Dear Lyle,
I’m sorta frustrated with the BodyOpus diet since my results were bad. In 6 weeks of dieting, I lost very little bodyfat, only 3 lbs. I ate 13 kcal/lb. and tried to keep carbs below 15 g and protein at .8 x my bodyweight. Carbup was mostly high glycemic carbs after workout with protein and no fat, followed by med. glycemic carbs towards the end of the 24 hrs. while keeping fats below 83g. Workouts were lower and upper body split on each day followed by intervals and low intensity aerobics for about 15 min. Sat on my butt from Tues. to Fri, and of course a HIT workout prior to carb comp. Sorry for being a bit detailed, I just want to know if I did anything wrong.
I’m frustrated from dieting and getting hardly nowhere that I decided to try the shortcut, DNP. I know this stuff is dangerous at 3x the normal dosage, but I do have common sense and I have never overdosed on any type of drug, even the ECA stack. I’ve heard 4mg/kg of bodyweight is pretty safe and effective. What’s your overall opinion on DNP, and should I lower my caloric intake.
Answer:
I agree, 3 lbs. of fat lost in 6 weeks is not that great. One thing to look at is how did you measure fat loss. If it was by caliper measurements, make sure you got them taken by the same person each time.
The only thing I can see is that you may have needed to cut calories further or increase cardio a bit (on Wed and Thu). Depending on bodyweight, decreasing to 12 cal/lb. should have netted you some additional fat loss.
Other than those two things, it doesn’t look like you did anything explicitly ‘wrong’ with your diet. One thing you didn’t mention was the number of sets you did on Mon/Tue which can indirectly affect fat loss. To make the BodyOpus diet work, you have to fully deplete muscle glycogen during the 5 lowcarb days. This takes quite a bit of volume. Depending on the length of your carb-up, you’re looking at 3-6 sets per bodypart (and this assumes that each set lasts 45 seconds) on the Mon/Tue workouts and another 1-2 on Friday.
As to DNP, the first thing to note is that it generally doesn’t work on a lowcarb diet. For some reason, it increases carb cravings. When I took it oh so long ago, I found myself snacking on bagels around midnight every night.
I think the first thing you should do is take 1 week off of your diet. At the 6 weeks mark, your body is adapting. Eat maintenance calories (around 15-16 cal/lb. of total bodyweight) and normal carbs. Then go back to Bodyopus and try 12 cal/lb. for 2 weeks. If fat loss still isn’t happening quickly enough, add a little cardio on Wed/Thu. 20-30′ at a low intensity is plenty, especially since you’re already doing intervals. I think that is your best bet before making yourself miserable with DNP.
Good luck.