Over the last 3 years, I tried a variety of methods to lose fat and build muscle.
My initial goal was to have six pack abs. For the training part, I went through a rigorous bodyweight training program. I was training hard but I could not reach my goal until I sorted out my diet. As for the training, you can read my story here:
thread-53389.html
The dieting part took me a lot longer to figure out. Finding a diet that works for you is even harder than dieting itself. There are too many frauds and charlatans within the fitness industry. Unfortunately, their voices are louder than the ones who are speaking the truth. Fortunately, you are at the right place to reach the truth.
There's already plenty of good advice within this thread. I will add my experiences.
I tried many different diets during my 3 year journey:
Diets that I tried and do not recommend:
1) Atkins/Dukan Diet:
These are high protein, low carb, low fat diets. They work but you feel like shit. I found that these diets are not sustainable and they did more harm than good in terms of my overall well being. I will never try them again.
2) Glycemic Index Diet:
This is not the name of the diet but there are too many diets recommending this approach. The idea is that you only eat foods with low glycemic index.
Proponents of this kind of diets argue that when you eat food with a high glycemic index, the insulin in your blood rises. Since it's the insulin that stores fat in your body, you gain fat regardless of the calories you eat. On the other hand, when you eat food with a low glycemic index, your body will not store fat because your blood insulin will not rise.
I feel ashamed to announce that I fully bought into this diet and burned many months of my time until I found out that it's utter horseshit. It's tricky because you can actually lose some weight with this diet. Not for the reasons they argue but because you omit most of your favorite foods from your diet since they are highly ranked on glycemic index.
Diets that I tried and did not like:
1) Intermittent Fasting:
I tried this for 4 months or so. The proponents of this diet say that you will get used to eating this way when you manage to get past the first few days or weeks and I believe that it worked that way for them.
For me, it didn't happen that way. After 4 months of intermittent fasting, I felt the same way I did when I started. I never got used to it and the fat loss was not that good either.
Diets that I tried and recommend:
1) Rapid Weight Loss Diet:
This is the one Hannibal mentions above.
Losing fat is boring and you want to get it done as quick as possible (without losing your health).
I used this diet for 11 days before my above photo shoot because I was tired of my slow progress. It worked just the way it promised.
I'm not sure if I can do it for a longer period of time. I never tried because I got what I wanted from this diet within only 11 days. See the thread Hannibal linked for more information.
Of course, I didn't reach my dieting goals within only 11 days. For the diet that did most of the job, read below.
2) Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Diet:
I saved this one to the last because I love it, I got great results by it and I am still doing it (for the most part).
After getting burned out by the above diets and lots of frustration, I found this diet.
This is the least restrictive and the most sustainable diet of all the above. Even if the book recommends not eating some of your favorite foods, I found that I can still eat them as long as I stay within my daily calorie goals. Counting your calories seems like an unpleasant idea at first but it's not as difficult as I imagined and I learned a great deal about where actually my calories are coming from.
The dieting principles within the book gave me the eating guide for my goals: Building muscle and losing or avoiding to gain fat. The book has a section on weight training too, which I didn't try because I already had a solid bodyweight training schedule at the time I read the book and now I am on another solid weight training schedule.
Here's the book (no affiliate):
https://www.amazon.com/Burn-Fat-Feed-Mus...nav-subnav
My initial goal was to have six pack abs. For the training part, I went through a rigorous bodyweight training program. I was training hard but I could not reach my goal until I sorted out my diet. As for the training, you can read my story here:
thread-53389.html
The dieting part took me a lot longer to figure out. Finding a diet that works for you is even harder than dieting itself. There are too many frauds and charlatans within the fitness industry. Unfortunately, their voices are louder than the ones who are speaking the truth. Fortunately, you are at the right place to reach the truth.
There's already plenty of good advice within this thread. I will add my experiences.
I tried many different diets during my 3 year journey:
Diets that I tried and do not recommend:
1) Atkins/Dukan Diet:
These are high protein, low carb, low fat diets. They work but you feel like shit. I found that these diets are not sustainable and they did more harm than good in terms of my overall well being. I will never try them again.
2) Glycemic Index Diet:
This is not the name of the diet but there are too many diets recommending this approach. The idea is that you only eat foods with low glycemic index.
Proponents of this kind of diets argue that when you eat food with a high glycemic index, the insulin in your blood rises. Since it's the insulin that stores fat in your body, you gain fat regardless of the calories you eat. On the other hand, when you eat food with a low glycemic index, your body will not store fat because your blood insulin will not rise.
I feel ashamed to announce that I fully bought into this diet and burned many months of my time until I found out that it's utter horseshit. It's tricky because you can actually lose some weight with this diet. Not for the reasons they argue but because you omit most of your favorite foods from your diet since they are highly ranked on glycemic index.
Diets that I tried and did not like:
1) Intermittent Fasting:
I tried this for 4 months or so. The proponents of this diet say that you will get used to eating this way when you manage to get past the first few days or weeks and I believe that it worked that way for them.
For me, it didn't happen that way. After 4 months of intermittent fasting, I felt the same way I did when I started. I never got used to it and the fat loss was not that good either.
Diets that I tried and recommend:
1) Rapid Weight Loss Diet:
This is the one Hannibal mentions above.
Losing fat is boring and you want to get it done as quick as possible (without losing your health).
I used this diet for 11 days before my above photo shoot because I was tired of my slow progress. It worked just the way it promised.
I'm not sure if I can do it for a longer period of time. I never tried because I got what I wanted from this diet within only 11 days. See the thread Hannibal linked for more information.
Of course, I didn't reach my dieting goals within only 11 days. For the diet that did most of the job, read below.
2) Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Diet:
I saved this one to the last because I love it, I got great results by it and I am still doing it (for the most part).
After getting burned out by the above diets and lots of frustration, I found this diet.
This is the least restrictive and the most sustainable diet of all the above. Even if the book recommends not eating some of your favorite foods, I found that I can still eat them as long as I stay within my daily calorie goals. Counting your calories seems like an unpleasant idea at first but it's not as difficult as I imagined and I learned a great deal about where actually my calories are coming from.
The dieting principles within the book gave me the eating guide for my goals: Building muscle and losing or avoiding to gain fat. The book has a section on weight training too, which I didn't try because I already had a solid bodyweight training schedule at the time I read the book and now I am on another solid weight training schedule.
Here's the book (no affiliate):
https://www.amazon.com/Burn-Fat-Feed-Mus...nav-subnav