Diet Stalled.. sort of

[ziigz]

Hey guys.. When I started my diet around September, I was about 250 lbs, now around 227 and 22-23% BF. There was a semi-short period where I got lazy on the exercise, but I've been working out for a 1.5 month now straight and i tweaked my diet a bit.
I have a BMR of 2088 and a TDEE of about 3000. On my rest days, I'm eating about 2100 calories, with a 50P/20C/30F split.. I bump it up to about 2500 calories on my workout days. I'm training 3x a week.. chest/tris back/bis and legs/shoulders and I alternate between HIIT cardio for 20 mins and LI cardio for 30 mins after lifting. I should note that I was on a 40/40/20 split and eating about 100 calories more on my rest/training days between the start of my diet in September and about a month ago, when I realized I needed to tweak it.

Despite tweaking my diet and my training, I still wasn't losing an ounce of weight, so I decided to add a refeed day, even though I thought I wouldn't need one until my BF drops much lower. I've done two refeed days now (one last monday and one this past monday), and I've since dropped from 232 lbs, where I stalled, to about 227 lbs as of this morning. My refeed days are about 3400 calories, 234g protein, 551g carbs, 28 g fat, which comes out to about 28P/64C/7F..

Do you guys have any opinions or suggestions on whether what I'm doing can be improved?

 

[ziigz]

Here is exactly what I eat each day:


Rest Day:

Training Day:

Refeed Day:

 

[3J]

Hey guys.. When I started my diet around September, I was about 250 lbs, now around 227 and 22-23% BF. There was a semi-short period where I got lazy on the exercise, but I've been working out for a 1.5 month now straight and i tweaked my diet a bit.
I have a BMR of 2088 and a TDEE of about 3000. On my rest days, I'm eating about 2100 calories, with a 50P/20C/30F split.. I bump it up to about 2500 calories on my workout days. I'm training 3x a week.. chest/tris back/bis and legs/shoulders and I alternate between HIIT cardio for 20 mins and LI cardio for 30 mins after lifting. I should note that I was on a 40/40/20 split and eating about 100 calories more on my rest/training days between the start of my diet in September and about a month ago, when I realized I needed to tweak it.

Despite tweaking my diet and my training, I still wasn't losing an ounce of weight, so I decided to add a refeed day, even though I thought I wouldn't need one until my BF drops much lower. I've done two refeed days now (one last monday and one this past monday), and I've since dropped from 232 lbs, where I stalled, to about 227 lbs as of this morning. My refeed days are about 3400 calories, 234g protein, 551g carbs, 28 g fat, which comes out to about 28P/64C/7F..

Do you guys have any opinions or suggestions on whether what I'm doing can be improved?

u should be refeeding every 7 days bud....

diet looks pretty solid...

we have a coupla options..

1. add a compound like eca/t3/clen
2. drop 200 calories a day
3. switch up! go keto!
4. up the cardio

u can pick 1, which ever one you wanna do is fine.. let me know so we can move forward..

 

[ziigz]

u should be refeeding every 7 days bud....

diet looks pretty solid...

we have a coupla options..

1. add a compound like eca/t3/clen
2. drop 200 calories a day
3. switch up! go keto!
4. up the cardio

u can pick 1, which ever one you wanna do is fine.. let me know so we can move forward..

Hey Jamie..great to hear from you again!

Yeah, well back when you were helping me tweak my diet, we didn't plan for refeeds because I think at my BF and weight, I wouldnt need one for a while. But yeah, I was a little worried about adding in refeed days because of the significant amount of extra calories ingested, especially when most of it is coming from simple carbs.. but after trying to reduce calories, add clen, etc and I still didn't lose weight, I had nothing to lose and it seems like the refeed day is working, as I have dropped weight since adding it in. Just one question though, does it appear that I'm eating too many calories/carbs on my refeed day?

About the options you layed out for me, definitely not #3, hate ketogenic diets..

About #1, I forgot to mention that I added clen for 2 weeks when i was stalling, and it didnt do a thing for me except make me jittery as hell, lethargic, and cramp up, even with taurine and potassium supplementation.. the cramping especially negatively affected my training... I dont know much about t3, except that it's pretty potent.. and that if used improperly, can screw up your metabolism? I'd have to do more research.

With regards to #2, if I dropped 200 more calories, i'd be eating around 1900 on my rest days and 2300 on training days.. with a BMR of 2080 give or take, is that really possible?

For #4, how many additional days of cardio would you suggest I add?

 

[3J]

^^^ hummmm.. with the updated info you gave me we're gonna have to go with option 4....

your only doing cardio 3 times a week??

yea, let's up that cardio.. can u do empty stomach am cardio??

if not.. u need to start doing cardio at least 5 days a week

 

[3J]

as for your refeed day, i would lower your carbs by about 100g... 500g is overkill for someone your size... i try to shoot for 450 and im 280lbs...

 

[Miss Muscle]

I would use the clen/eca/t3 as a last resort. As Jamy has pointed out you have room for many changes and tweaks that would make a difference. I would only do one change at a time though...just so you know what works or what doesn't.

There are so many things you could tweak in this diet as well. Less shakes more real food. Increase water (you may be drinking lots already but many people don't drink enough), get rid of the bagels and replace with oats, rice, multi-grain bread, etc.

Change one thing at a time and see how it works. Jam gave some good suggestions...start there.

I would personally make the diet pure, clean foods. Nothing processed. That works for me. Although I prefer to up the cardio than take way my flavored rice cakes.

 

[3J]

also, i would do lower intesity cardio at a longer duration... 45min 130-140bpm

 

[3J]

I would use the clen/eca/t3 as a last resort. As Jamy has pointed out you have room for many changes and tweaks that would make a difference. I would only do one change at a time though...just so you know what works or what doesn't.

There are so many things you could tweak in this diet as well. Less shakes more real food. Increase water (you may be drinking lots already but many people don't drink enough), get rid of the bagels and replace with oats, rice, multi-grain bread, etc.

Change one thing at a time and see how it works. Jam gave some good suggestions...start there.

I would personally make the diet pure, clean foods. Nothing processed. That works for me. Although I prefer to up the cardio than take way my flavored rice cakes.

MM, this gentleman is a member from another board that i know that i helped.. his diet, though changed a bit, followed my philosophy.. he's already dropped 25lbs.. he's at a stall and just started refeeding..

his lack of cardio is standing out to me.... so the use of compounds is out for now..

 

[ziigz]

I would use the clen/eca/t3 as a last resort. As Jamy has pointed out you have room for many changes and tweaks that would make a difference. I would only do one change at a time though...just so you know what works or what doesn't.

There are so many things you could tweak in this diet as well. Less shakes more real food. Increase water (you may be drinking lots already but many people don't drink enough), get rid of the bagels and replace with oats, rice, multi-grain bread, etc.

Change one thing at a time and see how it works. Jam gave some good suggestions...start there.

I would personally make the diet pure, clean foods. Nothing processed. That works for me. Although I prefer to up the cardio than take way my flavored rice cakes.

Well the white bagel is PWO carbs, which is actually something I learned from Jamie. You make a good point about the shakes.. On rest days I have 2 casein shakes, but its really because I'm at my wits end at getting enough protein to make 50%.. I'd have to stuff myself with probably another lb of meat a day to drop the shakes. The whey shake I only take PWO, along with the bagel.

 

[3J]

semi-simple carbs pwo is best... doesn't get stored in the liver and gets to your depleted stores in your muscles.. good addition to a short anabolic state ur in post workout

 

[Miss Muscle]

One other thing.....if the cals are too low your metabolism slows down because it has nothing to "work on". I myself can lose fat on 2000 cals. Although cardio is 6 days a week then. Still something to think about.

Also add more veggies in your diet! They are healthy and full of nutrients and good to nibble on in between meals to keep your metabolism going.

 

[3J]

Well the white bagel is PWO carbs, which is actually something I learned from Jamie. You make a good point about the shakes.. On rest days I have 2 casein shakes, but its really because I'm at my wits end at getting enough protein to make 50%.. I'd have to stuff myself with probably another lb of meat a day to drop the shakes. The whey shake I only take PWO, along with the bagel.

u know how i feel about shakes bro.. but if that's the limitation your at then so be it.. not the worst of cases since your getting decent whole foods in..

 

[Miss Muscle]

Ah...I see. I wasn't even looking for post workout stuff....the bagel does make sense then. Post workout is my fave meal.

 

[ziigz]

I hate empty stomach cardio haha, but I will do it if that's my best option here. On training days, eatrainrest from the other board suggested back in september that I keep LI cardio to 30 mins PWO and HIIT to 20 mins and to alternate between the two each PWO cardio session, so that's who I picked that up from. Should I drop the HIIT and do LI for 45 mins? I'm lifting 3x a week with pwo cardio each session.. how many days of am cardio should I add?

 

[3J]

One other thing.....if the cals are too low your metabolism slows down because it has nothing to "work on". I myself can lose fat on 2000 cals. Although cardio is 6 days a week then. Still something to think about.

Also add more veggies in your diet! They are healthy and full of nutrients and good to nibble on in between meals to keep your metabolism going.

so what do you recommend MM? i have his tdee at 3000 calories.. if anything, looking at the amount he works out and does cardio, i might have used a lower activity multiplying factor.. that's why i said drop 200 calories.. but id much rather have him add cardio then do that..

 

[ziigz]

semi-simple carbs pwo is best... doesn't get stored in the liver and gets to your depleted stores in your muscles.. good addition to a short anabolic state ur in post workout

I signed up to Milos Sarcev's forums the other day (I love his videos) so I can read some of his articles and in one article, he actually suggests for PWO carbs to use dextrose.. since it digests very quickly and it also doesn't sit in the stomach for very long.. it's also processed into glucose extremely quickly or something like that.. which made wonder about the bagel.

 

[3J]

I hate empty stomach cardio haha, but I will do it if that's my best option here. On training days, eatrainrest from the other board suggested back in september that I keep LI cardio to 30 mins PWO and HIIT to 20 mins and to alternate between the two each PWO cardio session, so that's who I picked that up from. Should I drop the HIIT and do LI for 45 mins? I'm lifting 3x a week with pwo cardio each session.. how many days of am cardio should I add?

i miss eat.. hes a good guy...

im not saying he gave bad advice.. but remember your body does everything it can to get into homeostat... seems thats where your at.. so if you change it up your body will react.. especially if you add two more cardio days.. doesn't have to be empty stomach.. just do 45min low intensity.. dont go over 140bpm..

also you can lower the weights, up the reps in your workout session, and give yourself 30 sec rest between sets and 1 min between exercises.. this does a good job of shedding fat.. gets me sweating BIG TIME

 

[3J]

I signed up to Milos Sarcev's forums the other day (I love his videos) so I can read some of his articles and in one article, he actually suggests for PWO carbs to use dextrose.. since it digests very quickly and it also doesn't sit in the stomach for very long.. it's also processed into glucose extremely quickly or something like that.. which made wonder about the bagel.

just a diff philosophy bud.. dont think too much about it.. i dont like dextrose on a cutter.. a semi-simple carb works fine imo...

but iv heard people use dextrose with success..

the pwo bagel is actually narks idea if i recall correctly..

 

[ziigz]

as for your refeed day, i would lower your carbs by about 100g... 500g is overkill for someone your size... i try to shoot for 450 and im 280lbs...

Will do. This drops me to 2900 calories on my refeed day.. is that high enough?