Did I mis-judge my blocks?

[Joe Shininger]

I started Zone about a week and a half ago. I was doing the hard gainer split (5-5-3-5-3), but after doing some mental math, that seems like WAY too many calories (I am trying to lean out right now). What would be a better split for a 6'0, 195 lb male (10-12% BF at last measure)?

[Chris Bigler]

Joe, I've recently re-examined my blocks after using the body fat calculator on Dr Spears website. Based on CFJ 21 that lays out the zone diet, I was always uncertain where exactly I fit in with respect to the classification as a medium/large/XL male and how many blocks I should be putting down range per day. When I started using the Zone prescription I weighed in at almost 220 pounds and I was using a 4/4/2/4/2 split, but was always starving at night, leading to relatively frequent trips to the fridge in the evening. Despite this fact, I'm now down to 186 pounds and approximately 18% BF. My goal now is to cut that back to between 10-15%. Based on my measurements, I'm going to up my blocks to 18 per day (5/5/1/5/2); I will combine this with ruthless adherence to the 3:1 WOD's and see where that gets me in the next month or two.

You might want to give the calculator on Sears' website a try and see if the hard gainer breakdown of blocks is accurate in your case....it takes some of the guesswork out of the equation.

In my case I am pretty sure that I have plateau'd at a point where I will not see further loss of body fat/improvement of performance until I meticulously manage my diet. If you haven't read the article that Nicole wrote about this subject, I highly recommend it...it puts things into perspective alot more eloquently than I can. The most important thing is intelligent selection of Carbs, i.e broccoli vs. bread....you'll be gassy, but the pounds fly off.

my 2 cents

[Dan Heaney]

I'm 6'2" 200lbs and I would use 18-19 if I were trying to lean out.

[Joe Gasparre]

I need help too. I mean I'm getting more and more confused by the day. I'm fine with the Zone but I'm a very hard gainer. I only stay at 140 and barely ever move. I was on a 17-20 block plan. But I might up that too about 23 or so. Does any one else have advise?