Suddenly I Don't Trust Him

Nutrition
1

I met with my trainer on March 2. I’ve been doing this every 3 months to keep things moving in the right direction and keep myself motivated. I meet with my trainer and then get a massage :slight_smile:

My weight was finally down to 135 this round and I’m lifting much heavier now than when I started back in April of '04. He seemed to think since we substantially added to the program weight and rep wise I should increase my cals to 1800. From all that I know this made sense until I couldn’t resist the scale yesterday. I’ve gained 5 pounds in 18 days!!! After I got done saying several unladylike words under my breath, I decided to lay out the program here and see if it needs some more educated tweaking.

I know I know I shouldn’t have looked at the scale. I know I know I preach no scale stepping, I don’t even own one. I stepped on the one that lives in the girls locker room. No one was there so it wouldn’t count was what I was thinking when I stepped onto the thing.

My first thought was maybe I should have phased the additional 600 calories into my diet instead of working up the cals in a menu/food log and going to the grocery store. I got the idea from the Velocity Diet Phase II article. So here’s the whole tamale and I’m wearing full body armored leathers flame on…

Food- Since this is IMHO where things have gone wrong I’m starting here. I work graveyards so my feeding schedule is wacked I know but I’m trying to make it work.

2 PM Down 2 HOT-ROX Max with water, since it says 30 min before breakfast I take the dog for her daily trot. Usually 2 to 2.5 miles.

2:30 PM 1/2 serving of Surge off to the gym

3:30 PM 1/2 serving of Surge. I know it says take a full serving. I found if I do I can’t find room for dinner/breakfast.

5:30 PM dinner/breakfast time-this is family time. Chicken, salad, veggies, sometimes a sweat potatoe or red potatoe. Sometimes a hamburger patty and sweet potato fries yum yum

7:30 PM dessertish time- fruit apple or orange

9 PM second dose of HOT-ROX and water

10 PM work time- coffee (I know, that is just wrong)and carrots, or celery or something in the fruits and veggies dept.

12 AM protein shake with 1/2 banana

2 AM celery with peanut butter and a handful of some kind of nut. 2 AM is just a nutty time of day.

3 AM Green tea or asleep I’ll be.

4 AM protein shake straight no chaser

6 AM on the home stretch to finding my bed. 1/2 c low fat cottage cheesse or egg white omelet.

8:30 AM I finally find Sealy.

I drink tons of water (appr 60-80 ounces at least) all night long. And I’m working hard at getting my mind wrapped around fish oil tablets. I battle heartburn already. The idea of fish burp or smell or burn worries me since we seem to have zero’d in on fats being the culprit.

Now the new and improved workout routine. A morphed thing from articles I showed him from here and where I’m really at. I’m omitting the cardio and GPP days since those are the same 7 days a week. That’s life or the bitch won’t sleep and I’m not talking about me.

Day 1- Arms and ABs
Dumbell curls- 8 X 5
15 lbs
10 lbs
20 lbs
12 lbs
25 lbs Last one barely gets squeaked out.

Dumbell kickbacks- 3 X 12 -tris are still a weak point for me
12lb for the first 2 sets, 15 for the last

Chin ups-2 X 10, second set with 2 whopping pounds on board.

Seated rows- 4 X 5
40, 30, 60, 80

Skull crushers- new addition to the menu
15 lbs, 3 X 10

Then (to save space) Chritiane’s Sexy Ab routine. Crunches w/20 lbs, Serratus w/80, side crunches w/20 lbs, other’s w/body weight. Other than a twinge about 3 hours later nothin is telling me I worked all that hard so these weights are going up.

Day 2- legs
Squatts- 4 x 5
120, 80, 125, 85, time to go puke now
Leg extensions- 3 x 12 (still)
60 lbs
Leg curls- 8 x 5 (little better)
60, 45, 60, 45, 60 (see a pattern here)

Walking lunges- uhh accross the room and back 4 times with 20lbs bumbells in each hand.

Calf raises- the old fashion standing ones cause that’s the way I like em.
2 x 12 w/35 lbs, they are big enough already from hauling my 160 pound large ass around for two years.

Day 3- Make up day- Because my sleep suffers from my career choice my workout plan has to be real flexible. Day 1 and 2 happen when I’ve had at least 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep. Day 3 is what happens if I’ve had a rough time at work or got called back into work and have had a max of 4 solid hours sleep and a nap or two.
Weights are kept light, reps low. Basically it’s a circuit workout with little or no rest. I start with either lower or upper which ever didn’t get worked last and lap the machines 2 x 10 or 3 x12 no rest between sets, just between exercises. I know this isn’t ideal, but it helps ensure I keep form or so I’m told and hits some muscles that aren’t targetted in my other two days.

If you’ve read through all that and are expecting a picture. Sorry not happening until I get rid of the layer of fat that still covers all this muscle. I have some definite strong muscle groups and some lacking mostly due to my highly active lifestyle and hobby choices. Symmetry and balance are next on the list of goals. Right now I want to see muscle when I flex. When that happens I’ll post a pic for further tweaking.

If you’ve already forgotten the question. Don’t feel bad so did I. Oh! How does all that look? Is my trainer stoned (a total possibility given where I live)? There is what I know about water retention yadda yadda yadda and there is what I’m needing to be told again. Thanks for reading and advice gladly considered, probably not followed :wink:

2

Without body composition testing before and after the new weight gain, there is no way to tell what you should do. You could have gained muscle and/or lost some body fat. Info about your diet won’t tell us if that happened. I understand your goal was to “lose weight”, but if you are truly lifting that heavy, why would you expect to avoid muscle gains?

3

That’s a lot of reading for my bleary morning eyes… but I have to jump in and say not to panic.

It is very possible your body is using the extra calories to build muscle… which of course also adds weight.

You need to get in front of a mirror and look at yourself – or get the tape measure out and check for inappropriate size increases.

If you’ve been doing low carb eating and have added carbs back in, you’ll get a quick but limited effect from that.

Finally, scales get thrown by things like clothing, dehydration, periodic cycles, as well as innacuracies and variances if you get your weight from more than one.

Anyway, if you are watching your food like a hawk and busting your ass in the gym, it’s hard to imagine fast fat gains. Watch the mirror, if you detect problems, you can always reverse the trend.

4

I’m expecting to gain muscle try to keep the weight relatively stable. But find it difficult to believe I could see THAT much of an increase on the scale in that short of time. If I understand what you’re asking I should go have my BF checked again? Haven’t done that since Nov of 04, just a quarterly step on the scale. I usually use my pants to tell if I’m gaining in the wrong area, I usually gain in the hips. Now that the freak out is over I haven’t taken any measurements lately either.

5

Don’t be too hard on yourself, five pounds could be a lot of different things. It could reflect muscle growth or water gain from menstruation.

Overall your diet looks pretty good, except you need some protein with ALL your meals.

Also, I am not sure about the HOT-ROX Maximum Strength for females. I know they make a special HOT-ROX called “Fahrenheit” (ironic eh!) for women.

As for the the workouts you need to dump some of the isolation work and focus on compound moves. If you have limited time to workout you need to make it count.

Instead of curls try throwing in some pullups (hands facing to-wards you) even if you need an assist. BTW 2x10 on the chins is awesome.

Kill the kickbacks and replace them with some kind of pressing movement like
dips or floor presses.

Leg extensions are one of the absolute worst exercises you can do for your knee’s (especially women due to their hip to knee width differential). Unless you use perfect form they can cause your Patellae tendon to ride out of it’s groove. Try stepups or front squats.

Lastly, I would add some kind of Glute/Ham work like romanian or stiff-leg deadlifts. Go easy at first, these will make your Butt hurt (in a good way).

HTH

Ray

6

I wouldn’t freak. If you haven’t got a starting point then how do you know what happened. A bodyfat check at this point will only tell you what you’ve done since Nov 04. I would get it done so you know where you’re currently at and to reference from.

The only “issue” I see is that you lack protein intake for ~7h. You eat at 5:30pm then no other protein till 12am. While you’re eating every 2-3 hours you’re not getting protein during those intervals. This is something I would adjust. There are ~11hours that you are without protein. 7 between dinner and midnight and then between midnight and 4am. Taking into account your 8 or so hours of sleep you’re looking at ~19 hours of no protein…yikes.

Now, I’m not that anal that I get up in the middle of the night to take a shake but during sleep is the biggest amount of time I go without protein. I would suggest the same for you.

In regard to the training program…I can honestly say I didn’t pay much attention to it. Basically I ignored it. I saw that you are using some very respectable numbers. My only advice is not to reinvent the wheel and just do a program as outlined here. I had bastardized the Waterbury method but then decided to follow it exactly as written…awesome stuff. I felt as though I know what I need to focus on better than Chad…in the end I need to focus on clean mass gains and that’s what I’m getting.

So my advice to you is have protein every 2-3 hours and follow the routines as outlined.

7

[quote]vroom wrote:

You need to get in front of a mirror and look at yourself – or get the tape measure out and check for inappropriate size increases.

[/quote]

I feel vroom makes a good point here. Also without providing loads ofd excuses casles differ. If you really cannot resist the scales make sure you use the same one, at roughly the same kind of day (eg if you have no meal and hop on the scales it will be different than weighing yourself after lunch)

Regarding body composition - Make sure you use the same tests. If your going to have a multiple skinfold test (eg durnin and womersley or the yahasz - http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/fatyuhasz.htm) done make sure its the same test each time you do it - there are several available -http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/fatcent.htm

Make sure also that the same person does it - ive performed these before and had different results than someone else at the same time. Its all to do relaibility.

8

Interesting. My trainer put me on the extensions because of my knees. I’m working really hard on liking squats as it is so I’ll work on any rationalization I can to avoid adding another aquat to my routine J/K I wouldn’t mind losing the extensions, really. The way the equipment is set up in my local gym I have to go up and down a couple sets of stairs between the squats and the leg extensions. I’m pretty annoyed by this and have to do a good mental check to be sure I don’t induce a cramp by getting into to big rush.

9

my spelling is bloody terrible.

all SCALES are different is what i meant to say.

10

I went through the same thing. I lost a bunch of weight, and then put some of it back on. Most of it muscle.
You know your body. You know where the fat came off first. If it is fat, it will go back on there first. Are those areas expanding? It could be water, it could just be your body reacting to the shock of having a bunch of extra cals dumped into it. Don’t sweat it.

11

[quote]911 Girl wrote:
Interesting. My trainer put me on the extensions because of my knees. I’m working really hard on liking squats as it is so I’ll work on any rationalization I can to avoid adding another squat to my routine J/K I wouldn’t mind losing the extensions, really. The way the equipment is set up in my local gym I have to go up and down a couple sets of stairs between the squats and the leg extensions. I’m pretty annoyed by this and have to do a good mental check to be sure I don’t induce a cramp by getting into to big rush.[/quote]

If you don’t like squats (whats not to like), try stepups. Don’t use a bench as this is most likely too high, try a box about 14" high.

My wife had knee problems until I got her off the leg raises and into squats.
She has not had any problems in the last 2 years. Furthermore, she is a runner and they are known for knee trouble.

This is the problem with leg raises as I understand it. If your knee goes to less than 90 degrees in the bottom position the Tendon pulls at an angle to the outside of the leg.

This is particularly troublesome in women because their hips may not line up with the knees. This in turn creates more pulling force to-wards the outer edge of the leg.

12

One legged squats off of the end of the bench are prety cool too. One of my favorites.I know there is an article about them around here somewhere.

13

Please don’t worry about scales. Look in the mirror, or feel how your clothes fit.

Water weighs just about 8 lbs a gallon, so if you weighed after consuming a lot of water, that would affect the scales…I’ve don’t this myself, and paniced, until the next day when I weighed early in the morning. So pick a time each day to weigh yourself.

You may want to add back calories slower. Start with maybe 300 a day, and see how that works. Keep your food logs, and see how the food intake vs energy levels add up.

Mean time, the best judge of what is working is the way you look in the mirror and the way you feel.

14

Everyone else is pretty much piping in the good points, so i’ll add just a few of my own, hope this helps…

First off, as to your workout, why the lower weights on the 2nd sets in your workouts? Are you feeling fatigue or something, or is it your holding back on effort? Like someone mentioned earlier, if you have weak triceps, kickbacks are not the way to make them better. That’s a sculpting exercise, do some dips, or french presses or at least cable pressdowns to make them stronger, also stick to lower reps, in order to activate your long head of the triceps, you should be using a load that allows no more than 10-12 reps, lighter than that, and your medial and lateral heads will do most of the work.

Diet: try some more veggies if possible, but carrots aren’t a great choice. Look up the Glycemic Index and find some better choices you like, I think the website is www.mendosa.com and keep most foods below 75, and even beter would be 50 or lower. Now, the fish oils… Freeze them. Yes, you heard me, freeze them and take them in between bites of your meals. Spread out the fish oils bewteen all your meals and skip them pre and post workout. Try and choose the brand that has higher EPA dosages, and for most parts, the more you take, the quicker the fat loss, plus they help as an anti-inflamatory. Good luck.

P.S. Also, what type of rest intervals are you taking between sets, this can be very important…

laquino1

15

Thanks for all the feedback. Freezing the fish caps helps. Taking them before a meal also seems to do the trick so far.

Switched to step ups and am a much happier camper. Can’t explain why the load is what it is on the squats. My goal is to be squatting 150’s by June. I do know that free weights are not a popular choice with the trainers at my gym. I started using a trainer when I injured myself 3 years ago trying to move too big of a load too soon. It’s a combination reign in and add to all at the same time. I haven’t felt steared in the wrong direction until recently. Maybe it’s time I call the ball and try moving forward without the so called ‘expert’ eyes.

Thanks for the input. The G.I table was a good place to start and I’ll work on more veggies. Looking forward to posting some pics soon.

16

just curious since you seem to be concerned about gaining weight, do you do any cardio?

17

[quote]911 Girl wrote:
I do know that free weights are not a popular choice with the trainers at my gym.[/quote]

WARNING sign you need a different trainer.

18

Re: fish oil. You should also try the enteric coated caps from Costco. They should fix that problem.