Fat loss phase - critique please

[Michael D Jones]

I'm 5'11 & 86kg. About 16% bf. Train heavy lifts and plyometrics. I need to get down to about 12 or 13% for volleyball season starting in a month. Here's the plan.

Lose 1lb a week
Calories at 2200 per day
Lowish carb - 100 to 150g a day (seems to suit me)
Protein 130 - 150g a day
Higher carbs pre volleyball (a must)
2 cheat meals a week.

What do people think? My cals about right? I used to be obese and have lost about 40kg over the years. Proud of where I am, just want to finish this.

[Steven Low]

Sounds fine... try it out

[Michael Korczowski]

If this were me, I'd be super careful about cheat meals. In my personal experience, I was never overweight, but I found that once I cut out my 1-2x/week cheat meals, my leanness and performance in the gym went through the roof.

It might be a cool motivational opportunity (having a real clear, solid goal ahead of you) to make your food intake completely, 100% purposeful. See if you can replace the cheat meals with some other activity that will give you a similar little shot of reward hormones but also helps you along your path*(think massage, sex, etc.)

Also — you haven't said anything about where you're getting your macronutrients from. If you haven't already, you'll want to make sure absolutey none of your food is pro-inflammatory (i.e. grains/especially wheat, legumes/especially soy, dairy, sugar, and ddddefinitely avoid vegetable oils).

Also, you haven't mentioned lifestyle factors. Getting as much bare-skin sun exposure as possible + stress reduction + tons of sleep will likely be helpful.

Also want to offer my salute for your work so far, getting rid of 40 excess kg is bad ass