Hi,

My name is John. I am 38 years old, 5'9, 175lbs. I am just now starting to check my diet and balance my P/C/F. I have been pretty good in the past. This past year I made dramatic advances in my strength, but I am still a little flabby. I would like this to be the year I really get strong and toned. I know my main problem at this time is my diet.

I workout 6 days per week, 3 with weights, 3 with cardio (20 min high intensity).

Here are my food stats:

Calories: 2516
Fat: 51g 18.24%
Carbs: 209g 33.23%
Protein: 301g 47.85%

This is 6 meals a day, and varies a little everyday since I have a different dinner each night.

I would like to start a cut in March. Based on these numbers, does anyone have advice as far as what I should do between now and March (one month), and then what should I do for a cut?

Let me know if more information is needed. Thanks for any help. This is a great site.

jt

My meals are:

Meal 1: 2 scoops ProComplex, by ON; 1 cup dry Oatmeal, 1/2 tbsp Flaxseed oil.

Meal 2: 1.5 cups egg whites, 8oz red potatoes

Meal 3: 4 oz chicken breast, 1/2 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup brocolli

Meal 4: 2 scoops ProComplex, by ON; 1/2 cup dry Oatmeal, 1/2 tbsp Flaxseed oil.

Meal 5: 4 oz chicken breast, 1/2 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup brocolli

Meal 6: Different dinner, but something that comes to about 500 calories such as 12 oz beef, 1/2 cup rice, 1/2 cup veggies

This all totals about 2500 calories, 51g fat, 209g carbs, 300g protein.

Do you have protein set that high for a particular reason? Not saying it's "wrong", but it's jacked pretty high up there, so I'm just curious.

Mostly looks like something you're going to have to put in place in the real work, give yourself a set period of consistency (4-6 weeks), and see where your results take you.

Trading some of the straches for larger vegetable servings would be an easy adjustment if you don't end up leaning out the way you want. Easy way to drop a few calories while keeping satiety levels high.

Make sure all of your math is adding up right. 12oz of beef alone should put you over 500 calories. Maybe that was meant to be a smaller serving size.

I agree with goonie. Why is your protein intake so high? Is it to balance out all the carbs you're eating?

Personally, I'd tweak meal 3 and down. Replace the rice and oats with veggies. If you want something starchy in there, have a small sweet potato with meal 3. After that, load up on things like broccoli, green beans, peppers, onions, ect.

I lied. Meal 2 is fine, but instead of potato, it's another chance to load up on other veggies that I mentioned above.

Thanks for the advice so far. One important fact that I forgot to mention was that I take Coumadin (blood thinner) due to open heart surgery I had to replace a bad aortic valve with a mechanical one. Coumadin is affected greatly by green vegetables such as spinach, salad, broccoli, etc. So, I have to be very consistent with my diet and not change too much as far as those foods are concerned or it could cause my blood to become too thick. Trust me, I love veggies, so any other suggestions will be great as long as they are not green. Maybe carrots, cauliflower? I didn't realize the starchy type carbs could be a problem since I see oats and potatoes discussed so much on here, but maybe I am a little overboard on them.

I will get into my excel program to adjust my diet to proportion the proteins better, and get them close to 40/40/20.

Thanks again for any suggestions.

There is nothing wrong with potato or oatmeal. Sweet potato or a yam has more fiber than a regular potato so just swapping that out will give you extra fiber.

Oatmeal is only troublesome if you're carb sensitive. I personally cannot eat it because I bloat from it, so I don't. If you don't have this problem, then by all means have it, just keep tabs on your serving sizes.

As for veggies, if you can't have green ones, there is nothing keeping you from having things like squash, carrots, mushrooms,ect. Think of a rainbow sans the green.