No S Diet and the "beach body"

[chentegt]

Hello fellow NoSers!

I'm approaching my 3rd year of NoSing right (full compliance of eating and exercise habits, almost zero yearly reds in nosdiet and shovelglove). I used to have a beer belly before starting.

I'm back at being thin now, no beer-gut, I'm stronger (I can do 50+ pushups in a row), I feel great, I eat delicious meals (my wife is a wonderful chef), I have my "dietary intelligent default" meal set most of the days, I have taken the wonderful habit of walking daily, and I workout with a Shovelglove every day. I'm 30 years old, by the way.

Yet, there's still one "missing piece" in my NoS journey: when "beach time" comes and she shirt goes off, I don't have the "in shape" look: just thin, average, definitely not even a slight outline of the abs showing. If you want to get too scientific, I have 16% bodyfat.

I'm sure many of the men here, like me, started this lifestyle inspired by Reinhard and how great he looks. I can't complain about all the benefits I've gotten in this journey, but we all still want to see some sustainable-aestethic results like this diet creator has gotten, when 'shirtless time' comes. Dont cha?

I'm not talking about "tv-commercial-ripped-abs" or p90x-like unrealistic physiques. I just mean "terrifically strong and lean, by ordinary non-professional-athlete standards", as Reinhard has put it in SG website.

I follow vanilla No-S but I guess it may not be enough... During weekdays I mostly eat at home, normal tasty food that my wife prepares (pasta, cuban, mexican, local cuisine, italian, spanish, etc.) with fruits and veggies. My breaskfast is my default oatmeal with fruits and whole milk, after my morning walks (at least 30 minutes a day) and SG sessions. I do not drink anything between meals, just water. I used to have many red glassceiling days and had beers at night with dinner but I don't do it anymore. I'm down to one red glassceiling day a month (and it's only 1 or 2 drinks over the limit when it happens).

Do you think that a sustainable-healthy "beach body" is possible without too much tweaking? Or am I missing another "piece" or obvious concept there? What do you suggest?

Reinhard? Anyone?

Thank you !!!

[Y Goddodin]

OK I'll start with some general guidelines; stick to your current format, but do the following:

1. increase weight of sledgehammer implement - look into clubs or kettlebells for a similar but heavier alternative.

2. increase protein at each meal - emphasise lean meats, eggs, fish etc

3. increase veg at each meal - greens are best.

4. do 2 & 3 at the expense of pasta and other processed carbs.

5. increase the speed of your walk - and therefore the distance too, keeping the time the same or you wont do it.

Do this with the consistency you've shown thus far and you will look good. For specific bodybuilder/athletes physique you may need to hit a weight room, but to look like a decently fit guy who has his life in balance the above should work.

[Bssh]

I've reshaped my body doing progressively heavy weight training two to three times a week and doing HIIT running twice a week. I'm female and have lost over 70lbs but didn't want to be "skinny fat". I haven't eaten less carbs or more protein (yet) so my body recomp (still in progress) is purely down to strength training. Would weight training be an option for you?

[chentegt]

OK I'll start with some general guidelines; stick to your current format, but do the following:

1. increase weight of sledgehammer implement - look into clubs or kettlebells for a similar but heavier alternative.

2. increase protein at each meal - emphasise lean meats, eggs, fish etc

3. increase veg at each meal - greens are best.

4. do 2 & 3 at the expense of pasta and other processed carbs.

5. increase the speed of your walk - and therefore the distance too, keeping the time the same or you wont do it.

Do this with the consistency you've shown thus far and you will look good. For specific bodybuilder/athletes physique you may need to hit a weight room, but to look like a decently fit guy who has his life in balance the above should work.

Hey, thanks a lot! That's the kind of advice I was looking for; definitely something within my framework without breaking the habits.
I already have a big kettlebell that I mix into my workouts and my 16 pound hammer still gets though but you made me think about incorporating a heavier tool...

I've reshaped my body doing progressively heavy weight training two to three times a week and doing HIIT running twice a week. I'm female and have lost over 70lbs but didn't want to be "skinny fat". I haven't eaten less carbs or more protein (yet) so my body recomp (still in progress) is purely down to strength training. Would weight training be an option for you?

Yeah, I've had nice results with weight training in the past, but I always came back to SG. I will try going with my 14 minute workouts for a while with heavier stuff, and if I still don't get that "look" I may take up weights.

Thank you!

[Y Goddodin]

OK, as you have a kettlebell, try this within the 14 min time frame for a few weeks or month:

mins 1-5 - one arm clean and presses - as many as you can do in the time frame

mins 6-12 - two hand swings, same again

mins 13-14 - windmills

on alternative days, try this:

mins 1-6 - turkish get ups

mins 7-14 - one arm snatches

[resident0063]

Chentegt,
First,congrats...I've read your updates and you've made awesome progress. Reinhard is an absolute stud so I attaining his look is a tough one. I'm not in the shape as sine of these guys and girls but I remember books by ellington darden who had a program of 3x20 minute sessions a week...uses weights I have heard good things. His diet program is 6 meals low calorie but you seem to have that part pretty much down. IMHO you seem to be in pretty good shape best of luck in continuing your improvement.

[reinhard]

First off, you are in a great place. With moderate, sustainable efforts on the diet and exercise fronts, you have achieved that increasingly rare blessed condition: you are reasonably thin and in reasonably good shape. You've got a great "80% solution" in place, and you should be very careful not to let whatever "optimizations" you look at to make further progress jeopardize that. 16% bodyfat is very respectable! (had to look this up). Some of the sites I looked at put it in the "ideal" range. And from your description, it sounds like you're getting plenty of exercise. If the abs aren't visibly bulging, that doesn't mean they aren't there. So you want to be especially careful about loading too much more on that front.

So what to do?

1. Remember my ideal weight calculation: "Eat and move moderately, see what happens." You may be at that "what happens" point right now. Everyone's genes are different. And it honestly doesn't sound so bad! One very legitimate option is calling it "good enough" and moving on to some other life problem.

2. If #1 doesn't quite do the trick for you, experiment with some "intelligent dietary defaults." My guess is that such diet tweaks are going to give you more bang for your effort with less risk than exercise tweaks, from what you describe. Is there a routine meal scenario in your rotation that is seriously suboptimal? Again, it sounds like your eating habits are pretty darn good, but if you want to find something, I'd look here first.

3. Add a simple qualifier to your nos and shovelglove routines. For example, if you have a daily todo list, and no-s and shoveglove are on them, instead of merely crossing them off, add some simple indication of how you did. I've actually been doing something like this for a little while now. On my daily yellow task card, I'll indicate with the number "42" next to shovelglove whether I did my full 42 max rep routine, no qualifier if I did something else for 14 minutes, the word "lame" if I got some amount of shugging in but not a full 14 minutes. For glass ceiling and no-s, if I am well within the "fence around the law," (no fill it to the rim giant glasses of wine, no excessive tasting while cooking, etc.) I make a bowling style diagonal "spare" mark to indicate my laudably "sparing" consumption. The con? This is tracking. Fun at first, potentially boring and unsustainable in the long haul. And I've only been doing this recently, not for most of my 10+ years on these habits, so it's not like this was essential.

Reinhard

[chentegt]

Chentegt,
First,congrats...I've read your updates and you've made awesome progress. Reinhard is an absolute stud so I attaining his look is a tough one. I'm not in the shape as sine of these guys and girls but I remember books by ellington darden who had a program of 3x20 minute sessions a week...uses weights I have heard good things. His diet program is 6 meals low calorie but you seem to have that part pretty much down. IMHO you seem to be in pretty good shape best of luck in continuing your improvement.

Thank you! Yeah, I may be underestimating the gains. As I said, I can´t complain, and I don't even aim for a specific body type, definitely not bodybuilder or "hardbody" or whatever people call it these days. My first goal was to get rid of the belly. Done. Now, it´s another minimalistic one: just look decent without a shirt on. I see myself almost 'getting there' so I believe it has to do more with some tweaking or slight improvement within my exercise and eating framework. Anyways, it's funny how other people see you ("you are strong, you are so thin and healthy how can you eat whatever you do and stay like that?").

Chentegt,
First off, you are in a great place. With moderate, sustainable efforts on the diet and exercise fronts, you have achieved that increasingly rare blessed condition: you are reasonably thin and in reasonably good shape. You've got a great "80% solution" in place, and you should be very careful not to let whatever "optimizations" you look at to make further progress jeopardize that. 16% bodyfat is very respectable! (had to look this up). Some of the sites I looked at put it in the "ideal" range. And from your description, it sounds like you're getting plenty of exercise. If the abs aren't visibly bulging, that doesn't mean they aren't there. So you want to be especially careful about loading too much more on that front.

So what to do?

1. Remember my ideal weight calculation: "Eat and move moderately, see what happens." You may be at that "what happens" point right now. Everyone's genes are different. And it honestly doesn't sound so bad! One very legitimate option is calling it "good enough" and moving on to some other life problem.

2. If #1 doesn't quite do the trick for you, experiment with some "intelligent dietary defaults." My guess is that such diet tweaks are going to give you more bang for your effort with less risk than exercise tweaks, from what you describe. Is there a routine meal scenario in your rotation that is seriously suboptimal? Again, it sounds like your eating habits are pretty darn good, but if you want to find something, I'd look here first.

3. Add a simple qualifier to your nos and shovelglove routines. For example, if you have a daily todo list, and no-s and shoveglove are on them, instead of merely crossing them off, add some simple indication of how you did. I've actually been doing something like this for a little while now. On my daily yellow task card, I'll indicate with the number "42" next to shovelglove whether I did my full 42 max rep routine, no qualifier if I did something else for 14 minutes, the word "lame" if I got some amount of shugging in but not a full 14 minutes. For glass ceiling and no-s, if I am well within the "fence around the law," (no fill it to the rim giant glasses of wine, no excessive tasting while cooking, etc.) I make a bowling style diagonal "spare" mark to indicate my laudably "sparing" consumption. The con? This is tracking. Fun at first, potentially boring and unsustainable in the long haul. And I've only been doing this recently, not for most of my 10+ years on these habits, so it's not like this was essential.

Reinhard, I really appreciate a lot your input and your time.
I've thinking about your suggestions and I decided I will do a mix of the first 2 lol. I mean, as I wrote above, I think I'm in a great place, I just want to try if I can get 'a little bit more' with very light and sustainable tweaks.

Actually, I checked out the habitcal and I was having more than 2 red glassceiling days just before last month; so I will give my new alcohol moderation habits more time.

Speaking of the eating, my oatmeal IDD is also a new 'addon'. It's only been a month doing it, so I will also give it some time, making it more healthy, and incorporating other IDDs for lunch. I have the feeling that I'm entering a new NOS phase of finally starting to 'tune up' my eating and making it more healthy. I agree with you and I think that the solution may be around this concept.

And about the exercise, I think I already do pretty intense workouts in my 14 minutes. However, I have not been tracking my walking; I think it is time to make it a trackable habit and aim for 1 hour daily. Don't worry, I have the time and I love it; walking is something I plan on doing for the rest of my day, on weekdays.

And finally, I will just give it time to all these little "improvements" I just mentioned here. I will let you know how it goes.

By the way, Reinhard; just one more question: how has this new 'habtical tracking' of you doing? What was the reason for you tp experiment with it?

THANKS A LOT TO ALL OF YOU!

[osoniye]

Hi Everyone- Just bumping up this interesting and helpful thread. I'm not at this tweaking point yet, but it's good to see the stages and timeframes involved in getting where one wants to be. (This bump-up is inspired by chentegt's encouraging recent testimonial!)