Consumed 2050 calories. Cycled.
When I first read Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" ebook years ago (maybe 2008?), it was literally the first piece of useful, quality information on how to shed fat I'd ever read. Before that I went with conventional wisdom: eat less, exercise more. Who cares about the quality of food or counting calories? Nobody ever told me about starvation mode, so I cut my my food intake to tiny amounts. I was eating less than 1000 calories a day of pretty much nothing but raw salad greens and some fruit, exercising for hours on end, and not losing anything. BFFM opened my eyes. To this day, I have to attribute 95% of all I know about nutrition to that book. The last 5% I picked up along the way from various sources.
Even though I read BFFM years ago, I didn't really commit to losing fat until last December. It's now been 5 months since I've started my body recomposition journey, and I've made a lot of progress thus far, but I'm nearing my deadline of June 10th and I'm still about 2 months away from my goal at my current rate. So I decided to re-read BFFM because somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered Tom talking about somatotypes and how your diet should be adjusted depending on the somatotype you are. With a much better working knowledge of nutrition and fitness, re-reading this book was again something of an eye opener.
There are three somatotypes: endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph. The ectomorph and mesomorph don't have to worry about excess fat since they've been lucky enough to be dealt good genetics. The endomorph is the one I'm concerned with because that's the one that doesn't lose fat easily and because I am by and large an endomorph.
Here's an excerpt from BFFM on endomorph diet requirements:
"It's the endomorph that needs to pay the most attention to nutrient ratios.
Endomorphs are often insulin resistant and carbohydrate sensitive, so the high carbohydrate approach is usually out of the question. A better starting point for an endomorph might be around 50% carbohydrates. Then based on results, they may need further reductions to about 40-45% carbohydrates. In extreme cases, a diet with 25-35% of calories from carbohydrates may work best, although only for short periods of time."
Thus far, I've been calculating my macronutrient needs based on my lean body mass, goals, and type of training, but the glaring omission is that I've not taken into account my body type, which, according to BFFM, makes a huge difference. My new plan, then, is to try a diet composed of 45% carbs, 35% protein, and 20% fat. I will continue my carb cycling. On Sunday I will assess the results and adjust my diet as necessary.
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