I have my main goal of losing all significant bodyfat. I am 6' 1" 175lb 15% bf? Basically I will not feel happy about myself until I get to 8% body fat. So... Here is what I have setup for a diet so far:

Breakfast: 1 scoop whey in 1c skim milk, 1c oats in 1c skim milk: 600cals

Lunch: 2 slices whole wheat with 3oz tuna in FF mayo: 340cals

Preworkout: 1c oats w/ 1c skim milk, 1c cooked brown rice: 600cals

Postworkout: 1 scoop whey in water, 1c oats w/ 1c skim milk: 500cals

Snack: Egg beaters(1/2 carton): 135cals

Dinner: 8oz chicken, salad w/ low carb dressing, 1/2c FF cottage
cheese: 420cals

Total: 2600cals approx.

What should I change? I am looking for about 1.5lb of fat per week and I want to maintain most of my muscle. I will do about 20-35min cardio after my weights. I am also taking a Ephedrine+caffeine stack.

Thanks!

Four cups of milk and a half cup of cottage cheese a day is a lot of dairy. three cups of oats a day is a lot too. jusding by your user name i guess you like dairy. i would personally want more variety. have you read the stickies? there are long lists of foods that you could get calories from in there.

what do your macros work out to? seems like a heluva lot of carbs.

your calories seems high for your weight too in a cutting phase.

How far apart is breakfast and lunch for you? You really should not be going more than 4 hours max without eating.

Just at a glance you seem to be taking in a lot of carbohydrates in relation to protein. Are you trying to maintain any specific macronutrient rations?

Myself and many others would say that cardio after weights is a bad idea. Your body has only a small window of sustained effort that it can give. It is generally accepted as truth that in an ideal world cardio and weights should be separated by 6-8 hours.

If you look around the boards, you'll notice a lot of people advocating fasted morning cardio. 45 minutes of Low Intensity Steady State cardio done first thing in the morning before you eat will give you great results. When you're done, you'll want to consume a meal of protein and fats but minimize your carbohydrate intake for about two hours or so afterward, so as to maximize fat oxidation (this has been working remarkably well for me).

You can then do your weights later on in the afternoon or evening. I don't know what all you're doing, but since your goal is just muscle maintenance I'd be hitting each muscle group only once per week.

I would also trim down the calories on your preworkout meal. You're consuming a very large amount of carbohydrates there, far more than you need in my opinion. I'd say something like a half cup of oats in skim milk and maybe some protein (such as whey). Your PWO seems fine.

How soon do you eat after your PWO shake? Myself and many others find it advantageous to eat a full balanced solid meal about an hour after our PWO shake.

Hope some of this helps!

No fruit? No veggies? Tsk tsk tsk!!!!!:nono:
I agree with the golfin' dude, that's alot of dairy and oats. I'd mix it up a little.:D

Your calories sound pretty high. If you substitute a whole lot of fruits and veggies for some of the grains and dairy in your diet, you can eat fewer calories without being hungry.

Drop some of the dairy.

Eat vegetables.

Reduce preworkout oats and/or rice and/or milk. (You could move the rice to your "snack" after the postworkout meal.)

Don't drink milk postworkout.

Give more info (schedule, training split/type, cardio split/type, etc.).

Alright. Thanks for the quality comments!

So, tell me if I adjusted this right:

Early jog(25min): After I have my breakfast

Breakfast: 1 scoop whey in 1c skim milk, 1c oats in 1c skim milk, 1 apple: 680cals

(about 4 hours later)
Lunch: 2 slices whole wheat with couple slices of turkey(or tuna, variety :) ): 340cals?

Preworkout: 1c cooked brown rice: 250cals?

Weights

Postworkout: 1 scoop whey in water, (20min after whey)1/2c oats 1/2c skim milk: 300cals

Snack: Egg beaters(1/2 carton): 135cals

Dinner: 8oz chicken, salad w/ low carb dressing, 1/2c FF cottage
cheese, some veggies: 470cals

Total: 2175cals


More info:

Well I follow the MAX-OT training schedule. For example, I did legs today and I tried doing cardio but that didn't work out too well. So I will TRY to wake up early. I have attempted this many times and just went back to sleep because it felt so good and I just couldn't imagin myself running that early.

Cardio will consist of jogging. My cross country season(I ran varsity XCC) ended not too long ago. Since then I started to bulk but hated the fat face and all so here I am. It is hard for me to jog with that extra 14lb I put on. So once I drop that(creatine water weight and whatnot) I will be able to jog easier.

Besides jogging, I will do elliptical(sp?) whenever jogging gets dull.

I have school so I can never have snacks(yes, never). I don't have the time, trust me on that one.

Thanks again!

I have my main goal of losing all significant bodyfat. I am 6' 1" 175lb 15% bf? Basically I will not feel happy about myself until I get to 8% body fat. So... Here is what I have setup for a diet so far:

Breakfast: 1 scoop whey in 1c skim milk, 1c oats in 1c skim milk: 600cals

Lunch: 2 slices whole wheat with 3oz tuna in FF mayo: 340cals

Preworkout: 1c oats w/ 1c skim milk, 1c cooked brown rice: 600cals

Postworkout: 1 scoop whey in water, 1c oats w/ 1c skim milk: 500cals

Snack: Egg beaters(1/2 carton): 135cals

Dinner: 8oz chicken, salad w/ low carb dressing, 1/2c FF cottage
cheese: 420cals

Total: 2600cals approx.

What should I change? I am looking for about 1.5lb of fat per week and I want to maintain most of my muscle. I will do about 20-35min cardio after my weights. I am also taking a Ephedrine+caffeine stack.

Thanks!

Everyone said it.
Seperate your cardio from your weight training, diff days or 8 hrs apart.
Lower your calories a little, you need a slight deficit, 2600 too much for cutting.
Say 10-12 x your body wt.

I don't see very much in the way of healthy fats (nuts, olive oil, fatty fish/fish oil, flax, etc.) in your list of what you're eatting either. I would recommend adding some to your diet.

Hey Yogurt,

I just saw your thread and I noticed that you're taking Ephedra-caffeine supplements. That mix could be very dangerous for your health, so if I were you, I would stop taking these supplements.

Ephedra and caffeine are 2 very strong stimulants, and a combination of both is a BIG NO NO (you're doing a lot of cardio on top of that also, which is another form of stimulant)!

Just my piece of advice.

My roommate and I are both very dedicated to our individual training and nutrition. Both of us work full-time at a natural foods grocery store and even right now during holiday insanity we both find the time to eat at least twice during our shift. In addition to his meals, my buddy keeps a bag of almonds in his pocket to snack on between customers as a way to get in some extra protein as well as healthy fats. That might be a very good option for you. When I was in school I certainly saw a lot of people snacking on things during class and so forth.

As for the morning cardio, I totally understand where you're coming from. I resisted it for a long time, and tried to find every reason I could to justify and rationalize not doing it because I knew it was just "too hard" for me to get up. It comes down simply to motivation. You either do or do not care about your body, your results, and your general health. I have the advantage of living with someone as into fitness as myself, so both of us have been able to benefit from seeing the other person do things and saying "Man, that really does work." It was a lot harder to dismiss fasted cardio when not only did I have everyone here saying it worked but I had my roommate losing a ridiculous amount of weight.

Now I run every morning without fail, and not only am I getting great results but I feel a ton better.

Things I've found that help me:

1) Get a really loud alarm, and put it as far away from you in the room as possible so you have to get up. Often I will put something over the top so I actually have to use my brain to figure out how to turn it off and can't do it in a sleepy haze. Usually this helps me wake up a bit more.

2) Keep a bottle of water near your bed or your alarm clock, so you can start drinking as soon as you wake up. This will help you feel better (since you just went 8 hours without any water) and I find that it seems to wake me up a bit.

3) I noticed you take ephedrine + caffeine. I second the idea that ephedrine is bad. However, caffeine can be good pre-cardio. A cup or so of black coffee or some other good caffeine source (no sodas or anything) before cardio will act as a thermogenic. You can also take something like Green Tea Extract. Personally I've had good results using Thermocin from At Large Nutrition, which is a combination of Green Tea Extract, Caffeine, HCA, and Sinephrine, amongst other things.

If all else fails, just listen to "Eye of the Tiger." :tu:

"The roommate" here. What Glaive said!

As for waking up, I personally advocate making sure you get to bed early enough, keeping caffeine away from bed time, keeping heavy weight lifting or exertion away from bed time (increased core temp can screw with the quality of sleep), and so on. Many (not necessarily on these boards, but elsewhere) have had success with some nootropic supplements such as Piracetam. They tend to have a superb effect on getting ya' up in the morning, provided you're getting enough rest to begin with. Also, check into slamming some ALCAR pre-cardio and you'll blast through it with ease.

Personally, I'm not as critical of the Caffeine/Ephedrine stack as others are, but there are better quality and less risky thermogenic combinations (such as the aforementioned Thermocin).

At any rate, keep up the fight for life.