Hey Ray, I keep forgetting to book an appointment to sit down to try and lose more fat off my tire, so I'll try and type out my diet thoughts here. It's going to get long winded but here it goes. I'm sitting at 195lbs down from 242lbs after reading your book, and of course it's not good enough for me. I have been eating the same portions and food since day 1 when I set up the meal plans for 226lbs. Here's my game plan, let me know of it makes sense or not please.

- Doing the wild rose cleanse this week starting Thursday.

- At this point changing portions to adjust to 195lb BBE calculations but up the protein from .8/lb to 1g/lb. Not a lot of change for my diet actually for the cleanse except for fish instead of poultry, plan to keep protein levels high just using fish (likely lots of salmon), everything else is a match, or close to it anyway.

- When I am done the cleanse and go back to poultry, cottage cheese etc, I am looking at a few changes. The carbohydratess are a no brainer, just cut back a bit. For proteins I eat a pretty standard set of foods: Meal 1 - cottage cheese 2- chicken / turkey 3- chicken or salmon 4-chicken / turkey 5 & 6- burgers or pork chops, just something other than chicken or turkey. My thoughts are to keep the daily proteins the same except maybe more emphasis on turkey, but change the night meals to white fish or some type - crab, cod, halibut, stuff like that with very low fat contents, or should I be switching everything to white fish to try and cut fat from the diet?

- Still have a protein shake at 10 am and eat ice cream at night (usually an ice cream bar) Ice cream is because I found myself getting dizzy a lot and realized it was lack of sugar, have felt a lot better since starting this. Anything I can do different as I realize its not the best thing for attaining a 6 pack!

Work outs: Going to start running 3 miles, 2 or 3 days a week before work (this assumes I can drag my butt out of bed) to see if I can get things moving some more, otherwise I am fairly active in the evenings, more so when my shoulder smartens up. Thoughts?

Thanks again, Mack

From Ray:

First I think you should start looking at body fat percentages now instead of the scale. I saw you the other night and you are getting really lean. I don't know if you have a certain number you want to see on the scale, but if not, I would be more concerned with body composition than getting that scale to go down any more. After all, do you want to fight at 160 lbs and 10% body fat or 190 lbs and 10% body fat? Just a choice so let me know.

Now on to the diet. The cleanse is going to make you feel awesome after and I think you will see great benefits from it. So that is a go. As for the BEE calculations, I wouldn't drop as low as 195. I would only go for a 210 for now. Big changes usually cause the body to freak out and rebel. You don't want that, you have to just tease it a little and not totally tick it off.

With your activity level, I would not decrease the carbohydrates for the increase in protein. This is my opinion but I feel that if the carbohydrates are not available then your body is going to go after the protein next since it is not the macronutrient that is needed for survival, fat is. So it is extra muscle you are after, then add the protein on top but don't decrease your carbohydrates right now. Not for an athlete.

As for fat, you do not want to cut it out totally. Fat should be at least 15% of your calories. You need this for hormone production buddy. I like the way you cycle your protein sources, keep that up and I would actually go for more fatty meats at night along with fibrous carbohydrates if fat storage is a concern. If that makes no sense to you then we can talk about the science on that later.

As for the ice cream at night, this is weird. You are considering cutting back on carbs for the sake of increased protein but then eating ice cream at night for the sugar you need. See what is happening there? This is another good reason why you need to keep your carb intake at the present levels or even bump them up just a bit. You only need to add a few grams of complex carbs here and there and the light-headedness will go away. Try some oatmeal with a banana any time you need a sugar/carb fix. It will break down fast at the start and slow burn on the end from the banana and oatmeal combo.

Now for the extra activity. I know you know the math of fat loss. 3500 calories per pound of fat is the magic number. Now how many calories are you in deficit when you calculate your classes, gym sessions and good eating. If you are in deficit then the extra running should only be because you like it or need to improve your performance in running. Doing excess work to burn calories can throw you into overtraining really fast. Watch yourself. I think you are doing enough activity already with the MMA, my class and the gym. If anything I would go with sprints in the morning if you must go for a run. 10 sprints for 100 yards with 30 seconds rest in between.

Hope that helps buddy! Keep going, your looking great!