Switching Workout - Weight Loss/Defining

[-Dan-Knee-]

All,

Ive been lifting for afew years, most of the time heavy weights 6-12 reps. 10-12 on warmups working my way down to 6-8 reps on bigger heavier sets.

Ive always been a bigger fella (6 foot 4 and around 115kg atm) and havent done cardio for a good year or so properly apart from the odd once or twice a week every now and then. When doing cardio over a year ago I got down to 102kg which i aim to get back down to before I go.

Im now booked to go to Hawaii for 10 days at the beginning of April and want to change up my workout and diet without loosing "too much"... I know Im never going to get a full set of abs etc in afew months but i really just want to drop some weight and define what Ive got.

I currently train 5 times a week broken down into: 1. Shoulders/Traps 2.Bi/Tri 3.Back/Traps 4.Legs 5.Chest and will also chuck abs/calves in there twice a week when I get the chance.

My current diet:

6am - Protein shake with Water
8am - 1 cup oats mixed with 1 teaspoon of honey and a 1/2 handful of sultanas. 1 long black coffee with one sweetener.
10am - 1 160g can of Chop Chop chicken or tuna
12pm - 2-300g of poached chicken breast (as per Diab0lic's famous recipe) in a wholegrain wrap with 1tbsp of hummus .
3pm - Quest Protein Bar or 125g Cottage Cheese mixed with 1/2 a 160g can of yellow fin Tuna in Springwater and a teaspoon of bulsamic vinegar.
4.30 - 5.00pm - Pre Workout with Water. (At the moment Neurocore) (Before Gym)
6.00pm - Musclepharm Combat Powder Protein Shake with 200ml Water and 200ml milk (After Gym)
7.30pm - Dinner varies between Steak, chicken, lean mince.. stir fries, chillis always with fresh veges etc. (My partner and I are pretty careful with our recipes and try to use as little oil/fats as possible)
After dinner - 30g choc as my 1 treat of the day! (At this stage I dont take anything before bed to eat)

With either my breakfast or 10 o clocker I take the following supps: 3x Now Sports Extreme Sports Multi, 2x Now 1000mg Fish Oils, 1x Now B-100 B Complex, 4x Now Sports BCAA's and 1x 1000mg Tribulus (I also take 1x tribulus with my pre workout as I got it cheap with an international order)

Basically what Im after is some advise on my diet/workout routine to assist me drop down in weight but not loose too much strength... I know I will loose some as this will come with lowering my overall weight but I'll just have to live with that. I reckon I can get down close to my goal weight in 2 months but your help may be the steps Im missing to get me there! I have attached a pic of me taken last month as a basic before pic but I will get some propoer pics to movivate my progress!

I plan to up my reps to between 12-15 reps, lower my weights and add in 15-20 min of cardio after 3 workouts a week then have a 1 hr carido specific workout on either Saturday or Sunday.

When I return from holiday I will look at getting back into the bigger weights again but atm my goal is weight loss!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Danny Wood

[rapz]

diet looks ok, bit low on carbs for my liking but as long as your in enegry deficit you should lose fat just fine.

 

keep lifitng heavy, its what got you your muscle.  just throw in drop sets and or supersets if your looking at increasing the intensity.

[FellowshipOfTheRon]

hey man, looking like a big solid dude. kinda hard to guess your bodyfat from that pic but doesn't look that fat?

 

anyway you've added in cardio but overlooking the easiest way to lose fat.

not sure if you count your cals or not but that would be for the best if you are looking to get lean. 2 months can either be a lot of time or not enough depending on how you approach it. if you are eating in a surplus of a thousand cals and your additional cardio helps you burn just 200 then you're not gonna hit your goal.  some people might try offset the surplus with even more cardio but then you'd be in the gym forever trying to 'burn off' what you ate. heaps easier to just find out what you're eating and + how much you should be eating then subtract from the current diet - you have like 8 or 9 meals a day, cutting for you might be as easy as skipping one of the smaller ones or halving one of the bigger ones.

 

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ - free & easy system for counting how many calories you are getting from your food, got mobile apps available too.

 

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm - put in your age/height/gender/current weight, it will give you 'maintenance' (how much to eat to stay exactly the same) caloric intake. you take that and just subtract by 500 then hop on to myfitnesspal and figure out how much of your food you can/can't eat now with the intake restriction

 

[Terrymundo]

get some carbs up in dat bitch!!! i dont know how your body responds to low carb but mine shuts dafuq down. I have had good success with clean carbs with all my meals up to my workout then nothing after. carbless tranining is so shit, no pump, so weak and just tired throughout the day. when you can balance the carbs you actually drop bodyfat. Low carb days are good for non training days where you dont have much requirment for energy.

 

when i train on a calorie deficiency i always try to keep the volume down but the intesity high. I find you quickly hit the wall if your eating much and the workout is effectively over, so get it done quick.

[Leeroid]

Damn so you're only eating 3000 calories atm and maintaining 115kgs? I lost 3kgs last week eating that much and im only 85kgs.

Diet looks pretty decent, I mean, at the end of the day as long as you're in a calorie deficit you're going to lose weight. As for maintaining strength, if you're losing a considerable amount of strength then that means you're losing muscle. Dunno why people think they have to do high reps when cutting.

[-Dan-Knee-]

Cheers for the feedback/information it is seriously appreciated.

Afew queries/questions on your guys feedback:

diet looks ok, bit low on carbs for my liking but as long as your in enegry deficit you should lose fat just fine.

get some carbs up in dat bitch!!! i dont know how your body responds to low carb but mine shuts dafuq down. I have had good success with clean carbs with all my meals up to my workout then nothing after. carbless tranining is so shit, no pump, so weak and just tired throughout the day. when you can balance the carbs you actually drop bodyfat. Low carb days are good for non training days where you dont have much requirment for energy.

Can you please give me afew pointers to where and what I can add to up my intake and also what sort of carbs I can add? Potatoes.. Brocco... Rice... ???

Thinking I can up the carbs in my 10am and 3pm meals? Also with the carbs before my workout... would adding more carbs to my 3pm meal and working out at 5pm be too early? Should I have a carb load with my pre workout as another meal? What carbs are good before a workout? Creamed Rice any good? Although high in sugar surely this would be added energy through a workout and be worked off during the workout?

keep lifitng heavy, its what got you your muscle.  just throw in drop sets and or supersets if your looking at increasing the intensity.

when i train on a calorie deficiency i always try to keep the volume down but the intesity high. I find you quickly hit the wall if your eating much and the workout is effectively over, so get it done quick.

Dunno why people think they have to do high reps when cutting.

This feedback is the sort of info i was after as I was always under the impression I needed to drop my weights in order to "tone" the muscle. I have been adding in more super and dropsets over the past few days and am really feeling a solid pump throughout my workout! Also brings the sweat levels right up!!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ - free & easy system for counting how many calories you are getting from your food, got mobile apps available too.

 

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm - put in your age/height/gender/current weight, it will give you 'maintenance' (how much to eat to stay exactly the same) caloric intake. you take that and just subtract by 500 then hop on to myfitnesspal and figure out how much of your food you can/can't eat now with the intake restriction

 

Cheers man... Im going to look into this abit further!

Thanks heaps again and I look forward to further info.