Topic: Dropping Weight! Need Advice

[Shawn Thomas]

I want to drop to the 94's. I currently sit at 99 kg. I am 8 weeks from an open comp. This will be my second meet ever. I lifted in the 105's. for my first meet back in Jan. I felt strong. I have this concern (mostly my head) that if i drop, I will lose a significant amount of maximal strength.
 I am 34 and 5"10. I know my "athletic" weight is around 195-200 (when i played competitve rugby). However when I started o-lifting, my weight just shot up.
 I want to do it, because I am just too beefy, and I believe my speed/strength will increase. Any suggestions? What is the best way?

regards,
shawn

[Joshua Davis]

Bodies and metabolisms vary, but I found alot of success with bumping up water, protein, and healthy fats... and restricting carbohydrates.

This entails a diet of eggs, turkey, organic beef, fish, almonds/walnuts, tons of green fiberous veggies (asparagus/broccoli/brussels sprouts/collards) and everything cooked in olive oil.


My weightloss background is the following: I have dropped 65lbs since November 06 (weighed in at 380.5lbs on Nov. 4th and now weigh 316lbs). Before I got involved in strength athletics I weighed over 430lbs, and since have lost and gained , learning what works and what doesn't.

Although I have relaxed my diet quite a bit in the last month, I am still slowly losing around .5lbs/week, while eating around 4k calories, 50% of which are from fat. My serum cholesterol is under 180, with relatively low LDL and triglycerides. Most of the ideas on nutrition I have gathered from the "Paleo" diet principles (Neanderthin by Ray Audlette is the book that got me started), Dan John's "Meat Leaves Berries" diet concept, and alot of Berardi's writings.

[Jim Hooper]

Shawn:

Its 95% physics and discipline.  Assuming you have 8-10 lbs of excess bodyfat (i.e., >12-14% or so for a guy your age) to spare, you have just enough time, but no time to spare.

First, the last thing you want to do is lose muscle.  Second, almost no one can lose more than 1.5-2 lbs/week without significant lean body mass loss.  Your body just cannot metabolize fat faster than that -- the chemical reactions take too long.  You have to peel it off like layers of paint, about 1 lb a week or so tops.  Larger energy deficits (crash, severe caloric restriction) will cause your body to break down lean mass as much or more than fat -- last thing you want to happen.

To make a 94 kg weigh in 8 weeks from now, you need to be in about a 500-700 calorie per day deficit.  3500 kcal is the approximate energy content of one lb of fat.  The 500-700 per day deficit will translate to about a 1.0-1.1 lb fat loss each week.  The formula gets criticized and caveated, usually by people advocating a special diet or supplement, but it holds within +/- 200 kcal for the vast majority of folks.  

Figure out what your current maintenance calories are.  Count the calories you actually take in, in your normal, status quo diet, for a couple or three days where your weight stays contant and average.   That's the absolute best way to do it, because it is specific to YOU and your unique metabolism (count the cals carefully and weigh at the same time, in the same hydration state -- e.g., right after waking and draining the bladder.)  Average the intake:  that's your current maintenance energy intake.    

Alternatively, google and use several calorie calculators on the web and average the results.   Or use the energy requirements chart on the cheat sheet I'm attaching, but unless you have a physically taxing job outside your WL training, be sure to use the LOW number -- you're middle aged now, plus Oly lifting is not "heavy training" in the sense of massive raw calorie expenditure (though it is intensely demanding in other ways).  

From that number -- the energy intake required to keep you at 99 kg -- simply subtract  500-700 and that gives you your target range for daily calorie intake.  

Your goal should be to eat that amount of food energy in the form of nutrient-dense food -- the kinds of food Josh recommends are excellent, loaded with a lot of protein, vitamins, minerals, and fiber relative to their energy content, or "calories" -- every single day, no more, no less.  When you really concentrate on eating nutrient-dense foods like lean meat, dairy, and vegetables, you may find you feel stuffed trying to cram that much into your gullet (good food takes up a lot of room relative to the energy-dense, fat laden crap that most of us eat all the time).  Drink all the water you want -- your body has a remarkable equilibrium system -- blood, kidneys, and piping -- that will automatically shed any excess.

Unless there's something wrong with your metabolism (a condition that usually exists in the minds, rather than the physiology, of fat people), you'll lose fat.  It takes discipline and attention to everything that goes in.

That should deliver you to 94-95 kg a couple of days before the weigh-in.  You can fine tune the last .5-1.0 kilos if you need to with passive water loss (sauna, steam room, or, my personal favorite, the "boiling" technique, which is just immersing yourself in a bathtub hot enough to make you sweat for 30 minutes or so).  Also, get a sense of how much water you "float" overnight -- we normally emit a pound or so overnight in passive perspiration and the water vapor that leaves us with every exhalation.  That'll be useful information the night before.  If you have to shed a little water to get to 93.9 kg, drink it back in when you come off the scales -- steady but not so fast you get sick or bloated feeling, and cooler absorbs faster than warmer.  You don't want to have to use water loss for anything more than minor fine tuning -- much of the chemistry that makes your nerves and muscles work happens in solution, and dehydration is a strength and attitude killer.  Get it off with fat loss.  "Fat does not contract."

If you go slowly, taking off a few ounces per day, you should be able to train as normal and remain strong.  Your speed may increase a bit, since there will be a little less of you contributing to the total load, but probably you won't notice it too much with as little weight as you have to lose.  Again, you'll have to get on it right away, because you have no time to spare with H-Hour 56 days away.

None -- zero, none, nil -- of the gimmicks, special diets, or "weight-loss" supplements (overpriced caffeine pills) will work.  Your body's normal digestive system DOES work.

I'm attaching the "cheat sheet" that our team (HS varsity wrestlers and Oly lifters) uses when we start shedding fat in mid-summer -- its basically everything you need to know on one piece of paper.  Its taken 10 lbs off many people over a couple of months with no loss of strength.  Check it out and I hope its helpful.

Jim

[Shawn Thomas]

Jim,
  u are a Godsend thank-u very much!!!

[Jim Hooper]

We're all Godsends Shawn, every one of us.  Best of luck and don't turn bodybuilder on us when you get ripped.

[Shawn Thomas]

Jim,
  
 U are absolutley right on that statement. Don't worry,  I made that mistake(bodybuilding) before!!