Hey Guys,

I'm 6 ft 4, 220 lbs, about 18% bf, and 23 years old.
first cut at my cutting diet is below:



My workouts consist of cardio and compound weights on alternate days with one rest day.

Cardio: alternate cardio days between 1 hr LSR cardio and 20 mins HIIT.

Weights: Barbell shoulder press, dumbell bench press, assisted dip, bent over row, leg press. 3 sets, 10-8-5 reps.

My goal is fat loss. I want to get down to 10% bf and bulk up from there.

I really appreciate any comments

MB

Seems to me that 1,800 calories a day for someone of your weight is much too low if you want to lose fat and not lose muscle mass and or slow down your metabolism along the way.

Just based on the many rules of thumb and calculators out there of what your Basal Metabolic Rate ( BMR ) should be , for someone who is 220, you should be taking in a mimimum of 2,200 - 2,600 calories a day for BMR alone . Assuming your usual 1 hour LSD cardio burns at least 500 + calories and a typical weight session burns around 300+ calories, to get to your maintenance metabolic rate, your activity adjustment to add to your BMR is for at least another 700 calories, so you total daily minimum caloric needs is at least 2,900 calories a day. I'd guess it is closer to something like 3,500 calories a day. At that level of 3,500 , you'd want to create modest caloric deficit of something like 500 calories a day ( i.e bringing you to 3,000 a day to lose fat ) or cut your maintenance MR by 20% ( or by 700 calories, bringing you to 2,800 calories a day) to make sure you don't lose muscle mass. At 220, you have to drop 20 lbs to get to 10% body fat. Assuming a drop of 500 calories a day ( or 1 lb of fat a week ) , that should take you about 5 months or less.

You protien grams ( 198 ) for your bodyweight seems fine but way too much in terms of your overall caloric intake. Running and weight training and muscle repair require carbs - and carbs only make up 22% of your diet whereas protien makes up a whopping 47%+ ( fat is 31% ) . You have to bump up your carbs IMO ...to the tune of at least another 1,000 calories a day strictly from carbs. That would put your carb, protien, fat ratio at 50:30:20 instead of 22:31:47 as it is now.

sounds good mate thanks

what do u think about adding some more walnuts throughout the whole day? i love them but can easily get into the trap of eating too many!

Also, my diet previously was like what you say, higher in carbs. I would have 4 pieces of wholemeal bread per day (meals 1pm and 4pm would be a toasted turkey and cheese sandwich). What do you think about this? I have been staying away from bread for a while but I dont think this is contributing heaps

Try having your simple carbs (e.g. fruits) in the morning/early afternoon. Switch over to complex carbs in the evenings (e.g, rice, potatoes etc.). Healthy fats such as peanut butter might be a consideration too.

What fruits do you generally stay away from? I have been eating nothing but strawberrys for about a month but it is starting to eat into my cash... I like peaches and nectarines, but they are pretty high in sugars.

Nice idea useing excel.

The post workout at 7PM has over 60 grams of protein in it, the body cant use that much, it will convert what it cant use to energy and use it or store it (depending on if your at a calorie deflict or not).
When are you finished with your training? I would take the shake directly after that if i were you (and get some carbs with it, always use fast carbs with protein after workout) You would want to get energy to the muscles fast so your body doesnt start burning them for fuel.

yeah fair point about the 60g carbs on the 7pm meal. The 7pm meal is the post-training meal so I have lumped the whey protein shake in there hence the high protein numbers... Not sure what I should do with that. Should I count the protein shake as a meal in itself... maybe combine it with some other ingredients to make it into a full meal and use it to replace the 7pm meal?

I typically have bananas as I need to keep my potassium levels up, but grapes, apples, pears, kiwi, star fruit have all appeared in my food plan at one point or other. I'd suggest though taking out the strawberries at the 10pm meal and maybe moving the protein shake from the 7pm to the 10pm slot.

You can also try making smoothies - this would combine your simple carb source with a protein source like yogurt or milk (plus they're really tasty). I buy assorted bags of frozen fruits (raspberries, blueberries, tropical fruit etc) and then freeze a banana or two in expectation of making the smoothie the next day.

Well, you have to count it.. maybe as more of a snack than a meal. What you need right after you have trained is a mix of protein and carbs the recommended is a 1:2 ratio of protein:carbs (if you use 30g protein, use 60g carbs) after training these will go to rebuild muscle and restore the glycogen stores in your muscles (which will be depled after training) So id just move it there, add some carbs and keep the 7PM meal, though it depends a bit on when you are finished training, an hour, hour an a half before the 7PM meal?

If you add carbs, you will be getting more total cals in you, so you might have to cut back on one of the other meals if you do that, but you said you get 1800 cals, if you ask me, that sounds a bit low for someone your size (your a male i suppose?).using your whey shake directly after workout would be more benifitial than the way you got it now. You might think you could just move the 7pm meal to directly after your workout. I wouldnt do that either the meal has alot of fat, and directly after workout you want to minimize fat, since fat slows down the digestion of the protein and carbs and you want those carbs and proteins to your muscles as fast as possible after training.

Now, the training nutrition is pretty much what i know about nutrition and can say for certain.
Though i think your a bit low on fat, healthy fats are good, and you need them, alot of your energy should come from fat. But ill let someone with more knowledge than me of general nutrition to critique the rest of it.

Well, as I said before..

- you're 220 lbs.
- you train 6 X a week
- you do HIIT cardio 3X a week
- you do slow 1 hr cardio 3X a week
- you do weight training 3X a week

...as I said earlier, my observation is that your current intake of 1,800 calories is way too low to sustain this sort of training - even for fat loss - in an optimal way.

Your maintenance level calories for his rather high level of exercise could easily be 3,300+ calories a day. And, even if you chose a calorie deficit of 20% from this level - say a deficit of 600 calories or so - that puts you closer to 2,700+, not 1,800. If you stay at this 1,800 a day, you're probably losing ( or will eventually lose ) muscle mass if you keep this up.

Again, the issue is carbs IMO. You need carbs to fuel your cardio, and carbs to fuel your weight training and to repair tissue but you're only taking in 20% of your diet in carbs, when it should be at least 40% - if not more. I think you really boost your carbs up.

Your protien levels based on grams of protien per bodyweight seem fine. So does your fat - you can gave anywhere for 20% - 30 % from fat so that's fine. But, walnuts are almost all fat with only small and equal amounts of carbs & protien, so they would not be my first choice to boost calories. I'd opt for other food choices that consist mostly of complex and some simple carbs. Remember, carbs aren't fattening, excess calories are.

agreed. With that activity level, your body could go into starvation mode.
If you have been eating way below maintence for a long time, your body will adapt to it, so you dont loose weight, your metabolism gets screwy, energy levels drop, etc. Now if you are in such a state, then decide you want to diet down, you will have to fix these issues first, which means gradually eating more until your body is back to normal and out of starvation mode.

Also the risk of doing that is not being able to eat more when you do want to. Therefore not being able to bulk efficiently.