Lost over 100lbs now I need advice on supplements!

[wrapster]

Hello,

I have lost over 100lbs with proper diet and exercise. I eat clean and my body has reached its results with the information I know. I have been maintaining around 150lbs far to long! I need help. I know what my goal is and it is to compete in a figure show next year. I am not getting as hard as I would like and my body I feel has adapted to my food choices. I do cardio everyday. (1 and 1/2 to 2 hrs daily). I weight train 5x a week. I take multi-v, fish oil, and primrose.

What do you suggest I use?

I have read so much information over the years that I decided to first post on here before I make a purchase. I know now I have to, to reach my goal. (Build muscle, drop body fat). I'm ready!

Advice would be appreciated! ;o)

[ricker35910]

first of all congratulations on your weight loss... what's your diet right now ?

[stephaniewicked]

Welcome to RX and big congrats on making a lifestyle change for the better!!

I agree... post up your diet and let everyone see. That will give us a better idea of what you could be doing differently to maximize your results.

[stephaniewicked]

What's for meal 6?

At first glance it looks (to me) like you may not be eating *enough* food, but perhaps some of the more experienced gurus can chime in with more specifics...

[wrapster]

Thanks for the warm welcome!


Meal 1:

Egg whites (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/nutrient.php?id=1124) 6-8
Oatmeal (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/nutrient.php?id=8200) 1/2 cup



Meal 2:

Chicken breast (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/nutrient.php?id=5011) 4-6oz
Veggies (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/nutrientfood.php?food=1100) 1 1/2 cup (usually green beans)



Meal 3:

Protein shake (http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/protein.htm)



Meal 4:

Tuna (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/nutrient.php?id=15126) - can
Veggies (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/nutrientfood.php?food=1100) 1 1/2 cup green beans
10 almonds


Meal 5: 1 cup liquid egg whites w/ 2 tbs salsa




Meal 6: 1 scoop protein w/ 4tbs liquid egg whites ( which makes a "pancake". W/ no calorie sugar free syrup)




Meal 7: Either

can tuna w/ salad (balsamic dressing)
Or
1 cup liquid egg whites 1/ 2 tbs salsa (I love that) ;o)



Meal 8:

Protein shake or
1 hard boiled egg and 3 whites
I do cardio on an empty stomach as much as I can. I start work at 5am.

Nutrition is huge, so feel free to comment. ;o)

I use to eat a tbs of PB or have string cheese in my diet. I also use to have a banana after lifting. Not sure if I need to add that back? Would you say oatmeal before of after I lift? I use to do it before. Now I do it after. Trying to cut down bodyfat, but im not as strong on either an empty stomach or protein shake.

I do mix up eating chicken instead of tuna somedays.

[wrapster]

Sorry, I hit send on accident. I wasnt done writing. Not sure how to delete that post?

[wrapster]

Yea, thats where I am lost. I hear your not eating enough, or your eating to much protein. But they never tell me or give me an example on how to fix it. I think because of my specific background maybe I worry more about adding food, so I take away. So then I will do more cardio. I feel like im in a circle and my metabolism is slowing down. Is that possible? I eat around every three hours. But it is usually the same food.
Here's my next question. Do you recommend a cheat meal? I havent done it in awhile. But I finally gave in and did it last Sunday. I was sooo excited and couldnt sleep because I couldnt wait to not eat eggs. I had one oreo, a couple bites of strawberry cheesecake because I felt guilty and had two peices of frozen pizza. I felt like shit! I gained 3lbs...seriously! The whole week all I could think about was oreos and sugar. I hadnt had it in my system for so long. Maybe if I do a cheat meal...stick to stuff like a piece of pizza or hamburger because I dont crave it like sugar. Not sure though?
I am serious, I really want to change my physique. I need to build more muscle and lower my bodyfat. I am a hard worker and am willing to listen and do the work. Thanks for your help!

[Suzanne]

congrats on your weight loss!

definitley looks like calories are too low and cardio way to high
probably the best right now is to get your body to a good maintenance then try to lose more

for maintenance calories are roughly 15x body weight cardio maybe 3-4 times a week for 30 min
the macros are cray important you can do a 40 % protein 40% carbs 30% fat
or lower fat and higher carbs

your body has adapted to deficit calories you need to rev your metabolism back up

[JAM]

My two cents from what I've learned along the way. I love me some amino acids. If I ranked it I'd put them right behind protein and creatine. I take Universal Animal Nitro packs and Optimum Nutritions BCAA caps and Essential Amino Acid caps throughout the day.
Right before and after morning cardio and workout, in the middle of the day, and then right before and after my afternoon main workout.
Also, I like GABBA and ZMA before bed. Been using Animal PM packs and think they are pretty awesome.

[sassy69]

First of all congrats on 100 lbs! Holy Jeebuz! Nice work!

So I have some questions:

- How long have you been maintaining 150 lb?
- what is your height? Do you have any idea of your bodyfat %
- I know you posted your meal plan, which actually looks pretty good, but do you know the total calories and breakdown of fats, proteins & carbs?

The first comment I'm goign to make is that I think, if you've been maintaining 150 lb for several months now, your body has at least hit some sort of equilibrium from losing so much weight. But at this point, you wouldn't want it to be a requirement to MAINTAIN that you have to do 2 hrs of cardio / day. IMO that's massive overkill. I think its probably typical to work up to 2 hrs of cardio / day for competition prep - but that's combining a slow increase in cardio over time (assuming a 12-16 weeks out starting point) with a slow decrease and modification of total calories and variation of macronutrients - in other words, we're using slow changes in energy demands and energy supplied to arrive at a very lean look on show day. But you're already maintaining at that max amount of cardio - which means if you wanted to use cardio to induce a change for more fat burning, you'd actually have to be increasing even more to 3- 4 hrs for equivalent range of modification. That's just plain old waaay too much. You'd want your maintenance to be some small amount of regular cardio and use diet & training to maintain the level you want. Then for competition you would start tweaking all of these to get more aggressive results (NOTING that you don't expect to maintain competition level results, just keep it for a few days and then rebound back to a better maintenance level).

I think you want to ease yourself into a better maintenance program that isn't so strict but still maintains a level you want. Then you can do some tweaking to start changing your body composition.

Here the most important thing, and it is apparent to me as well that you need to do a little deprogramming first,... throw out your scale.

The number on the scale = the sum total of bone + bodyfat + muscle mass + water weight.

If you see a 3 lb change in the number on the scale, what does that mean and is it somethign that you should interpret as "I"m a fat fuck and I have failed miserably as a person because I've gained 3 lb." Pretty much nothing. Its most likely water weight as a result of the increase in junk food -- an increase in carbs tends to immediately translate to an increase in water weight because your body requires water to hold carbs. This isn't a bad thing - this is how your body works.

The only real value the scale has is providing ONE measure, not the DEFINITIVE measure, but one measure that you might look at OVER TIME - i.e. the trend over time, vs an absolute number on which you are going to so brutally judge yourself. An near term increase in water weight isn't really saying anything about "how fat you are".

Its healthy to vary your diet - i.e throw in a cheat meal on a regular interval, e.g. 1/week. Randomly will sort of screw up your diet intentions, but an expected, once per week is good - it gives your body a chance to respond to a different set of food, makes your immune system work a little more, gives you an outlet to feed any cravings and a chance in your daily life to go enjoy a trip out for dinner, have a couple of drinks w/ friends and generally enjoy eating a sa social event and not somethign that will screw up your whole life. This is just generally really important to a healthy LIFESTYLE (where lifestyle = how you fuel yourself. how you recover aka sleep, how you expend energy) instead of making it all DIE w/ a T. (i.e diet).

You want to build muscle.

First you need to reduce the amount of cardio. Cardio is great for increasing cardiovascular capacity but a lot of it can be catabolic. So basically you're fuelign all the cardio with energy that could now instead be used to start building muscle mass.

To build, I would first start lowering the cardio down to more like 30 min / day, and then focus on lifting but w/ heavier weights, lower reps.

You'll need to go thru a phase of muscle building where you may see the scale start to go up - but note that muscle weighs more than fat. But pay more attention to the CHANGE IN YOUR BODY COMPOSITION. The easiest way to track this is how your clothes fit. W/ an increase in muscle, you should see your clothes getting looser in the "fat" areas - i.e. waist, butt, thighs, etc. and bigger in the muscle areas - back, shoulders, arms, etc. . YOu're changing what makes up the weight you are seeing on the scale.

This whole process means spending time focused on what you're doing and not getting hung up on the day to day changes on the scale or how you feel. Everyone slips every now and then w/ food - that is the purpose of the cheat meal. To build muscle you also need to eat enough protein to provide the building blocks and enough carbs to fuel it and enough good quality fats to keep everything functioning correctly. And then use the hell out of all of that to build mass. You can tweak as you go if you feel you're eating too much or not enough to see increase in mass, to not feel completely exhausted from your daily energy demands and also to sleep well (quality of recovey time). Your body is perfect biochemical machine - it WANTS to run efficiently - not be starved or overworked to get a certain look.

[wrapster]

I am so excited right now! First off, thank you all for your replys.
Suzanne- I saw your before pics and your win at jr. Nationals last year! Congrats!! You to are an inspiration.
Sassy- what you said is awesome, makes since, and gives me hope.
That is how I feel, like I am year round competing/dieting. God knows I have the determination! And thats what I would worry about...if it takes 2 hours of cardio a day to be 150lbs how many hours to be 130-125lbs? But I get it..."smarter not harder".
I have been maintaining 150 for ...MONTHS. I droped a few, but it was extreamly hard. I dont know why at 150 it should be so hard. But I do feel that my metabolism has slowed down. Do I take something for that or just change my diet and let it take its course? I have feared to many carbs for a long time. I feel my metabolism is slow so when I eat carbs I feel fatter. Prob because my calories are to low so its holding onto the carbs and I am "fatter". So then I take them out again.

I am 5'3.
I will post my breakdown ratios for my food tomorrow.

Jam- thanks for your suggestions to. I have never taken BCAA, but I always wanted to. But when I have asked people many times about BCAA they reply "waste of money". I think it would be helpful. Sassy or Suzanne do you take BCAA?
Or recommend something that would help? Is fat burner a must? If so, which is your favorite?
I have been told to try t3 and clen. But I feel if I ever take something like that, it should be before a show. Im not stage ready. I dont want to put my body through that if im not competing right now and if I come off...i'll be back to 150. Thats not my goal. But im not the expert.

[Suzanne]

Thank you!

My body went thru a point where it wouldn't respond after doing some shows where my cals were way too low and cardio way too high so i had to work thru kinda what you are going through now

start easy maybe reduce the cardio a little start getting your body used to maintaining with only a small amount of cardio unfortunately this takes time but believe me in the long run it is worth it!! I was very frustrated for a long time while i went thru it

the goal would be to be able to maintain weight with little to no cardio and depending on the person it will vary how much is needed.

definitely add a chat meal in spike the cals once a week

use pictures and how clothes fit as a guide more than the scale it is deceiving!!!

carbs may make you "feel" fat since they hold gycogen in your muscle so you will feel bigger at first. if you have been low carb for some time you may have developed a sensitivity so will need to ease them in. try adding some fruit which is something your body will burn through quickly. Maybe add a meal of an apple and protein shake. we worked on my metab by having my meals small but often so i burned through each thing quickly.

I don't take bcaas i feel i get enough in my protein shakes

[Suzanne]

Personally i say stay away from t3 even for a show. It can shut down your thyroid.

[sassy69]

The way your body is now reflects how its has responded to your low cals & high cardio. Its really important to understand "this" is not what you will always be or your baseline for how much more cardio or less food you have to do to make it change. The point is let your body run more efficiently. It has to go thru some changes to get to that point, so make those changes a little at a time - e.g. lowering your cardio, modifying the diet a little and increasing the weights you're lifting. For one, as you increase your diet you'll see increases in strength. Its important that you don't start to freak out if you see the scale change or if you get a little thicker or whatever - you're going thru changes, not 'getting worse'. You have to do small tweaks to find the best combination of diet & training to get your results, but at the rate your body can work at. If you let your body do what it does best, you'll be amazed at how great it really does work!

And also for that reason, its really important to stay focused and patient w/ your body and your program and not start to get distracted by stuff this or that person says you should use to force a certain change in your body. ANY of those supplements, controlled substances or not, are always only going to work as well as your diet & training program already do. If you are relying on these other things to force a certain result that your diet & training aren't already doing, it migh work for a while, but when you cycle off, you'll most likely rebound and end up worse off than when you started, with the potential for additional issues due to the compounds themselves. There is no reason to even complicate things like that. Don't let yourself get distracted by looking for this or that thing that will "kick start" or whatever -- let your body work the way it was designed to and your results will be yours - they'll be maintainable and not dependent on to the presence of that supplement to maintain results.

A perfect example of this is the 2 hrs of cardio you're doing. That is just NOT a "maintenance state" IMO. You shouldnt' have to work that hard for your body to just function efficiently. That's your body's way of saying what you're doing isn't letting it work the way it should. Time to change something!

[JAM]

... Jam- thanks for your suggestions to. I have never taken BCAA, but I always wanted to. But when I have asked people many times about BCAA they reply "waste of money". I think it would be helpful. Sassy or Suzanne do you take BCAA?
Or recommend something that would help? Is fat burner a must? If so, which is your favorite?
I have been told to try t3 and clen. But I feel if I ever take something like that, it should be before a show. Im not stage ready. I dont want to put my body through that if im not competing right now and if I come off...i'll be back to 150. Thats not my goal. But im not the expert.

I don't think they are a waste of money if your taking them for a specific function. That mainly being to preserve your muscle so your body doesn't steal the amino acids from it while you are doing cardio or feeling hungry/exhausted during the day. I've found supplementing them to be very helpful while dieting and trying to loose fat.
Also, if you feel stuck as far as progress goes try and change up your cardio. If you do long low intensity cardio sessions try and mix in the occasional High Intensity interval style cardio where you go all our for like 3 or 5 min then cruise for a the same amount of time and keep alternating like that for 35min or so. I think it just keeps the body from adapting too much.
I don't know if t3 and clen is necessary as I'm no expert on them except that I know they do work well for a time period. Fat burners can be your friend as well if you need that extra kick to get you through the day and training.

[tammyp]

welcome and congrads!


i personally would cut down on hte protein and add more carbs and fat in. and ditch that crazy cardio...2 hrs a day is insane.

[wrapster]

As far as cardio goes. I am an expert. You obviously have to be to lose 127lbs. I can run (farthest so far is 18miles) I have done a half marathon, bike race (24 miles) I hike, etc. I do change it up with high and low intensity days. The hard part for me isnt 2+hours of cardio...its letting that go. I have that fat girl mentality in the back of my head. But my goal isnt to look or be a marathon runner. I want to look like any of you who have their pics on your profile. So, that is why I posted on here. I am ready to change and ready to listen. The work I put in got me to where I am today and I am thankfull. Just now ready to switch gears to develop my dream. I will push through and cut down on cardio. Sounds so easy to everyone else. (But bare with me here). To lower cardio and add carbs. Isnt that a girls dream? lol. It was really hard to eliminate carbs and do cardio thats why its not as easy for me. But all things are possible through Christ who strengthens me. So, im willing to go up on the scale to come out looking like all of you! ;o)

Question- What is your Pre and Post workout meals? I know this is important and I dont want to mess it up.

So oatmeal (and protein shake?) an hour before lifting?
Protein shake and apple or banana after lifting?

So, if you go back and look at my meal plan- where would you add tbs PB? Sting cheese or no? Ugh, "dairy" is another one I heard to stay away from. So I dont really have dairy in my diet.

So, my goal is to start adding little amounts of carbs/fats.
So I can add the fruit post-workout.

Oatmeal before lifting. Do I need another carb during the day? (sweet potato or brown rice?) Or just start by adding the apple.

As far as fats go-
I dont use olive oil. Not sure if thats a "must".

Please tweak my meal plan and I will follow it and keep you posted. I declair I will be on stage one day. Im seriously determined. I'll give you guys props. ;o)

[wrapster]

Sassy/Suzanne-
If you tweak my meal plan I can do the ratios for that and then you can look at it. And if my ratios are to high/low we can tweak it again. Then its game time! Thanks ladies!

P.S. yea, I wont do the t3/clen suggestion. I dont want to F with my thyroid. Plus I dont want results then rebound like crazy when I stop.

[wrapster]

I found another form of protein pancakes today. This one has more carbs then the pancakes I was doing before. I normally do the egg whites/scoop of protein kind. But I found today-
Calories- 365
fat 5
carbs 27
protein 50
fiber 10
sugar 0

Is that a good Pre workout meal? and Post would be pro shake and apple?
If the carbs are to high, there is a way to lower the serving size.

[joe d]

i would take a break rom the cardio for a few days then start some sort of aerobics for 30-40 minutes 5 days per wk in a fasted state.

i would also drop the shakes and replace them with a mixed green salad with a little tuna and evoo on them. ezekiel cereal works well to add quality carbs to a salad.

[Suzanne]

One important thing if you are working towards maintenace and/or looking to lose more again you really don't need a strict diet like a contest one. I feel it is a big mistake when people diet to lose weight as if dieting for a show.

you really can have much more variety

during my weight loss i ate more "body for life"-ish never weighed my food or counted cals. i did not do that until my first contest diet. i didnt' even own a scale to weigh my self just went by clothing and mirror

this way you really don't feel like you are dieting. I also kept my cardio to 30-35 min an occasional 45

now because your cardio is so high you need to be careful not to make too drastic of a change since that is what you body is used too

carbs are not too high in the protein pancakes but that is only one meal so would need to know entire day

at 150 you maintenance cals are roughly 2250 without cardio

[wrapster]

Yea, I read the body for life book and I do like their approach. I just went with the "figure" pre contest diet because my goal is to look like them and I have been following it for awhile now. When I had to switch it up, I would follow another suggestion by a "figure" competitor. So yea, I def. know my body has adapted to that lifestyle. And when I would try to add in more variety of foods, I would gain weight...panic. Hated that fat feeling and went back to being strict and doing more cardio. I have learned a lot on here already!! I am just going to have to push through the "mental game" of it all and go backwards to move forward so to speak.

Fat burner- yes or no? If yes, what kind?

That was the smart way to do it Suzanne. ;o) I always feel like I am dieting. And envious when people would cheat. I hated when people would say to me "its a lifestyle" I know eating clean is a lifestyle...and I enjoy being healthy. but I look back and realize that this "lifestyle" was wrong for me right now. Healthy eating shouldnt feel like contest dieting year round.

Calories in vs calories out...So if I need to take in 2250 for maintenance with as little as cardio as possible, is that my first goal to reach for?? Or shoot for like 2,000 calories a day with an hour of cardio? And try to work on them both at the same time?