Ok so i've decided to end my diet at the end of this week. I've taken about 3-4 months to get down from 80kg to 71kg. Still got some stubborn belly fat and the good ol' love handles, but i can tell my waist has gotten smaller (pants fit looser and had to strap on my weightlifting belt down a notch and may need to consider drilling another hole in it as even that is getting a bit loose). I've also noticed loss of fat in my thighs, and arms but I've decided to call it quits because I'm already close to my goal of hitting 70kg (regardless of bodyfat although i had hoped for about 10-12% - no idea what i am now). And also i don't have much muscle mass especially in the arms so i'm getting too skeletal. Anyways let me get to the point.
What should i do now?? I believe that i should come off the diet at the end of the week and spend a week or so eating at maintenance and deloading on all my lifts. Then i will need a new program to do. Should I:
a) try and start back on Starting Strength and see if i can milk it for anymore?
b) move on to intermediate programming such as texas method?
c) a combination of intermediate programming for my stronger lower body lifts, and novice programming (SS) for my upper body lifts?
I have to add that whatever program i choose to do, I will be eating to gain anywhere between 0.5-1kg/wk (or is that too much?) to try and not reverse my hard efforts at stripping some of that fat off. So please keep that in mind when giving me advice on what program i should do. So if someone feels i should see if i can milk SS for a bit more, understand that I won't be gaining weight as fast as I was when i first did SS.
Thanks in advance and hopefully the long post didn't bore too much.
PS. if it's necessary to know my lifts:
Squats - 126.5kg for 4 or 125.5kg for 5
Bench - 75-76.5kg for 5
Press - 51.5kg for 5
Deadlift - 160.5kg for 5
Powerclean - 69kg for 3
It depends on what exactly your goals are. If you want to increase your strength as quickly and efficiently as possible, I'd say go back on SS and eat properly.
It seems like you are very concerned with not putting on too much fat, but you should really consider the time involved in trying to make 'lean gains.' You could agonize over your diet and slowly add .5 kg of lbm a week; I think if you went this route you'd also stall quite a bit on your lifts.
Or, if you did SS properly, you could gain up to 2.5-5kg of mass in per week, your lifts would go way up, and you could just diet down later. You've already proven that you know how to diet effectively.
I did SS, stalled out several times and went on to TM. Although I made good gains on TM, I really hadn't eaten enough while doing SS. I just began SS again after a one month layoff and some significant loss of strength. This time I am eating in the 4000+ calorie range, and I am about to breeze past weights that used to be difficult for me.
Hmm, let me make my goals clear. I definitely do want to get stronger (missed setting PRs everytime i hit the gym, especially after 2 months of dieting. Continuing to add weight every workout became very difficult and it took me several workouts to increase the weight), but at the same time i want to get bigger without getting significantly fatter. Dieting is not something that i enjoy doing (as much as that is hard to believe - not) and i'd feel a lot more comfortable gaining a decent amount of strength while packing on size without much fat. With that in mind, what would you recommend? I understand not gaining bodyweight that quickly may compromise my strength gains but it's something that I will accept. Although i feel that 0.5-1kg/week is still a significant increase in BW.
If I were you I'd give TM a run. I know quite a few people (myself included) who've mucked about trying to wring more out of LP when different programming would have gotten them more results.
RE weight gain goals, I would eat enough for recovery and not much more. Not sure what weight gain that would translate too--probably depends on individual. But 1 kg per weeks sounds a bit high.
If you're lean enough to eat big and lift heavy, then go back on LP. Otherwise keep dieting till you are, and then do it. Maintain your lifts obviously, that way you wont have to long to hit PRs once you go back to eating 70sbig. This is my plan too, get down to 10% bf then LP + 70sbig eating.
Dude wtf, do you awnna look like Taylor Lautner or some shit. You look great already, and you have very impressive lifts for your weight. Keep that up! Eat up and get bigger.