I've been lifting weights 4-6 times a week for the last 17 years, but in June I decided to change my diet. I was 6'1" and about 180 lbs with about 12% body fat. I wanted to get the body fat into the single digits.
I dropped my caloric intake from 2,600-3,000 a day down to about 2,000 a day with a very high percentage of protein to see if I could maintain muscle mass while losing fat.
For the most part, my diet consisted of skipping breakfast and doing something called intermittent fasting. Which pretty much means you don't eat for about a 14 hour period. I did this as it worked best with my eating habits. The earlier I eat, the more I eat. which, usually isn't a problem, unless you are trying to limit your calories. Lunch would be 2 large skinless BBQ chicken breast, dinner would be another large portion of protein such as steak, chicken or fish along with a vegetable, and then snacking would be anything that I would be in the mood for as long as it fit my caloric needs for the day. Whether that was a slice of pizza, ice cream, salad, fruit, whatever I was in the mood for.
In the course of two and a half months I dropped 15 lbs and my body fat dropped significantly. Surprisingly I lost very little muscle mass. Which was nice. This was the first time I have ever dropped weight to specifically cut down body fat and it was really interesting to see the difference 3-4% in body fat makes.
I'm now back to eating about 2,600 calories a day to maintain. But the difference from going from low body fat to really low body fat was surprising.
Just figured I'd share. Rare that I post about something that doesn't involve me buying, moving, or installing stoves.
I dropped my caloric intake from 2,600-3,000 a day down to about 2,000 a day with a very high percentage of protein to see if I could maintain muscle mass while losing fat.
For the most part, my diet consisted of skipping breakfast and doing something called intermittent fasting. Which pretty much means you don't eat for about a 14 hour period. I did this as it worked best with my eating habits. The earlier I eat, the more I eat. which, usually isn't a problem, unless you are trying to limit your calories. Lunch would be 2 large skinless BBQ chicken breast, dinner would be another large portion of protein such as steak, chicken or fish along with a vegetable, and then snacking would be anything that I would be in the mood for as long as it fit my caloric needs for the day. Whether that was a slice of pizza, ice cream, salad, fruit, whatever I was in the mood for.
In the course of two and a half months I dropped 15 lbs and my body fat dropped significantly. Surprisingly I lost very little muscle mass. Which was nice. This was the first time I have ever dropped weight to specifically cut down body fat and it was really interesting to see the difference 3-4% in body fat makes.
I'm now back to eating about 2,600 calories a day to maintain. But the difference from going from low body fat to really low body fat was surprising.
Just figured I'd share. Rare that I post about something that doesn't involve me buying, moving, or installing stoves.