Ready for recomp?

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

37yo Male / 200lbs… not quite to my 200/300/400/500 goal yet, but I am getting close. (Still have 5-10 lbs to go on press, and pulling 450x3 on DL. Other lifts are continuing to exceed the goal.)

At 5’7" height, measurement around my belly button is around 41", and my waist is 38" measured. I do not really want to lose weight, but I am thinking it might be time to start address some of the extra fat that has accumulated around my waist and belly.

Is it reasonable for me to assume that I can still keep chipping away at strength gains while also chipping away at some of the extra fluff I have hanging around?

A couple weeks ago I made some minor tweaks to my diet so that the weight gain stopped. If I am not completely off base, what are some other things I should consider doing? I do not really do much conditioning, but I have a prowler that I push from time to time, and a rower.

2

Yes, it is time to lose some body fat. If your programming is good then you should be able to get stronger. I would consider doing 1x/wk of conditioning, probably low intensity steady state on a bike or rower if you’re not terribly conditioned already.

3

Thanks Coach,

I am not very conditioned already. I occasionally push the prowler at high intensity, and occasionally row. (every 2 weeks or so.) Low intensity steady state should be easy to fit in. 1) Is there a point when I should think about exceeding 1x per week?

I started SS as a underweight male, my general efforts toward eating has always been a focus on general upward movement on the scale and with my lifts. 2) Am I right to focus on maintaining weight (as opposed to losing weight) right now? 3) Should I start looking at a tape measure a bit more often? (Generally looking for verification on metrics to be watching).

he minor tweaks I have made to my diet involve removing some daily fat I had added to my meals. I am also not cramming food in like I have been on some meals. 4**) I plan to start tracking macros again, is the TBAB ratios a good place to start for target macros?**

RE: Programming, I am on a H/L, H/M 4 day split, only running it 3 days a week at the moment. Generally I am cycling through different rep ranges for 3 weeks on most of the lifts. I think I am good for programming on upper body. Deadlift I am playing around with more volume. Squats are a mess. I bounced around with running out single sets of 5s and 3s, with 2-3 back-off sets on heavy day, but it was killing me. 5) Any general thought on things to try with squats would be appreciated.

4

  1. Only when you need to. Not yet. Do the conditioning 1x/wk and see how that works.

  2. I would lose weight now, slowly.

  3. Yes. Weekly

  4. Yes, of course.

  5. I think you need more volume at the appropriate intensity.

5

Thanks for getting back to this.

  1. Targeting 1/2 lb a week ok?
  2. More volume at the appropriate intensity, that is good confirmation. I have been looking more at RPE / RTS training (The Bridge, General Strength Training for the Intermediate, and other online and print RTS resources). I have been trying to track RPE on all of my lifts for the past year, and recently have been grinding a lot in the 9, and sometimes 10 range. Any tips on transitioning to something like the Bridge?
6
  1. That’s an arbitrary number, but yes- that’d work.
  2. I’m not sure any specific transition is necessary other than to follow the RPE’s and not overshoot them.
7

By “Arbitrary” do you mean that I need to base my weight loss on how my strength performance is going?

8

And how your body composition is changing, waist measurement, etc.