in dietary fat content and an increase in the degree of unsaturation of fatty acids reduces the serum concentrations of androstenedione, testosterone and free testosterone. The mechanism and importance of this phenomenon is discussed in the light of epidemiological and experimental data.
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