Nutrition + BBM Program Advice

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi BBM Team,

39 year old, 6’1" male, and SS Forum refugee checking here for some advice on nutrition and which BBM template to pair it with. Some background:

NLP stats:
Weight: 145 (undiagnosed Celiac Disease) to 200
Waist: ? to 37
Deads x5: 95 to 355
Squat x5: 85 to 285
Bench x5: 65 to 220
Press x5: 45 to 140
Calories: 4000

Intermediate Stats:
Weight: 200 - 220
Waist: 37 - 41
Deads x1: 435
Squat x1: 365
Bench x1: 275
Press x1: 200
Calories: 4000

Current stats:
Weight: 188
Waist: 35.5
Lifts down about 10-15%
Calories: 2000 (205 carbs, 205 protein, 40 fat)

At my heaviest, I didn’t think my lifts justified my waistline. (I feel like i could probably press 200 at 200.) And I didn’t think advice to gain another 20 lbs was necessarily a good idea, especially considering that everyone in my family tree—except for two cousins whose dad was a Mr Tennessee and a Green Beret—is a stick figure.

Where would you go from here diet-wise? From searching your forums, I was thinking about getting my waistline down to 33 and then starting more of a BBM slow and steady gain. According to my graphs of my weight loss and waistline, that’d take me down to about 180 or less, which sounds a light for my height, but in line with my family genetics. (My brother, for example, is 6’3" and topped out at 205 as a D1 sprinter.)

And which BBM program would you suggest? 4-day splits on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday-Monday schedule seemed to work pretty well for both my recovery and work schedule. And I love lower rep ranges—heavy squats, heavy deads and rack pulls, heavy press singles and pin presses—but have always tried to keep a good balance of that and volume. (I will say that my vertical in high school was 35", but that now it’s barely 24", and that Olympic lifts haven’t really done it for me.)

Hope I included information. Cheers, guys.

2

MW,

I think I would maintain weight and alter your training in an effort to reduce your waist circumference <34.5" or so without actually losing weight. I think your maintenance Calorie intake is likely to be closer to 2700’ish Calories or more, so I’d be curious to know how you’re tracking your current energy intake and how frequently you’re hitting 2000 Cal/day without hemorrhaging weight.

From a training perspective, I’d probably run our free Bridge program and then Strength I or Powerbuilding I.

-Jordan

3

Hi, Jordan. Thanks for the reply, man.

Calorie-wise, I’ve been tracking with MyFitnessPal for the last few years, weighing everything I eat to the gram. (Gathering data like that is something of a hobby, but I more or less eat the same thing everyday anyway.) Weight loss has been about 1-1.5 lbs / week, but I’ll bump my intake and start maintaining. (Looking forward to that, as 2000kCal/day is starting to bum me out.)

And sounds good re the programs; Strength I and Powerbuilding I were the two I was looking at.

Thanks again.

4

Yea I understand what you’re saying. Let us know how it goes!

5

Thanks man, will do!

6

Hi, Jordan et al!

Back with good news and bad news. Good news is that your advice worked great! I got close to some PR’s at a bodyweight of 86kg instead of 100kg, and with a waist of 34.5–35 instead of 40+.

Bad news is that I got Covid last month complete with coughing up blood, and it kept me in bed for two weeks. Finally tested negative and went to the gym last week, and I could barely complete what used to be my second warmup sets on the squat, press, and deadlift.

I’m also down 5kg in bodyweight, and my waist has jumped up to 35.5. Sorry, just venting I guess! Just pretty bummed at this setback.

Lastly, I wanted to say thanks again for your tips last year, and for all the content y’all continue to put out. Cheers!