Just a quick follow up on conditioning. I have decided to take the advice of not doing everything at once and elected to simply walk a lot and eat right in combination with 5/3/1.
5 days a week I will be walking 2.8 miles, 4 round trips to and from work. On the four 5/3/1 days I will be walking 2.6 miles to the gym and 2.6 miles back clocking up 5.6 miles 4 days a week. On non 5/3/1 days I will simply walk the dog 6 miles on a round trip.
This adds up to 57.6 miles over the course of a week. Looking at sites like live strong, for someone at my weight, I will be burning over 500 calories from a 6 mile walk. This is low impact, won’t impact recovery and generally will let me get healthy and lose weight without running.
I don’t know what your work capacity is like, but that seems like a lot of volume for someone that hasn’t trained for a while. I would consider dropping the 5x5s and just do the basic 5,3,1. It’s always best to start with the lowest volume required to make progress and then go from there.
[quote]BillyHayes wrote:
I don’t know what your work capacity is like, but that seems like a lot of volume for someone that hasn’t trained for a while. I would consider dropping the 5x5s and just do the basic 5,3,1. It’s always best to start with the lowest volume required to make progress and then go from there.
[/quote]
I am starting very light so to be honest the 5x5 will be a good thing I think, especially until the weights start getting heavier.
OP, one suggestion when you eat, try to have veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, green beants, etc.), meat, and a carb (rice, sweet potatoes, oatmeal,etc.) at least at breakfast and dinner. Veggies aren’t really necessary at breakfast. When you eat lunch and dinner, eat your veggies first, then meat, then carb. Don’t eat the carb first. That way you’re guaranteed to finish your meat and veggies.
Whatever you do, don’t restrict calories too much right off the bat. Your body will adapt and it leaves you no where to go once it adapts and you plateau. You will plateau at some point no matter what, but you need to leave yourself somewhere to go once you do plateau. I don’t know what your height, weight, and BF% is so I can’t comment on whether 2800 calories is appropriate but it’s something to consider.
[quote]dbarry14 wrote:
OP, one suggestion when you eat, try to have veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, green beants, etc.), meat, and a carb (rice, sweet potatoes, oatmeal,etc.) at least at breakfast and dinner. Veggies aren’t really necessary at breakfast. When you eat lunch and dinner, eat your veggies first, then meat, then carb. Don’t eat the carb first. That way you’re guaranteed to finish your meat and veggies.
Whatever you do, don’t restrict calories too much right off the bat. Your body will adapt and it leaves you no where to go once it adapts and you plateau. You will plateau at some point no matter what, but you need to leave yourself somewhere to go once you do plateau. I don’t know what your height, weight, and BF% is so I can’t comment on whether 2800 calories is appropriate but it’s something to consider.[/quote]
I just loaded my freezer with birdseye microveg bags. each 160g bag has broccoli, sweetcorn, carrots, peas and spinach in. I don’t tend to buy fruit as it is expensive and I much prefer vegetables, they are also easy to use in things like stews which I will be making.
I am about 5 foot 9/10 and am 200ish pounds and I would guess more than 30 percent bodyfat. I don’t look that fat though, it is mostly in the stomach area I carry most of my podge. beer and pizza have had their way with me.
I put in my weight and height plus age and I put in 33% bodyfat and the exercise level as 7 times a week and it told me I would need to consume 2300 calories to have a 15% deficit, which was classed as a moderate deficit.
Actually ahving rethought my job plus walking that much plus working out I put in the daily exercise plus physical job and it came to just over 2700 calories, that is probably a better starting point. Your 2800 suggestions seems almost exactly the recommendation. Cheers.
Your plan sounds good…if you felt like you needed to do more conditioning, you could always add a weight vest or weighted backpack to some of your daily walks.
I live off of those microwave steamer bag of vegetables. I usually eat 2-3 bags per day (lunch, afternoon meal, and dinner). It takes a while getting used to eating that volume of vegetables but once you do it’s no big deal. My co-workers complain about smelling broccoli and brussell sprouts all the time, but they deal with it.
Just try something for a couple weeks and measure your progress. Don’t be afraid to tweak things, but don’t do it daily. Your body will take a while to respond. Good luck on your journey!
Should I practise squatting, pressing, benching, deadlifting before I start the program or should i just jump right into 5/3/1 and learn as I go?
My squatting shoes have arrived, I think they might be a little bit big, fit like trainers rather than super tight shoes most online advice suggests they should feel, size wise, they feel very stable though. I also have some converse that I could try if these don’t feel right.
Does this site allow you to embed videos? I want to take some and get feedback on my form.
With reference to your question about conditioning, there’s an excellent Wendler article here: Conditioning 101 Since I have messed up knees, my 2 favourite forms of conditioning are boxing the heavy bag and swimming so maybe have a think about those too.
Having read the thread I’m not entirely sure what your goals are - ‘get back into shape’ is a pretty broad term that means different things to different people. You might want to think about this and set yourself some specific targets (E.g. 1, 3, 6 months etc.) to ensure you stay focused.
Re the diet, I dropped around 40 lbs in 3 months a few years back. I would start off at 2800 and see how you go - I found I had to calorie count obsessively to make it work and ended up on 2400 per day. Learning to cook properly was also a big thing for me and helped immeasurably.
Setting regular goals really does help, whether it be to lose X pounds, lift X weight or simply be able to fit into a nice pair of jeans. Working back from your end point helps to put things into perspective.
I really recommend that you get the books as well, they’re easy to follow and Wendler talks a massive amount of sense. Reasonably priced on Amazon (other outlets also available!), and as a lot of people will no doubt say, 5/3/1 is as much a methodology/philosophy as it is a training program.
Program looks solid, run it for a couple of cycles and see how you get on. You will no doubt tweak things as you get used to the training.