Hey guys, this is my first post. Last year, I lost 60 lbs in six months on a calorie reduction diet that closely resembled the Weight Watchers plan. I used to be 230, and I went down to 170. (I'm 5'11", 23 years old).

The scary thing was, before I started, I could do a chin-up, and afterwards I could not. I lost a lot of muscle during the process, despite the intense running I did (and the good things it did to my leg muscles).

Weight Watchers does not inform you of your muscle loss in any of its literature. I kept with it anyway, intending to get the muscle back when I was done. I was happy to enroll in a gym after I reached my target weight, and I've been going for some time now, lifting weights.

I have admittedly been foolish enough to assume that my low fat diet was enough for me. I haven't really gained a lot of muscle. I'm looking into a 40/40/20 diet at the moment.

My question is one of phases. I am currently 180lbs, and I am still carrying a spare tire around with me on my gut. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to burn fat and put muscle on. However, I am learning that perhaps I should not be doing this at the same time.

What should I eat? How should I work out? I want to get a defined form, but I am not certain how I should go about it. Should I go on a 40/40/20 diet and create a calorie deficit? If I do, won't I lose muscle? Should I gain fat & muscle now, and cut the fat later?

I'm finding I'm rather afraid to put fat on now, because of the fear that I will end up like I used to be, again if I don't manage to cut the fat later.

Thanks for reading.

Should I go on a 40/40/20 diet and create a calorie deficit? If I do, won't I lose muscle? Should I gain fat & muscle now, and cut the fat later?
Most of those answers are all completely up to you.

WRT 40/40/20 + calorie deficit, you don't have to lose muscle! That's what all the protein and lifting is for. If you continue stimulating your muscles, and giving them the protein they need to rebuild themselves, you won't lose much strength. You also won't "bulk up" because of the caloric deficit. If all goes well you'll gain a little strength and lose mostly fat. If all goes screwy you'll lose a little muscle and a lot of fat. If all goes :p you'll lose muscle and gain fat! But you won't let that happen, will you? :)

I personally want to get this fat off of me ASAP, so I'm going to cut then bulk. I tried just bulking (many moons ago) and because of all the fat covering the muscle, didn't really feel like I was gaining anything. With a lower BF %, musculature gains will be more noticable.

The best thing you can do is read. bodybuilding.com ('http://www.bodybuilding.com') and fatlosstips.com ('http://www.fatlosstips.com') have been quite helpful for just about everybody on this site who's learning to cut :)

Good luck!

Thanks for your perspective on the subject. I have done a fair bit of reading, but I consider most of this stuff to be pretty hard to grok unless I'm seeing a direct acknowledgement of the need to lose fat in the context of the advice about how to gain muscle.

I think my plan of action will be to go on a 40/40/20 diet, alternating my caloric intakes every two weeks by 500 cals, where the high weeks are designed to maintain my weight and the low week is designed to make me drop a few lbs.

I, also, would like to cut a lot of the fat out before I start bulking up. I know I can drop about 10lbs of the stuff easily, and another 5 or so with some serious effort.

As an aside, I've seen that fatlosstips.com page before. It's copy writing style is extremely similar to that of an Internet marketing company's I used to work at, which the owner of the page is obviously influenced by. Does it give you any valuable info for free, or is it all about the pitch?



I personally want to get this fat off of me ASAP, so I'm going to cut then bulk. I tried just bulking (many moons ago) and because of all the fat covering the muscle, didn't really feel like I was gaining anything. With a lower BF %, musculature gains will be more noticable.

Good luck!

Hey sludge, thanks for posting that question. I've been wondering the same thing myself, but just became a member today, so I didn't post the question. Thanks also to Daveo for the answer.
I'm the same height as you,sludge. Right now, I'm hovering around 175, down from 207 - from a diet I realize was pretty stupid after reading John's site. I did slimfast, and worked out pretty consistently. During this time, I was pretty deficient on the protein. Hopefully the workouts helped me retain the muscle I had.
Sludge, when you were 170, did you still have a little gut? I'm pretty small boned, and the gut is still there.
I'm doing a 40/40/20 + calorie deficit (just started). I'm trying to gage when I can anticipate getting off the cutting and going into bulking.

I'm doing a 40/40/20 + calorie deficit (just started). I'm trying to gage when I can anticipate getting off the cutting and going into bulking.

You may want to get a method of measuring body fat % if you are looking for something to go by. Cut to 10% or less BF and then bulk might be a good goal.

...As an aside, I've seen that fatlosstips.com page before. It's copy writing style is extremely similar to that of an Internet marketing company's I used to work at, which the owner of the page is obviously influenced by. Does it give you any valuable info for free, or is it all about the pitch? I was fairly skeptical about John & the fatlosstips.com as well the first time I came across all of it. It reeked of a con: the "proof" guy from the audience (John) and then the guy selling snake oil (Anthony Ellis). Especially when I went to musclegaintips.com and found them selling things.

I went through fatlosstips.com and the most "suspicious" thing I can find is a sign-up form for email tips. The rest of the guide is on the one front page. Clearly there's a marketing scheme, but most of the information on fatlosstips.com is provided on the front page with no tracking or email harvesting.

If John's making money off this, I'm not sure how! None the less, John isn't trying to sell anything directly, and neither is fatlosstips.com. John doesn't try to take any credit for having "a forumula" or "a pathway" or any of that. John truly seems to be presenting a system which worked for him primarily because of all his dedication.

Since I haven't bought anything (except a heart rate monitor, fat calipers, and gym membership -- wooh $75 total) I'm not too concerned about it. If I don't see results in a few months I don't think I'll change what I'm doing.

Eating this way is a little bit of a pain, but I feel much better than I have in the past. Also, the HIIT routine gives me tons of energy! :jumping:

All in all, it smelled kind of fishy but I think that was just all the tuna everybody's been eating ;)

If John's making money off this, I'm not sure how! None the less, John isn't trying to sell anything directly, and neither is fatlosstips.com. John doesn't try to take any credit for having "a forumula" or "a pathway" or any of that. John truly seems to be presenting a system which worked for him primarily because of all his dedication.
Dave, this is not directed at you or any other person in particular, but I want to clear a few things up about my site along the lines of what is being discussed here. I'm going to update my FAQ (http://www.johnstonefitness.com/html/faq.html) as well...

First of all, I'm not making any money off of this site or my transformation (nor have I ever.) In fact, even after factoring in the small amount of money the Google ads generate, it's still costing me hundreds of dollars each month to keep the main site and my forums running while remaining FREE to each and every one of you.

Also, I have no affiliation whatsoever with any of the companies or web sites that I link to. I mention the brand names of the products that I use because I'm asked about them constantly. The extent of my contact with Anthony Ellis (fatlosstips.com) was an email I sent him about a year ago to thank him for the free information I got from his site. His web page helped me a lot, and I though others might find it useful, too, so that's why I linked to it in my FAQ (http://www.johnstonefitness.com/html/faq.html).

Last week I was contacted by a protein manufacturer who wants to advertise on this site. As much as I would love to accept the ads and the money (which is not much, believe me), I refused on the grounds that I had not tried their protein and did not want to represent something I did not personally use. They are sending me some samples of their product and if I like it and USE it I will accept their offer to become an official sponsor of the web site. They offered me 15 pounds of Whey Isolate each month FREE, and I refused. If I like the samples and accept their ads, I'd rather pay for the protein just like everyone else does, and you can be sure I'm really using the product and not just whoring the site out to whoever waves enough money in my face.

Honestly, I would think that with all the free information on my site, the length of time it's been "live" and the fact that I've never tried to sell anyone anything would speak for itself, yet people are still skeptical. It's amazing to me.

:confused:

Honestly, I would think that with all the free information on my site, the length of time it's been "live" and the fact that I've never tried to sell anyone anything would speak for itself, yet people are still skeptical. It's amazing to me.

:confused:
John,

Maybe you have SpamAssassin installed and auto-delete spam. I check over mine. There are tons of weight loss scams (and scams in general) on the Internet as I'm sure you're aware. A lot of people get burned by this, myself included.

This made me (initially) skeptical, especially because of how easy everything looks at first! "Wait, I just eat a -little- better, do some exercise, and keep it up to get a better body? That's too easy! Where's the catch? There's always a catch!"

Like I tried to get across above, I was skeptical for all of 30 seconds. The length your site has been up didn't really mean anything to me, I found you from FARK! Then you put up this forum a few days after I emailed you and that sealed the deal.

Anyway, it's easy for me to see being skeptical at first. But only briefly. I love this site. Everybody's very supportive and you've set a great example. I want people to be skeptical, that means they're thinking. Then I want them to see that you're one of the very few good guys out there.

Yup, because I lost a lot of muscle in the process. Going from 230 to 170 while doing no weight training in six months was not all fat loss, obviously. After doing my research, it seems plausible that, when reaching the point of being at the bottom of your BMI-allowable weight range, the best thing to do is to start on a 40/40/20 diet.

In order to bulk up and lose weight, I'm going to alternate my diet every two weeks between 2500 and 2000 calories once I reach the target of 170. (2500 being what I need to maintain my weight). Eventually, this should help me gain the muscle I'm looking for and cut the fat. It'll take longer than if I just needed to bulk up, but that's the price of letting myself get overweight at all, isn't it?

Once I have a good baseline of muscle to work from, I can reexamine the situation and see about doing some serious cutting. But that's likely quite a few months away, and I view that as one of the final steps before regular maintenance sets in.

Anyone have any comments on this?


Sludge, when you were 170, did you still have a little gut? I'm pretty small boned, and the gut is still there.

I can vouch for John as coming across as having a credible web presence. I worked for the company that fatlosstips.com got it's copywriting information from a few years back. The company is The Internet Marketing Center, whose homepage is www.marketingtips.com. These guys are extremely good at selling information products over the internet.

John, on the other hand, has struck me as the kind of guy who is like me: a self-motivated guy with a background in music and computers.

I also know the way IMC uses their affiliate program, since I worked on it. When John posted a link to fatlosstips.com, I was skeptical at first, and checked if the URL at the bottom of my browser was the real URL (javascript can change this), or if there was actually an ID tag attached as an HTTP GET which would let fatlosstips know who was referring to them, so John would get a kickback if anyone surfed over and made a purchase. I can say that there was not.

In my educated opinion, John is for real.



Also, I have no affiliation whatsoever with any of the companies or web sites that I link to. I mention the brand names of the products that I use because I'm asked about them constantly. The extent of my contact with Anthony Ellis (fatlosstips.com) was an email I sent him about a year ago to thank him for the free information I got from his site. His web page helped me a lot, and I though others might find it useful, too, so that's why I linked to it in my FAQ (http://www.johnstonefitness.com/html/faq.html).