6lbs loss in one week, too fast?

RedvGreen

RedvGreen

RedvGreen

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In 7 days i've tried a slightly different training and eating regime.

My aim was to shred the fat around middle etc so basically to expose the abs and nuke the belly fat!

About 2 weeks ago I was 13st11 when I recommenced my training and healthier diet. Diet used to consist of crap (chocolate, unhealthy foods, no/little fruit/veg), so this was a stark change. For reference over a 3yr period i've gone from around 17st to current weight.

So, 7 days ago, 13st9.
Today, 13st3.

6lbs in a week is too fast? (6ft1 height)


Diet has consisted of:

Plenty of water...
Breakfast - double soy protein shake (40g protein);
Snacks - Banana/Apple;
Lunch - double tin beans on 4 piece brown toast w/ butter;
Snack - Banana/Apple;
Tea - 2 Chicken Breasts w/ mixed leaf salad // similar dishes
Evening/after workout - single soy protein shake (20g protein)

Large calorific deficit - probs on 1200-1400cals.


I'm keen to not shred too fast, but also to not end up as an untoned skinny dude. I seem to be losing weight fast, but muscle will take longer to build up. Will my current eating plan retain decent muscle, and even build muscle whilst i do a standard training regime (lifting big/heavy) ?

Current caliper BF% is ~16%; no visible abs except for uppers if fully tensed.
 
For starters that diet is pretty **** but I'll allow someone with a bit more time to come in a give pointers on that.

6lbs in the first week of a large diet shift is not uncommon I can sometimes top 10lb it's just a case of you losing a lot of water weight, some glycogen and some fat.
 
Your calorie deficit is indeed a little too high but a lot of your initial weight loss will be water loss due to the change in diet/routine.

Your weight loss will dramatically slow down at this point. You should probably reduce your calorie deficit to be less than 1000 kcal.

To be honest I'd be more concerned with building some muscle than losing lots of weight. At 6'1'' your weight isn't that crazy bad.
 
6lbs in week 1 is just your body adjusting to the change in lifestyle. However your calorific deficit is massive. I'd recommend eating a bit more, and making your calorie deficit no more than 500 cals (per day averaged out over a week).

Also your food is pretty poor.

Breakfast - why the protein shake?
Snacks - okay fine, but add some nuts in there too
Lunch - full of sugars and poor carb choices. Beans are great, but tinned tomato based beans aren't great, and that's a lot of bread - now unless it's hand made home baked bread it's going to be very poor quality nutrition.
Snack - again fine, but again nuts or something protein/fat based would be good
Dinner - seems okay, but again we don't know how big the breasts are. A 250g chicken breast will have over 50g of protein but under 300 calories (if skinless). Salad is fine, as you'll get iron and other nutrients, but again we don't know the quantities - do you put any olive oil or anything with it? How much? In 100g of mixed leaf salad there's about 20 calories, and to get any worthwhile nutrition you need at least 200g of salad/spinach to get quality nutrients.
Post workout - another shake? Why?

Don't consider breakfast to be anything but like any other meal. So cooking steak and veg, or an omelette, or fish and potatoes, or even a roast (if you had the time) is perfectly applicable for breakfast.

Avoid poor food choices like bread and tinned sweetened foods (such as baked beans). Avoid processed/refined foods. So anything that comes in a crinkly package or has a lot of additives to it. Look at the ingredients - if for example (I'm being a little absurd to make a point), an apple came with a list of ingredients other than "apple" start questioning it.

Bread should be 4-5 ingredients - that's it. I bet you your hovis has about 15. That should ring alarm bells.

Beans are fine - I like beans and they're good for you, however, buy them in water/brine/or even olive oil, but again check the ingredient lists.

Don't miss out on important fats from avocados, oily fish, nuts and eggs. Eat more fish too, fish is an exceptionally good food.

As an example my breakfast this morning was:

Grilled 250g chicken breast
30g of houmous
sauteed potatoes with onions and bacon
Steamed spinach

Small bowl of quark with porridge oats, blueberries and raspberries.
 
First week always brings higher loss. Water / glycogen / stomach contents adjusting.

I'm the same height as you. All my adult life I've fluctated somewhere between 12 stone and 19.5 stone. Lost count of the number of times I've lost several stone and put it on again. Typically, if I go on a restrictive diet (of any sort) I'll lose 10 lbs in a week at the heavier end in the first week or two but then it slows down.

If I were you, I'd eat a higher number of calories. If your weight and body fat are accurate, and you're only lightly active, I'd say aim for 1700-1800 calories per day (I've based this on Katch-McArdle BMR estimate). That should give a steady 1-2lbs per week weight loss if accurate. Keep protein high to minimise loss of lean body mass.

The mistake I tend to make is thinking I can go back to 'normal' after losing wieght. I have to remind myself that what I've histirically considered 'normal' means slow but steady weight gain unless I'm doing a lot of training.

Freefaller is right about the bread. It seems to make a massive difference to me if I make handmade bread from high quality wholemal flour vs eating bought stuff. Ryvita crispbreads are my 'lazy' option if I can't be bothered to make bread.
 
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Freefaller said:
Grilled 250g chicken breast
30g of houmous
sauteed potatoes with onions and bacon
Steamed spinach

Small bowl of quark with porridge oats, blueberries and raspberries.
Click to expand...

How long does it take you to prepare that? Nutrition and flavour aside, the main objective of breakfast is not to slow me down helping to get the kids ready for school and heading out the door.

Quark is handy though. Need to get some of that back in the fridge.
 
Potatoes are cooked so just need to be sauteed.

10mins or so. However I don't have kids, but I'm up early (I always get up early) so that I can prepare food and sit and eat it and relax in the morning before going to work. :)

Whilst I'm cooking breakfast I also cook my lunch, so I multi task :)
 
Given I'm the same height, from previous experience, under 13 stone seemed too light to me. I was getting knocked around too easily playing football. I was happier and stronger at about 13.5 - 14 stone or so with a little extra muscle.

Like someone else had mentioned, I'd be inclined to go for putting on some muscle and reducing body fat, rather than just losing weight.

Depends what you want though. I was a little faster over 5k at 12 stone. I don't think my sprinting speed was any faster though.

Edit: It just so happens that the average height of a 2012 Serbian Olympic male competitor was 6'1". Their average weight was 13 stone. Christiano Ronaldo - 6'1", 13 stone etc etc - however irrelevant that might be...
 
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Uriel said:
Given I'm the same height, from previous experience, under 13 stone seemed too light to me. I was getting knocked around too easily playing football. I was happier and stronger at about 13.5 - 14 stone or so with a little extra muscle.

Like someone else had mentioned, I'd be inclined to go for putting on some muscle and reducing body fat, rather than just losing weight.

Depends what you want though. I was a little faster over 5k at 12 stone. I don't think my sprinting speed was any faster though.

Edit: It just so happens that the average height of a 2012 Serbian Olympic male competitor was 6'1". Their average weight was 13 stone. Christiano Ronaldo - 6'1", 13 stone etc etc - however irrelevant that might be...
Click to expand...

I'm after this - putting on muscle and losing fat - I would personally judge it by having abs fairly visible and hopefully still around 13-14st region with decent lean muscle mass.

I'm guessing getting the diet correct - mega high natural proteins, fruit n good vegetables and upping calories. No point getting maintenance protein if you're still pushing the weights hard. Need to get normal protein and the peaked metabolism should burn the fat even in a minor calorific deficit?


Around the clock protein is good? Going to have 2 x chicken breasts (no skin) shortly with just salad and maybe a modest soy sauce/garlic puree sauce. Will do some weights about 9-10pm.

Later before bed, considering a soy protein shake? Is that recommended or useless?
 
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No need to go crazy like that. You don't need ridiculous amounts of protein. You need to eat a reasonable amount and lift heavy.

Just eating ridiculous amounts is going to help you make fat gains rather than phat gainz.
 
Aim to lose 0.5-1% of your total bodyweight a week on a cut, ignoring
1) the initial period where you drop a lot of water
2) any extreme diet protocol like Lyle's RFL/Rapid Fat Loss protocol

Obviously the leaner you get, the less you want to lose per week as unless you have very favourable nutrient-partioning genetics and/or are on the sauce, preserving lean mass becomes difficult with a large deficit. This is why a lot of say, 3DMJ's clients end up finishing their diets/contest prep with higher calories than they were eating on most of the rest of their cut.

Retaining your lean mass also depends on
a) sufficiently high protein intake
b) maintaining training intensity (keep the weight on the bar the same, but overall volume can be lowered)

See:
http://www.alanaragonblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/BBing-Prep-JISSN.jpg
 
Ayahuasca said:
How many calories do you aim for a day Freefaller?

Btw mirin that breakfast.
Click to expand...

3,000 on average, but usually aim for 3,500 on training days.

RedvGreen said:
I'm after this - putting on muscle and losing fat - I would personally judge it by having abs fairly visible and hopefully still around 13-14st region with decent lean muscle mass.
Click to expand...

Focus on what you see in the mirror, don't worry about weight for now.

Putting on muscle will usually help improve your metabolism and burning fat will become easier. 14st and lean will take a lot of work - don't underestimate how stocky that is @ 6 foot tall.

I'm guessing getting the diet correct - mega high natural proteins, fruit n good vegetables and upping calories. No point getting maintenance protein if you're still pushing the weights hard. Need to get normal protein and the peaked metabolism should burn the fat even in a minor calorific deficit?
Click to expand...

You don't have to go mad on protein, just make sure you get a decent and varied source of them, including veg as you mentioned. Not forgetting the oily fish and good fats :)


Around the clock protein is good? Going to have 2 x chicken breasts (no skin) shortly with just salad and maybe a modest soy sauce/garlic puree sauce. Will do some weights about 9-10pm.

Later before bed, considering a soy protein shake? Is that recommended or useless?
Click to expand...

No need to take protein unless you're short on your macros or you feel you're struggling to hit everything you need. You don't even need to eat around the clock. Make your food intake fit your lifestyle. For me that's 4 meals a day. For others it is 5-6 smaller meals a day, and for others only 2 meals a day (but of course a lot bigger portions!).
 
Just a brief update here....

I've been tweaking my diet and training a bit, and have reached a plateau finally.

I'm jumping between 12st13 and 13st3 now, depending upon time of day of weighing.

I've been doing between 2.5 - 3.5km every other day on the rower (at max setting) in about 15-18mins, which I believe is decent time. Sadly, my gym free weights area is always full of college kids just hogging the weights pretty much all day and evenings, so i'm relegated to using some of the arm/shoulder machines which are challenging at the weights I'm using (approx. 35-65kg depending on machine) and using leg press on 95kg.

I've got a set of home free weights, non-olympic bars though which I'm going to start again tonight (as my gym closes at 6pm on Saturday night ffs!).

Diet is improving nicely, controlled snacking with unsalted roasted pistachios, apples, bananas, pomegranate seeds and water. Mixed protein meals - ranging from boiled/poached eggs with salads; mackerels and salads; chicken breast and salads; soy protein shakes etc.

A few questions...

Is there anything I can add to my Soy Protein (cocoa) shakes to add some more health protein to it? Oats? etc (cutting out dairy)
Also need to add more healthy calories to it - the shake is my quick and easy breakfast in the morning, and I think it is barely 180-250cals

Concerning gym stuffs, Rowing should serve to get me in good shape, but will it ever be a negative to getting toned up or in good shape? I really enjoy rowing and I'm pretty good at it.

I also do a fair amount of walking (did a 10mile walk in the hills last weekend, which is a killer - makes me sound like an asthmatic at some inclines, but I do them, and then I can pretty much eat what I want immediately after that (such as lean steak n chips n salad etc)?

I have the odd cheat things, like, i've been dating regularly and find my beautiful date/s cooking me red meat based meals, and have the odd drink/red wine with her, alongside coffees etc. It doesn't seem to have affected me though - barely once/twice a week.

Thanks in advance - any tips/critiques welcome
 
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