i wanted to add a caveat. i am only interested in strength training. i have little to no interest in bodybuilding, so if your slant is more towards bodybuilding, i am probably the wrong person to listen to! i rarely do hypertrophy (those BBB sets are as close as i have ever gotten to hypertrophy) and really don't know jack about how to make the body look a certain way. i only know about strength training.

Definitely not interested in bodybuilding, only strength. Having said that, my biggest goal (which I may never achieve) is to be as strong as I can at 18%ish bodyfat (currently around 22-23%). So, I'm supposedly eating at a deficit of ~300 cal/day. I say supposedly because I have yet to lose a single pound even though I'm logging weighing and measuring all my food.

Can you tell me what I'm supposed to do with the accessory lifts that have no weight listed on the blackironbeast site when I generate a program? Since it wants me to do those lifts (like dumbbell extensions) 5x10-15 times, I imagine it is a much smaller weight, but the site gives me no clue.

if you aren't familiar with your own working weights for a particular exercise, i would wing it, and find a weight that makes the last couple reps hard but not almost impossible. the 10-15 reps are in the hypertrophy range and you will feel a burn, which is normal for that range.

what a great goal!! do you think you'll see abs at 18%?

my goal is to get to the 165 weight class, diet down to just past that (155?) and start the bulk/cut cycles. i would love to get in the national top 20 for my weight class in powerlifting. i have years till my goal is in reach.

Hmm "makes the last couple of reps hard but not almost impossible." Ok; I'll figure it out, though as I said, for body weight exercises (hanging straight leg raise and pullups/chinups primarily), I will have to lower the reps since I can't offload the weight :>)

Yeah, if I could get down to 18%, I would see great abs- I can see them already, just not very "clean."

Finally, I want to caution you against bulk/cut cycles. They work really well for people who've never been seriously overweight. When you are "reduced obese" (the term used for anyone who is maintaining a weight loss of > 40 lbs/20% body weight), your body's set point is very fragile, and even small calorie surpluses are typically translated into pure body fat, rather than muscle, no matter how hard you train. You are much better off pursuing a strategy of "recomp" once you are within 10 pounds of your ultimate goal weight: eating just under your total daily energy expenditure, as estimated by something like health-calc.com, while getting at least 1.2 gm protein/pound of lean body weight and continuing a 3-4 day/week lifting program to avoid losing muscle mass. That last 10 pounds of fat will come off super slow, to be replaced by muscle so your actual body weight won't change, just your BF%. For more details, see something like gokaleo.com or bodyrecomposition.com (caution: if you go to the latter site, ignore the ketogenic diet crap - that's really bad for you).

18% bf is my goal for the end of the year as well; I have quite a bit further to go than you do though, Andrea. Erm, I don't mean to hijack your thread (I can start a new one, if you'd prefer), but I was wondering...

I'm curious, do you object to ketogenic approaches in general, or specifically Protein Sparing Modified Fasts (PSMF)? Ketogenic diets are regularly used as an alternative treatment for epilepsy, and I thought that PSMF methods can also be followed under medical supervision for short periods of time with little to no long-term detrimental side affects. As long as patients also address their lifestyle/habits/emotional approach to food, I've always believed that ketogenic diets have their 'time and place'. I'm sure we all read way too much on this kind of stuff ; I'm curious which aspect of the approach you've found to be harmful. I think it's a really interesting conversation, and I so rarely have the chance to chat with people who are actually interested!

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Katerina, it sounds like you've found a great love for strength training - I'm kind of jealous! neurodoc (Andrea) makes a good point about bulk/cut cycles: adipocyte hyperplasia (ie. your body making extra fat cells) means that most people who have been overweight in the past can gain weight faster in the future, and easier than if you've always been lean. It looks like you're already a reader of the t-nation stuff, but I'll point out a few articles I've enjoyed reading in the past regarding the bulk/cut phases:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...ut_getting_fat

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_..._about_bulking

I know that some people also enjoy using carb/calorie cycling as a compromise between the two cycles, so that you're never doing either for an extended period of time; might be something else fun to look at.

I always kind of think of 'bulk' phases almost like pregnancy (bear with me ); common recommendations for pregnant women are to increase daily intake by 300kcal a day for the second and third trimesters, and to ensure the nutritional density of their food (also ideally getting most of their kcal from whole foods). Many women kinda go overboard with that though, considering that you can get an extra 300-500kcal by eating a banana and having a glass of milk! Sometimes, a little goes a long way (or so I've read ).

I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination on the subject; but I'm sure that if you do your research and continue to make healthy choices for your fitness goals (as it sounds like you are doing already!), you'll reach your goal. Best of luck!

EDIT: Just found this nifty article, geared more towards powerlifting. http://articles.elitefts.com/nutriti...-powerlifting/

i never thought about that. yeah, i will have lost approx 140 lbs, so i am definitely in that category.

i've read some stuff from body recomp, but never paid attention to much more than the RFL/PSMF info. thank you!

thank you for all of this!

i am going to give this info to the person who has been helping me in this last leg of weight loss, so he can read up, too.

he did recommend that i only eat 200 cals above tdee when i finally do bulk, and do a 9 month slow bulk/2 - 3 month PSMF and really only gain 8 to 10 pounds or so, each year.


i also want to know what neurodoc thinks about the PSMF/RFL. i have utilized it for short periods (two to three weeks) with good success. i don't know how effective a tool it would be for me for longer periods.

Yep, that's me.

I want to lift with the boys. Well, the men, I guess. I'm not a girl.

I really don't care about being the only woman, but it's going to take awhile to feel comfortable as I am a total noob. But this is what I want to do (dead lifts, squats, "old school" kind of free weights). I think this is the best way to do it rather than all machines.

I'd really love it if I cold get some encouragement.

if there is any way i can help, i am so on it! i am still intimidated just about every time i go in. it's just my personality and it makes it harder being a woman who is still fairly fat. that nervous feeling may never go away each time i walk in, but i always regroup and focus on the iron. it helps to have a plan when you walk in, too.

have you ever done a barbell squat or a deadlift? i have found some great form videos along the way, if you need them. it also has helped me a great deal to video myself doing the different lifts and getting form critique by posting them online for feedback from some trusted sources. and eventually, i got good at spotting my own mistakes, so i still video even if i dont upload.

i am so excited for you! putting a barbell in my hands and on my back is one of the most empowering things i have ever done.

So I didn't get a chance to actually do it today, but I did explain at my gym today what I was after. So sometime this week when there's a good time, I'll just grab one of the trainers and get them to walk me through more closely THAT area of the gym. Wasn't sure if they would want me to make an appointment or sign up and pay for an actual session but they didn't. Suits me fine as I sort of prefer to be "on my own" anyway and not dependent on appointment or class times.

yay!!

I know. I'm pretty excited just from asking the question.


That and I got to put a new number in <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< over there.

Quick question - how are you guys measuring your body fat?

Oh geez, there are loads of different ways; I track by myself with calipers, and then do a 'check up' with a bod pod once every 6 months (ish).

No worries about "hijacking," you're very welcome to move the conversation in multiple directions; I don't mind at all.

I object not to ANY use of a ketogenic diet, just the relatively long-term use of that approach for weight loss. You're right, a ketogenic diet is used, more-or-less safely under close medical supervision, for long periods of time with children who have severe epilepsy. But they have a terrible, devastating, brain-damaging disease and the alternative to the diet is having up to 50 seizures a day. Losing weight to look good in a bathing suit is not a really good reason to risk multi-system organ failure, which ketogenic diets can cause.

In broader terms, as a physician, I am opposed to the use of any diet that eliminates entire categories of food from routine consumption. Our bodies require all 3 macronutrients in reasonable quantities to function optimally (and Paleo fetishists aside, even eskimos feast on a sh*t-ton of carbs during their summer season). Although as omnivores, we can survive - and thrive- on virtually anything digestible that can be turned into calories and glucose, a diet severely lacking in any one of the 3 macros will leave you feeling sick, weak and tired. And I also believe the data that shows that you can systematically downregulate your metabolism and your NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) by chronically eating more than 500 cals below TDEE. So, calorie cycling, IMHO is good, and eating an all-3-macros diet is good, and generally not aiming for huge calorie deficits + doing resistance exercise to build and keep muscle mass is the way to avoid the curse of the sluggish metabolism in the long run.