Diet:: How to lean down after you got big!

The body is made to survive and not made to become a model figure. So what I'm trying to say is that you cannot have the benefit of both worlds unless you kept on tricking the body.. When the body is having surplus of calories you can gain muscle but it is inevitable that you will also gain body fat. This also goes the same when losing body fat.. You also lose muscle in the process.

So how can we have a lean body while maintaining the muscles? This is by exercise and cardio. You need to lift heavy weights like you used to when you are building muscles so your body will think that you need to retain those hard-earned muscles because your environment demands it. What I do is this:

• Early in the morning before going to work, I jog for 30 minutes on an empty stomach. Yes, don't eat anything but you can drink water only. This is to burn body fat.
• I eat small meals every 3 hours.
• I eat a meal with carbohydrates 2 hours before the workout.
• I do lift weights at the gym often 6 exercises in 12 reps for 3 sets each.
• I do my cardio after I did some weight lifting to burn body fat.
• I drink my whey protein shake and eat a small banana or any sugary/starchy food.

So what about the meal plan?

Here's what I do..

My weight: 164 lbs

Then I multiply it by 13, so 164 x 13 = 2132 calories, this is my maintenance. But since we need to lean down, we need to lessen it..

So minus 600:

                     2132 - 600 = 1532

Then I do my protein calculations, since we need at least 1.4g of protein per pound, it goes like:

                     1.4 x 164 = 229.6g.

And based on my previous post, there are 4 calories per gram of protein, so it appears to be like:

                     229.6g x 4 = 918 calories

Then for the fat, yes we need to eat fat as well but only the healthy ones like nuts and oily fishes.

So I get my maintenance calories then I need to multiply it by percentage of my body fat. Say, my body fat is 23%, it will go like this:

                     1532 calories x .23 = 352.36 calories

And based on my previous post, there are 9 calories per gram of fat, so it will go like this:

                     352.36 calories  / 9 = 39.151g of Fat

So we need to add the 2 (Protein and Fat) in terms of calories.

                     918 (from Protein) + 352.36 (from Fat) = 1270.36 calories

Then we'll subtract it to our reduced calorie intake:

                     1532 - 1270.36 = 261.64 calories

The remaining calories will fall to our carbohydrate intake. And based on my previous post, there are 4 calories per gram of carb. So let's check it out:

                      261.64 / 4 = 65.41g

So, to lose weight we need to take:

Protein: 229.6g

Fat:: 39.151

Carbohydrates: 65.41g

So how can you apply it to your diet? I would suggest that you should go the fitday website or any website that has details of the food you want to take. Take a look at their protein, fat, and carb measurements. Decide how much food (ounce, kilo, scoop) you want to take per day then sum it all up until it reach the recommended number of nutrients in grams that we calculated above. After that, divide it to the number of times you want to eat per day. More like spread it along the day.

Hint: When it comes to protein, take in more beef since it's much more dense in protein per gram compare to fish and chicken. But you can eat those 2 as well to have variety. As for the carbohydrates, take in fiber rich food such as whole wheat products, brown rice, sweet potatoes, and yams. For fats, take in nuts and oily fishes like Salmon, Tilapia, etc.