My Drive to an M5

[Get Busy Livin']

I'm 5'9", 195 lbs. My wife's high school reunion is July 31st, and it's a tubing event where we'll all be on a river with our shirts off. We somehow offhandedly came to an agreement that if I can eat 1400 calories or less every day until her reunion date, I can pick where our next vacation is. If she works out 6 days out of 7 every day until her reunion, she gets to pick. If we both succeed, we'll both pick our own vacation.

Since I'd really like to go skiing again for the 2nd winter in a row, I'm gonna give this a shot.

After including exercise, I burn about 2900 calories a day. The 1400 number wasn't an accident -- it's designed to get me to lose 3 lbs. of fatness per week. I should be at least to 183 lbs. by the end of this month if I can hold this up.

Progress to be tracked right here, IN THIS VERY THREAD.

Day 0: 195.0 lbs.

Exercise: Will start tracking tomorrow.

What I ate:

Starts tomorrow

[Get Busy Livin']

Day 1: 194.0 lbs.

What I ate: 1360 calories

Breakfast: Three cinnamon rolls (420 calories) and fish oil (15)
2:00: Fuji Apple (130)
4:00: Dole parfait cup (130) and sugar-free pudding cup (60)
Afternoon: A little iced tea with sugar as I worked on the yard outside (80)
8:00: Can of Progresso Light soup (160) and mandarin oranges (80)
8:30: Couldn't resist the chicken my wife pulled out of her leftover Pei Wei (105) om nom nom
10:00: 1.5 scoops of protein (180)

Off to a good, normal start. I could probably be eating a little cleaner with chicken and nuts and whatnot, but healthy eating isn't real high on my priority list. Definitely don't feel hungry at all, but we'll see if that changes as the month goes on.

Feel free to vote in the poll folks. I made it public because I want to rub my inevitable success in the face of the doubters. But I'm curious if people think this'll be easy, hard, or have any opinions whatsoever.

[GuineaPig]

i voted as a hater, but only because i really want you to rub it in my face later good luck.

[ElDucky]

For a week maybe you'd lose 3 pounds of fat, but for a month, I have to think your metabolism might adjust.

[Dr. John Zoidberg]

Cinnamon rolls?? Really?? GL!

[cubs1969]

You posting your workout or just the diet?

[Get Busy Livin']

Originally Posted by cubs1969

You posting your workout or just the diet?

I'll only regularly post the diet, but my workouts consist of 4x per week weights and minor cardio activity (organized sports, hikes, etc.). I had been running 6 miles a couple times a week, but gave that up about a month ago.

I'm curious to see what this'll do to my energy level and how much weight I can lift.

[BG5150]

At the beginning, anyway, it will depend on your normal calorie intake. You should not drastically cut your calorie intake from what your body was used to.

Our bodies have short memories when it comes to its nutrition. If you were eating 2,500 calories a day and then drop to 1,400, the body will be thinking: "I'm used to 2,000 cals a day, but now I'm only getting 1,400. Who knows when the food supply will be ample enough to get back to 2,500, so I better start storing some of this stuff to use later..."

In other words, you body may start storing stuff as fat in anticipation of not getting the nutrients its used to.

In my experience, trainees do better by lowering their caloric intake by a few hundred a week. Wean the body off the calories, don't starve it.

[td25er]

Your diet is a f*cking joke. Unhealthy foods, and not nearly enough of it.

You will not lose fat. Your metabolism will slow to a crawl and you will lose muscle. You will not look good with a shirt off. You will still have flab, and you will have less muscle.

Just wear a shirt.

[JUICE]

Originally Posted by BG5150

At the beginning, anyway, it will depend on your normal calorie intake. You should not drastically cut your calorie intake from what your body was used to.

Our bodies have short memories when it comes to its nutrition. If you were eating 2,500 calories a day and then drop to 1,400, the body will be thinking: "I'm used to 2,000 cals a day, but now I'm only getting 1,400. Who knows when the food supply will be ample enough to get back to 2,500, so I better start storing some of this stuff to use later..."

In other words, you body may start storing stuff as fat in anticipation of not getting the nutrients its used to.

In my experience, trainees do better by lowering their caloric intake by a few hundred a week. Wean the body off the calories, don't starve it.

, mostly.

At 1400 calories/day, there's no way his body is going to store fat, he has enough. It will burn fat and muscle, mostly muscle. If you're going to go on a crash diet like this, you need to hit the gym HARD... 6 days a week. Weights, cardio, stretching....

Make your body use that pitiful calorie count to build and repair muscle, otherwise you're not going to look that much better, even 10 lbs later...