Meal frequency, body recompositioning

[static_jacket]

Alright guys, so I feel like I've made some better progress recently. I've been doing more high volume, lower rep lifting in the gym, mixing up routine a bit more, and keeping closer track of diet and decided to make sure i get 1 gram of protein per pound of target body weight. I've went down to 220 and feel like I have lost little to no lean mass between that and 225-228 I was at a month ago.

Now, I'm doing some reading and realized maybe I'm hurting myself in the meal frequency department. Everyday, whether it be lift or rest day, I had been eating a meal replacement shake and eating a small meal every 3 hours. On lift days, I have a shake between breakfast and lunch, and lunch and dinner, with a decent size lunch. on rest days, I have a shake broken up into three lunches throughout work day. Now, from what I was reading, it's good to do that on lift days because it keeps body in an anabolic state because of insulin release. However, on rest days, I was reading it hurts you for this reason. Maybe what I need to do is eat three meals with the same macros ( I eat a lot of hemp protein and cottage cheese, so from what I understand those are good protein sources to help protein synthesis throughout the day).

What are your thoughts?

[Boss Man]

What does the diet look like now in terms of the times you eat at and what foods you eat at those times?

[static_jacket]

This is a typical rest day for me:

Breakfast
Eggs - Fried (whole egg), 2 large
Applegate Farms - Chicken & Maple Sausage Patties, 2 patty

Lunch
Chobani - Greek Non Fat Plain Yogurt, 1.5 cup
Manitoba Harvest - Hemp Pro 70, 45 g
Essential Everyday - Berry Medley, 140 g
Jif - Natural, Creamy Peanut Butter, 33 g
Kemps - Cottage Cheese 2%, 1 cup

Dinner
Simply Balanced - Chicken Burgers, 2 Patty
Boar's Head - Lacy Swiss Cheese, 1 oz
Pepperidge Farm - Bakery Classics 100% Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns, 1 bun
Kemps - 2% Low Fat Cottage Cheese, 0.5 cup

Total calories usually about 1800, give or take substitutions to fit target macro nutrients. For example, some days Ill put hemp hearts in lunch shake instead of peanut butter, or Ill have a chicken breast instead of those chicken burgers. Breakfast I always eat at 6, then break the shake for lunch into three parts, one third at 9AM another third at noon, and another third when I'm about to get off work, around 3 ish. Then I have dinner at about 6 to 7

A typical lift day looks like this:

Kodiak Cakes - Protein Pancakes, 1/2 Cup
Applegate - Savory Turkey Breakfast Sausage, 4.0 links
Eggs - Fried (whole egg), 2 large
Generic - Blueberries - Fresh, by Grams, 111 grams (1 cup)

Lunch
Tumaro's - Lets Skip the Sandwich Multi Grain Wrap, 1 wrap
Boar's Head - Golden Classic Chicken, 4 oz
Jazz - Apple, 1 Medium (154 grams)
Chobani - Greek Non Fat Plain Yogurt, 1 cup (227g)
Old Home - Cottage Cheese 2% Made With Sea Salt, 1 cup
Costco Canada Manitoba Harvest Organic - Hemp Hearts, 30 g
Manitoba Harvest - Hemp Pro 70, 30 g
Market Pantry - Cherries & Berries Fruit Blend, 1 cup

Dinner
Red Potato - Red, Potato Medium, Baked, 1 medium (173g)
Grilled - New York Strip Streak, 8.8 oz
Generic - Mushrooms, White, Raw, 83 g

Snacks
Manitoba Harvest - Hemp Pro 70, 15 g
Optimum Nutrition - Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein Extreme Milk Chocolate, 1 rounded scoop (32g)

eating times are pretty much the same for lift days, besides the shake is broken up to 9AM and 3PM, and I eat the sandwich (with some veggies in it that I don't document, like green pepper, "power greens" usually a mix of kale, spinach, chard, or just spinach, and onion) and the apple at noon. I don't always have steak for dinner, but I typically try to have some sort of flesh, generally ground beef or seafood, sometimes poultry. I also usually either have a cup of carrot juice or a few dried apricots immediately after lifting to get some simple carbs and nutrients, then about 30-60 minutes after finishing lifting I have protein shake with the hemp and whey supplements.

I do have to say, after taking someones advice and having a gram of protein per pound of target weight I've seen a dramatic change, but it seems like the progress stopped recently, and I wonder if its just body getting used to this new routine. I'm really curious to know if it's better on rest days to just eat three meals instead of a lot of small intakes, as I can see why both are logical...but I'm not a biologist and I know there is a lot of conflicting information out there.

[Boss Man]

I don't see anything too worrying there, but maybe you could just have low fat cheese rather than different types of cheeses.

Sedentary men need 2,000 a day and it better to have more on active days, which is fine. It may well be the workout, as it stands but often workouts that cause loss of improvement or progress are backed up by dietary concerns more so then the workout being junk, so I wouldn't alter more than one thing at this time, otherwise you'll confuse yourself.

I would suggest you increase the calories a bit more. Your Blood sugar will be low first thing, but metabolism arguably at its most prime as well, versus the evening time, so adding some carbs into your breakfast off days might be beneficial, even if it's just another 100-200 calories of them, as it gives your body more ability to utilise the protein you're consuming and aid recovery and general energy and alertness levels.

As for the current system you're using to workout, let one or two diet tweaks settle in for 2-3 weeks before considering a change in your workout strategy.

Bearing in mind you may be replacing a little bit of lost fat with muscle, so therefore visible change will be hard to spot, but if your lifts go up at any time in the next 3 weeks, then you'll know you're on the right track, but depending on your current system, you may be exerting yourself so much, that it might not be over training, but expenditure of calories and metabolic boost, might be a bit more potent than the calorie intake, so your diet may struggle a bit to stack up, if there's not quite enough fuel to benefit the workout potential within 24-48 hours of a workout, I:E a guy needing 3,500 calories to bulk up more, but only consuming 80%-85% of requirement, versus 95-105% of requirement and then getting slower or stuttered progress, bearing in mind I'm using slight variables in the analogy, as nobody ever eats exactly the same amount of calories, to the nearest calorie, every single day.

[static_jacket]

I don't see anything too worrying there, but maybe you could just have low fat cheese rather than different types of cheeses.

I think that was a mistake when I was putting it into food journal, I started going to a grocery store that doesn't carry the "sea salt" cottage cheese. I eat 2% because it's still edible to me, I really don't like fat free. I suppose I could try 1%. I also wish kemps had a low sodium option, the store that has low sodium stuff is pretty expensive.

It may well be the workout, as it stands but often workouts that cause loss of improvement or progress are backed up by dietary concerns more so then the workout being junk, so I wouldn't alter more than one thing at this time, otherwise you'll confuse yourself.

What might I be doing wrong, would you say?

I would suggest you increase the calories a bit more. Your Blood sugar will be low first thing, but metabolism arguably at its most prime as well, versus the evening time, so adding some carbs into your breakfast off days might be beneficial, even if it's just another 100-200 calories of them, as it gives your body more ability to utilise the protein you're consuming and aid recovery and general energy and alertness levels.

So you think I should add more calories? I mean, I am trying to loose fat and gain lean muscle...which is hard to get strait info on, so I'm kind of going blind at this, if you think it will help I will try it. Just on rest days, and only an extra 100-200? Maybe I'll add a slice of toast with peanut butter and/or jelly, that would probably be right around 200 I think

depending on your current system, you may be exerting yourself so much, that it might not be over training, but expenditure of calories and metabolic boost, might be a bit more potent than the calorie intake

I've definitely wondered about that, and I think I may have been trying to say that in an earlier part of this thread. I mean, is it logical to maybe try a strategy at some point for me, of a week of bulking, eating far over maintenance calories, then a week of low calories doing cardio and more low volume lifting to maintain lean mass, then alternate?

[static_jacket]

Also, I'm thinking about getting a body mass monitor so I can more closely monitor progress. Do you have experience with those?

[Boss Man]

Not really no.

As for the added calories on no-workout days, yes you might find a few more early doors after waking might be beneficial yes.

As for the workout comment I made, I can't think of any specific things that could be stalling progress, unless you did too much cardio, and hindered muscle growth by burning muscle, or another thing could be that you are over training / going stale and your lifting might be affected, but then you might notice that if you were struggling with normally doable lifts, but you might have a situation where you over train just enough, that rather than start to go backwards on lifts, you plateau, when your eating and training would be capable of getting you more progress, if you were fresh.

So I'd monitor that but don't do anything for a while like I said, because of the minor dietary tweaks, as isolating the effects of one change will be useful to you whereas 2-3 changes in approach could confuse, in terms of which if any changes work / don't work, or didn't need to happen.