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There is one experience besides getting injured that signals
to mature bodybuilders that we are getting older and losing
our youthful physiques. That experience is clothes shopping
and, more specifically, trying on pants! Much to our chagrin
we may find that “they seem to be shrinking the sizes.”
This happened to me recently. I knew I had put on a few pounds,
and I also knew that I had been emphasizing strength and endurance
in my training for about a year, paying less attention to
my waistline. Even with the added weight and bodyfat, however,
I figured I could squeeze into 30-inch pants. They’d
be snug, but I’d have an incentive to trim down. To
make a long story short, I ended up buying 32s.
That was the final straw. I decided that very day to lose
weight and body-fat. This month I will tell you about some
of my first efforts; the successes and failures and what I
learned that might help you.
The Diet and Goals
The diet I chose to follow was quite similar to the way I
always eat except that I further reduced the calories, decreased
the percentage of calories from fat and increased my protein
supplementation. For close to three months I consumed a diet
of about 2,600 calories per day, with approximatly 10 percent
coming from fat, 20 percent from protein and 70 percent from
carbohydrates. Grains, breads, fruits, vegetables and low
fat proteins dominated my reasonably normal diet. It was very
easy to follow, since there were no special foods involved,
and except for two instances, I was never hungry.
My goals were to lose about a pound every 10 days, to keep
losing until I had reduced my waist by three inches, to lose
slowly in order to maintain strength and muscle mass and to
become much more ripped. I knew from past experience that
if I continued to train I could expect to lose about half
an inch from my waist for every two pounds of weight lost.
To keep myself motivated and on target, I decided to measure
and record my waist each morning before eating anything, weigh
myself after breakfast, keep track of all the calories and
grams of protein I consumed each day and take readings with
a portable bodyfat meter every morning and evening. This equipment
uses light in the near-infrared portion of the spectrum that
can differentiate fat levels.
One thing I did not want to do was increase my activity level.
Training sometimes twice a day and at least one hour every
day was enough for me.
Good and Bad Points
Using a normal diet and trying to lose slowly were the two
big pluses of my plan. It helped that I had a specific waist
measurement as a goal and also that I knew from past experience
the kind of weight loss it would take to reach that goal.
Monitoring and recording calories, protein and waist and bodyfat
measurements proved helpful and provided a good match for
my compulsive nature.
With regard to calorie reduction and weight loss I made one
big mistake. I incorrectly estimated my maintenance calorie
level. I figured at the outset that I needed about 3,000 calories
a day to maintain my current weight. By dropping to 2,600
calories, therefore, I would lose a pound every nine days
or so. While there was nothing wrong with the math (1 pound
= 3,500 calories), I underestimated my caloric requirements.
As my own data later showed, I actually need about 3,400 calories
for weight maintenance. I created too large of a caloric deficit
and lost weight too quickly.
Here is a sound piece of advice: Take a week
to 10 days before starting your diet to establish a baseline
for your usual caloric input (assuming you are currently maintaining
your weight and not gaining). Once you have the average daily
caloric intake for the baseline, reduce the calories by 250
to 400 per day; for example, from 3,000 to between 2,750 and
2,600. This way you’ll lose one pound in nine to 14
days. The large initial weight loss of more radical caloric
restriction is very reinforcing at first, but in the long
run losing slowly works best.
Bodyfat meters are tricky. They seem like a dream come true,
but they are not. The reliability of measurement, which means
repeated measurements taken in the same way during the same
day, is marginal. Readings can differ by as much as 3 percent,
which, in fact, may realistically be the most you can reduce
your bodyfat percentage in two to three months. Then, too,
for a number of reasons there can be moment-to-moment variations
in readings, as well as differences among the various methods
of measurement; for example, hydrostatic vs. calipers.
The final clincher is that bodybuilders, who are physiologically
not “normal” when compared to the general public,
tend to show up on the high end with the method I used, as
the lower-cost instrument is not programmable for activity
level and bone density. If, however, you can keep yourself
from attaching too much importance to the absolute number
you see on the instrument (something that is not easy to do)
and instead look at the week-to-week trends, the instrument
can be helpful.
As far as losing bodyfat and becoming ripped, I do not think
I was that realistic at the outset. Before you start your
diet, make an honest appraisal in the mirror and do some simple
math. Let’s take my own case.
From bodyfat readings (and some prior measurements using calipers)
I determined that my bodyfat level was about 14 percent. While
that probably sounds very high to many readers, to put it
into perspective, 14 percent is considered excellent for a
middle-aged male. My initial weight was 157 pounds, which
means that I was carrying about 22 pounds of fat and had a
lean bodyweight of 135 pounds. To reach my goal of losing
three inches from my waist, I would probably need to lose
12 pounds and continue to train hard.
Here’s the catch: Even under optimal circumstances only
about two-thirds of weight lose can be fat; in my case that
was eight pounds. The other one-third (four pounds) will be
lean bodyweight. So the best I could hope for at 145 pounds
was to carry 14 pounds of bodyfat (22-8= 14), which equals
about 10 percent bodyfat. That’s a big improvement,
but it’s not going to make me absolutely ripped. Even
if I continued all the way down to 140 pounds and lost bodyfat
at the same rate, I would still have about 7 percent bodyfat.
Presumably, I could change this fat/lean weight-loss ratio
by introducing more intensive training; but if you’re
already training hard, that’s not easy to do.
The reality is that if you’re in decent shape prior
to your diet, you cannot expect a magical transformation.
And keep in mind that for good health and almost any other
purpose in life except for bodybuilding competition, being
reasonably lean and defined is enough.
Good and Bad Results
Clearly, the best outcome of my diet was that I easily reached
my goal of losing three inches from my waist while largely
retaining my upper body and leg measurements. I also lost
1 1/2 inches from my hips. I lost the three inches at exactly
the weight I had predicted at the outset 145 pounds, or about
a 12-pound loss. I also lost about 4 percent bodyfat, meaning
that I dropped about eight pounds of fat. As previously mentioned,
these results are about the best anyone can realistically
expect.
There were three other important results:
1) By losing too quickly, I passed a threshold
(at about 150 pounds) where I was losing strength, not having
great workouts and starting to become overtrained. This process
sets up a vicious circle, in which ineffective training leads
to more losses, more ineffective training and so on. You can
avoid, or at least delay, strength loss by losing weight more
slowly.
2) I feel I can maintain a lower weight by
increasing my calories to about 3,400 per day. At that level
I will stay lean, have better workouts, gain muscle mass and
lose fat.
3) There was one tremendous health gain achieved
by reducing the fat in my diet and losing weight. My total
cholesterol went from 180 mg/dl to 135 mg/dl. For a 45-year-old
male that is a very low figure.
Overall, losing bodyfat proved to be a learning experience
and created a new challenge, to regain strength and muscular
size at a much reduced bodyweight. And there was one other
interesting development. Over the weekend I returned to the
same store. I still need the same size sports jacket, but
now the 29-inch pants fit. I guess the sizes aren’t
shrinking after all.
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