I am trying to get my body fat down to around 10, I am at 15 right now. I am 6’1" and weigh 165lbs.
I bike around 120 miles, swim around 4000 yards and run about 20 miles a week. I also strength train two days a week. I try and eat very clean and watch carioles.
It seems that I am stuck at 15. Any help, or tips?
Thank you!
Eat better.
weight loss is a calories in vs calories out equation. Figure out what you burn every day and what you are burning working out, then eat fewer calories than that.
The bigger the deficit you keep, the lower the intensity your workouts should be…and if you break that rule, you’ll likely find that you simply can’t maintain the intensity you want to keep.
I can easily hold a 500cal defecit. 1,000 is a bit high if I want to maintain workouts. Plus there is the hunger factor.
Try a few fasted workouts… preferable an easier/recovery workout. I find morning time to be the easiest since I am already in a fasted state. Try doing this twice a week and you will probably see a drop in percent.
The biggest trick when attempting to manipulate body composition is matching your diet to your training. If you want to decrease body fat percentage, then you should aim to burn a lot of body fat during exercise; ie, lots of low intensity sustained aerobic work. If you’re doing this type of work, then you won’t dip too deeply into your carb reserves, and as a result, your diet need not include a bunch of excess carbs; you’ll get everything you need from a lot of fruits/vegetables, some lean proteins, and a little healthy fats.
Step 1 would be to look at what you’re doing with those 120 bike miles, 4000 swim yards, and 20 run miles, and then ask yourself whether or not the workout structure supports your goal of decreasing body fat percentage. Are you including too much intensity? Assuming that you’re in offseason mode, I’d try to make Z2 efforts account for 75% of your volume.
Step 2 would be to make sure that (calories in) = (calories out) so that you maintain body weight. Or, if you want to drop a few pounds, make sure that (calories in) < (calories out), but limit the difference to 200-300 calories a day for safety.
Step 3 would be to make sure that your calories are primarly from the sources mentioned above. Also, strive to eat 5-6 smaller meals each day instead of 2-3 larger meals, and always make sure that you give your body some quality calories within the first hour after each workout.
Everybody is different, of course, but if you follow these concepts, then I’d be willing to bet that you’ll see significant changes within 4-6 weeks. Good luck!
Post a typical day’s food for us to tear apart.
Without seeing that, the easiest way to lose body fat is to cut out added sugars…
First thank you for the help! My typical day of meals looks like this, two Fig Newtons before working out to have something in my stomach. After workout a bowl of cereal, that is high in Protein or a Protein bar. Mid morning snack a apple. Lunch ranges from grilled chicken and vegetables on some days, to a bag of beef jerky some days. Mid afternoon snack Protein shake. Dinner, peanut butter wrap or grilled fish, grilled chicken either with vegetables. Two glasses red wine, sometimes a 80 calorie piece of dark chocolate. I feel so exposed!
What’s the specific cereal and the specific milk? It makes a huge difference.
Ditch the wine and the protein drink. Both are loaded with sugar.
No more wine.
Switch protein bar/drinks to real food - hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, plain yogurt.
some protein shakes have no sugar at all.
but, either way, that is the first thing I would cut. Just because it is easy to cut, and you don’t need it, and probably isn’t the best tasting thing anyway.
easy way to drop some calories from your diet without doing something CRAZY like not drinking wine.
you Could switch from 2 glasses of wine to two shots of whiskey though 
What’s the specific cereal and the specific milk? It makes a huge difference.
Ditch the wine and the protein drink. Both are loaded with sugar.
First thank you for the help! My typical day of meals looks like this, two Fig Newtons before working out to have something in my stomach. After workout a bowl of cereal, that is high in Protein or a Protein bar. Mid morning snack a apple. Lunch ranges from grilled chicken and vegetables on some days, to a bag of beef jerky some days. Mid afternoon snack Protein shake. Dinner, peanut butter wrap or grilled fish, grilled chicken either with vegetables. Two glasses red wine, sometimes a 80 calorie piece of dark chocolate. I feel so exposed!
Are you sure this is your typical day? I would suggest you keep a 2 week food log. Be very honest about portion size and and “ancillary” calories such as cooking with butter/oil and high fat cheese. My guess is that you are eating more calories than you realize and those calories might not be the optimal type. There really is no need to starve yourself and replacing the bad calories with good calories 1:1 can do wonders.
Desert Dude Diet.
How did you test your body fat ? There are various ways, and some are pretty inaccurate. The scales can be off by quite a bit. As far as I know, the body immersion and skin folds are the two most accurate. Although the skin fold test has to be done correctly to be accurate. The reason I ask, is because your number seems high given your height and weight. I’m about 5’10 3/4" and about 160lbs with 9% body fat prior to IM build. I dropped a bit lower during IM build to probably around 152 and 7% fat. Just a hunch that you may be lower than 15%.
Yeah, I also think you are probably well under 15% at your height and weight, unless you do not have much muscle mass, which would explain the high-protein cereal and shakes. How are you measuring?
165 @ 6’1’’ is pretty lean. I’m 6’ and seem to do best when I’m at around 167. I went down to about 164 last season, but my power on the bike went down when compared to high 160’s.
15% does seem high for your ht and wt. my guess is it is actually lower. i recommend the book racing weight. Just came out with 2nd ed. Well written for endurance athletes. Answers a lot of questions and helps pick ideal weigt and fat% for peak performance.
I’m going to call BS on 6’1", 165 lbs and 15 %.
Unless you tested your body composition while retaining lots of water, that fat % seems suspiciously high.
I hang around cyclists that share your height/weight numbers. They are all spindly little climbers with body fat values well south of 10%. Heck, I’m the ‘big sprinter dude’ at 6’1", 175lbs, lean muscle and 9% body fat, tested with impedance by a sports nutritionist, following strict protocol.
I’d say you B.F. % is easily 50% under what you were quoted.
What was the method/protocol used to measure?
I weigh 189 and am 6’3" with 11.5% body fat. I was 195 with 15% about 7 weeks ago. I have done mainly zone 2 work, with some intervals mixed into the middle of my workouts … I also stopped eating after 7:30pm and try to get most of my calories in during breakfast and lunch. I was inspired by the desert dude post and would like to shed myself of unnecessary fat, I haven’t been counting calories, and almost cut beer out totally.
Last June I was 209 and realized how much better it would be to ride 100+ miles with less weight (hills mainly).
so you found the weight loss plan where not only do you lose fat, but gain muscle. kind of unusual
First thank you for the help! My typical day of meals looks like this, two Fig Newtons before working out to have something in my stomach. After workout a bowl of cereal, that is high in Protein or a Protein bar. Mid morning snack a apple. Lunch ranges from grilled chicken and vegetables on some days, to a bag of beef jerky some days. Mid afternoon snack Protein shake. Dinner, peanut butter wrap or grilled fish, grilled chicken either with vegetables. Two glasses red wine, sometimes a 80 calorie piece of dark chocolate. I feel so exposed!
aside from meat or pure dairy products, dont eat foods that come in a package - also peanut butter wrap sounds suspicious , make sure its natural peanut butter
I am in the recheck it camp. I am 6’1" club and when I was young and raced at 162-165 I was about 9-11%, got down to 156-158@ 7-8% and stayed sick most of the time. I used to average out skinfold, impedence and hydrostatic numbers which were often close but never 100% the same. As long as the number is reproducable a % or 2 off is really ok. Not everyone is at their fastest below 10 %, and I think for an Ironman a couple extra points may be a good thing. I know a number of people that at 5-6% just could not handle the workloads and stay healthy, but a % or 2 of bodyfat and they were able to handle greater stress loads.
Impedence could be 100% accurate or way off based on hydration status and other factors, expect errors as high as 5% in a single day are not uncomon. With a good technician and a high number of skinfolds taken, the fold averaging is very consistant and reproducable , but may be off a % or two . But at least it is a constant off. Hydrostatic used to be the gold standard, but it requires a subject to be comfortable underwater and blowing off maximal amounts of air and holding real still. We used to have a great time testing college athletes that could not swim a lick in the hydrostatic tank. Think of giving a stray cat a bath funny.