I am certainly no nutrition expert....

[Courtenay]

But, I did raise a son, who is now a Navy SEAL. And, it was long before the Zone diets, and all the other diet worries that young people seem to have now. He played football, and baseball, and snowboarded, and ate like a pig. But, it was good food. We are spanish so there was a whole lot of rice and beans, but also pasta and breads, and he ate it all. And, still does! Just don't eat fast food for every meal would be my suggestion. When you do eat fast food, think about your choices, there is fast food that isn't loaded with fat. Don't be afraid of the pastas and the rices and the stuff that "diets" say you should stay away from. If you are working out, and seriously working out, you need it, and you'll burn it. When you get old, you may need to tweak your carb intake, but certainly not when you are young and burning it faster than you can take it in.

[bigv123]

I love ya Court, but, you're a little off base here. Diets are constructed to achieve a goal...and, not everybody has the same goal. Even with people who have the same goal, what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another. There are SO many variables that it is, imho, impossible to lay out any one piece of advice and think that it will be effective for a large group of people.

Certainly, we can all agree that fast food is like shooting yourself in the foot. But, if you need to drop body fat, and a lot of people do, then you have to avoid overloading on carbs AND eliminate high glycemic index carbs as much as possible. IF, on the other hand, you're already in great shape and are just trying to fuel your workouts to achieve better performance, then yes, I totally agree with you...carb up!

Point being, everyone is unique. Each person has a different body with different parameters not to mention different goals. Some of the guys getting ready for BUD/S DO need to drop some fat (myself included)...others need to add some muscle mass, and others still don't need to make any body composition changes at all. Each of those cases needs a completely different diet to maximize their workouts and progress toward their goal(s).

Just my $0.02 worth...
V

[Shar36]

Wow! That's one great looking fish your son is holding there. :D

You're right Court about the proper nutrition. I've seen a nutritionist for 3 years now and the knowledge I've gained is incredible. It's all about eating well balanced meals, snacks and getting the proper exercise. Food fuels our bodies...it just needs to be the correct food we fuel it with.

[Courtenay]

Well, while I can agree that everyone needs something different....

Basic smart nutrition is the same, and has been since the beginning of time.

All the rest IMO is buying into the money-making "you need this diet" scheme. Eat well, work out, and you'll be healthy, and you will drop the excess weight. Daily caloric intake reduction is the clue there. Not eliminating carbs from your diet. Not only do you starve your muscles of glycogen, which is a necessary nutrient for optimum muscle (and more muscle burns fat..remember that) you force your deprive your brain of glucose, which it NEEDS to function effeciently.

I made my post because I keep reading all the nutrition threads here where everyone is harping and harping on diets which I don't think are especially beneficial to guys looking to do the hard physically demanding work of Specwar.

An article to read:

Carbohydrates are basically sugar and starch. Apples, oranges, potatoes, grains, candy, bread… are all carbohydrates. Carbohydrates break down into glucose molecules. When used as energy, carbohydrates fuel become fuel for your muscles and brain. If your body does not have any use for the glucose, it is converted into glycogen and stored it in the liver and muscles as an energy reserve. Your body can store about a half a day's supply of glycogen. If your body has more glucose than it can use as energy, or convert to glycogen for storage, the excess is converted to fat.

Carbohydrates are divided into these two categories.

Simple Carbohydrates. Basically blood sugar or glucose. Foods containing simple carbohydrates are sweet tasting, like cookies, fruit, sugar, honey, candy, cake, etc… Simple carbs are already very close to being in the digested form, so they pass into your bloodstream almost immediately.
Complex Carbohydrates. These are found in foods prepared with grains and vegetables. Even though both simple and complex carbs provide needed glucose, the complex carbohydrates provide several nutritional advantages, such as additional vitamins, minerals, and fiber needed for good health and performance.
You can maximize glycogen storage by eating smaller and more frequent carbohydrate meals. Eating less food, more frequently, and cutting down on protein and fat will provide a steady supply of glucose to your muscles. This will aid in muscle recovery after exercise, as well as help you "load" carbs before a workout or climbing competition. See also Carbohydrate Loading for competition and endurance gains.

So, the amount of carbohydrate you eat determines the amount of glycogen stored in the liver and muscles, which in turn greatly affects your performance level. When you eat foods like fruit, cereal, or bread, glucose goes into your bloodstream quickly, ready to provide immediate energy to the brain, muscles, or other body tissues demanding energy. If glucose is not used right away, it is converted and stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen.

If you eat a low carbohydrate diet, it is less efficient for your body to store glycogen in your body. You may especially notice an energy drain if you do not take days off from your workouts routine. A glycogen drain will make you may feel listless and uninterested in exercising. You need to take a few days off from your work out to allow your body to recharge the glycogen stores.

Some athletes eat very little - or go without food altogether before a competition. They think they will be lighter and therefore perform better - the fact is, reducing carbohydrates before a competition will cause your endurance to drop by almost half. The end result is far worse on your performance than the effect of being a little bit lighter in weight. Cutting back on food the day before only uses up your precious glycogen stores. It takes less than 24 hours of fasting to completely drain your liver glycogen stores. Carbohydrates are the brain and muscle's fuel, so your body needs to use carbs even while you sleep. Even if you skip dinner the night before, your glycogen stores will be slightly less the next morning.

When you reduce your carbohydrate calories, your body will start to use up glycogen stores. Low glycogen forces your body to switch to using more body fat for energy and begin converting amino acids from proteins to fuel. Using fats and amino acids this way is inefficient - it pulls amino acids away from proteins. This has additional negative effects and potentially weakens your immune defenses. The amino acids and minerals found in protein are necessary in muscular development. Large amounts of protein is not necessary. Carbohydrates, especially complex carbohydrates are the most effecient fuel source for muscles and brain.

AFTER EXERCISE
Long stretches of time depletes both your glycogen stores and vital body water lost as sweat. It takes anywhere from 24 to 48 hours for full recovery, provided you are eating a high carbohydrate diet and consuming plenty of fluids. An average man who weighs 160 pounds, for instance, needs about 2,400 carbohydrate calories to fill up his glycogen tanks. This represents 600 grams of carbohydrate, the amount found in 40 slices of bread. Eating this large amount of carbohydrate is usually manageable over a 1 1/2- to 3-day period. One gram of carbohydrate equals 4 kilocalories and a kilogram equals 2.2 pounds.

Eat carbohydrate within one hour after exercise. Research studies show that you can expect to achieve full recovery of glycogen stores only if you begin carbohydrate reloading almost immediately after exercise.

The more carbohydrate you eat, the more glycogen you store. This process will continue until your full capacity is achieved. The key to keeping your glycogen stores filled is easy:

Eat Carbohydrates. Avoid fatigue. Eat smaller amounts more frequently and eat a sufficient amount of carbohydrate.
Rest. Since it takes 24 to 48 hours to recover spent glycogen stores fully, it is better to rest or exercise very lightly two days before a climbing competition and in-between intensive exercise sessions. This recovery time is needed to allow your muscles and liver time to re-build glycogen stores.
Summary: Carbohydrates efficiently replace the glycogen stores in the muscles and liver. Glycogen is necessary for muscle contraction. If you do not eat enough carbohydrate or get enough rest, the level of glycogen steadily declines, leaving you fatigued and unable to perform effectively.

References:

Maximum Sports Performance, James F Fixx, ISBN: 0-394-53682-7
Sports Fitness and Training, Richard Mangi, MD; Peter Jokl, MD, William O. Dayton, ATC, ISBN: 0-394-54972-4
The Fit-Or-Fat Target Diet>, Covert Bailey, ISBN: 0-395-35561-3
Understanding Nutrition, Ellie Whitney, May Hamilton, ISBN: 0-8299-0419-0

[Courtenay]

By the way V, if I read correctly you are 38. What applies to you where weight and carbs are concerned is entirely different from these young guys. You're an old man! (ha ha ha, just messing with you)

[bigv123]

(place-holder post for incoming reply once it's finished and proofed)

[Shar36]

Great posts Court and bigv123! So true that what works for one does not always work for another. Exactly why I chose to see a board certified nutritionist. For me it was directly related to family history in my age range and making a conscience decision to change my old lifestyle habits/choices.

Nutritionists aren't cheap and luckily for me my insurance covers it all after the deductible has been met. For those here that don't have that option, I would say consult with your primary physician, read through the threads here or head to your local library/bookstore and talk to the people there who can point you to information that will help you attain your goals.

[Courtenay]

(place-holder post for incoming reply once it's finished and proofed)

Dang, how long does THAT take? Your place holder is getting tired....look at it's little arms shaking. Maybe he didn't consume enough carbs?

[bigv123]

Court,
You got me. Lol. Yup, I'm 38. I'm also a licensed PT from the National Academy of Sports Medicine with over 16 years of experience. When I give advice, here or anywhere else, it's not based on "well this worked for me personally back in 1994". My advice is based on mountains of scientific data from experimental and empirical sources (plural). I've trained over 100 different people over the years and each and every one of them that did what I asked of them produced amazing results. Young, old, fat, thin, male, female...doesn't matter. But, the advice and program for each is VERY VERY different. Railing against the "diet" fads is common among folks who want to sound like they know what they're talking about, no offense. Not saying you're in this boat, but, it's a very common thing. The fact is, most people especially those trying to improve athletic performance and/or make body composition changes NEEDS to be on a diet. And, just so there's absolutely NO confusion, the word "diet" does NOT necessarily mean that you're cutting calories or trying to lose weight. You directly imply this in your third sentence All the rest IMO is buying into the money-making "you need this diet scheme." This is a common, layman mistake in usage. A "diet" is a structured approach to nutrition. For many, that does in fact mean cutting calories and losing weight. For others, it may mean gaining muscle or maintaining current composition and improving performance in a specific sport or endeavor. This has occurred in the public because most people are overweight and when they get put on a "diet" by a professional, it involves them cutting calories and losing weight. That's obviously a short-sighted approach for the reasons I discussed. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that 90% of all the people I've ever trained involved, as the primary goal, losing body fat. So, it's not unusual to run into this particular misuse.

The syntax argument aside, we definitely agree that there are a LOT of "diets" out there created for the sole purpose of getting into people's pockets rather than giving them good advice. However, there are usually some good things and some bad things to be taken from each of these "diets". Unfortunately, there's usually a gimmick that proves to be the Achilles Heal. For example, The Atkins Diet. Atkins opened people up to the idea of nutrient partitioning. They, of course, didn't know this. They just saw the structure and followed it...usually to their chagrin. In fact, body builders had been using this type of structure, in a much more safe and effective manner since the '50. It was called the Hi-Low Carb diet. I don't want to go down a rat-hole about how and way Atkins is bad. Suffice it to say that there were some good things that were learned from it...and some bad things as well.

As a quick aside, perhaps you've heard of the Law of Very Little/Small Numbers? It's a tongue-in-cheek reference to the wrong side of the Law of Large Numbers (LLN) first described by Jacob Bernoulli in 1713. The crux of it is that you can prove ANYTHING...if the sample size for your data is small enough. It's because of this that we don't build models or diets or programs based on the experience from 1 test subject. That's bad science...among other things. So, while I applaud your excellent work as a mother in raising, what appears to be, an excellent young man of good character, values and health...using that one example as the basis for giving advice to other young men is not only inadvisable, it can be dangerous. At the very least it's irresponsible and does the members of this board a tremendous disservice if they don't happen to fit the same physical characteristics as your outstanding son. There's a HUGE difference between saying "this worked for me, perhaps it will work for you too" and saying Eat well, work out, and you'll be healthy, and you will drop the excess weight. Sorry, but that's just a pile of festering dung. Your ideas obviously worked great for your son. Bravo Zulu to you and him for that. And, that may very well work for a large number of others as well. But, what about that guy who is 25 pounds overweight? Perhaps, due to a poor diet for the past several years, he has become slightly insulin resistant. What then?!? Are you still going to pump his body full of carbs?? If you're willing to give this guy the same advice as you gave in the post above, you simply just don't know what you're talking about. No offense. But, I'll get into the science and facts of the matter shortly.

You do have a lot of really good, spot-on information there. But, you really did completely fan on understanding my point. First let me discuss what is RIGHT about your post and the info it contains. For optimal sports performance, whether that's at BUD/s, in a marathon, or just in your gym or running on a track...you have to have a good supply of carbs in your system and relatively full glycogen stores. All of that is absolutely right. And, it's also not remotely what I was talking about.

The discussion of PERFORMANCE is completely and totally different than the discussion about BODY COMPOSITION. Do you understand and accept the distinction? It's significant. Along similar logic, training for PERFORMANCE and training to change BODY COMPOSITION are also not necessarily, or usually, the same. The point you missed was that some of the guys here getting ready for SoF just need to improve their performance, they need to get stronger, have better endurance and constitution. However, some of the guys here aren't to that point yet. Some of them NEED to make body composition changes. And to give the same advice to both groups is simply, and plainly wrong.

In terms of body composition (how much muscle, fat and other lean weight you carry) there are 3 main categories of subjects. #1 - excessive body fat, #2 - good balance of both fat and muscle (no changes needed), and #3 - very lean, additional muscle mass (and perhaps fat) needed. Everything you posted there works WONDERFULLY...for #2 and #3 (mostly). For that person that falls into group #1, your information fails...and fails horribly. THAT was my point. Let me dig into the science behind WHY this is the case...

You said, Eat well, work out, and you'll be healthy, and you will drop the excess weight. Daily caloric intake reduction is the clue there. This is another common, layman mistake that's horribly short-sighted. It's VERY true that the only way to drop "weight" is through caloric deficit. Is that what you really want? The question then becomes, "Well, I lost all this weight through caloric restriction, but, what KIND of weight did I lose?". You see, all weight is not equal. The goal isn't to lose WEIGHT. The goal is to lose FAT (in about 9 cases out of 10 in my experience). So, let's talk about WHY we don't want to lose muscle mass. Strength has been shown time and time again to be directly related to the cross-sectional area of the muscle fibers in question (that means size). What happens when we start having to use muscle as energy? Well, the body starts to force those muscle cells to decrease their cross-sectional area (read: shrink)! Muscle cells don't actually get "destroyed" until severe fasting has occurred. So don't think that when/if you lose muscle mass that the number of cells is going down appreciably. No, in fact, it's the size of all the individual cells that's being reduced. Now you tell me, is it in the best interests of guys going into SoF training to lose muscle mass and get weaker?? Obviously not. But wait, it gets worse. Muscle loss doesn't occur in a vacuum. Muscle loss is accompanied by loss of bone density and tendon and ligament strength and flexibility. Certainly we don't want that either do we?? So obviously at this point we can both agree that "weight loss" isn't the real goal. The REAL goal for those that are "overweight" is to lose fat...and to do so in a fashion that minimizes lean tissue loss as much as possible. Agreed?

In terms of body composition, here's where your plan fails the gentlemen and women of group #3. Hormones. Hormones are defined as A substance, usually a peptide or steroid, produced by one tissue and conveyed by the bloodstream to another to effect physiological activity, such as growth or metabolism. There are many different hormones in the body that do a host of different functions. For this discussion, we're only interested in two. Cortisol and Insulin. Certainly you all have heard of Insulin. Diabetics take this to help regulate their blood glucose levels. So, we're at least peripherally aware that Insulin has something to do with "blood sugar" levels. Here's why Insulin is so important. The ONLY way for glucose to get out of your blood stream and into a muscle cell to be used as energy is to be accompanied by an insulin molecule. Period. Obviously, this is important to anyone that's active. The question then is, "well, why wouldn't we want that to happen ALL the time?". Well, come to find out, insulin has a side effect when released. As insulin is pumped into your blood stream to help shuttle glucose into the muscles to be burned as energy, it also tells the body to completely shut down burning fat! Now here's where it gets bad. If you have glucose in the blood stream and the muscles are all already full, insulin will move that glucose into fat storage around your body! This is why eating too many carbs can pack on pound after pound of body fat. Get it??


(continued below...)

[bigv123]

(continued from above)

Here's our saving grace. Insulin levels only "spike" when we eat or drink simple carbs such as fruit juices, candy, and refined sugar products or just overload on total carb count. So if we can control (read: eliminate) our intake of simple sugars and limit our carb intake each meal we can avoid spiking out insulin levels and thus not shunt those carbs directly to our buttocks. These carbs that we want to avoid are called "high-glycemic index" carbohydrates. When you look at a food or beverage and the first thought that comes into your mind is "sugar"...then that's probably a high-glycemic carb. We'll talk about the glycemic index and how important it really is later. Suffice it to say, you want the vast majority of your daily carbs coming from low-glycemic index sources (oatmeal, brown rice, whole-wheat pasta, barley, beans, peas, lentils, whole corn, and yams are some of my favs).

So now you know about Insulin, why it's important, and how to control it. Let's turn our attention to Cortisol. Most of you have probably heard of 'cortisone shots' or 'hydra-cortisone creams' or something along those lines. Well, those are all related to the metabolism controlling hormone in your body, Cortisol. Cortisol acts as an anti-inflammatory and pain numbing chemical in your body. This is good. However, Cortisol is also responsible for triggering the breakdown of proteins (muscle tissue) into its individual building blocks called amino acids. Cortisol also acts to inhibit glucose from being transferred into muscle cells. Meaning, if there's cortisol in the blood stream, all those carbs you ate are going directly to fat storage, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. To borrow a line from Dr. Hussman, "Cortisol is also the 'junk food' hormone: high levels of Cortisol generally trigger a strong craving for high carbohydrate snacks."

Unfortunately, Cortisol is triggered from a wide variety of sources. Too much exercise for your current recuperative abilities, lack of food, and lack of sleep all cause your Cortisol levels to rise. This is one reason why your workouts should never last more than 60-75 minutes at the max. The bottom line is that Cortisol levels go up in your body as your level of different kinds of stress increase. One of the more MOST important jobs in this journey , whether it be performance or body composition, is to shut down Cortisol levels as best you can!!

There's several ways we can shut down Cortisol levels. The first two are of paramount importance...eat good, healthy meals regularly throughout the day and get enough sleep each and every night. These two simple sounding things will do wonders. Additionally, take about 500mg - 1000mg of Vitamin C every day and supplement with glutamine after your workouts and right before bed.

Thus, for people who need to shed some extra fat, they need to avoid spiking their insulin levels at all costs throughout most of the day. This is accomplished by utilizing only carbs that are "low glycemic index". Here's the Wiki article on Glycemic Index (GI) for those of you who don't have an inkling of a clue what the Glycemic Index is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index

Simply put, it's a ratio. A ratio of how much insulin is put into your blood stream by your food compared to that of glucose. The higher the number, the more of an insulin response that particular carb generates. Easy right? Well, it should now follow that for those individuals that need to shed some fat, they have to avoid spiking their insulin and thus must avoid high glycemic index carbs because you can't mobilize fats for energy in the presence of significant amounts of insulin.

It should be noted that every carb generates SOME amount of insulin response. What's important is keeping your insulin levels STEADY throughout the day. A spike in insulin will immediately shut down fat burning...and keep it off for hours. This brings us to the concept of glycemic LOAD. Once again, the Wiki for the uninitiated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_load

Glycemic Load (GL) takes the GI one step further and takes into account caloric density. For example, if you ate 50g of rice at lunch and then ate 100g of that same kind of rice at dinner, would you expect the same kind of insulin response? Of course not. You would expect roughly DOUBLE the insulin response. THIS is where carb loading absolutely KILLS the efforts of those trying to lose fat. They eat good carbs, yes. But, they eat so many of them that they get the same insulin spike as if they ate half as many grams of a really high GI carb. And then they wonder why they aren't making any progress. The quote, "Science...it works, dummies" comes to mind.

The bottom line is this. If you don't need to make body composition changes, and that should probably identify a lot of guys around here, then making sure you get enough carbs is CRITICAL to peak performance. And, all the information Court posted about carbs definitely applies to you. However, if on the other hand you need to get rid of some fat, and I bet a few of you do, then that same advice is lunacy. I hope I've proved that to ALL of you conclusively. Yes, carbohydrate restriction WILL reduce your athletic performance. So what?!? If you have to lose 25 pounds of fat, you do that FIRST. THEN you start work on your performance. You simply cannot do both at the same time effectively or efficiently, as I've shown.

Court, I still luv ya and I hope you're not put off by my post. But, this is MY area of specialty and i would be doing a disservice to this community if I didn't say something. I hope you understand.

V

[blodgettrunner]

This is great information. I learned more from this post than the amassed knowledge of too many websites.

I am left with one question though: What is an appropriate interval of time to allow Cortisol to dissapate, dissolve, recede, or whatever it does? (or is that relative to the amount in the bloodstream?)

[bigv123]

It varies wildly from one person to another. DD would be able to give you the best answer. But, here are some of the factors:

amount of stress induced and its severity
perceived state of stress
efficiency of the 4 primary energy systems
caloric intake
sleep
vascular dilation
cardiovascular conditioning
number of cortisol receptors
state of receptor degradation

DD can probably list a lot more...

As an example, alcohol stays in my system for a LONG time. What gets one person a "buzz" for an hour...hit me with a good buzz for 4 hours. You get the idea...

V

[blodgettrunner]

thanks.

Nick

[blodgettrunner]

While I'm talking to an expert, I might as well ask: is fat localized to areas lacking muscle? Or is there a pattern to where it builds up?

[bigv123]

is fat localized to areas lacking muscle

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but...

Fat is located all over your body. There are even different KINDS of fat. The fat that you're most certainly most familiar with is called subcutaneous fat. "Subcutaneous" meaning 'under the skin'. It's what most folks talk about when the word "fat" is kicked around. Another type is called visceral fat. This is the fat that is in between your organs and marbles through your muscles. For example, have you ever looked at a raw rib eye steak? The "steak" is muscle tissue. The "marbling" is fat. THAT is visceral fat. And yes, you and I have it too.

Or is there a pattern to where it builds up?

Fat is placed on the body in a global fashion...mostly. By that I mean you can't and won't put on fat all on 1 specific location. Likewise, you can't "spot reduce" fat from a single location outside of liposuction. However, there IS genetic disposition both in terms of sex and heritage. For example, men generally tend to deposit fat in the abdominal region. Women put most of their fat on in the legs, hips and butt. This doesn't mean that's the ONLY place you're depositing fat. It's just getting most of the attention. Perhaps an even bigger concern is the visceral fat that you never even see.

I think that answers your questions...let me know if it doesn't or you have further questions.

V

[YoungerPope]

(applauding)

BigV, thank you for one of the most informative posts on this site. Great information.

[Courtenay]

Very nice post V. Good info.

I respect your years of experience and study in the field, and as I said, I am no expert.

But, what I will argue with you is how much of this information applies to young guys who are in relatively decent shape, not a lot of muscle mass, but not a lot of fat either?

You agreed that carbs are needed for performance energy. I cannot think of any place that performance energy is needed more, than at BUD/S.

Have you ever wondered why 30 or 40 guys, who think they have it together physically, pass the basic PT for BUD/S, get to BUD/S, drop out day two or three on the grinder? And that is before it really gets tough?

I believe, and continue to believe it is because they diet to get lean, they diet to get what is some sort of perception of healthy, which is not the healthy that the body needs for the stamina needed to get through something like BUD/S. They concentrate too hard, in my opinion on changing their body, than working with the body they have to make it perform optimally.

That is my only point, and concern.

I have also been a member of NSC for about 5 years, I have watched the wannabes come and go. And I have seen a very small few succeed and become SEALs.

I'd like to see more make it.

[Courtenay]

http://books.google.com/books?id=qm9ISN5tS04C&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=what+sort+of+diet+is+needed+for+endurance&source=web&ots=_VsAaWfLwt&sig=faluGMRqy86A_HRdDzuARyYNANE&hl=en#PPP1,M1

This is a nutritional guide aimed at endurance athletes. Do you agree or disagree with this author's assessment of what is needed for performance nutritionally?

It's just a preview, but you'll get the gist.

[itsallorganek]

this nutrition stuff can get confusing!!! :p I try not to worry to much about it though. I'm one of the guys who needs to cut a little weight, so I have really been trying to get a good idea of the best way to eat to cut weight AND fuel my body when I train. I am always on the go, and don't have the luxury of planning every meal, but I always make sure to choose the healthiest choices available. I used to drive myself crazy worrying about the specifics of nutrition ( and still do from time to time ) but I have found that staying active and eating clean has worked to help me lose weight AND feel good when I work out. But everything V has said will enable you to dial your body in just how you want it and make you a superior athlete.

[skie]

v, I have a question. I'm currently about 162 lbs an 5' 8". I really would like to drop my bodyfat % so I can have a six pack. The stubborn areas are my sides and the lower part of my abs.

What nutrition regimen would you recommend for me? I lost 30 pounds over the summer doing a no carb diet (sorta). I ate protein and high good fat for 4 days, and the 5th day was a carb day. However, since then I've pretty much stayed the same.

Any ideas or should I just increase the aerobic?

[itsallorganek]

damn V, your gonna have to start charging soon ;)

[bigv123]

I'm currently about 162 lbs an 5' 8". I really would like to drop my bodyfat % so I can have a six pack. The stubborn areas are my sides and the lower part of my abs.

What nutrition regimen would you recommend for me? I lost 30 pounds over the summer doing a no carb diet (sorta). I ate protein and high good fat for 4 days, and the 5th day was a carb day. However, since then I've pretty much stayed the same.

How do you know that you need to drop any body fat at all? And, when you say you lost 30 pounds over the summer...what KIND of 30 pounds was it? And, how do you know for sure?

I suspect that you probably dropped equal amount of fat and muscle. Without measurements, you'll never know for sure. As guys, we all like to have that 6-pack look. An 8-pack is even better. Abdominal definition starts to come out for guys (depending on their/your muscularity) at around 8-9% body fat. Of course, if the size of your abdominals is small, you're going to have to get leaner to get them to stand out. But, I have to ask, is that your real goal? To look good? Or, are you trying to make it into and through a SoF training course? Because, training for each of those is distinctly different.

Take this to heart guys...if your body fat levels are around 10% or lower, you really don't need to be dropping fat! Now read that again!

You guys aren't here to become Calvin Kline underwear models are you? You're here to prepare for BUD/s, or Marine Force Recon, or Ranger School, or PJs. If you don't have a NEED to drop body fat, then focus on performance. reason being, it's very hard, if not impossible, to do both at the same time and do them well. It's much more time efficient to work on one until that goal is met, then focus on the other. Doing them both can drop your operational efficiency by as much as 50% in cases I've seen with my own two eyes.

So...there are about 5 or 6 primary methods of measuring body fat that you can do at home. Do a google search and grab a tape measure and a digital caliper (about $10) and measure your body fat with several of the methods then average the results to give you a good ball park. If you up around 15% or higher...then we'll talk. Otherwise, stop being so narcissistic and put that energy to use on improving your athletic performance.

V

[Thatmanuhate]

As an example, alcohol stays in my system for a LONG time. What gets one person a "buzz" for an hour...hit me with a good buzz for 4 hours. You get the idea...

V I thought alcohol was completely out of your system in 24-48 hours depending on how much you drank?

[bigv123]

That depends entirely on how well your liver and kidneys function.

V