[quote]FenixRise wrote:
thanks for all the help man, and i will, but how do i compensate the carbs on non lifting days, with protein, or just change the overall carbs to be consumed before 6 or 7 pm??, and about the cardio… exactly what do you recommend?? i mean frequency, pace etc
(also someone told me I could do just 15-20 min first thing in the morning on empty stomach on non lifting days)… haha sorry for being such a noob… but no one starts as an expert…just remember when you where starting, im just trying to find my way trough this, I will go all out on this, and of course report back afterward… thnks for everything
You may respond well to carbs-- just judging from the pics though, you may not (i.e., you probably need them to gain and to manage them better to lean out).
Make sure all your carbs are low glycemic (except after weight workouts, when something like Surge is fine, but if fat loss is the goal, you could just use whey). Whey + oats or whey + fruit is not a bad option either. So, tons of veggies, spinach, etc. and very little bread (and if you eat bread get Ezekiel bread or low carb wraps).
I think a cheat meal or day is fine, but if your goal is to lean out, 14 days of being “hardcore” (so, no cheats) is a good way to do it. Personally, I don’t think a hardcore fat loss/caloric deficit approach is good for you right now. You aren’t fat, you have some muscle, so I think you can grow “intelligently” for a while and stay around the same AMOUNT of bodyfat (which means, if you gain muscle, your BF% goes down…visually, this is a good thing).
Don’t drink any of your calories except for the protein shakes. Try to get most of your protein from meat but if you need the shakes, that’s fine. Drink water, coffee is fine, and green tea. Lay off the “diet” drinks- I know they have no calories but I don’t think the chemicals are good for you and some people think artificial sweeteners can still mess with your insulin. So, coffee in the morning, some green tea in the afternoon, water the rest of the time.
Always get around 1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass per day. That shouldn’t vary. On non-lifting days you can cut off carbs around 4pm (so your dinner would be salad and meat). I would say the only difference on lifting days would be that you could eat some fruit before you workout and your breakfast could be oats with some blueberries (not packaged oatmeal, the real stuff) and eggs. Your breakfast on a non-workout day would be bacon and eggs, steak and eggs, etc.
I think a morning walk of 40-60 minutes on an empty stomach (esp. if your goal is to drop fat) is great. You will really see a benefit to this when you implement the carb cutoff the night before. You will be using fat for fuel during the walk. 15-20 minutes won’t do much though. If you do it outstide, great. If you do it on a treadmill, use the incline, but it’s non-panting cardio.
Basically, if you walk in the morning 4-5 days per week, lift 4 days per week (you can do a morning walk and lift later, no problem) and do HIIT 1-2 times per week (30 secs high, 60 secs low, for 12 bursts, with warm-up it comes out to about 20 minutes) you will be MORE than set. Since you are new, I think packing in the activity and pushing your body is a good thing.
See where your limits are. If you aren’t gaining muscle, I’d rather see you up the calories than take out some activity. OTOH, there are plenty of big strong lean dudes that do zero cardio. Again, see how you respond, but I tend to think that bumping calories by 300 is better than taking out a cardio session where 300 calories are burned.
Finally, get plenty of rest.
One more thing- keep a log of your food intake for the next week and see where you stand macro wise and total calorie wise. Use fitday or something. This could be a real eye opener. You could be way undereating or eating like shit and just not realize how the numbers shake out.
So, do that if you are serious. It could be that an extra chicken breast or 2 more eggs in the morning could be all you need to add to grow. Or, you could figure out that you are eating 300 calories of pure shit sugar per day, and just replace it with green tea and a whey shake. Who knows.
This will make you leaner and stronger over the next 6 months if you stick with it. Play with the exercise selections as needed-- give your lower back a break if you need it (I’m a little concerned that you have SLDL and deadlifts every week)-- increase/decrease the calories as needed, etc.
This is about figuring out what works for you, and no amount of searching around the internet is going to tell you what works best for you. You could do a LOT worse than your 4 day upper/lower, a solid diet, some cardio and plenty of rest though.
If you want to tweak your program, remember that the goal is to get stronger on exercises within the 6-12 rep range. So, if you are having a hard time getting stronger, take out an exercise that is duplicative and focus on getting stronger on the remaining ones.
A variety of exercises is good, but imho if you are doing 3 chest exercises in one session and not progressing, take out one of the exercises and force yourself to progress one the 2 that are left–this usually works because people tend to get laser focused on giving those exercises an intense effort if they have fewer.
When I was a newb and knew I had 5 chest exercises on “chest day” I didn’t progress at all…cut it to dumbell press and incline barbell bench and numbers started going up much quicker.
Sorry for rambling.