JohnOrr
Level 1 Valued Member
The first time - crash diet. I didn’t know anything about eating healthy or eating for performance. A guy I was working with at the time was doing the Tim Ferris Slow Carb diet, so I just hopped on board with that and basically just ate about 1700 calories a day. So 1700 calories a day coupled with StrongLifts 5x5 for the first 2 years. Looking back, I’m surprised I made as much progress as I did in the beginning.
Long story short, I ended up with a coach for the next 3 years. He fixed my diet, training, etc.
When I stopped competing, I kept eating the same foods. I just halved the quantity of my meals and watched how much I was losing. Adjusted from there. Standard Calories In; Calories Out formula. Hopefully you weren’t hoping for a magic formula.
As for why I don’t push for it again - I picked up some injuries as I wouldn’t tell my coach when things were bothering me. I‘d just work through pain. I can really only bench press with dumbbells or a football/swiss bar. I have to front squat or safety bar squat no more back squats (squatter’s elbow is terrible and can impact my work since I type all day). So doing all the work to get up over 1200 again and not be able to compete? Just not worth it to me. I know “Do it for yourself”. I‘m just not interested anymore
