Long story short I began training in March of 2017, weighing in at a whopping 425lbs at 5'8" 28yo male at the time, I am now 355 lbs. I initially had success with a basic upper/lower split and calorie restriction, dropping down to 305lbs, but then I bought the blue book and the brainwashing began. My lifts went up but slowly so did my waist size and previous eating habits and well I am not satisfied with where I am currently at. I have a feeling that my current caloric expectations are skewed too high. Is there a relatively sound diet that would work well with "The Bridge Program" and allow me to stay compliant, Currently consuming around 2200-2350ish calories/day when I am compliant, I estimate 3500ish when I have a binge episode. This has been on a weekly basis so I have essentially broke even for about 6 months, in terms of weight, minimal gains, numbers that would classify me as just entering post novice phase. Provided I get the food shoveling under control, should I consider fasting until late morning and train in the evening, or should I only consume an appropriate amount of carbs around traning? I just need some input, trying to re-reboot my health here. Thank you to anyone who chimes in.
Joe C. 30yo, 5'8", 355lbs
Ran SSLP with minimal conditioning for most of 2018.
END of LP #'s
Squat: 285 3x5
Bench: 205 3x5
Deadlift: 355 1x5
OHP: 145 3x5
Need Help-Nutrition advice for a Non-Beginner with an eating Disorder.
Moderator: Manveer
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JCFahveChungus
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GlasgowJock
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Re: Need Help-Nutrition advice for a Non-Beginner with an eating Disorder.
First of all, congratulations on the weight loss Joe.
My two pence; I'd focus on your general health and using physical exercise as a means of having your body use up more calories than you consume. I'm of the school of thought of moderate steady state aerobic exercise and sub-maximal resistance training; your body won't feel as beat up on a restricted calorie intake and you'll be able to maintain higher frequency of exercise. You shouldn't need to "up" your carbs to sustain this form of activity though rather eating nutrient rich foods for general health as you already have 100'000s calories stored for energy. It is physically and mentally taxing doing HIIT and regular high intensity low volume work with restricted calories.
I'm also of the opinion that if you're getting your nutrition right 95% of the time (arbitrary figure) then your body mass will trend in the direction you're aiming for (loss or gain) on a weekly basis (also arbitrary). Meals providing good satiety (feeling fuller longer) can help with compliance; slower gastric emptying enables a more steady release of nutrients and not spiking and crashing your blood sugar levels with excess insulin.
You can exercise fasted if you wish with the improved ratio of fats/ sugars spent enabling this activity. Within reason, You can "binge" one day, "fast" the next and "steady state" the remaining five diet-wise if mentally it assists compliance.
I suggest whatever method you'll have better compliance with ultimately having your body use more calories than you eat.
My two pence; I'd focus on your general health and using physical exercise as a means of having your body use up more calories than you consume. I'm of the school of thought of moderate steady state aerobic exercise and sub-maximal resistance training; your body won't feel as beat up on a restricted calorie intake and you'll be able to maintain higher frequency of exercise. You shouldn't need to "up" your carbs to sustain this form of activity though rather eating nutrient rich foods for general health as you already have 100'000s calories stored for energy. It is physically and mentally taxing doing HIIT and regular high intensity low volume work with restricted calories.
I'm also of the opinion that if you're getting your nutrition right 95% of the time (arbitrary figure) then your body mass will trend in the direction you're aiming for (loss or gain) on a weekly basis (also arbitrary). Meals providing good satiety (feeling fuller longer) can help with compliance; slower gastric emptying enables a more steady release of nutrients and not spiking and crashing your blood sugar levels with excess insulin.
You can exercise fasted if you wish with the improved ratio of fats/ sugars spent enabling this activity. Within reason, You can "binge" one day, "fast" the next and "steady state" the remaining five diet-wise if mentally it assists compliance.
I suggest whatever method you'll have better compliance with ultimately having your body use more calories than you eat.
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BenM
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Re: Need Help-Nutrition advice for a Non-Beginner with an eating Disorder.
Congratulations on your weight loss!
Some questions - how do you manage your caloric restriction - do you track macros, do you just cut out certain food groups, etc etc? And when you say you have an eating disorder, do you mean you think you have binge eating disorder, or something else?
Just to give some background, I'm far from an expert on such things - but I am currently going through something a bit similar myself. I lost 40kgs or so in 2016 and have tracked macros ever since. Managed to keep the weight off, but for the past few months been suffering from semi-regular binges, not quite weekly but 1-2 times a month on average. And my binges are more like 5000 calories in one 2-3 hour period, not just a day. I worried so much about what it's doing to my health that I've spent a fair bit of time looking through ED resources for help and advice, and still do. Some things that I now believe, which might be applicable to you:
- Binging is a natural response to long periods of dieting and restriction. It's partly psychological and partly physiological. If you are binging for these reasons you are probably not suffering from BED but are more likely just suffering the natural consequences of too much calorie restriction (and food group restriction) for too long.
- If you track macros but (like me) completely cut out certain 'fear foods' this will exacerbate the problem. What seems to be working for me lately is allowing myself to relax a little more and occasionally say 'fcuk it' and force myself to eat those foods, not all the time, but occasionally and in moderate quantities. Also, stop STRESSING about what macros I'm hitting and just try to get back in tune with my natural hunger and satiety signals a bit more. I haven't had a binge for a few weeks now since I've taken this attitude, though it's still early days.
- I still chronically undereat but I think I'm slowly improving my habits. It'll be a long road back, I think.
So anyway this is not about me, but you asked for a diet that would work with The Bridge, honestly the answer is sure, but what that looks like for _you_ will be different from someone else - what fits your lifestyle, what types of foods you like, the times you train, etc. And also, do you perhaps need to spend just a little bit of time getting your equilibrium back and eating at maintenance for a month or two, get the binging under control, before you try and go on another prolonged dieting phase? The problem with the binge-restrict cycle is that it seems to be self perpetuating, the more you binge, the more you punish yourself and restrict, the harder it gets to break the cycle.
Your health is the most important thing. Both physical and mental. The fact that you lift at all puts you ahead of the curve, so keep doing that. You probably don't need to be in as big a deficit as you think to get back where you were, especially if you do some occasional conditioning/GPP and try to stay active.
Some questions - how do you manage your caloric restriction - do you track macros, do you just cut out certain food groups, etc etc? And when you say you have an eating disorder, do you mean you think you have binge eating disorder, or something else?
Just to give some background, I'm far from an expert on such things - but I am currently going through something a bit similar myself. I lost 40kgs or so in 2016 and have tracked macros ever since. Managed to keep the weight off, but for the past few months been suffering from semi-regular binges, not quite weekly but 1-2 times a month on average. And my binges are more like 5000 calories in one 2-3 hour period, not just a day. I worried so much about what it's doing to my health that I've spent a fair bit of time looking through ED resources for help and advice, and still do. Some things that I now believe, which might be applicable to you:
- Binging is a natural response to long periods of dieting and restriction. It's partly psychological and partly physiological. If you are binging for these reasons you are probably not suffering from BED but are more likely just suffering the natural consequences of too much calorie restriction (and food group restriction) for too long.
- If you track macros but (like me) completely cut out certain 'fear foods' this will exacerbate the problem. What seems to be working for me lately is allowing myself to relax a little more and occasionally say 'fcuk it' and force myself to eat those foods, not all the time, but occasionally and in moderate quantities. Also, stop STRESSING about what macros I'm hitting and just try to get back in tune with my natural hunger and satiety signals a bit more. I haven't had a binge for a few weeks now since I've taken this attitude, though it's still early days.
- I still chronically undereat but I think I'm slowly improving my habits. It'll be a long road back, I think.
So anyway this is not about me, but you asked for a diet that would work with The Bridge, honestly the answer is sure, but what that looks like for _you_ will be different from someone else - what fits your lifestyle, what types of foods you like, the times you train, etc. And also, do you perhaps need to spend just a little bit of time getting your equilibrium back and eating at maintenance for a month or two, get the binging under control, before you try and go on another prolonged dieting phase? The problem with the binge-restrict cycle is that it seems to be self perpetuating, the more you binge, the more you punish yourself and restrict, the harder it gets to break the cycle.
Your health is the most important thing. Both physical and mental. The fact that you lift at all puts you ahead of the curve, so keep doing that. You probably don't need to be in as big a deficit as you think to get back where you were, especially if you do some occasional conditioning/GPP and try to stay active.
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mouse
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Re: Need Help-Nutrition advice for a Non-Beginner with an eating Disorder.
Most of what I would have to say @BenM and @GlasgowJock already said...
For what it's worth I wouldn't worry about the fasting/carb timing thing just yet (if ever). Just track what you're eating for a while and adjust to where the weight starts coming off again and try to stick to that while you keep training. @BenM has a lot of good advice in there, as I went through a similar situation. I can attest that I did a bunch of stuff he said and at the end of my weight loss I wasn't in a very good place. I would hate to see the same thing happen to you or anyone else.
But congrats on the work so far and don't beat yourself up for struggling with this...
For what it's worth I wouldn't worry about the fasting/carb timing thing just yet (if ever). Just track what you're eating for a while and adjust to where the weight starts coming off again and try to stick to that while you keep training. @BenM has a lot of good advice in there, as I went through a similar situation. I can attest that I did a bunch of stuff he said and at the end of my weight loss I wasn't in a very good place. I would hate to see the same thing happen to you or anyone else.
But congrats on the work so far and don't beat yourself up for struggling with this...