Where I'm At, Need Help

Training Bodybuilding
21

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
hack,

Your macro ratios look ok for now. But here’s another question–what is your body fat %?

You weigh about 230. If you have anything less than about…say 35% bodyfat, you need to be eating more.

See my first post above. Start around 3000/day.

Secondly, what does your training look like? You need a plan, and you need to write it down here so people can help you. My suspicion is that you’ve got some problems with your training as well. You might be shooting yourself in the foot there as far as fat loss goes.

You need a goal to train for.

Finally, what is your fascination with supplements? You need to eat more real, healthy food, not powders. For breakfast, try adding omega 3 eggs. Or an omellete with spinach. getting more protein = either eating more eggs, drinking more milk, or getting another chicken breast or lean beef patty somewhere in the day. [/quote]

well, basically… My interest came from seeing a friend who i hadn’t seen in 2years, he was skinny and now hes been solid in the gym since then, and he looks great for it. I was talking to him, and i got some general information. I then thought i should inquire in a health food store, the guy i spoke to, basically said that the ground rules are, build muscle, and you will burn more calories throughout the day, and in turn loose fat… So i started that, combined with a good diet, i was having 2-3 shakes a day and staying away from processed, oily and meals with carbs…

This guy also gave me this website, which i started reading and this combined with my friend and talking to this sales assistant a few times, I roughly came up with a few optimal supplements that i thought would be good for my situation. From there i posted this post, to see what you guys thought of my plan for what I wanted to do, and through it I have learn’t more, but am still seeking advice on what i should change to what i am doing at the moment, to improve the speed and effect of where I’m heading.

I do have certain short and long term goals, some of which I have acchieved.

Eg. Train and stick to this program till I finish my first tub of protein.

Not to slip up and eat bad food during the week.

Stay on the program for 1 month.

not miss a day at the gym.

there are all really just short term goals, most of which I have all ready achieved or am achieving.

Long term goals would be to get down to around 10-15% body fat, and bench 120KG.

As for how long this will take me, I dont know. But I cant wait to find out.

Thanks
Hackattack

22

[quote]hackattack wrote:

Do you think i still need to eat more? if so what? like more meats? etc, etc…

i am seeing results, and will see more i imagine if i just simply stick to this routine, but… I’m pretty sure I can do better, especially if I want to loose more fat, would diet pills work?

Thanks
Hackattack[/quote]

I think you need to eat more, but not all the time … To explain, if you keep eating the diet you have now, eventually your fat loss will stall. To keep losing, you need to break up the losing days with maintenance days.

Try eating the diet you outlined two days running, then boosting the amount you eat every third day. Eating more meat that day would be good, also I would like to see you getting a little more healthy fats. Try a little olive oil on your salads. Add fish oil capsules (5/day) to your supplement regime.

Diet pills are not a good idea at your level of fat. They are for when you are already reasonably lean and want to get shredded.

23

[quote]sharetrader wrote:
hackattack wrote:

Do you think i still need to eat more? if so what? like more meats? etc, etc…

i am seeing results, and will see more i imagine if i just simply stick to this routine, but… I’m pretty sure I can do better, especially if I want to loose more fat, would diet pills work?

Thanks
Hackattack

I think you need to eat more, but not all the time … To explain, if you keep eating the diet you have now, eventually your fat loss will stall. To keep losing, you need to break up the losing days with maintenance days.

Try eating the diet you outlined two days running, then boosting the amount you eat every third day. Eating more meat that day would be good, also I would like to see you getting a little more healthy fats. Try a little olive oil on your salads. Add fish oil capsules (5/day) to your supplement regime.

Diet pills are not a good idea at your level of fat. They are for when you are already reasonably lean and want to get shredded.[/quote]

I’d like to second two things he just said - fish oil helps to raise your metabolism and is pretty much the only supplement clinically proven to benefit your health. The second would be to stay away from diet pills. Noone who isn’t competing needs those things.

-Cloth

24

Cloth–

Agree mostly, but I wouldn’t say NO ONE needs HOT-ROX unless they’re competing. But yeah, hackattack needs good eating and training habits ingrained first, and good planning habits for training and nutrition second, and after that has been ingrained in his lifestyle permanently he could rock the HOT-ROX or something.

hack–the sales rep told you good advice on training and getting you to come here. But, it’s important to get the most of your calories from real, solid food with nutrients in them.

And it is unbelievably important to start educating yourself on nutrition and training through reading past articles here and other places, as well as buying books on the subject and reading on them. In the long run, it basically comes down to experimenting with different things to see what works best for you. In this short run, it’s much more important to be consistent at the gym and kitchen and listen to veterans.

Good on the goals. Keep them up. You need more food, so when your fat loss eventually stalls you can have some calories to cut. If you start too low, when you stall out you won’t be able to cut down any farther without losing your hard earned muscle. The calorie cycling idea (up food intake every 3rd day) posted just above is also a good idea.

Post your training regimen.

25

Looking back at your example diet you need two things. Well, you need more, but start with these two for now.

  1. Bigger breakfast. Biggest meal of the day. Eat more protein. Eggs, also fruit, anything.

  2. You need some other food to go with your 200g tuna “Dinner” meal before cardio. Like, veggies, fruit, etc. This should be your other biggest meal of the day.

Adding more calories to these meals will bring you closer to where you need to be c calorie wise. Also, you should remember that you need fuel to repair the damage you did by weight training, as well as prepare yourself for your cardio training. The meal after your weight training is ideal to add carbs to. Right now, all you have is tuna there. You need to refuel. All the carbs you eat here will be used to repair your muscles.

Of course, this is not an excuse to cheat, but you knew that. Simply put, after workout is the second best time for carbs to be eaten (the first being breakfast). This should be a fairly big meal, unless you will be running very soon after that and don’t want to get sick to your stomach.

26

Thanks for the advice, it’s really helpful and hopefully effective.

I was wondering what do you mean when you say you want to see my training regeim? I posted what I do every day, as in what muscle groups I work out, but I sadly cant name you all the excercises that I do because I simply dont know the names.

I usually do a mixture of free weights and machines every praticse, doing atleast three sets of each before changing, usually… the system I use is like this… ‘when you feel like you cant do any more, do 1 more.’ If I am training with a friend I will mostly stick to free weights, but at the gym I usually go to, theres literally a que for the benches.

If you want more detail, please tell me what your after and ill either remember the names of the excercises or whatever it is that you want…

thanks
Hackattack

27

[quote]hackattack wrote:
… the system I use is like this… ‘when you feel like you cant do any more, do 1 more…’

Hackattack[/quote]

Does this mean you are training to failure on nearly every set?

28

[quote]Modi wrote:
Does this mean you are training to failure on nearly every set?[/quote]

haha no not literally, just trying to say I dont stop till I have to.

29

[quote]hackattack wrote:
Modi wrote:
Does this mean you are training to failure on nearly every set?

haha no not literally, just trying to say I dont stop till I have to.
[/quote]

Wouldn’t matter too much anyway. As a newb, he can get away with doing that without any problems for now. Failure training has worked for hundreds of thousands of people across the last half century anyway. Even though I’m not a fan of failure training personally.

hack–Ok, looking at your last post on daily diet, good to see more carbs and protein after weights. That’s a good change.

Still want more for breakfast. The way I count it, muesli - 150 cal, 2c. milk - 160, and 40g protein powder - 150. Total about 450 cal or so. Aim for 550-600.

Remember, it’s not about the sprint. It’s about the marathon. True, you could probably lose more fat faster, but the life-changing steps happen only through the long haul. Besides that, you need some place to go when the fat loss stops. I’ve said it a few times already; if calorie intake is too low, you won’t have any way to drop them further when fat loss stalls. You need that cushion.

Also, I’m sure we can tweak your training.

Yes, I was looking for exercise names, sets, reps on each training day. I think unless you really go overboard, we can treat your “abs only” day as an off day, since it’s really not that draining on your system (but I still want exercises/sets/reps for that day). That gives us 5 training days a week. Depending on what you’re doing, this is an ok place to be for right now. I also want to know what you’re doing for cardio–about what % of heart rate max, if you know, and whether it’s steady state or high intensity interval stuff.

30

For cadio I Cycle for 25-30 mins. I try to do this away from resistance training, but I am unable to tell you my heart rate, well yet.

I was thinking maybe I should get a training plan made for me… Becuase I dont know enough to make my own, do you thing this is necessary? Or would the money be spent better on something else?

Sorry for the late reply… The most info I can tell you is I try to stick to 3sets on a certain muscle grp then change. and try for reps of 10-12-8, or in that area.

But its been a month so far, and iv seen results, im interisted in what ill see next month, so far there has been a real increase in muscle, loss of fat, but I hope ill loose more fat next month, will this happen? Is it smart to try change what im doing to try and loose more fat? Any info will be helpful, it always is.

Thanks
Hackattack

31

[quote]hackattack wrote:
For cadio I Cycle for 25-30 mins. I try to do this away from resistance training, but I am unable to tell you my heart rate, well yet.

I was thinking maybe I should get a training plan made for me… Becuase I dont know enough to make my own, do you thing this is necessary? Or would the money be spent better on something else?

Sorry for the late reply… The most info I can tell you is I try to stick to 3sets on a certain muscle grp then change. and try for reps of 10-12-8, or in that area.

But its been a month so far, and iv seen results, im interisted in what ill see next month, so far there has been a real increase in muscle, loss of fat, but I hope ill loose more fat next month, will this happen? Is it smart to try change what im doing to try and loose more fat? Any info will be helpful, it always is.

Thanks
Hackattack[/quote]

I think spending the money on a trainer is only as good as the trainer. If you know someone that has a good reputation, then in may be worthwhile.

However, there are so many good programs on this site that it would almost be foolish not to use the resources here.

If you haven’t read Are You a Beginner II, read it. There are a ton of good links there:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=640350

Also, precision nutrition just launched it’s exercise index. You have to register at their site, but it’s free, and they give you 400+ exercises with 3 different views of each. You should spend a lot of time there learning the names and proper movements:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1515982&pageNo=0

32

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
hackattack wrote:
Modi wrote:
Does this mean you are training to failure on nearly every set?

haha no not literally, just trying to say I dont stop till I have to.

Wouldn’t matter too much anyway. As a newb, he can get away with doing that without any problems for now. Failure training has worked for hundreds of thousands of people across the last half century anyway. Even though I’m not a fan of failure training personally.
[/quote]

Aragorn, sorry I missed your reply. I don’t disagree that many people start off by training every set to failure, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way. I do think beginners can get away with it, but I’d rather see him work on form, and stop one rep shy of failure, except on the last set which he could take to failure.

I realize this is a moot point, since hackattack already said he doesn’t train that way, and since you don’t necessarily advocate it either. I think if you engrain the training to failure philosophy into a beginners head, it can take a long time to get away from it, that’s why I posed the question.