Im currently 6'5" 180lbs. I want to get rid of the fat around my midsection and give myself a more lean look.

I just started counting my carbs today and I am trying to keep my daily carb intake below 75g.

I ate 104g of protein today, and worked out hard as well with the weights.

The problem is that I only had about 1100 calories. Am I setting myself up for failure? What would be a good way to increase my calories without increasing my carbs? Idealy I think I should be somewhere in the 1800-2000 range.

I am starting high intensity training tomorrow, but I was wondering what advice you could give me to help me cut the fat while I add more muscle....

Edit: Read my post below for my new ideas....

You won't loose just around your mid section. It'll loose all over.
It can help, yes, it's best to get your carbs earlier in the day. Up your protein though.

1100 calories is WAY to low in my opinion, make it 1600 at least.

That's all I can tell you, I'm still only learning ;).

I'm not sure about this approach but it *seems* logical.

I read you should get atleast 1-2 grams of protein per pound of body fat (depending on how much you work out). So if you're 180 pounds, you need atleast 180 x 4 = 720 calories from protein. If you do a 40-40-20 mix that a lot of people seem to use, that's about 1800 calories in total. I'd say you're way below what your body needs, and if you keep it up, paradoxically, your body will try to hold on to your weight.

And then of course there's more to it, like having to eat 4-5 times a day, taking in the right kinds of fats, etc etc. You just have to read up on it as much you can and experiment.

There's just so many different ways that has worked for people and everyone has a different opinion.

So, in other words, yeah, I'm just as confused as you. :-)

First of all i think you need to start looking around for some good reading material. There are many ways to lose weight including carb reduction but you need to pick one that suits you.

Personally i think that low carb diets are a bad idea. Doctors use them to achieve fast weight loss for reasons such as upcoming surgery ect. when it is more ideal for the patient to be carrying less weight. I dont believe that this is the way to go, particularly if you want to maintain the fat-loss as you near your goal.

As was said before, you cant spot reduce fat. You cant just lose belly fat but keep the fat everywhere else. The ideal amount of protein in my experience and research is to be between 0.8 and 1 times your body weight in pounds. I think you should be aiming for AT LEAST 75g of carbs a day, more like somewhere between 90 and 150. I think 40 - 40 - 20, or something similar is the way to go. Of course you need to implement exercise along with this diet, preferably some form of HIIT training.

As you slim you will lose muscle along with your fat, its just how your body sources its energy as you burn calories. For this reason i believe its a good idea to lift weights (heavy weights) 3 -4 times a week targetting a different muscle group each day (see Max- OT). There are two reasons for lifting, so you dont lose a lot of strength after your cutting phase, and so you dont look like a skinny runt.

Eat 5 meals a day, two of which can be some form of suplimentation.

I hope this has helped.

it's not a matter of "how many" persay.. its more about the type of the carb.

it's all about the insulin/blood sugar

low glycemic vs high glycemic

Im currently 6'5" 180lbs. I want to get rid of the fat around my midsection and give myself a more lean look.

I just started counting my carbs today and I am trying to keep my daily carb intake below 75g.

I ate 104g of protein today, and worked out hard as well with the weights.

The problem is that I only had about 1100 calories. Am I setting myself up for failure? What would be a good way to increase my calories without increasing my carbs? Idealy I think I should be somewhere in the 1800-2000 range.

I am starting high intensity training tomorrow, but I was wondering what advice you could give me to help me cut the fat while I add more muscle....

Before I go into more details I'de like to say that I used to be 300 lbs 2 years ago. I am down to 189 lbs today. All natural fat loss by excersising and eating right.
First of all, 1100 calories is WAY TOO LOW. YOua re 6'5 and 180 lbs - I think that you need at least 2300 calories just to keep the mass as is. You should never go below 1800 calories a day.
Second of all, you should not workout hard, but workout smart. I mean of course it is a hard work, but you should not do 30 sets of each excersise, and staying and lifting weights for 2 hours every day. That will lead to quick overtraining.
Thirdly, as someone already stated, you will noty lose fat just from your mid section, you will lose fat from all of your body. It is a common myth that you can lose fat by targeting certain parts of your body.
And at last, YOu will not lose fat by doing weight lifting alone. The only way to lose fat is to combine cardio, weight lifting, and eating the right diet. 75 grams of carbs is low, very low. I am 5'7 and 189 lbs now and I eat at least 110 grams of carbs every day. Carbs are the main source of energy, epecialy for your brains. If you don't eat enough carbs your brains will not function properly. Of course, it is not noticable at first, but overtime you will notice that.
My advice is this: On Sunday morning weigh yourself and write it down. From this Sunday to next Sunday do not train at all. What you do is: each day write down everything that you eat (and I mean everything) and at the end of the day, count your caloric intake. Do it for a weak. The next Sunday weigh yourself again and write down the results. Then compare with what you were last Sunday. Then add up all your calories for seven days and devide them by 7, that will give you average daily intake. If your weight is the same as it was a weak ago then in order to lose weight, cut your average daily intake by 200-300 calories and work out smart by combining cardio and weights. Also I would recommend more cardio, then weigths until you rich your desired weight. If you have any problems with what I just said, feel free to e-mail me at d_samuylin@hotmail.com

Yea it would seem that my diet is a little drastic to start off. I had origionally been eating probably about 300+ carbs a day easy.... anyways... I will be cutting that down to about 100-120 a day. I will also be upping my protein to about 150+ g a day. I still dont know what to do about the calories though. I want to burn the fat off, but I dont want to lose a ton of muscle either. I am continuing my weight training and tonite I start my cardio workout as well. I was looking at trying some sort of 40\40\20 diet, but I dont know how to actually calculate it to see how im getting the calories from each of the different items.

Any help would be appreciated!

NM. I figured out how to calculate everything. This is the one ? that I have though. In the 40 40 20 diet, when you count carbs, are you counting all carbs that food have, or just net carbs? EG. If yoghurt has 15 carbs and 5 of those are fiber, does it count as 10 carbs or 15?

I did not read everyones resposnse so this may be redundant. 6'5 @ 180lbs is pretty skinny if you ask me!! You just need to do a little body restructuring. If you have a little fat @ 6'5 and 180lbs you just need to put on some muscle mass by weight training. You do not need to run a low carb diet the reason is low carb works for people just trying to lose fat and pretty effective by the way. The problem is low carb is not the best way to add Lean Body Mass which you need to do. Light Cardio and Weight training will do wonder for you. Personally I would suggest somthing along the lines of a 40P/40C/20F type diet. In your situation, I would recommend you eat at least 2500 cals in the 40/40/20 fashion. This will give you enough calories to build muscle and the cardio will keep the fat off. If you are dead set on low-carb you will have to up your protien intake and good fat intake. Just my opinion

Blind180

Well today I had 1830 calories, 66.5g of fat 138 carbs and 142g of protein.

I also did 30 minutes of HIIT and AB work and then went ice skating for an hour. Now I just have to work on cutting more fat out and increasing my protein intake. It shouldnt be a problem because I will be getting some protein suppliments in the mail early next week.

What do you all think of my revised idea of a 40 40 20 diet?

NM. I figured out how to calculate everything. This is the one ? that I have though. In the 40 40 20 diet, when you count carbs, are you counting all carbs that food have, or just net carbs? EG. If yoghurt has 15 carbs and 5 of those are fiber, does it count as 10 carbs or 15?

There is no such thing as NET CARBS. It is bul...it created by Atkins. If it says 15 carbs it is 15 grabs carbs. If it says that 10 grams come from fiber, then the rest 5 grams come from sugar. Sugar is also carbs. You have to remember this: 1 gram of carbs = 4 calories.
1 gram of protein = 4 calories.
1 gram of fat = 9 calories.

And again, just by doing weigh lifting alone will not help you to reduce body fat. It is inevitable that while on cutting phase, you will lose some muscle. But it is not a lot, beleive me. When you are done with your fat loss phase, start bulking, you will regain and overgain within few weeks of training. But in order to lose fat you HAVE TO DO MORE CARDIO THEN WEIGHT LIFTING. THAT IS THE RULE.

I am a FIRM believer in the benefits of low carbing. Yes, it is true that as long as you burn more calories than you eat, you should lose weight.

However, for me and many others that tend to gain fat easily, low carbing is the BEST and EASIEST way to lose weight.

I'm not saying you have to stay on Atkins induction(<20g carbs/day) to lose, but you should try severely limiting your carbs for a couple weeks and see what happens.

What do you replace the carbs with?? FAT FAT and more FAT!! Yesss, fat is good for you! You want to get as much fat as you can from things like olive oil and flax oil. I also get a fair amount from chicken and natural peanut butter. You have to eat fat to burn fat. If you are eating high protein and low carb without fat, then your body will think its ok to burn protein for energy!! This is bad. I get about 40% from fat 40-50% from protein, and 10-20% carbs(caloric breakdown) I lose weight the fastest and easiest on this combination and I'm rarely hungry.

If I want to really drop fat fast, I can go down to a pure keto diet (<30g/day) but that can get boring, plus I think its good to at least get a small amount of low-glycemic carbs every other day to keep glycogen up.

As far as fiber and "net carbs" are concerned. Fiber is not digested by the body the same as a regular carbohydrate. Thats why its subtracted from "net carbs" because it has no effect on blood sugar. Same with sugar alcohols. They arent metabolized in the same way as sugar. However, I've found things like Atkins bars or lowcarb bars should be used in moderation. Sugar alcohols may not be as bad as real carbs, but they do have calories and can create sugar cravings.