Awesome nutrition strategy to lean down while dating extensively

Oh and forgot to say why else it's awesome.

1) Dinner is gay as fuck. Drinks and some apps is way cooler 

2) Conventional 'cutting' sucks balls. Tracking every last piece of food. Not ever eating out. Never having delicious food or drinks. That shit burns you at fast and it makes you more likely to fuck up. You're using so much will power that you don't have to use. When you take mental energy off 'dieting' and instead just enjoy yoruself and be more social. You'll lean down without even realizign it. Most people obsess way too much because their approach is fucking crazy. It doesn't have to be. 

I do exactly the things you mentioned here on the days I do have day 2's or events with women set up. I just find it much more efficient in terms of getting in decent nutrition while enjoying life. Just makes it so much easier and tolerable especially if you're trying to slim down.

Being pretty into MMA and stuff, I find nutrition is a big thing, so on those days I usually don't mess around with dieting and doing things this way, but if it's an off day and I'm out and about...this is my go to also.

Yeah this is basically my strategy of the last 6 months or so. Only thing that I was severely lacking that P.iit.B helped me with was my lack of carbs. He's got me eating potatoes and making sure I've got fruit in the house. P.B. I had a couple slacker days drankin' with some Vegas peeps but I'm actually back down to 166.6 after that initial 9lbs jump to 174. Interesting that was only what.. 3 days ago? Lol 

Coffee and a piece of fruit to start off, gym or what not, then some potatoes and meat. I hope to really get lean. I'm at 12% body fat right now which is still considered "athlete" but I think is pretty high 

This I similar to what I've been doing without even knowing, this is sick. Would you recommend something similar for lean bulking? I've been crushing a ton of food and slapped on 20 pounds in a couple months and lost body fat. I've been eating a shit ton but mon-Fri only afte a 4/5 hour fast. Then meals or protein/veggie/fruit snacks every 2/3 hours till bed

didnt even realize I was fasting that long in the morning though. Usually just black coffee and fruit if anything. Derp

Yeah way too low in carbs. I'm surprised you had the sex drive to fuck any of your lady friends ;) 

Great to hear the weight is back down. Probaly will be looking fuller with more muscle glycogen and what not at that weight but with higher intake of cabrs. It's important to remain emotionally unreactive to these weight flucations. What's really important is using something objective like a waist measurement (relaxed at bellybutton level - taken first thing in the morning).

If you stay at the same weight but drop your waist by an inch that represents a beautiful recomp of about 5 lbs of fat loss and 5 lbs of muscle gained. I often see my clients get fucking pissed on cuts when they see there weight hasn't dropped by that much. But then I'm like, fucker, your waist is down 2-3" and your lifts have jumped up. If I didn't know any better you're running juice. Shut the fuck up and hit this shit. hahahah but I don't put it quite as elegantly as that. 

Anyways - MW. Probably not in the best position to do a full on cut. Your body has been in a harsh deficit for so long that essentially your body is primed to build muscle. I'd make use of this and focus on packing on muscle in a few key areas where you need more size while holding leanness. Carry this through for a couple months and you'll be looking fucking solid. May even coax the bf% down to 10% just by optomizing nutrition and lifting. 

Then you'll be in a buch better metabolic state to shift into fat loss and lean down like a mother fucker! 

ANd for the record, you're going to look sexiest around 8-10% without sacrificing testosterone and performance and shit. Getting to like 7% is pretty cool to do once. Just take a bunch of pictures and shit for tinder lol.  BEcaause when you're super lean you look crazy good in pics but in person you tend to look a bit too skinny and it's miserable to maintain. 

Hey Bateman

What's your opinion on squats and leg exercises and how they affect running and agility for sports such as soccer? I feel like its slowed me down, but maybe it's just a loss of flexibility.

The key is to use a very low volume as an athlete and avoid the high volume bodybuilding approach which emphathizes a lot of sacroplasmic hypetrophy (muscle growth with little direct increase in strength and power)

So I'd just perform maybe a couple heavy sets for a lift and focus on building relative strength which is your strength to weight ratio. 

You also want to avoid going too heavy on the legs to the point that you're grinding the reps out. Being able to execute squats or leg movements with great acceleration is far more ffective for athletic purposes than grinding out a heavy weight 

Yeah I've found that I only really get hungry at night so I just don't eat until dinner time every day. Lets me keep my calories pretty fucking low (like 1500) and can still eat out with my friends if I want.

Yo how the fuck do I delete posts if I make dupes?

Nah, they won't slow you down and will help prevent from injury. Squats won't necessarily make you faster but its an excellent exercise. Power cleans or hang cleans are probably a better exercise for athetic carryover to soccer though.

Here's the thing though, if you wan't to get faster, do sprints. Lifting should just be a complement.

For example, im training muay thai twice a day, 6 times in a week and i don't really lift heavy at all. If i want a stronger kick, i focus on kicking harder etc. It's not that lifting is bad, in fact it is very good but it's just that it heavy will increase my recovery time alot, and won't allow me to train properly if im sore from it. Soon i am going to decrease my muay thai training to 3x a week instead of 12x, and focus on lifting to get stronger.

So if you are training soccer about 3x a week you can lift up to 3-4 times a week no problem. But remember you should train for athletic performance and not for mass like a bodybuilder, ie less volume.

Dude. I don't think anyone knows what the fuck you're talking about lol. Explain that simpler please. 'Cuz I agree with Meow when I started doing "leg days" I lost my ability to do the splits and/or kick tall dudes in the head. 

Yeah man it's crazy I have been feeling the increase in testosterone. But pretty sure I started out with a surplus so this is like.. me wanting to fight everyone, lol. I foresee a major fight in the next month or so. ;) But yeah it's amazing to be able to eat more and be healthier and have my body be more responsive. I was for sure in a carb deficit. 

Ok yeah I think the point's been made, if you're doing leg days but not practicing your "craft" whether it's martial arts or soccer, it's going to make you more stiff. I'm still curious what Bateman's talking about tho because he's got legit application of his leg strength. The dude can jump straight up in the air 5 ft. On ONE leg.. lol 

They will become stiff if you exercise and don't stretch regularly. We run long distance low intensity runs every morning and i find even that makes my thighs stiff if i don't stretch.

The volume thing is simple. Less volume = Faster recovery time. More volume = More mass = worse cardio + longer recovery time.

So instead of squatting lets say 5 heavy sets, you might wanna warmup with lower weights and build up
to heavy weight, then do 1-3 heavy sets. So instead of doing 5 sets at 200 lbs or whatever you squat you would squat one heavy set at 240 lbs. You will gain less muscle mass but more strenght, and still have a faster recovery time.

There are many ways of doing it though, you gotta experiment and find out what works for you. But tge general rule: less volume

You came really close but you need to explain it just a little more clearly.

I don't eat meat or dairy but make up for it by eating a FUCKLOAD of eggs nuts and beans, but my metabolism is absolutely insane so I don't gain weight, ever. I eat about 5 large meals of protein and veggies every day, and still have pretty much no fat, and muscle gain is agonisingly slow. What would you recommend fishfinger

He did a pretty great job nailing it.  

Bruce Lee did a similar strategy when he was training during enter the dragon. He was doing like 5 exercises per workout (whole body style I believe) with just 2 sets per exercise. So his muscles were only getting hit with one exercise for 2 sets. This is very low volume. Since most bodybuilding programs involve 3-4 exercises per muscle group of 3-5 sets each. 

The reality is that you don't need many exercises and sets to promote maximal strength gains. In fact, you'll typically see better overall strength gains when you keep the volume low, since it allows for much greater recovery and doesn't promote as much fatigue - both neurally and muscular. 

So what I'm saying to meow is if he follows a low volume routine while staying lean he'll see amazing gains. When people overeat on strength training programs they gain too much weight for the amount of strength they're gaining. This throws off the strength to bodyweight ratio. Being athletic comes down to how strong you are relative to your weight. A great display of relative strength is the vertical jump. 

So I would focus on picking a few different lowerbody movemetns and just doing about 2 sets while focusing on progressively adding weight. 

You might do 2 sets of 5 reps on sqauts. And try and add 5 lbs each workout. Then you might do 2 sets of some deadlift oriented movement. And maybe some calf raises. Once you've built up adequete squat and deadlift strength, I would then focus on the dynamic method. Using a submaximal weight and exploding up as fast as possible for sets of 3 reps. Or doing high box jumps. Or doing an olympic style lift like hang cleans. 

Another huge advantage of this low volume approach is that it triggers very little soreness. So you'll often leave the gym feeling stronger than when you walked in. And the next day you should be able to continue practices as planned. Anyways... Enough talking about this shit, otherwise I'm going to have to invoice you guys ;) 

I'll have to get in contact with him if this is true.  

Hey dude, in order to gain weight you need a surplus in calories.  Also take into account that the protein in a nut is not the same as with an egg or a meat.   Would you happen to want to eat fish.  Tuna/salmon is an excellent source of protein.     

This post is really on point.  Its mainly a numbers game.  There was always a huge misconception in the whole carb thing.  People cut out carbs completley out of their diet thinking its gonna make them lose weight.  If you all are interested it would be a good idea to calculate your macronutrients and daily calorie intake.  There are alot of macro calculators on bodybuilding . com forums that you can use.  I used this one,  it doesnt have to be followed religiously: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=156380183.  You can set it up for either gaining or losing weight

All you have to do is follow that daily intake and your good.  Its also like a huge misconception about the type of carbs you take in.  Like there is no real difference between brown rice or white rice.  A carb is a carb just like a fat is a fat.  I was eating 3 slices of bacon everyday when I started cutting with my omlette.  The only thing I would say is to eat a complex carb before going to the gym.  

Also the level of protein intake people follow is all out of wack.   Most people do the whole 1 gram of protein per body weight thing.  Unless you are lean as fuck you don't need that much protein daily.  It should probably be somewhere around .7-.8 grams per pound that you weigh.  If you don't want to use a calculator you can just measure the protein you want and make that like 60% of your diet the rest being 20% carbs 20% fat and you bound to see improvements

This way if you know your going out at night all you have to do is make sure you save your carbs for later in the night.  Sugar is just carbs,  which are most drinks.  I have been drinking straight liquor on the rocks for years (not so much for dieting, more cuz I like the taste of some bourbons) and you will probably get drunk faster since you didnt have to eat so many carbs during the day.

I have already lost 25 pounds in 17 weeks.  Im 5'8 and bulked up to 185.  Im now at 160 at about 13 14% body fat.  I plan to get down to about 9 or 10 and go back to muay thai.

Sprinting is the best cardio in my opinion, I don't have to work out legs as much and its probably my favorite high intensity workout.  I read alot of studies that say its the best for maintaining muscle while leaning out.

Ok what's meant by warming up with lower weights and building up to heavy weight. Give some numbers because otherwise that can be applied multiple ways. Typically I'll bench the bar 8-10 times just to warm up the muscle group. Then I'll put a 45lber on each side, that's also a warm-up. Then I'll put a 25 on each side then the next couple sets I'll add 5-10lbs each side. That's my typical bench press routine. 

I like to start with the bar and add 20 lbs per set and work my way up to the heavy set

Say 100% is your one rep max, then you could do something like

20% x10
40% x5
50% x5
60% x 5
75x5
85% x3
90-95% x 3+ (do as many reps as you can on the last one)

You don't have to do such an extensive warmup, but i do it to prevent injury because ive had some i the past when lifting. The %'s should also just work as general guidelines i never sit and calculate in the gym lol.

And that's "low volume"? 

Yes, because the first sets are light and not many reps. I just see them as a warmup and not actual "sets". As i said you don't need to warmup like that but to me it gives me more strenght for the last set. Believe me 85% x 3 is really light and you won't be the least tired after that.

Ok so that's for bench.. you repeat this for the rest of your chest workouts? E.g. incline, decline and the "cable row" type machines

I just stick to either 12, 10, 8, 6 pyramid type sets or 10, 8, 8 sets. I've put on a lot of muscle in the last year working with just dumbbells and one muscle group per gym session. I don't do any deadlifting or squating or anything like that, just presses, rows, cable machines, fly machines, hammer strengths occasionally. I'm around 5'8 and 162 right now purposely a little bulky. I believe last summer I was like 145 so yeah it's pretty solid, arms aren't as big as I want them but I'm working on that. What also helped me put on weight was my Serious Mass protein shake, that thing is loaded with carbs unlike a lot of other shakes out there. I purposely went for the high carb shake and yeah it has done wonders. Add whole milk to that and you'll have around a 1,000 calorie shake with 1 big scoop lol. Then throw a banana on top of that and some peanut butter w/ tortilla and you've got a good post workout meal.

However, I've been looking to lean up while still keeping muscle so I'm going to start doing Bateman's plan with the added protein shake. If I stay to fat then I'll out the shake or switch to water + powder.

I only do one or two exercises per muscle group each session. I don't find the bench press to be very beneficial for muay thai so i rarely do it though. I prefer the military press. My other main lifts are the squat and deadlift and i keep the reps low on these too.

On all other lifts i use lighter weights so anything from 6-16 reps and 1-3 sets.

Some of my ab workouts are like 400+ reps in total though, because getting punched on the liver repeatedly hurts alot if you don't have rock abs lol.

I really hate giving numbers though, because what works best for me might not work for other people.

Great tips above guys! So I use two protocols primarily. Also I'm very laconic with my warm ups. I do 2-3 warm up sets. Either 60% of goal weight for 5 reps. Then 80% for 3 reps. And if I need to, I'll do one more at 90% for 1 rep.

So if I'm doing 300 on bench I'll hit around 180 for 5, 240 for 3 and possibly 270 for 1. That's all I really need. Some days, if I'm doing dumbbells, I'll just go right into my heavy set. 

Oh and I only do a warm up sets for the first exercise of a workout, typically.

Two ways to lift 

There are two ways I use for lifting typically. This makes up my phiosophy of MEGA Training (mininum effort growth acceleration). The first is reverse pyramid training. This is focused on building more strength oriented size. The goal is to consistently push for personal records and gain more muscle overtime.

This involves hitting one heavy set in the 4-6 rep range. Then two more progressively lighter sets dropping the weight by about 10% each time and striving for a couple more reps. Rest 3 minutes between these. 

So for me it looks like 

Bench Press: 300 lbs x 6, 270 lbs x 8 and 240 lbs x 10. 

Why this works so well? If you were to do the lighter weights first, by the time you get to your heavy set, you'll be fatigued and you won't get as many reps as you're capable of. You're leaving so much strength and muscle gains on the table. Moreover, when you do the lighter sets after your heavy set, you get better muscle activation. You'll notice when you drop the weight, it will feel super light. The heavy set triggers a state of enhance muscle fiber recruitment that improves the effect of your subsequent set. 

Rest pause training

I also use rest pause training to milk out as much muscle growth with high rep work. I love doing this on lateral raises, rear delts, triceps and biceps. 

So for me it looks like 

Bench Press: 300 lbs x 6, 270 lbs x 8 and 240 lbs x 10. 

Why this works so well? If you were to do the lighter weights first, by the time you get to your heavy set, you'll be fatigued and you won't get as many reps as you're capable of. You're leaving so much strength and muscle gains on the table. Moreover, when you do the lighter sets after your heavy set, you get better muscle activation. You'll notice when you drop the weight, it will feel super light. The heavy set triggers a state of enhance muscle fiber recruitment that improves the effect of your subsequent set. 

Rest pause training

I also use rest pause training to milk out as much muscle growth with high rep work. I love doing this on lateral raises, rear delts, triceps and biceps. 

Yaah thats pretty much how i used to lift before getting into muay thai, it worked very well for me.

Great post man. I was expecting to to cringe like I do on most nutrition/workout advice when it comes to pickup forums.

I got great results doing a cut using IF and eating a shitload of carbs.

As far as less leg flexibility when doing squats, you really need to STRETCH your hips, quads, hammies. Strong muscles are TIGHT muscles. Use a foam roller and roll the muscles you have tightness in, but not your weak side. 

I just started Madcows 5x5 program and Im getting the best gains Ive ever had. Very low volume and only 3x a week. Increases every lift by 5lbs a week. Going on a proven program where the guy actually knows what he's doing will give you the fastest gains IMO. The volume is pre-set so you progress the fastest you can.

I would also advise to stay away from the  machines.

EAT MORE. I would suggest using an app to track your calories, otherwise all you'll ever be doing is guessing. Muscle gain without drugs is agonisingly slow.

What kind of exercises? I hated doing 2000 crunches and not seeing any results. My favorite ab workout right now:

There's only one machine like this I know of at 24 hr fitness. I have to ride across town to get to it, and on average I see about FOUR old man dicks in the locker room every time I go. It's worse than braving the barbarian hordes that descend on Vegas for Summit. I put it on around 60lbs and do anywhere from 40-60 reps. By the end I can't do anymore. 

40-60 is too high man.  I would say 8-20. When you hit 20 with a certain weight add more. You need to be in a caloric surplus or you won't be building any abs. Then you need to get lean to reveal them. 

If core strength is your goal, 1st learn to activate your Transverse Abdominis correctly. Stomach vacuums, planks, and pilates exercises for your core are the best for this, but you need teach your nervous system to activate it while doing them. 

Why you talking about doing 400 reps then? 

Ok but note taken I'll implement that immediately. So the lower reps higher weight is to make them more expansive, the lower weight higher reps is for making them denser? This would fit my experience 

you can't really choose the way the muscle grows. They just denser. The area they cover is different for everyone based on genetics. But using high reps trains endurance and there is too many factors that interfere with the muscle growing (lactic acid build up, atp, glycogen) . They both have their place if you want to be a complete athlete. 

I do have sets with 8-20 reps, and some sets with 100 reps so in total that makes hundreds of reps per workout.

Hm interesting. So you rotate between low volume rep sets and high volume? 

Yeah i try to use as much variation as possible, mostly high reps though. My abs are killer. What are your goals with the ab training though?

To get lean enough to show my abs. They're there for sure, just need to uncover them. But at the same time I also feel my lower ones could be more "expansive" so I'm always interested in high intensity ab workouts. I like your idea I'm going to start adding higher weight lower rep workouts.. on that same machine. 

I did a 7 day fast just water and I cheated with some naked type juice drinks but hey....anyways did it just to cleanse out but I worked out and by the end I looked freaking ripped...that will solve your ab problems MW

I don't recommend this strategy.

The goal ultimately isn't to lean down as fast as possible. 

Rather it's to learn how to eat in a way that promotes leanness and is enjoyable.

Going off food for a week does not teach you the valuable skill set of doing so. 

Further, fasting beyond 20-24 hours will deplete liver glycogen and start to pull amino accids from your muscle, accelerating muscular breakdown. Obviosuly you'll lose fat, but you're definitely not going to preserve muscle mass completely. 

lol its defintely a "short term" fix....

I'm currently trying SLOW Carb as promoted by Tim Ferriss.

I eat like 2000Kcls per day  for 75 kilos  cm height, mostly lean male ( aprox.12-13% body fat).

Diet consists of (tons of) lentils, tomatoes, cottage cheese, meat, spinnaci, eggs, mixed veggies, and some oil and ghee. Throw in two pieces of black choclate 85 %. SAturdays cheat daym where I can go all out apparently.

All while doing intermittent fasting and cross fit three times a week. Also lots of going out and dancing.

Two weeks in. Don't feel weak at all. Sex drive normal, too. And I think its working. Shoud have done the measuring thing at start. But anyway took pics. Will post pics after 4 weeks and then maybe six weeks. 

Also I really dig my veggies now ;)

Hes right you will surely lose muscle this way.

Its not necessary to do so many ab workouts to make your abs come out.  All you need to do is lower your body fat percentage.  However if you want to "shape them" once they do come through you will probably have to do different types of ab excescices to see them how you would like.  As long as you are in a calorie deficit, just make sure you lose a pound to 1.5 pounds a week and you will definatley see results and look leaner.  If you are around 15% body fat it shouldn't really take that long to lean out.  I would say 2.5 months and you will most likeley be around 10%.

Theres alot of stuff on here about High volume and alot of my friends do this, saying it actually keeps the muscles from losing strength.  Im not sure what others take on this but if you are losing body fat you are going to lose some muscle,  its just part of the whole process.  The whole point is to minimize that by as mutch as possible.  You are probably also going to get slightly weaker.

To me what is more important than reps and sets are actually rest times.  If you want to gain mass rest for 1.5 minutes in between sets and do from 8 -12 reps preferably starting at 12.  I wouldnt go any less than that because youll probably get stronger but its not enough TUP (time under pressure) to gain muscle mass.   If you are looking to lean out and shape yourself Arnold recommends resting 30 seconds in between sets going for 12-15 repititions.   Kai Green goes as high as 20.  I've done alot of research and most body builders are doing higher reps than volume when cutting.  Some may disagree but I just feel the muscles shaping and popping out more.

Other things I would concentrate on is form,  you wouldn't believe how many dudes go to gym to workout and not actually hit the muscles correctly with bad form.  If you pay attention alot of juicers look very unaesthetic,  legs too tiny,  Arms too big,  Shoulders bigger than chest,  back too large to the point where they hunch.   This is all a result of form and most of us on here are going for the aesthetic look anyway,  poportion just looks so much better.  A well puportioned guy at 150 will always look better than someone who isn't at 175, 180.  Eliot hulse has a good video on repititions and sets pertaining to your goals,  this pretty much breaks it down - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxDaaFVXFyU

I'm cutting for a boxing fight and following this protocol in the OP. Great results thus far. Going to peak my training in about two weeks and take it easy 3-4 days before the fight. Probably just do light running, and light mitt work/sparring.

Awesome! Good luck on da fight and preparation. 

Gonna try something similar for 3 days. Did you go no meat no dairy?