ckworksalot's Journal, 26 May 2015

Glad to see you back! You will do it!!! 

Thx SW... pray the muscles, bones and arteries cooperate! 

Keep going brother. There is so much left for you to do. Thats why your still here. God bless. 

I am glad you recovery has progressed to the point you can be active and compete in your Burn Fat/Feed Muscle challenge. I know you will meet your goal! 

WOW- you are on fire today! Congrats on the good recovery after your heart event - I remember and was concerned about you - but look at you now! Follow your doctor's plan and do not over do it. 

Thx all for the encouragement! 

Hey Meremark... I see you are right with me around the 200 lb mark, and your target is 175... mine is 180. Wanna mirror my chanllenge above and meet me at 180 in 14 weeks? I am shooting for a -643 calorie deficit every day to achieve said goal. I will be eating a minimum of 1918 cals per day to do so, and will eat back any excercise cals to maintain that -643 deficit. 1918 cals is still a lot of cals and we get to eat more if we exercise! 

I would be keen to! Yesterday when I saw your post I was going suggest to you that you were going to be my rabbit (pacesetter), but didn’t want to press you/push you based on your recent *life* event. This will be fun and provide add’l motivation for both of us. 

Awesome., I WILL BE shooting for 192g of protein, 192g of carbs, and 42g of GOOD FATS. If I burn cals with exercise, I will subtract those cals from my food intake... if the result/delta is below 1500, I will eat back enough cals to bring that delta back to 1500 (to ensure I fuel normal body maintenance, and stay out of starvation mode). Let's roll! Let me know if you have any questions. 

Also, I won't push for 192g of protein til I am actually doing some resistance training, thusxwhy my log will be short for a few days. 

Free trip to Hawaii is good motivation, have you thought about Body Beast? Or P90X they both have big muscle building programs that you probably can do now just a little modified. 

I will be on slightly different track. Macro nutrients as follows based on my lean body mass of ~150lbs. o Protein is 150 x 1 = 150g target [x 0.8 = 120g min]. o Carbs of 75-99g from non-starch vegetables and berries. o Fats to balance-out caloric needs from meats and coconut/olive oils [i.e. no industrial seed oils] to target a minus 1,000 daily deficit [-1k x 14 wks x 7 days / 3500 = 28lbs; which is a safe (2) lbs a week... I am good at low stress cardio [walking 4+MPH], but I really don't like weight work. In the spirit of YOUR fitness challenge, I will commit to work-in body weight training 3 days a week - maybe I can create a habit that will stick :) An added bonus on my side is my birthday is 13 1/2 weeks away and I fancy being at my goal weight by then...  

Hmmmm Meremark... 1000 cal deficit worked well for me at > 35% body fat, but as I reduced body fat, it became harder and harder to maintain. My first plateau was a result of burning more cals in the gym and keeping a 1000 cal deficit. Say I ate 2000 cals one day, burned 700 cals in exercise, and burned 2300 cals with sleep and rest combined. That's a 1000 cal deficit. BUT.. of the 2000 cals consumed that day, I spent 700 to pay for my genuine exercise, leaving me only 1300 of those consumed cals to pay for my regular "body house keeping", The problem with that is most males need 1500 consumed cals per day, on average, just for house keeping. After 3 days of having only 1300 cals to pay for house keeping, my body picked up the trend and determined "food must be scarce... store more fat and burn some muscle" After 2 weeks of the scale weight not moving, I tried to exercise more for 2 more weeks, thinking I would "exercise the fat off". Nothing! I was stuck for 4 weeks. Then I read Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" and learned that all that extra exercise did was burn even more of my consumed cals, leaving me less and less to fuel "house keeping". The fix? In the example above, I ate 300 more cals per day, for 2300 total consumed cals. Then burned 700 in exercise... leaving me 1500 to fuel house keeping (instead of 1300). My results were amazing! By eating more food, I lost 4 lbs the first week and 4 more the 2nd week, smashing my plateau as my body said, "the famine is over; release that stored fat!" After that, things balanced out and I continued to lose 1-2 lbs a week with a smaller deficit. Thus my goal to maintain a 640 cal deficit, and eating back what I need to keep 1500 available for house keeping. 

Rockies Fan... I looked at P90X 5 years ago, but 250 lb me was not prepared to do the nutrtion part, which is key to any of these programs. I have it and will taclke eventually, more for the variety it offers. For this Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" contest, I will stick to the BFFM program I used throughout 2014. In the meantime, I started doing wall pushup's in a doorway to help re-engage my chest muscles ... so far so good... no oain and no bone movement! 

CK - thanks for the extended post - I understand the concept of what you wrote. I went back an re-read your post and when you said *bring that delta back to 1500*; I thought you were indicating running a 1500 deficit, but now I see your deficit ~640. So for me, would I target a deficit of ~650, or do I need to do the long math based on caloric expenditures each day to keep 1500 kcal for maintenance? Not that it is a hard calc, just looking for a shorthand metric. 

Meremark: I came up with 640 cal deficit as follows. Go to scoobysworkshop.com, and select "fitness tools" from the rightvhand column. Then select the "the fast calorie calculator" tool. Enter your stats, your activity level (I chose "1-3 hours of light exercise per week"), then "25% cal deficit"... you'll get a warning about "25% could be dangerous... consult your physician". Scrool down and see your results. Mine showed a Total Daily Energy Expended (TDEE) of 2557 cals... whst I need to maintain 200 lbs. 25% of 2557 is 640 cals... I suspect yours will be pretty close to that. The tool says less than 20 % could be dangerous because if you dont eat back sufficient exercise cals you could literally starve yourself while seemingly eating plenty of food. The calc also showed my cal target was 1917 cals per day (2557 - 640) so I set my FS RDI at 1918.... thats my minimum I want to eat... I adjust each day based on how much exercise I do, so 1918 is a guide... I focus on tha net cals, trying to maintain -640. In my head I always subtract real exercise cals from my actual intake to ensure that number stays above 1500... that is rhe balancing act! 

Meremark: the tool also shows my projected scale weight loss of 5.1 lbs per month... so 15.3 lbs projected for this 3 month challenge. My stretch goal is 20 lbs. The only way to do that without eating less is do more cardio! And the only way to do that and maintain 640 deficit is EAT THOSE CALS BACK! The projected 15.3 lbs lost does not change on paper, but cardio is the gift yhat keeps on giving... the more you do, the more your metabolism changes, and the more your body burns STORED FAT for the 23 hours you are NOT exercising!