Is my fat loss plan flawed?

[Beast13]

Current stats:
20 years old
5'8"
190lbs
18% bodyfat

Goal stats:
drop to under 10% bodyfat without losing much muscle/strength

Background:
I have been training stronglifts 5x5 and then madcows 5x5 for the last year, eating anything and everything (3-4k cals) and doing zero cardio.

Plan:
Next week I plan on dropping my weight lifting to 2 fullbody workouts per week (Friday and Sunday), taking MA classes Mon-Thurs for 2 hours per night, taking EC stack, taking Creatine, and just eat whenever I'm hungry (keeping protein very high) which will probably be around 2-2.5k cals per day.

 

[Pathogenic]

Don't use the EC stack at 18% bodyfat. It just doesn't make sense to do so until you're close to 10%. As for the rest of your plan, you haven't really mentioned what your diet is going to look like. If you can lose weight at 2.5k calories then go for it, but you haven't listed your macros, which are very important if muscle mass preservation is your top priority.

Your training is good, though.

 

[mtruitt76]

To hit 10% bodyfat you are probably going to have to be more precise than "eating whenever you are hungry". Nothing wrong with giving it a shot, but don't be surprised if it does not work.

I second Pathogenic's recommendation on the EC stack. Save it for when you hit a plateau in your weight loss.

 

[hardheart]

3rd on the EC stack. No need when you're as high as you are in BF%. Also, don't be a pussy. If you're going to use the E & the C, use the fucking A also, unless you have some medical condition that prevents you from using it like chronic low blood pressure or stomach ulcers.

Your diet is the most important part of your weight loss. Post up a sample of what you eat in a day.

 

[cooks1]

Why do you want to be under 10% BF??? Athletically, that does not have tremendous value. Outside of aesthetics to only the most observant of people, being under 10% is pretty much pointless.

Getting from 18% to under 15%, say, 12-13% would probably have value, but going from there to under 10%, you will be sacrificing performance for appearance.

Body Fat % Pics (15%, 12%, 10%, 7-9%)

 

[Beast13]

I know that I can drop the weight easily, that's not the problem. The problem is keeping the muscle and strength on, hence the EC and Creatine.

Also, it has been proven that the A has little effect on results and almost everyone who uses this stack does not use the A.

I want to be 10% for both performance and aesthetic reasons. Many great fighters walk around at less than 10%, so I'm not sure if that has a big impact on performance.

 

[Beast13]

No, you can't drop the weight easy. If you could drop the weight easy you would have done it already and not be asking if your plan was flawed. Losing body fat, when done properly will not affect your muscle or strength.

When you ask for help be humble, don't pretend like its going to be a cakewalk and you don't need any help.

Lol. How are you gonna tell me? I'm a natural ectomorph who started lifting weights at 125lbs, I got to where I am by force feeding myself not because I was hungry and needed to eat all of that. And I wouldn't have dropped the weight already because my goals have just recently changed, before this all I cared about was getting bigger and stronger with no care to body fat gain. I know that when done properly it will not affect my muscle or strength, which is why I'm asking if this is a proper plan.

Dropping weight is a cakewalk for me, but keeping the muscle and strength on isn't.

 

[cooks1]

Athletically having excess body fat is pointless, all it does is add unnecessary weight. Also those pictures are a poor indicator of what different body fat percentages look like considering they look like bodybuilders. Personally I'm at 10% and don't like damn near anything like that guy when hes at 13%. Everyone carries fat differently and lean body mass differently.

I merely posted the link to those pictures as examples, as many people discuss BF% without even really understanding what someone with 10%-15% BF looks like. But yes, everyone carries BF differently.

But I would certainly argue your assertion that someone with 12%-13% BF is carrying around excess BF. You need a certain amount of BF to function normally. To regulate temperature, have energy reserves, and have efficient body development. Every cell membrane in your body has some fat in it.

12%-13% BF is not excess, not by a long shot, that is pretty damn cut.

 

[mightguy]

Losing weight might be easy, but losing nearly 10% body fat is not. That's a good goal to have though. I would add some cardio in there if you can. Even running once a week would be good.

 

[cooks1]

I know that I can drop the weight easily, that's not the problem. The problem is keeping the muscle and strength on, hence the EC and Creatine.

Also, it has been proven that the A has little effect on results and almost everyone who uses this stack does not use the A.

I want to be 10% for both performance and aesthetic reasons. Many great fighters walk around at less than 10%, so I'm not sure if that has a big impact on performance.

Well, I am sure some fighters 'walk around' at/under 10%, but I think you will find those people to be a fairly small minority. They might be at or under 10% when they fight, but that is as much a function of making weight, as it is having a better athletic performance.

Taking for example, GSP, as the absolute apex of this. About as disciplined a year round athlete as you can find. Pretty much shredded 100% of the time. You would probably find him walking around at, say 7.7% BF.



I think you could probably count on 1 hand the number of mixed martial artists that do what he does year around to maintain that. If he is carrying upwards of 8% all the time, i think it's pretty fair to say most everyone else is walking around well north of 10%.

I am not trying to dissuade you from your goals. I wrestled in college many years ago and certainly spent a lot of time with a very low BF%. Just hoping you are asking yourself the questions about the purpose of getting so ripped. Because unless you have a really good reason, you are unnecessarily risking losing some of that muscle you worked so damn hard to get.

 

[Seriously-Dead]

I don't really have any research to back up this opinion, but I believe that reducing your body fat to very low levels (sub-10%) in a stable way that doesn't negatively effect mental or physical performance requires long-term (years) intervention, and a wide range of interventions - if you do not have the epigenetic predisposition to it.

Things like AMPK (the central fat burning, anti-inflammatory molecule) activation in fat tissue rely on inflammatory factors to be downregulated in a long-term temporal sense. But AMPK also relies on acute, massive bursts of pro-inflammatory cytokine release (like IL-6) in order to operate properly. So in order to optimize inflammatory cytokine release means modifying a wide range of epigenetic histone modifications. This is further complicated by the fact that we don't know all the histone modifications, which behaviors modify which histones, and whether or not we have to demethylate, methylate, acetylate or ubiquinate those histones.

The fact is, if you are carrying excess fat, you have negatively modified your DNA. The hard part is remodifying that DNA, and optimizing transcriptional behavior so you get the physical changes you want. It wouldn't surprise me if this can't be done in a year, and may even take as long as a decade of altering interventions (calorie restriction, ketogenics, constant feeding, short-term fasts, long term fasts, macromolecule adjustments, etc). If you don't make these modifications, you won't get optimal results.

Cliffs - Getting to extremely low body fat in a controllable manner may or may not take multiple interventions over a long period of time.

My study we're running next year is actually addressing this issue. We're looking at the hormonal difference between naturally-hyper lean people (sub-11% BF, no crash dieting) and normal controls (14-20% BF). The fact is we don't even understand what is really different about hyper lean people, and how they can sustain such low bodyfat without any negative symptoms. The goal is eventually to understand what's happening on an epigenetic level with these people, by reverse engineering their hormonal composition.

 

[Beast13]

Natural Ectomorph? The broscience is strong with this one.

Let me google that for you

 

[NinjaChick]

You know what, don't be so strick on yourself, you're gonna be fatty and slow when you're old anyway.

 

[Beast13]

You know what, don't be so strick on yourself, you're gonna be fatty and slow when you're old anyway.

I'll rest when I'm dead.

 

[Beast13]

Sigh I know what it is silly pants, its just hilarious that you buy into it. What you eat and your exercise levels determine what your body composition. Fat people are fat because they eat tons of shit, skinny people are skinny because they don't eat tons of shit. Sure genetics play a role but its diet and exercise moreso, but do w/e you want man.

I'm sure since you're a "natural ectomorph" youll be a skinny kid again in no time snacking away on twinkies and horseflesh.

No, you didn't. And whats hilarious is that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Somatotypes do exist and there are many fat people who are truly ectomorphs and skinny people who are truly endomorphs. Just because you are meant to be a certain way doesn't mean you have to stay there. And you are completely leaving out metabolism which is a huge factor.

Exactly, I can become a skinny kid at the drop of a dime but that isn't my issue. And yes I could get skinny eating twinkies and horseflesh, IIFYM bro.. need me to google that for you too?

 

[thetopdog555]

Getting to around 10% isn't that hard, I went from about 18% to about 10% in a few months. All I did was lift heavy and eat clean. My diet consists of mostly lean protein (including a ton of fish, I eat about 4lbs of salmon a week), eggs, vegetables, nuts and the occasional fruit. I sprinkle in cheat meals from time to time, and I usually try to have my cheat meals either immediately before or after a workout. I find it easier to just eat clean and eat when I'm hungry and not worry about counting cals

 

[Pathogenic]

Getting to around 10% isn't that hard, I went from about 18% to about 10% in a few months. All I did was lift heavy and eat clean. My diet consists of mostly lean protein (including a ton of fish, I eat about 4lbs of salmon a week), eggs, vegetables, nuts and the occasional fruit. I sprinkle in cheat meals from time to time, and I usually try to have my cheat meals either immediately before or after a workout. I find it easier to just eat clean and eat when I'm hungry and not worry about counting cals

It may be easy for you to get that lean, but, for most, it's a long, painful process that requires a lot of micromanagement and produces an utter disdain for food. Many men start to have trouble when dieting below the 12-15% mark. Most peoples' hormones become out-of-whack; leptin sinks, grehlin starts to rise, T levels drop, cortisol is dramatically elevated, etc. I've personally seen quite a few formerly obese people get to this point and give up on dieting altogether after years of steady progress because it gets so hard psychologically.

Like S-D said: for most people, getting to sub-10% gradually is very difficult.

I'd also like to note, as an aside, that being below 10% isn't always optimal for fighting. The point of diminishing returns with respect to performance is reached rather quickly once you drop past that point. I thought getting down to 8% from 9% would make me a better, quicker wrestler. I spent about a month agonizing over it, only to realize that, once I reached 8%, I was no better at wrestling than I was at 9%, or maybe even 12%. I did, however, manage to drop into a different weight class where I was very strong. I'm currently trying to push this as far as I can while recovering from an ACL tear.

Not everyone can walk around at 7.7% body fat like GSP and still be a monster, and get into the mid-high 6% range on fight night while maintaining their functionality. The only people who can do that are either extremely, extremely genetically-gifted, extremely genetically-gifted people on good drugs, or genetically-gifted people on the best drugs money can buy.

(Also as an off-topic aside): I also have a problem with dudes thinking that they need to be sub-10% in order for women to like their bodies. Women generally think 12-15% looks good. Let's be real here: the difference between 12% and 10% is so minute that it almost doesn't matter. An average, well-built guy who is 15% can flex and still get 2-4 abs showing, too, thus making the gap between 12% and 15% look relatively small. It's sort-of like how we look at women and see that some are clearly fit and look good, and slight variations in body fat either way don't really make a huge difference.

 

[Beast13]

Im telling you for a fact, that if you take in more calories than you burn (BMR) you will gain weight. There is NO way around it, the fact that you think there is, is well hilarious.

That is a fact. But no, that isn't what you said. You said "Fat people are fat because they eat tons of shit, skinny people are skinny because they don't eat tons of shit." However, as you mentioned BMR above, a skinny person can have a higher BMR than a fat person and therefore stay skinnier although they are consuming more than the fat person.

 

[closetfighter]

at 190 LBS 2.5K cals a day, with no cardio, is way too many.

keep your cal intake to around 1.5K-1.8K. your diet should consist strictly of lean protien, fruits and veggies, a solid multi vitamin, and good fish oil supplement.

and why arent you doing any cardio?

 

[mtruitt76]

at 190 LBS 2.5K cals a day, with no cardio, is way too many.

keep your cal intake to around 1.5K-1.8K. your diet should consist strictly of lean protien, fruits and veggies, a solid multi vitamin, and good fish oil supplement.

and why arent you doing any cardio?

Without knowing his activity level there is no way you can determine that 2500 k is too many calories.