kryptonite

I've been going at the gym for the last year when I woke up one day and realized I was growing a belly.

Initial numbers were 161 lbs at 18.1% body fat.Right now around 155-158 at 10.5% body fat but..I've been stuck here for the past 2 months and it's gotten really frustrating.

Decided a couple of weeks ago to start fully monitoring my meals. I'd never really followed up on the "Macros" concept but as of 10 days ago I've been recording every meal to the gram, being way more diligent on my random snacking and in turn I've also been more consistent with my gym going.

So far I don't really see a difference, I'm actually working at a pretty big deficit. I find it difficult to eat as many calories as I burn.

One of my regular meals

Breakfast: 2 eggs + 2 egg whites, bowl of oatmeal with ste (28.3 Fat, 18.1Carb, 34.9protein)

Shake: Gold Standard Optimum Nutrition Casein double chocolate I think. (1 Fat, 3 carb, 24 protein)

Lunch: 2 chicken breasts grilled (200g), cup of vegetables (5 Fat, 15.5 carbs, 65 protein)

Snack: Quest bar (9 Fat, 22 carb, 20 protein) x 2

Shake: Gold Standard Optimum Nutrition Whey (1 Fat, 3 carb, 24 protein)

Dinner: 2 Chicken breast grilled, 1/2 cup mashed potatoes, veggies, Rice (10.4 Fat, 86.2 carbs, 66.7 protein)

~65 Fat, 170 carbs, 255 protein.

Initially going a little more protein heavy with a 50/35/15 split once I'm at a fat percentage I'm happy with I'll be moving to a more normalish 40/40/20.

I eat a lot of chicken/turkey/extra lean red meats and rotate often enough.
Biggest change is I've cut beer out of my diet That's been the biggest adjustment for me.

Thought I'd kick this forum off with my general plan and thought people could share their progress/goals/nutrition profiles

jkelley

I'll start this by saying: I'm not a nutritionist

It sounds like you have a ton of protein in your diet. To my knowledge proteins are complex chains that are fundamentally used for "building" in the body (muscle, tissues, etc).
If you're looking to lower your body fat % it sounds like with your diet you would need to be going REALLY HARD at the gym. I mean, egg whites, and all those whey shakes and stuff, that's a bunch I think.

What I've been doing is starting by balancing my protein to a normal level (normal person my age assuming no exercise). I am also cutting out fats and just eating a well balanced diet (fruits, veggies, whole grains, fewer preservatives and such). Then I added exercise on top of that (running 3x a week, I've just picked up a stationary bike, and doing a lot of house work and stuff). I think this is going to focus on "directing" my body towards burning fat. Yes, I will not be gaining muscle. But I'm okay with that for now. Once I get my BFI into a good zone, then I will work on adding protein that is balanced for my level of workouts I'm doing (heavy or light).

One of my goto's is fruit smoothies. It's stupid easy to make, just throw in 5 frozen strawberries from a bag, a handful of frozen blueberries from a bag, a few ice cubes, whole grain oats, a greek yogurt flavor of my choice, some silk almond milk, top off with water and bam: smoothie.

This works for me. It certainly will not work for everyone since everyone is different. But I've dropped 17-19 lbs in 4 months this way (from 175-177 to 158-160 ish). Mostly in body fat. Golf is really the only sport (if you can call it that) I play and I can feel a huge difference in the strength in my arms and shape of my upper body from having some of that fat trimmed off. My range of motion is much better, which helps a lot for golf.

arsenal

Cardio. Do more of it.

kryptonite

I've been very diligent with my gym routines and so to speak go pretty hard at the gym. Right now doing back+chest day, legs day, arms day, repeat and then a day off. Mixed in is 2 core workouts, usually a p90xesque core workout. I run twice a week and stationary bike after my leg days

From my body fat analysis thing, you sit in this bubble thing and they give you some stats, my daily calorie burning at rest(assuming I do nothing at all) is 1870 per day. Add in that I walk around 6-7kms a day + cardio and high intensity workouts even with the heavy eating, I end up with a 3-400 calorie deficit.

Definitely looking to reduce my protein intake over time. The idea was to drop some fat faster now and then regulate it later so I shifted the emphasis to high protein low carb/fat

arsenal

What kind of running and what kind of stationary bike?

kryptonite

10km runs around 58-65 minutes depending

Biking is intervals at L7 on there which makes that shit hard. Usually 20 minute sessions getting to about 10km pretty vigorous biking that leaves my quads feeling drained

TW00Si

Decrease the distance and increase the speed. Change it up. Doing long slow runs don't always help.
Twenty minutes on a spin bike isn't going to do much. Step up on the intensity.

arsenal

Yep exactly what I was going to say.

On a run imagine you have five gears, pick up the speed, then slow down, then random gear etc. sprint for 30 secs. Walk.

We do intervals on a forest run and it makes it much more enjoyable and exciting - sprint to the next bend, walk, jog up hill, walk, sprint etc. you'll be drained with in 45 mins. It's like playing soccer, and we all know how soccer players are!

JonBoy

OP, don't expect fast changes at your level. You're at a very low BF% already and you work out a lot, so your body is already pretty "optimized". Pro athletes are 8-10% BF, so you're right there with them. Going much lower is generally unsustainable unless you're an ectomorph, and that would also generally mean you have less muscle.

The best way to get "change" is to....change. Change your workouts a bit - go with higher intensity with less rest for a while. Try 30s or 45s rests between sets and be religious about it. That'll give you a bit of a fat burning advantage for a while. After four weeks, move to a lower-rep, higher weight, longer rest style of workout, then switch again in four weeks to a moderate rest, moderate rep, moderate weight training regiment. Keep your body off balance and it'll get stronger AND burn fat a little better.

How tall are you?

Macro splits look pretty good, though you'd better be working out regularly to use that much protein (ie, it's good for now but don't stop working out!). God help you if/when you stop, since you'll pack weight on pretty quickly. More veggies would probably be healthier and more sustainable in the long run (ie, it's a healthier balance). You won't add fat eating vegetables, usually...

kryptonite

Thanks for the pointers guys, personally the reason I do longer runs is my lungs can't handle super high intensity short runs, it's weird but basically I ease into my run and then pick up the pace once I've broken past the wall so to speak. I've been running for a couple of years now and still get that same feeling.

Will try it out though, maybe a warm up to get my lungs working and then more high intensity stuff

I feel like there's definitely room to lose fat, I'm at that point where my abs are visible just not to the point where they're popping. Usually I hold my fat in that area so I feel like my abs are the better indicator than my arms which look way more ripped.

I've been doing this gym thing while working a super demanding job, using my dinner time to get my workouts in and then eating at the computer. Surprisingly rather than adding stress it's a total refresher for me going into the more than occasional long nights.

I'm 5ft 11.

I think my macros are pretty solid for the most part, my carb and fat intake fluctuate a little between each other but protein is usually on point.

I would like to do more veggies but living alone, I find it difficult to get a variety of vegetables and not have them go bad on me. I totally get sick of just eating steamed veggies all the time, and when I cook them into a curry or add them into a soup, there are only a few that actually work in those scenarios.

Either way appreciate the feedback guys, will try and incorporate these into my routine