Losing fat and improving body composition on Thrive?

Hey @Jeff Serven, some background info and then a question.

Before I dive in though I want to publicly say "Thanks" for creating Thrive. I love the systematic, one-step-at-a-time approach Gymnastic Bodies takes to building strength, and I was wanting that same thing to help me improve my eating habits.

Thrive has totally delivered in that regard. I'm about 75% of the way through the program at this point, and I feel like I'm laying down a set of rails that'll make it easy to keep myself on track after the program ends.

The one thing that's been a bit disappointing so far is this:

I'm slowly but steadily gaining body fat.

I don't fault Thrive for this.

I've always struggled with being a "skinny fat" guy who doesn't put on muscle easily. In the past when I've eaten a calorie surplus it seems to go 70/30 into fat vs. muscle. 

I am able to diet off weight, but in the process I lose 50/50 fat and muscle. Not a cycle that leads to a lot of success.  

In August I came off a 10-month long diet where I dropped from 152 lbs. and 20% body fat down to 132 lbs. and 12.5% body fat.

I've done this twice now, and both times I lost quite a bit of muscle in the process, as you can imagine.

I came off that diet and started putting on weight again, which is what led me to enroll in Thrive.

I'm finding that my weight is still creeping up, maybe around 0.5 lb. per week, mostly fat.

Here's where I am today:

I'm 5'9" and currently 144 lbs. Scale puts me at 15.4% body fat.

For workouts, I'm following Coach's recommended schedule, doing F1, H1, MS, FS, and TB once per week each. Pushing hard during my F1 workouts, but I'm early in all of the progressions, so the emphasis is on mobility/work capacity rather than hypertrophy. 

My day job is sedentary.

Here's my question:

How can I modify Thrive 1 to improve my body composition and lose fat in a sustainable way?

P.S. I'll be happy to keep this thread updated with my progress and results as I work through this.

Josh,

Hey sorry I just responded to a lot of this in L12. 

I would say the single biggest thing you can do is focus on making as few mistakes in the process of completing Thrive. There is things I hint at in the steps as well as talk about in the forum at that specific step. The best to be heathy, lean, strong, etc. is to develop a base to a lifelong heathy life. "be ware the fury of a patient man" 

For you and everyone who reads this: ask questions along the way, ask until you are confident you are doing the 100% right thing. 

Thanks, @Jeff Serven.

I'm getting into the last few steps of Thrive now, and there are some guidelines that are definitely helping. A few missing pieces falling into place.

My #1 question right now is:

I'm having trouble reining myself in at dinner.

I've tracked logged my Thrive meals in MyFitnessPal, and I'm finding I'm still hungry at night after hitting my 1900-2000 calories for the day.

I've bumped up my breakfast to about 500 calories (eggs + yogurt or cottage cheese), which may have helped a little.

I could easily eat another half-meal, like I've seen you recommend, but that'll send me well over the top of my daily energy needs.

Any other suggestions for this?

Quick update here heading into the final week of Thrive:

The portion sizes have been relatively easy to follow, and by limiting myself to just the Thrive portions at meal times and avoiding any snacking my weight and body fat seem to have leveled off at around 144 lbs. and 15.5% body fat.

I'm still struggling in the evenings though. Another Thriver recently posted that his hunger at breakfast is a 1, at lunch it's a 3, and at dinner it's a 9.

That pretty much describes me. I have no trouble with the Thrive breakfast requirements. But an hour after dinner, I could easily pound down another Thrive-compliant meal.

I'm looking forward to finishing up the last couple of tasks here and then finding out more about how I can become a more efficient fat burner...

@Josh Earl I'm honestly shocked that you're still hungry after eating a palm or so size piece of protein, a fist of starch and a fist of cooked vege that you're still hungry. I have been a life long overeater, and most nights I struggle to put away the amount of food required by Thrive.

One thing I have noticed is that if the source of protein is ground beef or something similar it takes longer for me to feel satiated. Are you eating chunks of meat like steak, roasted chicken etc? For me a palm or 2 size piece of protein is a pretty stupid big peice of steak. After masticating my way through that with the requisite vege and starch I couldn't fathom doing it again an hour later.

28 minutes ago, Kelby O'Shea said:

@Josh Earl I'm honestly shocked that you're still hungry after eating a palm or so size piece of protein, a fist of starch and a fist of cooked vege that you're still hungry. I have been a life long overeater, and most nights I struggle to put away the amount of food required by Thrive.

One thing I have noticed is that if the source of protein is ground beef or something similar it takes longer for me to feel satiated. Are you eating chunks of meat like steak, roasted chicken etc? For me a palm or 2 size piece of protein is a pretty stupid big peice of steak. After masticating my way through that with the requisite vege and starch I couldn't fathom doing it again an hour later.

Oh, man, yeah... I can easily eat 12-16 oz. of chicken breast and 3-4 cups of broccoli, and still have room for a bunch of carbs after that. It does take a while to eat all that, but I've done it many times. (Weighed and measured, so I'm not estimating either.)

4-8 oz. of meat goes down like nothing—steak, chicken, ground beef, whatever.

I finished dinner about an hour and a half ago. 3 fists of veggies, maybe a hand and a half of ground beef (overshot a little to finish some leftovers), and a large sweet potato with some butter.

I could totally go another round right now.

It's not like I'm dying or anything, but I definitely have to stay focused all evening to avoid the temptation to grab another 300-500 calories.

Maybe my body will adapt with time. I'm hoping there's something else I can do though.

Josh:

It sounds like you are just a BEAST.

7 hours ago, Ryan Bailey said:

Josh:

It sounds like you are just a BEAST.

Hah! I'm so not though. I'm only 144 lbs right now, and it would all go right to fat. 

I think my body just wants to be 50 lbs overweight...

Just be smart with the food choices and try to toss in that extra snack. 

Hi everyone! I m new to Thrive! I just purchased today. I wanted to write a post introducing myself but I saw this post first and I have a question related. Is Thrive going to tell me exactly what portions of food should I take of very kind of food. Can t I eat as much as I feel at night, at least of certain foods? I am always way much hungrier at night and definetely need to eat more for dinner. I really don t want to change that. So, what can I expect? I have few more questions that I ll post it in a new topic. Thanks!

Antonio, 

Glad that you took the plunge. Good job on asking questions right away and being involved. As to the specific answer to your question its has to be a bit vague because it is answered within the course. 

Most everyone eats the biggest meal at dinner and you will be able to maintain that if you wish. 

Thanks Jeff! It looks a very comprehensive program! So far I am very happy with my liter of water task and eating whaetever I want whenever I want during the day Enjoying this until it gets harder.

On 1/11/2017 at 7:24 PM, Josh Earl said:

4-8 oz. of meat goes down like nothing—steak, chicken, ground beef, whatever.

I finished dinner about an hour and a half ago. 3 fists of veggies, maybe a hand and a half of ground beef (overshot a little to finish some leftovers), and a large sweet potato with some butter.

I could totally go another round right now.

It's not like I'm dying or anything, but I definitely have to stay focused all evening to avoid the temptation to grab another 300-500 calories.

Maybe my body will adapt with time. I'm hoping there's something else I can do though.

@Josh Earl, I'm not nearly as far into Thrive as you are, but I have struggled with this issue many times. So I can say that the biggest thing about food volume is that we tend to acclimate to a certain quantity of food.

When my wife and I first met, I used to put away a LOT of food at each meal. An appetizer and a whole entree plus some of my wife's food at a restaurant and feel full, not gorged. She challenged me to halving my portions for a month. The only allowance I could make was that if I was still hungry 30 minutes after dinner, I'd allow myself a small snack. For the first two weeks I felt like I was starving all the time. Pushing the plate away at one-half my previous portion was agony. After a month? That half portion felt right and I couldn't imagine having eaten more at a single sitting before. If you can power through the after dinner cravings without taking on too much, you should find that it gets better after a couple of weeks.

The other thing that I do to help with after dinner cravings is asking myself if instead of eating more, maybe I should just go to bed. We eat dinner. Consequently, I will find myself getting hungry again around 11. That's usually a good signal that maybe I should just go to bed.

"Most everyone eats the biggest meal at dinner and you will be able to maintain that if you wish." ... And then there's Kathy who finds dinner a chore but could eat continuously from breakfast thru lunch...most days. :-)

I'm very new to Thrive and don't want to get too ahead of myself, but I've starting a new habit and thought I'd run it by the community before it becomes too ingrained to change...I love fruit. Before Thrive I used to eat it for breakfast. Now I've started having a bowl (2ish cups) of fruit after dinner as dessert. Making fruit the last thing I eat about an hour before bed. Is this a behavior I should stop?

Are you noticing how your body feels different with the foods you eat? I notice it in the morning. If I chowed down on sugar at night I don't perform well - I have to stop to not throw up during activity. If I eat potato chips then I feel uuggghhhhblahhhh thick, heavy, not hungry, weighed down.  My water cravings also change depending on what I've eaten. I've started keeping an ice cold glass of water on my nightstand...yummy. 

Good self observations. I wouldn't sweat the fruit too much for now. 

Thank you!