Fat Guy's Head is Swimming

Training Beginners
21

Just got back from the gym and I think I did pretty well for my first time in the weight room.

I found a squat rack (at least I hope that was it ;> ) I tried it with just the bar to feel the movement. Even without the weight I had a bit of trouble getting my thighs parallel to the ground. I came pretty close and then pushed off from the middle of the feet to get back up.
After that I progressively put on weight until I reached two 45 plates. I will go up further on Sat-- today was more of a trial run

Question: My feet are about shoulder width apart, should my toes be pointed in, out or straight ahead. Also, is it normal to feel more of a burn on one hamstring than the other on the way back up?

I then did the bench press. Again I kept it pretty light as I never did this with a barbell and had visions of getting stuck underneath. Just trying to get the feel of these exercises. Again I progressively added weights, trying to keep the bar balanced and move it smoothly up and down with a good ROM

By the time I got to doing deadlifts I felt a lot more relaxed in the gym and slowly worked my way up to 55 1bs on each side. On Saturday I will start at 65 until I find my baseline.

While I didnt move a lot of weight today I am pretty happy I got myself into the gym and did it. I really liked it too. I never understood why so many posters complained about cardio and calling it boring. Now it makes sense, this is actually exciting. I thought exercise was supposed to be boring something you just slogged your way through and then happy you were through with it. I am actually excited to go back Sat and see what I can do. I never felt that way about the elliptical machine.

Two more questions:

After the weights I did the bike for about 20 minutes and a moderate intensity. Is this a good idea for fat loss?

Also on days off, should I do more cardio? I was looking through the Rip thread and it didn’t mention anything. Any recommendations or threads I should look at myself? Basically, what else should I be doing. Or should I just focus on this program and my diet. What have other people done?

I know this is a very long post but I just wanted to thank everyone for the encouragement to try this program. I know its going to kick my ass-- in a good way!

22

Your toes should be out a little bit, roughly 30-40 degrees or so. The weight should be on your heel. Work with the bar to get comfy with the form. Better to get it now than to hurt yourself later.

I generally do a 10 minute HIIT session after my lifts. I started it this week, and despite wanting to puke my guts out, it makes me feel pretty darn good the rest of the day.

I also do about 45 minutes of endurance cardio on my off days (tue & thurs). Nothing wrong with it, especially if you’ve got some extra weight you need to slough off. Not necessary, though, so it’s really up to you and your goals.

Glad to see you’re beginning to love the iron! I never understood it before, either, but one day in the weight room it just kind of clicked, and I know that I will be lifting for the rest of my life as long as I am capable.

23

A few things to be aware of while low-carbing it

  1. cardio should be done for <= 30 minutes at 60-70% HR, up to 3x/week. More intense than this, and you dip into your glycogen stores (sugar in your muscles), which should be preserved for lifting.

  2. If you do decide to do HIIT, it’s recommended your intervals only go to 15-20 seconds or so. During this time period, your body is still using phosphates for a fuel source. More than this, you start using glycogen (see above).

This stuff comes from Thib’s Refined Physique transformation. The more I listen to him defend his recommendations, the more impressed I am with them.

24

Added a bit more fruit than usual, pushing my net carbs to 55g. Since today was a strength day, not sure how that balances out. For workouts, I am following “Refined Physique Transformation” replacing the sugars of the recovery drinks with whey+glutamine,glycine,leucine.

Two questions: CT mentions adding creatine and BCAA to pre and post drinks. Should I hold off these two for a while until I am further along? Most of the time I see members say not to worry about adding stuff at the beginning. But since I am trying to keep my carbs down and not drinking something like Surge, will I be hurting more without this stuff

Second-- what do most people aim for when reducing carbs— under 50? 30? Should I increase on workout days?

May 1 Food Log

Cal: 2237
Protein: 280g
Fat: 95g
Total Carbs: 58g
Fiber: 19g

Breakfast: 351 cal
Spinach and swiss cheese omlette (2 eggs+1 egg white)
2 oz melon
2 oz strawberries

Snack 1" 240 calories
2 scoops protein

Lunch: 466 cal
6oz tuna steak
1 cup spinach
1oz almonds

Snack 2 310 calories
2tbs Flax Seed
2 scoops protein

Dinner: 398 cal
Salad- Romaine+cucumbers+tsp oil
4 oz lean top sirloin
3 oz turkey

Snack 3: 472 cal

2 scoop Protein
2 tbs Flax
1 tbs oil
3 oz Mixed berries

25

what lifts did you do today? Keep that and the pounds lifted in this log.

Creatine is cheap, and extremely effective. BCAAS are good, but a little steep (usually). I’d say for sure on the creatine, and if you want to drop the cash on the bcaas it would be a worthy investment.

26

Thanks Zephead:
You might have missed in my ramblings upthread that I did squat, bench press and deadlift. I kept the weights low because these movements with a barbell are very new to me and I spent a lot of time just with the bar and working on the form— especially squat. So for today I really didn’t keep track of the weights until I got to deadlift and did it with 110 on the bar. For Saturday I will have a much more accurate record of what I did in the gym. For me, today was really about trying something new and getting a hold on my weight room jitters. I can tell you that my legs still feel a little sore, almost a warm feeling if that makes sense

27

[quote]Otep wrote:
2) If you do decide to do HIIT, it’s recommended your intervals only go to 15-20 seconds or so. During this time period, your body is still using phosphates for a fuel source. More than this, you start using glycogen (see above).
[/quote]

Only 15-20? I was told 20-30 when I was looking into HIIT. Does the extra 10-15 seconds really make that much of a difference in how the body burns the fat? Or is this only if you’re low-carbing it?

28

I was wondering that myself. According to CT’s “Refined Physique Transformation”:

… when carbs are restricted, intervals can lead to muscle loss. Low intensity work won’t. Sprints lasting around 10-12 seconds can also be used since they rely mostly on phosphagens for fuel, but anything longer than 15 seconds won’t be as effective.

29

[quote]atom00 wrote:
So do my kids… I tell them I sleep at night in my classroom and most of them believe me. It’s always funny if I see a student at the movies or shopping-- they can’t believe I’m not chained to my desk at school.[/quote]

Ha! I get that same reaction whenever I see students outside of the classroom. Lately, they’ve taken to trying to add me to Facebook. Woe is me.

30

Legs still sore from yesterdays squat. The hour walk seemed to loosen them up a bit. Eager to get back to the gym for Day 2 of starting Strength with squats, press, and row.

I don’t think I spread out my calories very well today with my biggest meal at dinner-- I guess I should eat more at breakfast and add some meat and cut back at dinner

Today’s Food Log:

Calories: 2200
Protein: 242g
Fat: 123g
Carbs: 40g
Fiber: 15g

Breakfast
Spinach and Swiss omlette with two eggs and 1 egg white, tbs olive oil: 29g 390cal

Snack 1:
2 scoops whey and two tbs flax: 47g 310cal

Lunch:
Romaine, cucumber and green peppers with 7pz ground turkey and tbs olive oil: 36g 448cal

Snack 2:
2 scoops whey, 2 tbs flax, 1 oz almonds: 53g 479 cal

Dinner
Romaine and tbs oil with 3.5oz turkey sausage and 3.5 oz chicken breast
53g 516cal

Snack
1 scoop whey 120 cal

31

SS Session #2 May 3

Squat 115x5/5/5

Press 55x5/5/5

Rows 110x5/5/5

20 minutes elliptical at 70% HR

I Really concentrated on form. I was able to go further down in my squat then my previous session, with my legs parallel to the ground. What a difference a few degrees makes. The first day I felt like I would fall over if I leaned into the squat anymore and stopped myself short. Today I tried to mimic the motion of actually sitting in a seat and that seemed to help.

My shoulders are really weak and I even struggled with the last rep in the last set.

The rows feel really awkward when I do them. I feel like my body is all scrunched up, like I’m kneeling over the weight while trying to get my back straight. I’ll have to work on that one a lot more. It does feel really weird to put the barbell back on the floor for every rep and row into my stomach rather than my chest.

32

Quick Question:

Does the Starting Strength book go into detail about how to perform the barbell row? I was thinking of ordering the book and was wondering how good it was in breaking down the exercise.

I feel like I have a basic idea for the movements with the other exercises and need to make adjustments along the way, but with the row I feel like I’m really off. Is there a video online where I can see the pendlay row being performed well?

I was looking at this site-- I think it’s the motion of the back that is throwing me off

33
34

[quote]atom00 wrote:
I was wondering that myself. According to CT’s “Refined Physique Transformation”:

… when carbs are restricted, intervals can lead to muscle loss. Low intensity work won’t. Sprints lasting around 10-12 seconds can also be used since they rely mostly on phosphagens for fuel, but anything longer than 15 seconds won’t be as effective.
[/quote]

Yeah. I’ve been reading CT’s weighing in on the Anabolic diet in this other thread, and what he’s writing about is causing me to take him more seriously.
http://www.T-Nation.com/tmagnum/readTopic.do?id=2108681

What I think is this-
running for 15 seconds gets the HR up, and uses phosphates for fuel, which is great. rest for 30-45seconds, do it again, go through it for 16-20 minutes, and you’ve got a decent HIIT workout done.

That said, I’ve been doing HIIT with 30-50 second sprints 3x/week for the last 5 weeks. It’s probably not optimal, but it definitely works. I’m definitely not as strong as I usually am, and I’m usually faster on monday than I am on saturday (the day before my carb-load), but that could be to a lot of factors, including having a higher workload on saturday than monday and usually not getting as much sleep (go figure).

15 second sprints are probably better, but 30-50second sprints won’t hurt you. In the end, it’s more the effort you put forward than the design of the program. Intensity matters.

35

That’s a really interesting thread Otep- I’m going to have to go back and read it a bit more. Just curious-- do you do sprints as in running or on a treadmill, bike, etc. I am doing them on a stationary bike, 30 sec hard, 60 sec easy for 15 minutes. I have a feeling that actual sprints for 15 seconds would really kick my ass and should probably do that instead.

Diet for today, a bit of poor planning on my part for dinner. For my size- 265 and 6’1 do you think I am undereating? I don’t feel hungry but every article I come across says I should be taking in more calories. Tomorrow I weigh in so I’ll see what my progress is for the week

May 3

Calories: 1961
Protein: 247g
Fat: 84g
carbs: 47
Fiber 17g

Breakfast:
Omlette- 2 eggs, egg beater, with spinach,green peppers and slice of swiss
30g protein 328 cal

Snack 1
2 scoops whey 44g 240cal

Lunch
Salad with romanine, cucumber, oil and vinegar
7 oz ahi tuna
45g 355

Snack 2
2 scoops whey, flax seed, tbs peanut butter
50g 404cal

Dinner
Hamburger patty 24g 155 cal

Snack 3
2 scoops whey and 1 oz almonds
53g protein 479 cal

36

After I posted my food log for Friday I had a pretty bad cheat. It was in the middle of the night. I woke up feeling ravenous. If I don’t have my after dinner protein shake, I turn into a carb zombie after midnight, just shoveling anything starchy down my throat. I swear it’s like I’m in a trance and i don’t realize what I’m doing until the damage is done and then comes the walk of shame back to bed.

But it puts me back to sleep. I have a lot of trouble sleeping straight through the night and the carbs seem to act like a tranquilizer or something. So I cheated with bagel chips and a muffin— a very big fist sized chocolate chip mufffin that my girlfriend had stashed away.

Anyway, its those types of midnight raids that put the pounds on me. I;d be so good during the day and then night would come. I lost my initial 50 pounds using a low carb diet, but I was still following the three meals a day way of eating I find low carbs really helps me at night but I have to prepare.

So after dinner I immediately make my shake and have it ready to go. So when I return to the fridge a few hours later there is no temptation to grab something else. And while I still wake up after about four hours of sleep, I don’t crave carbs-- maybe a glass of of water.

I store a lot of fat in my love handles, I’ve read that this is a pretty good sign of having problems with insulin. I mean I like sweets and sugar-- but rice, bread, bagels, cereal it’s all the same to me. I just crave it. If I follow my eating plan, the cravings really drop. But I have to plan everything out and not leave anything to chance. I already have my shake ready to go.

Log for 5.4

Bike-- 5 min warmup,
15-20 sec sprints, 45 seconds rest for 13 min
Two min cool down

Ellitical- 25 minutes 70-75% of maxHR

Food Log… I think I came pretty close to my targets for macronutrients but probably too much beef today

Calories: 2020
Protein: 258g
Fat: 147
Carbs: 51
Fiber: 22g

UPDATE: Shit, my diet tracker subtracted the calories from the exercise I do from my total for the day.I will have to remember to enter exercise at the end of the day. I guess that shows the benefits of keeping a journal-- I didn’t know I had eaten that much today.

Actual calories eaten:2560

Breakfast: 30g protein 474 cal
3 eggs w/green peppers, 1 oz swiss, 2tsp olive oil

Morning snack: 47g pro 310cal
2 scoops whey w/1 serving flax seed

Lunch: 50g pro 582 cal
5 oz beef over romaine, tomatoes and 1 oz almonds,

Afternoon snack: 32g pro 418cal
4 oz beef over romaine and olive oil

Dinner: 51g protein 346cal
4 o chicken breast over romaine, tomatoes with tbs olive oil

Evening Snack: 47g protein 429 calories
2 scoops whey
2 tbs flax
1 tbs olive oil

37

I would say you could bump it up to 2500-2700 for the time being. Don’t necesarilly think about scale weight. How much muscle are you carrying? Muscle burns a lot more calories a day then fat does.

38

I second Zep on the calories thing, although truthfully, don’t jive with something that’s working. My kcal’s are set at 2600 and I’m losing good fat. To keep up that rate, in a few weeks I plan on dropping it down to 2100. That’s the only reason to keep kcals moderately high- because your cut will go on long enough for you to need to drop them to keep fat loss stable.

I started doing the sprints on a track. The way the training program is designed, to provide new stimulus during the second half I switch to doing bike sprints. I prefer track, because

  1. It’s outside
  2. The bikes are in front of the ellipticals, so I can’t look at honey’s
  3. Biking causes the most brutal ass-DOMS ever. It’s apparently not enough that I’m doing crazy single-leg deadlifts supersetted with bulgarian squat/snatch circuits, but on my ‘off’ days from mainlining leg DOMS I’m bike-sprinting!

    Such is life.

Love handle fat doesn’t mean you’re insulin insensitive. Being fat overall suggests it, but it’s back fat that correlates with insulin insensitivity according to Poloquin’s Protocols.

I’m not too into the science on this one, but I think carbs trigger the pleasure centers of the brain and release dopamine in small, but noticable amounts. Dopamine makes you happy, and content and drowsy. Milk and cookies on a warm summer day kinda feeling. This makes it easier to go to sleep.

Having a small pack of carbs (20g) right before bed is a common strategy for athletes on conditioning programs (read: fat loss) because lack of a good nights sleep due to low carbing it can kill the next day’s training.

That said, that 20g of carbs comes out of your daily total, not in addition to it.

Try it- it might work. 20g of carbs looks like a medium apple or orange.

39

Thanks for the feedback zephead and otep and I am seriously considering upping my calories. I know I eventually will have to do so, as here isn’t too much room to cut from 2000 calories a day.

The reason i am reluctant to add 500 or so calories a day is that I havent seen the scale move yet so I really don’t know if what I doing is working.

But I took some measurements today and have seen a loss of inches in my chest and hips

My chest has gone from 44 inches to 42 in about a week.

By what I am really confused about is that my hips have gone from 53 inches to 44 inches. Is it possible to lose 9 inches in 10 days without losing any weight? Maybe my initial measurement was off. When i look in the mirror I think I look smaller, but not that much. i have started to take pics so I can compare.

Anyway I am really reluctant to up my calories just now. i think I’ve really screwed up the way my body handles food and got a little discouraged today. But I feel that I am still on the right path and that as long as I keep eating clean and working hard my body can readjust and start burning fat.

40

If you don’t up your calories, then stop binge eating. That will destroy your progress faster than anything else. It will also destroy your self-esteem and your motivation to change your life. I’ve been there, I’ve done it, it sucks.

Consistency is key.