Dr. Squat - Dr. Fred Hatfield

This is what I've come up with:

Meal 1 4-4:30am:
Hardboiled egg
½ cup of White Rice

Meal2 7:30-8am:
2 eggs scrambled, non-fat cooking spray
Chunk of cheese (1-2 oz)
Protein shake (cup of milk 1%, ½ cup fruit, 1/2 banana, 1 scoop of mix)

Meal3 10-10:30am:
Hardboiled egg

Meal4 12-12:30pm:
Chicken thigh
½ cup rice
½ cup peas/corn/veggies

Meal5 3-3:30pm:
Hard boiled egg

Meal6 6:30-7pm:
Chicken thigh
½ cup rice
½ cup peas/corn/veggies

Meal7 9-9:30pm:
Hard boiled egg or can of tuna, drained

I wake up in the morning at 3:45-4. I leave my house at 5am and get to my parents (aka the gym) at 5:30am. I workout for 2-2.5 hours, currently I'm doing the 5x5 cycle using the worksheet that Eric stone made up. This normally takes an hour Following that I do Strongman/Cardio/conditioning for an hour. This is Mon-Wed-Fri.

Tues-Thurs I train oly lifts, throwing techniques, and conditioning (strongman(light weights) and sprints/plyometrics)

Sat-Sun I tend to either work on a friends farm or am working on my house or my parents house 1-2 of those days.

I try to walk 2-3 miles a day all week.

So far I've dropped from 27% BF at a weight of 286 at the beginning of the year, to a weight of 259 with 19% BF. Not much of a difference in lean mass gain, and I can tell that, but it's not what I'm after right now

I'm ready to get serious about my BF situation. I want to be at or below 15%, I'm not sure if it's reasonable to say I want to be there by the new year, but I do.

After that I want to get down to sub 12% and maintain there.

For the most part, your diet looks ok, I would just caution against using eggs and chicken too much. Use other sources of protein as well. A 6-8 oz. sirloin for breakfast along with some fruit is a great way to start the day. Also, add fish oil! It's importance in contribution to fat loss cannot be overstated. But other than varying protein sources and fish oil, it looks fine. Get plenty of water.

Now, as for the workout.....I've got some problems.....

First off, if your still going to perform olympic lifts & plyos 2 days a week. It's a waste of time. You can certainly improve body composition while performing only olympic lifts, but 1) it takes longer and 2) it's a conflict with training goals. Olympic lifts & plyos are best used for training power. By dropping body fat ASAP you will automatically improve your power production capabilities. I have failed to see anyone improve their body composition and be slower and less powerful. Therefore, if your going to get serios about dropping body fat, get extreme about it.

Too many people worry about losing strength and size when attempting to drop bodyfat. And if they take the traditional approach of lowering fat, adding a lot of aerobic work, etc. They certainly have a right to be worried about it because that is exactly what will happen.

Depending on the equipment you have at your parents', I would sets up a 3 day a week workout that resembles Poliquin's German Body Comp. program. It is the quickest way to shed fat I have ever seen. Instead of taking 6 months to accomplish your goals, get it done in 8-12 weeks. Your not going to gain 50 lbs. on your deadlift while on it, but when you finish you will have lower bodyfat, better work capacity and will make some of the biggest and fastest gains of your life when you return to a more traditional strength routine.

ANother reason why I would recommend it is, as mentioned it works faster...therefore, you will have more time in the year after your goal is met in order to increase strength, hypertrophy, power, etc. Basically you can take 6 months and reach your goal with a 25 lbs. increase in the deadlift, or in 6 motnhs reach your BF goals and increase DL by 50lbs. because you spent 12 weeks specializing it after you droped the extra BF.

Also, cut your workout time. You'll get better results by getting them in in under 60 minutes. Workouts over 60-75 minutes result in too large a release in cortisol especially when trying to lose fat. Also, one of the goals of a German Body comp. type workout is increasing workout density, i.e., you want to perform more work in less time. This will help produce a hormonal envoronment condusive to fat loss, long after the workout is over. If you want to add extra workouts for example in the afternoon or at night, on off days etc., That's fine. Strongman type stuff is ideal! Working on your bud's farm, parents house, all great. That extra activity will help, I would just warn against going for long periods (i.e., 4+ hours) without food, particularly protein. A few handfuls of cashews if nothing else. If you need to walk the dog 2-3 miles, or the wife wants the company fine, but honestly, compared to your workouts, I don't think it will make a big difference, but I don't think it will hurt anything either. As for New Years, so long as you don't have too much holiday fun leading up to New Year's getting down to 12%-15% shouldn't be any problem! In fact, you should, if you don't, you will need to look back and see if you 1) either did everything you could have; or 2) maybe should have done something a little differently.

Hey Erik

Just a quick guestimate here as I don't know every detail but I estimated approx 2000 calories for this meal plan.

Now if you've gone from 286 @ 27% to 259 @ 19% you've maintained almost the exact same lean body mass. That's really good you accomplished that with no lbm loss!

At 259 @ 19% body fat that puts you at approx 210lbs of lbm. With the amount of work you're doing daily is a couple thousand calories going to be enough? You bmr is approx. 2300 calories per day. Depending on what kind of work you do plus all your training your caloric needs could very well be pushing over 3000 calories per day. You may have already considered this into your zig-zag plan but if not you might want to think it over.

Thank you for the reply.

Where can I find info on the Poliquin German Body comp. program?

I'm at work so it's tough to search right now.

Thank you again,

-Erik

Here is an article that gives a basic outline of the program. Understand that exercise selection can obviously be adjusting according to what equipment you have available, what you prefer, things you need to specifically work on, etc.

http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=34jelly

Here is another article that essentially does the same thing as the first program except that it does not pair upper and lower body exercises together, and relys more on high volume and density. It will provide a little more hypertrophy as well, but it's more demanding....

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=724381

Note simularities between it and ABC...

Or, you can by his book on the topic at: charlespoliquin.net

It's a very good read as it debunks a lot of myths of fatloss, that frankly have been covered on this board. It gives quite a few different workouts from beginner stages that more closely resemble the workout in the first article to more advanced workouts that more closely resemble the workouts in the second option. In addition to the wealth of diet and supplement information provided, it also has a section (about half of the book) detailing several dozen exercises with detailed descriptions as to how to perform them. Most trainees don't even realize how little things they do with regards to technique make big differences. It has technique tips for everything from the bench, DL, squat, and chin-up to rope rows to the neck, back extensions, GHR's, abdominal stuff, pinky crunches, etc.

Here's an interview with Kim Goss about the book:

http://www.ironmanmagazine.com/archive/index7-detailarch.php?pid=1267

Here's a review by Dan John: It's near the bottom...

http://danjohn.org/iii4.pdf

That would make my day Tommy. My first archieved post. giddy up.