Diet/Training Direction Advice

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi Jordan,

I have read alot of the articles and posts on here about this subject since my situation is not that dissimilar from alot of others nearing the end of SS NLP, but I have a few questions and would appreciate your opinion. My apologies if this belongs in the training forum as its sort of a combination question.

I started seriously lifting for the first time in several years last spring. I was around a 37 inch waist 163 lbs when I started. (I had gotten fat, which in retrospect I wish I had started at a better point). I am now 183 with 38 inch waist (around belly button). 30 years old 5’9"

With some fits and starts and some resets due to trips/weddings etc I am currently doing basically the advanced novice program numbers below

squat is 345x5 (I started recently doing 1 5RM set and 2 sets of 5 with about 20 lbs less - I squat high bar because of shoulder mobility/golfers elbow I am still working on that)
deadlift 405x5
bench 210x5x3 (weight x sets x reps)
press 145x5x3

I probably have a little more to go on this based on how my lifts have been going. I have been eating a slight surplus I think around 2600-2700 calories a day and gaining right now around ~.5 lbs a week though my waist size has been relatively constant over the past ~2 months.

I can definitely improve in my tracking, but my estimates of my macros are roughly 260g carbs 210g protein 80-90g fat. My fat intake is mostly from eggs milk and red meat with little to no added fat (oil etc). I eat mostly whole foods, oats/rice/beans/eggs/meat/milk and some pasta/bread/almond butter.

I am of south asian descent and I read in one of your articles that asians with >36 inch waists are an at risk population though I can’t find the article to reference. So I was considering cutting for health reasons.

My main concern is my cardio/conditioning ability (i think you refer to it as GPP) is terrible and it has worsened since before I started lifting. I’m not sure what metrics are useful, but its bad enough that it harms my ability to do some day-to-day things. For example I went on a pretty modest hike on a trip recently and it was brutal. I think if I were to walk on a treadmill at 4.5 mph my heart rate would probably be above 140 pretty soon.

I also have found myself taking very long rest times (8-10 min or so) at the gym and my ability to handle higher volume low intensity work is I think poor, for example I was looking at 5/3/1 big but boring and because I was curious I tried to do a set of deadlifts at 50% for 10 and I found it very difficult. I don’t think I could do 5x10 (at the end of the workout you do 5 sets of 10 reps at 40%-60%).

So in essence my question is

  1. should I do a straight cut and worry about cardio later
  2. cut and do cardio at the same time (I am concerned this is going to really mess with my strength)
  3. keep calories around the same/add cardio to my existing programming and reevaluate after a little while

I want to do #3 because I think it will be the least mentally taxing for me and fix my GPP without costing me strength gains.

In terms of equipment since I see you ask about this:
I have very easy access to most major forms of cardio very easily (bike, treadmill, elliptical, stair climber type thing, rower) i.e. I could do this any day of the week time permitting
I have access to some other stuff at the gym were I lift (other types of treadmills climbers ropes sand bags etc) I could do this after lifting potentially
Prowler/sled and tires I have access to but realistically couldn’t access them more than 1x a week. The tires are pretty light ~100 lbs I think.

I apologize for all the detail I am not sure how relevant some of it is, but appreciate any commentary you might have.

2

Rsingla,

Thanks for the post! My suggestions:

  1. I would start doing some conditioning now in order to meet the 2018 Physical Activity Guideline minimums.
  2. I would also recommend a calorie deficit to reduce your waist circumference to < 34"

I think that it’s cool you love training, however I would like to reframe this for long term health and performance. Short term performance improvements on a program aren’t really worth it unless there’s a meet coming up and you’re going to be much stronger years from now than you could ever be in a month or two. That said, we want to keep you healthy so you can lift for a long time!

-Jordan

3

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

I have a few follow ups if you don’t mind.

  1. 2018 physical activity guideline minimums: is that this “For substantial health benefts, adults should do at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) to 300 minutes (5 hours) a week of moderate-intensity, or 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) to 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity. Preferably, aerobic activity should be spread throughout the week.” or is there a baseline of what one should “be able to do” i.e. run x miles in x time or something like that you are referring to that I can’t find?

  2. Is there a proxy for weight loss to waist circumference? The reason I ask is because I cut in September about 7 lbs (though some of this may have been water weight) and I only lost 1 inch off my waist at that time, but I am not sure if its linear. It’s just easier for me to quantify/target weight loss goals in lbs.

4

  1. I think any form of cardio that meets the intensity prescription is fine. We detail this in the Beginner Prescription and Template.

  2. Not really anything that’s reliable from individual to individual.