I would add an interval running session on Saturdays and 20 minutes of walking after your workouts, before your shake. Are you keeping a food log?
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
I would add an interval running session on Saturdays and 20 minutes of walking after your workouts, before your shake. Are you keeping a food log?[/quote]
I’ve thought about adding a running session back in just on Saturdays (this would still give me all day Sunday to recover before hitting the weights again on Monday). Glad you recommended this!
Regarding the 20 minutes of walking post-workout/pre-shake: You don’t think this will diminish the benefit of the shake? I’ve read that the shake should be consumed within 10 minutes of completing a workout… (getting too nit-picky, right?)
Food journal: I haven’t been. What’s the best format for this?
[quote]speakman wrote:
I’ve thought about adding a running session back in just on Saturdays (this would still give me all day Sunday to recover before hitting the weights again on Monday). Glad you recommended this!
Regarding the 20 minutes of walking post-workout/pre-shake: You don’t think this will diminish the benefit of the shake? I’ve read that the shake should be consumed within 10 minutes of completing a workout… (getting too nit-picky, right?)
Food journal: I haven’t been. What’s the best format for this?[/quote]
Not running, INTERVAL running…as in 30 seconds sprint, 60 seconds Jog, repeated for 20 rounds totaling at 30 minutes. This is going to jack up your metabolism and keep you burning calories even after you have stopped running. The only thing is is that it can decrease your ability to recover from your weight training workouts, but seeing as how you are training 3x/week right now, one interval session probably wont hurt you.
Unless you are working out for 2-3 hours and are depleted (ie, not eating much in general and havent eaten recently before the workout), that 20 minutes of walking isnt going to hurt you.
[quote]speakman wrote:
Quick question: My wife is starting to notice my belly. Kind of scary since I only upped my calories a week or so ago… What do you guys think about the Anabolic Diet for me? Been reading about that, but not sure if it’s the right way to go for my particular situation…[/quote]
If you are not keeping a food log, you need to start very soon. Spread sheets work well for this. There are several good sources for nutritional information on the web. http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ is an excellent source of information. Try to gain weigth but make sure it is mostly muscle. You need to try different calorie and macronutrient breakdowns until you find out what works best. At our age, muscle gains are going to come more slowly. If you gain 4 or 5 pounds a month, it may be 80% fat. Maybe not, but I have found I can only pack on about 1 or 2 pounds a month. Any more than that and I gain too much fat. Good luck.
http://www.Fitday.com is also a great resource and tool for keeping a food log and is very customizable…I dont think the usda one is.
[quote]speakman wrote:
Quick question: My wife is starting to notice my belly. Kind of scary since I only upped my calories a week or so ago… What do you guys think about the Anabolic Diet for me? Been reading about that, but not sure if it’s the right way to go for my particular situation…[/quote]
The important question here is weather YOU notice your belly; i.e. Do you see a change in mirror.
When you attempt to make changes in your life which draw attention away from other parts of your life sometimes it results in people (even people you love) trying to divert you from your course of action. I of course have no understanding of your relationship with your wife, she may be very supportive. I have had previous experiences which the person I was seeing felt guilty about not attempting to improve themselves and thus tried to fuck up my improvement. There are other things to consider:
- She may have noticed that you are eating more food and thus has correlated it to your previously un-noticed belly.
2)You might just be holding water; increase in carbs at certain times results in water retention in some areas of the body.
I seriously doubt a (slight) increase in calories could have resulted in a drastic increase in body fat, coupled with your progressivly harder workouts and your cardio I can’t see that your body would have enough energy to spare to invest in creating new stores of fat.
A way to avoid this ‘mind over matter’ scenario is to take a waist measurement. Don’t rely on one ‘reading’; do it a couple of consecutive days a week in the morning when you wake up (post piss) and just track your measurements.
Plus you can always tell your wife that this is only temporary state of affairs and that building the muscle now will help you take that fat off as fast as possible later on.
N.
Okay, decided to go with Fitday.com for my food log… Great resource! I’ve already added in my primary customized foods (like Metabolic Drive and Surge)… Yesterday’s summary:
Calories: 1988
Fat: 59
Carbs: 214
Protein: 168
(looking forward to comments on this)
Stronghold: Thanks for clarification on the cardio recommendations… Got it!
Northaway: Great insight! You must be married, too… LOL. My wife is the best person I’ve ever known, but she definitely doesn’t entirely “get” my “obsession” with my body composition. I tell her that every guy needs a hobby, and this one is slightly more beneficial than drinking or gambling! And cheaper than boating or race car driving… She does comment a lot on how good I look (other than the recent belly comment), but in the same breath complains, “You’re going to the gym AGAIN?” Oh, well, that’s marriage… little tugs-of-war all the time… No big deal!
As for your last comment, “Plus you can always tell your wife that this is only temporary state of affairs and that building the muscle now will help you take that fat off as fast as possible later on”, you guys all know that I need to keep telling MYSELF this!! LOL
Okay, that wraps up Week 3…
Really making good progress on most things! Recall that Rippetoe recommends a 2.5% increase on all weights each week. My current numbers reflect more than twice (or even 3x) that much increase on most exercises. This is no doubt because I’m just starting out (and just getting my form right required that I start off especially light), but these numbers sure are feeling good! This rate of increase will no doubt slow down soon, but I’ll just keep doing the very best I can each week. (Even military press and chin-ups have “felt better” each week, though my numbers on those are a little stuck…)
Stronghold: Wrapped up my weight-lifting today with 20 minutes on the treadmill at 3.6mph and 1.5 incline. I was actually kind of “starving” by the time I drank my PWO shake (2 scoops Surge and 5gm Creatine)… Something to look forward to while on the treadmill, I guess! Tomorrow (Saturday) will hit the park for 30 minutes of interval (sprints and walking) training… What about Sunday? One day of rest?
Also, awaiting the group’s comments on my food log (previous post)…
30-45 minutes light walking on Sunday. Take a stroll outside or play with the dog. Do something enjoyable…just dont be a couch potato.
Have you ever thought about taking one scoop of Surge before/during your workout and then the second after your cardio? This may be beneficial.
Good progress! keep up the hard work.
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
Have you ever thought about taking one scoop of Surge before/during your workout and then the second after your cardio? This may be beneficial.[/quote]
Actually, one full serving of Surge is 3 level scoops, so I break this up as follows:
1 scoop right before workout
2 scoops (w/Creatine) after
Also, I spread 18 BCAA’s over workout (6 before, 6 during, 6 after)…
That is for people weighing over 200 lbs. You should be taking 2 scoops…I tried 3 scoops once and stayed awake for hours (was training at about 9pm at the time. I would do 1 before, 1 after with a regular meal an hour or two after that.
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
That is for people weighing over 200 lbs. You should be taking 2 scoops…I tried 3 scoops once and stayed awake for hours (was training at about 9pm at the time. I would do 1 before, 1 after with a regular meal an hour or two after that.[/quote]
Done. I’ll do that from now on (don’t mind saving on the cost of Surge, too!)… I assume the BCAA’s and Creatine are okay?
Also, I just went back and looked at the chart you posted from your FitDay food log… Your pie chart (protein/carb/fat ratios) looks way different than mine! I think I have a lot more work to do in the area of nutrition… FitDay was a great recommendation to expose what I’m really up to!
Here’s the list of actual foods for today… I think maybe in my quest to add in more calories (as recommended last week), I may now be too far in the other direction. And I’ll bet my food choices are way off…
Just wanting to make sure I’m fueling my body correctly (espcially on workout days), but maybe my tank is now spilling over… ?
6 cups of milk? Good gracious man.
Try eggs in the morning and lunch meats or chicken breast at lunch. Maybe lean beef, fish, or pork for dinner. I would personally avoid milk, especially in large amounts like that because of the amount of sugar it contains.
BCAA and creatine are great additions, btw.
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
6 cups of milk? Good gracious man.
Try eggs in the morning and lunch meats or chicken breast at lunch. Maybe lean beef, fish, or pork for dinner. I would personally avoid milk, especially in large amounts like that because of the amount of sugar it contains.[/quote]
I read that Rippetoe recommends one gallon of milk per day. By “six cups” I mean that in the measuring cup sense of the word, so I think I’m actually under a gallon of milk per day. Also, it’s 1% organic. Still recommend that I cut it out (or at least down)?
Remember that Rippetoe’s recommendations are geared towards beginner lifters who most likely are young with fast metabolisms.
I would scale that back to 1-2 cups each day and I think you will be alright. You also made a good choice by going organic.
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
Remember that Rippetoe’s recommendations are geared towards beginner lifters who most likely are young with fast metabolisms.
I would scale that back to 1-2 cups each day and I think you will be alright. You also made a good choice by going organic.[/quote]
Cool… (Actually, my wife is pregnant, so almost everything in the kitchen is shifting toward organic… love it!)
Hope I’m not beating this nutrition thing to death, but I’m wondering if you could make some specific recommendations on the following:
Calories per day (on a prior post you put me at about 1800)
Fat / Protein / Carb ratios
180g protein, 60g fat, 135g carbs is a good place to start I think.
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
180g protein, 60g fat, 135g carbs is a good place to start I think.[/quote]
Okay, I think I did better today. FitDay is really a great resource! Now I can actually plan what I’m going to eat before I even eat it… The bummer today: I cashed in too many of my chips this morning, so now I’m sitting here at 8:30pm a little on the hungry side, but I’m not going to blow my numbers! So, going to bed hungry, I guess…
In any event, this chart looks a little more like the sample one you posted. I’ll post my actual foods next…
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
180g protein, 60g fat, 135g carbs is a good place to start I think.[/quote]
Again, my numbers look pretty close to what you recommended… As for my actual food choices, any thoughts? I know someone might beat me up over the venti Starbuck’s, but at least it was a skinny! LOL
Regarding Metabolic Drive, this is one of my custom foods, and the way I set this one up is that one “serving” is equal to one scoop. So the 3 scoops I had today is essentially equal to one and a half shakes…
And today was Saturday, so I also did my 30 minutes of interval training (30 second sprints followed by two minutes of walking). Tomorrow, some light cardio of some kind, and hopefully I’ll be able to hit the nail on the head with my nutrition again…