Weight loss - nutrition advice?

[Dr. Sylvan]

http://googlefight.com/

"i couldn't care less" vs. "i couldn't care less"
288,000 to 155,000

[kl0wn]

If you 'couldn't care less,' then that means you have some positive, nonzero level of caring left in you. Which I suspect is just the opposite of your intended message.

Maybe I do have a tiny bit of caring, eh? EH?!? 

Just not that much.

[Matt]

http://googlefight.com/

"i couldn't care less" vs. "i couldn't care less"
288,000 to 155,000

This isn't a popularity contest, and anyway that only highlights how grave this issue truly is!

[Bram]

That said, I'm not alltogether sure that the simple fact it makes sence for the expression to be 'couldn't care less' automatically makes it the 'right' expression. Language is a complex, ever-evolving thing, and it would not surprise me at all if a logically flawed expression ended up being mainstream.

Add to that the eternal discussion about whether or not the fact that an expression (or a manner of spelling something) is mainstream simply makes it correct, and you've got some real problems.

Personally, I firmly believe that once Snoop Dogg becomes president of the USA and everyone and their brother start pronouncing and spelling the word 'ask' like 'aks', it won't be too long before 'ask' becomes archaic and 'aks' is added to whatever authoritative dictionary you guys have over there.

[Matt]

Yeah but's 'ask'/'aks' isn't the same thing, since either will suffice for the purposes the word is used for. Something like "nucular" is a lot more jarring, because the word nuclear meshes and 'fits in' because of its Latin/Greek (not sure which) roots. Nuclear has to make sense along with nuculus and so on, doesn't it?

[Dozer]

"I couldn't care less" makes no sense if you want to express that you don't care in a fancy way. Period. If you couldn't care less, you have more care left than if you couldn't care less, so I believe that the "could"-version is just a mutilation of the original "couldn't care less". Besides, up until now, I never had heard or read the phrase "I couldn't care less", so the google figth result comes as a bit of a surprise.

I guess with this phrase like with so many others, people have just been careless. Heh.

[Dr. Sylvan]

And now I have a scuffed-up but mechanically sufficient bicycle available to me on campus. Let's see if I can stick to using it.

I award myself one Gold Star for making it over 100 miles on the bike in the past four weeks (105 total, 15 of them today). And the trend is more use, not less, each week.

I'm down to 210 lbs, though the weight loss is probably slowing due to muscles accumulating in my legs that were previously quite atrophied.

How are you guys doing with your efforts?

[Matt]

Well after moving back home temporarily I gained a couple pounds (my mom is an amazing cook), but have been working them off. If the scale at the gym is to believed I'm back down to 270 and hopefully heading lower.

I never liked exercise bikes because they're so inefficient at burning calories; on the elliptical machines I can do 1000/hour. But, as they say, the best exercise is the one you will do.

[Bram]

I've lost 3.6 kg at this point (8 lbs). I've been seriously 'at it' for a little over a month now. I stagnated a little because of my birthday etc. but am on the tright track once again. Not there yet by a long shot, but I'm more motivated than ever.

[Bram]

4.1 kg (9 lbs) and counting.

I use an excel sheet to monitor my progress, which really helps me stay on the right track. It's like having Bill Gates for a dietician! One of the cooler features is that, if you enter your weight, height, age, calory intake (your diet) and your activity level, it calculates your theoretical weight loss curve using a first order differential equation based on the Harris-Benedict formulae for basal energy consumption. Since the formula is different for females, I made two worksheets. I converted everything to you silly american units for those who want to try it out.

Here it is.

It's pretty self-explanatory ocne your realise you're only supposed to fill out the yellow cells, but any questions may be posted here. I've entered October 1st as the starting date, and let it run for a year.

[kl0wn]

Officially 190 now according to Leviat's scale, which may or may not be adjusted to accomodate his figure (now watch me get banned again for that comment). I'm up a pants size too. Fear my 34 inch waist.

Oh, and long periods of cardiovascular activity are bad, especially for those of you headed in the opposite direction of muhself.

[Matt]

Can you explain why?

[kl0wn]

Can you explain why?

Certainly.

Prolonged cardiovascular activity on an empty stomach causes your body to catabolize muscle mass since it needs something to use as fuel and there's nothing else available other than fat.

Your body prefers to break down muscle before it breaks down fat as a result of thousands of years of human evolution. Fat retention is a survival tool, since in times of famine, it would be used as an energy source, but only when you have no muscle left.

To further expand on this, muscle burns calories despite activity. If you have a ton of muscle, you will burn a lot of calories even sitting on your can watching television. Fat does not burn calories at all. Again, in a time of famine, having a large amount of muscle on your frame would actually contribute to you starving to death.

Thusly, if you keep up the prolonged cardio, especially while consuming minimal calories, you will end up as what they call "skinny-fat". Essentially you'll have no mass to you other than bones and hanging skin with a layer of fat in-between. That's how I was for the past 3 or 4 years. I wasn't a skinny guy with a high metabolism, I was actually borderline anorexic and weak as a kitten due to almost complete absence of any kind of muscle.

That got a little tangential, but thar's the basic gist of it.

So prolonged cardio (over 20-30 minutes) on an empty stomach eats muscle and you need muscle to burn calories. You need to burn calories (amongst a few other things) to lose fat.

So you have two choices if you want cardiovascular activity to work:

1) Get on your treadmill with a steak in each hand and bite on them while you walk/run/jog for an hour and a half.

2) Do high intensity interval training. Essentially take your ass to the suburbs, walk for a couple of blocks to get warmed up, then sprint at top speed for a block or two until you feel you're going to die, then walk for another couple of blocks until you've recovered, then sprint again...wash, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum for about 20 or 30 minutes.

Then eat a meal containing 66% carbohydrates with a high glycemic index (but not soda or anything like that containing fructose, ie: corn syrup, fruit juice) and 33% of a quickly absorbed form of protein (avoid soy like the plague) afterwards. Ideally, you'd want 50 grams of d-glucose and 25 grams of whey hydrolysate, but a proper amount of fat free chocolate milk would work. Although the protein source in milk is digested slowly, the carbohydrate surge should cause an insulin spike that will protect muscle mass while the casein from the milk is being broken down.

Yeah, that wasn't very Q 'n' D.

[Often Lost]

I'm with kl0wn on this. I lost a ton of weight just by quitting drinking soda (cold turkey) and junk food about 8 months ago and using common sense when checking the backs of food I eat. I don't know exactly how healthy this is, but I went from 165 to being stuck around 138-140 from doing this. Because of this I absolutely can't drink soda or any candy/junk food without feeling sick later.   

[Matt]

I seem to be stuck right at 270. It's high, but not THAT high when you consider I'm 6'3". I would like to weight 220-230, I would be very happy with that. Perhaps I should focus more on adding muscle.

@klown: Thanks, I MUCH prefer the long, extensive info to the Q'n'D. And I actually would eat steak while on the machine if I owned my own, but the gym frowns on that sort of thing.

[kl0wn]

I seem to be stuck right at 270. It's high, but not THAT high when you consider I'm 6'3". I would like to weight 220-230, I would be very happy with that. Perhaps I should focus more on adding muscle.

Why stop at 220-230? Set your goals higher so if you fail, you'll at least end up with better-than-average results. But failure shouldn't be allowed. And I've found it helpful to not be nice to your body compisition. I have a guinea pig right now and I've taught her to think of herself as a "miserable, disgusting, grotesue, fat bitch". Just like I learned to regard myself as a "scrawny, weak, pathetic, frail, dainty little wimp with a bunch of useless ugly flesh attached".

Here is my mantra:
"I hate my body for looking the way it does, so I will go into every workout to beat it into submission; turning it to mush and sculpting that mush into what I want. My body is not who I am, it is a distortion of who I am. It is not a part of me right now, it is the bastard stepchild that shall remain locked in the basement until it learns to be perfect. Only then will it be allowed out."

Couple that with whenever I look in the mirror and think I look somewhat decent, I see things that could be improved. Simply put: yeah, I'm making progress, but it's not nearly good enough. Time to buckle down and get back to work.

So when my guinea pig comes up to me and says "hey, I dropped a couple of pants sizes" I tell her she's still fat and gross and to get back to work.

When she first started, she claimed to have thyroid problems, a slow metabolism and all that crap that helps people avoid responsibility for their poor body composition. I too blamed a high metabolism. Now I know it was borderline anorexia. I had manorexia, which is quite the girly affliction. I beat myself up about it and then drown my sorrows in a cup of oatmeal and protein powder every day.

The only thing responsible for my shitty body composition is my own bitch ass. I am responsible; I did this to myself. But because I am responsible for it, I have the power to change it. I am in control and I have been all along, I just wouldn't accept it. I do now though, and I shall destroy my weak, responsibility-dodging alterego.

Be harsh to your fat or lack of muscle. Be harsh to your excuses, your laziness and your negativity. You don't want them and you don't need them. They aren't you, they're parasites preventing you from being you. Kill them. Take control; take hold of your life and your body. Don't settle for anything less than your ideal. Don't settle for acceptable, become awesome. Because you can once you take responsibility for it all.

Just some food for thought.

@klown: Thanks, I MUCH prefer the long, extensive info to the Q'n'D. And I actually would eat steak while on the machine if I owned my own, but the gym frowns on that sort of thing.

Anytime.

And you should ALWAYS focus more on adding muscle. Increased muscle mass causes you to burn more calories at rest. If you're weight training regularly and getting proper nutrition and sleep, it will force your body to retain the muscle because it will think you need it and instead look to burning fat for fuel as long as long as a couple of other conditions are met which I'll get into in a bit.

My approach to this for the time being is to eat just about everything (well, within reason) constantly in combination with regular weight training in order to pack on as much muscle mass as possible. I don't worry about gaining fat, because once I hit about 250 or so on the scale, then I'm actually going on a diet (and by "diet", I mean cutting maybe 50-100 calories per week for a month or two) to get rid of whatever fat I have. The reason for the wait is that it will be a hell of a lot easier to get rid of the fat when I've got about 40 more pounds of muscle working for me. Plus I'll look better nekkid when the fat starts dropping off.

I'm going to drop a few nuggets of wisdom on you in regards to the nutrition:

Forget dieting. Eat MORE. By eating more, your metabolism will speed up. By eating less, your body will think that it's in a time of famine and CLING to fat deposits.

Eat MORE OFTEN. 6-8 meals or "snacks" every day. Eat every 2 or 3 hours and keep each meal or "snack" around 400 calories. By eating more often and a uniform amount each time, in addition to speeding up your metabolism, you keep your blood sugar level and avoid insulin spikes. Don't consume more than 800 calories in one sitting, because your body can only utilize about that much at any given time and the rest will be stored as fat. There is one exception to this which I'll get into shortly.

More about insulin spikes:

What is an insulin spike?

Say you haven't eaten anything for about 6 hours. Then you go to the chinese buffet (or anywhere else where you're eating massive amounts of food)and absolutely gorge yourself. You know that feeling you get where you're all groggy and sleepy afterwards? That's an insulin spike. A good example of this is on the film "Supersize Me" when the dude eats his first supersized value meal and basically dies afterwards. He calls the feeling "the Mc Brick". That's an insulin spike. It's when your blood sugar is low from either not eating or not eating enough and then it shoots up due to consuming large amounts of food at one time, especially carbohydrates with a high glycemic index.

Insulin spikes are bad (with one exception) and they are one of the two major causes of fat gain. What happens is that your blood sugar elevates quickly and insulin drives whatever nutrients you just consumed into wherever they're stored.

In the case of carbohydrates, your body converts them to glucose which is stored as glycogen in muscles (the stuff that gives your muscles energy and the reason why people are weak and look scrawny and "deflated" when on low-carb or no-carb diets is because their glycogen stores are constantly depleted). If your glycogen stores are full when this happens, the glucose is stored as fat.

In the case of fat, your body drives the fat into adipose deposits that make up love handles and everything else.

In the case of protein, well...don't worry about that.

Nutrient Timing:

Aside from eating constantly, the most effective thing that will prevent you from gaining fat is nutrient timing. Just as there are rules for owning magwai, there are rules for owning yourself (but in a good way).

1) Do not feed them after midnight.
2) Do not get them wet.

Now that's wonderful for preventing your magwai from multiplying and turning into hideous beasts that break stuff, but what about your love handles, spare tire, kissing thighs and bitch tits?

1) Carbohydrates early, fats late.
  1b) Fresh green leafy vegetables are good anytime, especially raw.
2) Do NOT mix carbohydrates and fats.

Number 2 should really be number 1, but I figured I'd keep in the spirit of mysterious chinese men by stating the most important thing last.

The reason for having your carbohydrates early and your fats late is simple: your body is more capable of processing these nutrients at different times in the day. It's better at processing carbohydrates early on and better at processing fats later.

Now for mixing carbs and fats, DO NOT DO IT. The majority of the reasons are explained in the insulin spike section above. That, and they interfer with your body's processing of each of them. Fats are processed slowly and carbohydrates are generally processed quickly, depending on what kind they are.

This is why we have such an obesity epidemic here in the US: because most foods that are convenient contain both carbohydrates and fats (that, and people still stick to the 3 meals/day routine). If you look at a nutrition list at a fast food joint, you'll see that a burger contains about 30-40 grams of carbohydrates, 30-40 grams of fat and about 20 grams of protein.

So here's how this plays out for the typical unenlightened human:

You're awake for 16 hours every day ideally. You eat 3 meals per day. That comes out to a meal every five and a half hours. Insulin spike city. And if it's a cheeseburger with a soda and fries or something, it's mixing equal amounts of fat and carbohydrates with said insulin spike. Plus, most people don't do any glycogen-depleting excersizes so their glycogen stores are full and both the carbohydrates AND fats are stored as fat. And quickly I might add.

Fat:

Wait a second. Have I been alluding to actively consuming fat? Why yes, yes I have. Fat is good. Fat burns fat. By consuming fat, your body will let go of more of it's precious anti-famine fat stores because you have an increased supply of it. Your body will think "oh, I have plenty of fat coming in, I'm not being starved, I can get rid of this extra stuff I was saving for a rainy day". Especially if you're getting the right kinds of fats. You hear of omega 3 fats all over the place, but nobody really mentions omega 6 fats and saturated fats. You need these too. They are required for brain health and healthy hormone levels such as our good friend testosterone. High testosterone levels contribute to burning more fat and building and keeping more muscle, which in turn burns more fat. Think of fat as a weaker, legal form of steroids that don't shrink your balls and give you woman breasts or liver damage. This is because the increased testosterone is not exogenous. Your body makes it, so your body regulates it and it's totally under control and more healthy from it. But still keep an eye on the saturated fats, since they can still fill up those adipose deposits.

Unsaturated fats (omega 3 and omega 6) won't be stored as fat, but they'll cause you're body to let go of fat stores. Which is a dirty little trick that is very effective; it's like cheating. Olive oil is a good source of omega 6 fat whilst fish oil is a good source of omega 3. Safflour oil is another very good source of omega 6, and it's marketted by supplement companies as CLA or Conjugated Linoleic Acid, but the stuff is at least $20 for a month's supply. I'd much rather drop that $20 on 6 months worth of olive oil. Just don't cook with the stuff because when you do, it hydrogenates and converts to saturated fat, which you still need a bit of, but it's better consumed in cheese because that stuff is loaded with protein too.


So now you should be avoiding insulin spikes like you would an ebola-infected monkey. Good. Now you should be scraping that baked potato and rolls off your dinner plate and smothering your slab of meat with cheese instead. Good. But now you're thinking "What was this exception you kept mentioning? When do all of these rules go out the window?"

The answer is post-workout.

If you kill yourself in the gym lifting weights or whatever, an insulin spike is good. It turns your body from a catabolic state (breaking down muscle for fuel) into an anabolic state (building and repairing muscle). You want to eat the 66% high GI carbs and 33% highly bioavailable protein combination immediately afterwards that I mentioned before.

You can also get away with mixing carbohydrates and fats shortly after this since your body will utilize damn near all of it, but I wouldn't suggest it if you want to maximize results for muscle gain that leads to fat loss. Stick to another 33/66 protein and carb meal about an hour or so after your immediate post-workout meal.

I would definitely replace any hour of mild to moderate-intensity cardio with an hour of hard weight training though. It will work much more synergetically than just jogging or whatever as long as you stick to good compound lifts.

[leviat]

Dear lord... if I knew I could learn stuff like this form TMD... I wouldn't have stopped reading it. kl0wn... when did you become such a nutrition freak?

[kl0wn]

Dear lord... if I knew I could learn stuff like this form TMD... I wouldn't have stopped reading it. kl0wn... when did you become such a nutrition freak?

Ever since I decided to be a pornstar. I figured I needed to get jacked (or at least look good nekkid) to be successful.

More seriously though, what do you think I've been doing with my free time since I haven't been keeping on top of the Magic thing?

I realized that it wasn't going to happen overnight, so I started researching everything I could get my eyes on to expedite the entire process. Unfortunately, it's still not going as fast as I'd hoped, so I've had to really commit to upping the calorie intake. I've also had to forego "eating clean" like I've outlined in this thread since it's almost impossible to get to 5,000 calories/day by eating perfectly healthy food, and even then it takes a huge time investment and a TON of money. I really hate junk food too. Peanuts rock out though; one elbow of 'em provides around 3,000 calories and the pound I got at the gorcery store in Waterbury ran me just under three bux. Unfortunately I started feeling sick after having consumed the first half.

Did you know that one Pop Tart contains 220 calories? Seriously kids, don't try this at home.

The nutrition is only one aspect of it though. There are also the sadistic, brutal lifting sessions that must be engaged in every couple of days. And I'm not talking about picking up some dumbells and curling them for 20 minutes either. But that's a horse of a different color.

[Shock Wave]

I realized that it wasn't going to happen overnight, so I started researching everything I could get my eyes on to expedite the entire process. Unfortunately, it's still not going as fast as I'd hoped, so I've had to really commit to upping the calorie intake. I've also had to forego "eating clean" like I've outlined in this thread since it's almost impossible to get to 5,000 calories/day by eating perfectly healthy food, and even then it takes a huge time investment and a TON of money.

Great posts Bryce. That's part of the dogma I've been following for some 6 years now. I'm not sure what your goals are, but I assume by what you've stated above that you're trying to build muscle while giving up any attempt to stay lean in the process.  That's understandable, as many fitness enthusiasts I've discussed the issue with agree that it is very difficult to stay lean and build muscle at the same time. On the other hand, I've seen some very lean bodies grow at a typically unachievable rate (drug free). It really depends on a variety of factors, genetics being one of the big ones (in my opinion), and the others being the amount of effort you put towards a strict diet, regimen, and rest.

In my experiences, I've never had trouble staying lean, but it is very difficult for me to put on muscle. When I started training and dieting seriously, I was a scrawny 130 at appx. 15-18%. I'm now 170 at appx. 10-12%, but I was at my heaviest last summer at 185, 12%. I've since lost 15lbs because I was simply unable to keep up what had been an extremely diligent eating pattern that had me up to almost 3500 *clean* calories a day. I just thought I'd add this in to support your claim that it is probably impossible for the average male to eat 5000 clean calories in one day (unless you're using steroids, GH, etc). For those who don't believe it, give it a shot. It is really difficult to understand how much clean food amounts to 5000 calories. It is a hell of lot. I was able to keep up a diet of 3200-3500/day for about 8 months before the costs became prohibitive and the lifestyle started having a real psychological toll on me. I was no longer interested in spending a good portion of my days eating and preparing meals on a clockwork basis. The force-feeding was also becoming painful, and with my final semester of school ahead of me, I decided to forsake my fanatical muscle mentality. Not surprisingly, my body practically flushed the added weight I gained (muscle included) during my 8-month eating spree. It's almost as if my body has decided what the ideal weight for itself is, and won't go any higher except under exceptional circumstances.

That being said, although I don't recommend it, I experienced incredible muscle gains during the period where I was forcing more clean calories into my body. If you're serious about building muscle, I can't stress how important clean, whole foods are to the process. I'm sure you knew that already, I just thought I'd tell my story seeing as how I've gone down that road before.

[Saucemaster]

In my experiences, I've never had trouble staying lean, but it is very difficult for me to put on muscle. When I started training and dieting seriously, I was a scrawny 130 at appx. 15-18%. I'm now 170 at appx. 10-12%, but I was at my heaviest last summer at 185, 12%. I've since lost 15lbs because I was simply unable to keep up what had been an extremely diligent eating pattern that had me up to almost 3500 *clean* calories a day.

This is good to hear, Shock Wave--I started at a (leaner, but still scrawny) 6' tall, 130 lbs in January of this year, before I got serious about training and dieting.  I'm at 165--got there fairly quickly--and hit a fucking brick wall.  I've been eating about 3700 calories a day for a while (the eating is so much harder than the working out, thank God for blenders), and unfortunately it seems like my body has decided to quit adding any lean weight.  So I've gone into a cutting phase more or less out of necessity for a little while.  It's good to know that others -- and I remember you, man, you're in great shape -- also experience the same kind of thing.  It gets a little discouraging otherwise.

One thing I will say to anyone else whose genetics are getting in the way of muscle gain--once you've stalled out, you need to a) vary your exercises (which I think most people know), but also b) take it down a notch.  Your workouts should still leave you weak and shuddering in the corner at the end, but you should do them less frequently, because part of the reason you've stalled is that you're overtraining.  I finally broke through a plateau recently, and in the last eight weeks have managed to add about 25 lbs to my bench, and a lot more to my squat, by cutting back on the number of workout days and giving my body a chance to better recuperate.  This is so far having no effect on my bodyweight, but in the end that's not what I'm primarily concerned with, anyway.

[kl0wn]

Great posts Bryce. That's part of the dogma I've been following for some 6 years now. I'm not sure what your goals are, but I assume by what you've stated above that you're trying to build muscle while giving up any attempt to stay lean in the process.

There's a "yes" and a "no" to that. The logic behind forcefeeding myself junk food (I really hate the stuff and always have, but it's just too damn difficult and expensive to get 4 steaks or chickens a day in addition to everything else) is that any fat I gain will be a lot easier to strip off if I have a ton of muscle backing it up. So while I have discarded the idea of being a total health nazi for a while, I haven't set my sights on becoming Jabba The Hutt. The funny thing is that I'm basically just supplementing my normally healthy diet with crap like Pop Tarts, much like someone would take a daily multivitamin.

Basically, I'm going to worry about being fat when I'm fat. Until then, if I see a cheeseburger, Imma eat the mofo.

That's understandable, as many fitness enthusiasts I've discussed the issue with agree that it is very difficult to stay lean and build muscle at the same time. On the other hand, I've seen some very lean bodies grow at a typically unachievable rate (drug free). It really depends on a variety of factors, genetics being one of the big ones (in my opinion), and the others being the amount of effort you put towards a strict diet, regimen, and rest.

I haven't really had a problem building muscle up to this point; I've gained about 30lbs. since I started back in April or whatever and I still look like I have about the same amount of fat as I did when I started. I'm guessing maybe 10 lbs. of it was fat and the rest muscle. But I'm not satisfied with my rate of progression. Of course now that I think about it and actually do the math, that's probably the best I'm going to be able to do since it comes out to putting on about a pound of muscle every week. But I'm still not satisfied. I don't allow myself to let genetics factor into the equation either, because they're beyond my control. And if I start thinking that I have bad genes, I might start feeling powerless over the situation and just plain quit instead of pushing myself harder. So genetics are irrelevent and I'll have no discussions about them. I've heard so many people tell me they have a "slow metabolism" when they're trying to lose fat and I myself have said that I have a "fast metabolism" and let myself get away with not making progress in the beginning. It's all crap. Because if it's not crap, then I have a reason to not reach my goals.

In my experiences, I've never had trouble staying lean, but it is very difficult for me to put on muscle. When I started training and dieting seriously, I was a scrawny 130 at appx. 15-18%. I'm now 170 at appx. 10-12%, but I was at my heaviest last summer at 185, 12%. I've since lost 15lbs because I was simply unable to keep up what had been an extremely diligent eating pattern that had me up to almost 3500 *clean* calories a day. I just thought I'd add this in to support your claim that it is probably impossible for the average male to eat 5000 clean calories in one day (unless you're using steroids, GH, etc). For those who don't believe it, give it a shot. It is really difficult to understand how much clean food amounts to 5000 calories. It is a hell of lot. I was able to keep up a diet of 3200-3500/day for about 8 months before the costs became prohibitive and the lifestyle started having a real psychological toll on me. I was no longer interested in spending a good portion of my days eating and preparing meals on a clockwork basis. The force-feeding was also becoming painful, and with my final semester of school ahead of me, I decided to forsake my fanatical muscle mentality. Not surprisingly, my body practically flushed the added weight I gained (muscle included) during my 8-month eating spree. It's almost as if my body has decided what the ideal weight for itself is, and won't go any higher except under exceptional circumstances.

Wow. That really sucks.

That being said, although I don't recommend it, I experienced incredible muscle gains during the period where I was forcing more clean calories into my body. If you're serious about building muscle, I can't stress how important clean, whole foods are to the process. I'm sure you knew that already, I just thought I'd tell my story seeing as how I've gone down that road before.

Oh yes. I understand perfectly and I really appreciate your take on it, which I'm in total agreement with. The unfortunate part is that I can't keep just to the clean whole foods that I enjoy so much. Honestly, I would prefer having excess fat that I was trying to get rid of, which is ridiculously easy to do compared to this, instead of trying to go from where I started at 160 lbs. to my goal of 250 or more with the same or less body fat. That's like 100 lbs. That's like almost another human. I'm trying to grow a midget here.

And the reason why I've set my goals so high is because I've been there before. When I was about 14, I weighed in at a hefty 230, but it was almost all fat. That came about from eating a box or more of Ho Hos every day along with drinking large amounts of alcohol almost every night while moving very little and that all happened over the course of about 6 months (I started out at about 180). While it was great for when I was playing football (how many 15 year-olds are well over 200 lbs.?) , I was miserable and was carrying around a C-cup with the bitch tits. Plus I had shin splints, which REALLY sucked when I had to run.

It gradually started coming off as my "high"  metabolism kicked in and then I went all emo before emo was emo and stopped eating almost altogether when I was about 16. The manorexia lasted about nine years and unfortunately for me, when I decided to get to work on stuff last winter, I was weak as a kitten. When I first stepped into the gym, I had difficulty bench-pressing an olympic barbell; I couldn't even press 45 lbs. Then all the bigger kids laughed at me. I figured I was wasting my time and money though, on account of not knowing what I was doing. That, coupled with the abundance of naked old men drying their balls with the hair dryers and generally parading their equipment around the locker room led me to stop wasting the $50/month on a gym membership. Honestly...they give you towels for a reason.

Then I just decided to pony up $400 for an almost complete home gym setup. It was either that or replace some of the power I had to part with for the TMDC3. I think I made the correct decision and it worked out anyway since my home gym model is called the "Power 9". Heh.

I still had relatively no clue though, because I bought it partially on account of all the pulleys and whatnot that it has and now I've learned that pulleys suck for actually trying to develop strength. Fortunately it has a lot of free weight stuff too, so it wasn't a total waste. But had I known then what I know now, I would've invested in a power rack. But they don't sell power racks at Dicks, so I have no idea where I'd have bought one.

I blame all that on my "beach muscles" friend though, because for a while I tried to copy his routine since he was my only source of information. Man...that guy's an idiot. He's all upper body and nothing else. He'd occasionally come over to my place after I got my gym to get some lifting in (once a week or so) about a month ago and try to keep up with my routine, but he'd always sit out when it came time for something other than upper body stuff. He'd be like "so what are we doing today?" and I'd say we were going to start things off with overhead squats and he'd start whining, then go outside or sulk around my apartment whilst I was getting my squat on. Then when I was done, he'd be all like "I can still bench more than you". Then I'd kick him in the lower back and he'd crumple like an accordion. Yeah...bench press that, jackass.

Yep. I do tend to ramble at times.

Edit:

Saucemaster: do you deadlift?

[Jacob Orlove]

trying to go from where I started at 160 lbs. to my goal of 250 or more with the same or less body fat. That's like 100 lbs. That's like almost another human. I'm trying to grow a midget here.

That post was long enough that some people will miss that line if I don't quote it.

[Saucemaster]

I haven't been deadlifting in my last cycle (I do an 8-10 wk cycle of increasing intensity, then take a week off where I do just mild cardio to give my system a chance to recuperate a little, then start all over again--the idea being to increase the poundages, or at least the reps, each week; by week two or three I'm usually doing my max from the previous cycle).  I did during the cycle before that, and will be again this next cycle (I have one week left in this one).  I have to be careful with legs simply because they're so much more demanding on your nervous system than anything else, and it's easy to overtrain if you do too much with them.

Generally I agree with you about genetic considerations, btw, but seriously, dropping the number of workout days (and worksets per workout), while incredibly hard at first (because it felt like I was wimping out), is the only thing that's worked in breaking through the plateau I hit after the first four-to-five months of training.  I can't argue with the results.  There's a lot of truth in what Zherbus said (I think above, in this thread): most of the routines that you see in shit like "Men's Health" and such is really intended for guys on 'roids, or guys with a ridiculous genetic predisposition to muscle-gain.  For most people, it just leads to complete failure due to overtraining.  So in that sense, failing to take into account his natural predisposition to muscle-building might lead someone to train *less* effectively by pushing too hard.  As long as you're actually making gains, though, I agree, take no prisoners.

[kl0wn]

I haven't been deadlifting in my last cycle (I do an 8-10 wk cycle of increasing intensity, then take a week off where I do just mild cardio to give my system a chance to recuperate a little, then start all over again--the idea being to increase the poundages, or at least the reps, each week; by week two or three I'm usually doing my max from the previous cycle).  I did during the cycle before that, and will be again this next cycle (I have one week left in this one).  I have to be careful with legs simply because they're so much more demanding on your nervous system than anything else, and it's easy to overtrain if you do too much with them.

That's really complicated. I usually take a few days off every few weeks or so myself, but that's mostly just to keep up on the other aspects of my life. I haven't gotten into cycles or anything like that; I mostly try to keep it simple and focus on form since I'm still just starting out (despite being at it for like 6 months) and experimenting/disorganizing everything to keep my body's responses fresh. I'm a big fan of unstable weight, antagonistic movements and general chaos though since it keeps the mind limber and the increases in motor recruitment constant.

Generally I agree with you about genetic considerations, btw, but seriously, dropping the number of workout days (and worksets per workout), while incredibly hard at first (because it felt like I was wimping out), is the only thing that's worked in breaking through the plateau I hit after the first four-to-five months of training.  I can't argue with the results.  There's a lot of truth in what Zherbus said (I think above, in this thread): most of the routines that you see in shit like "Men's Health" and such is really intended for guys on 'roids, or guys with a ridiculous genetic predisposition to muscle-gain.  For most people, it just leads to complete failure due to overtraining.  So in that sense, failing to take into account his natural predisposition to muscle-building might lead someone to train *less* effectively by pushing too hard.  As long as you're actually making gains, though, I agree, take no prisoners.

I don't follow Men's Health or any magazines, I mostly just research studies and whatnot that I find on the internets, condense them and then incorporate them into my constantly changing routine.

I'm a firm believer in forcing my body to adapt to frequent intense training sessions, and that it will adapt if it's given the proper environment. It used to be that it took me over a week to recover from deadlifts before I could do squats, but now I alternate between squats and deads every 3 days or so before getting into the rest of my routine. I've found that I don't feel completely wrecked afterwards either; I feel more like an animal who just can't lift heavy things anymore. And then I go on to eat a massive amount of food, then I'm sore the next day, then on the next day I'm not, then I get back to work the day after that.

The reason why I asked if you deadlift though, was because you mentioned reaching a plateau, which I did for a bit too and that was the thing that made it go away for me.

That, and eating more. Of course lately I haven't been gaining as much mass, although the mass that I had gained before has been getting much harder and more dense, which is defintely fun times.

Next on my agenda are getting some chains and sandbags, whilst adapting to consuming whole milk.

[Hyperion]

I wanted to mention a couple resources that I found out about near the beginning of the summer, and have had a chance to "field test" in the months since:

1. "Beyond Brawn", by Stuart McRobert, is probably the single best resource I've found in the 5 years I've been lifting. I highly recommend it. It's rather long-winded at times, but it's very thorough. It covers ideas for routines, nutrition, you name it - and is geared specifically towards hardgainers. I never thought it was possible for someone to talk about weight training for 500 pages, but apparently I was wrong. Has anyone else read this? What did you think of it?

2. Sort of related to #1, since McRobert talks a lot about them in his book, is incorporating fractional plates into your routine. The idea behind these is that little gains over a long period of time add up to big gains, that you wouldn't have been able to make otherwise (being constrained to 5-lb increments that most gyms will limit you to). I bought a set a few months ago and they made me a believer. http://www.fractionalplates.com/fractional.html if you want more info.

I still subscribe to magazines like Muscle and Fitness. Yes, you have to be discreet in what you take away from them, but I think they have a lot of good ideas too. Especially the nutrition articles, which is mainly what I follow now that I base my routine on what I read in Beyond Brawn.

I love the deadlift - it's my absolute favorite lift and I think there are few that give you as much bang for your buck. The squat is a close second for me. I would normally insert a comment here about the girly men that neglect lower body work, but it would pale in comparison to anything kl0wn could come up with. So I'll just leave it at that. If one doesn't have lower back problems,  it's hard to make a case for not building a routine around either or both of these lifts (in my opinion). Assuming you have access to a gym with a squat rack, that is.

[Saucemaster]

1. "Beyond Brawn", by Stuart McRobert, is probably the single best resource I've found in the 5 years I've been lifting. I highly recommend it. It's rather long-winded at times, but it's very thorough. It covers ideas for routines, nutrition, you name it - and is geared specifically towards hardgainers. I never thought it was possible for someone to talk about weight training for 500 pages, but apparently I was wrong. Has anyone else read this? What did you think of it?

I read "Brawn" a few months ago, which is when I realized I was overtraining.  I need to buy Beyond Brawn still, but I've been lazy and put it off so far.  McRobert is amazing.

[kl0wn]

I love the deadlift - it's my absolute favorite lift and I think there are few that give you as much bang for your buck. The squat is a close second for me. I would normally insert a comment here about the girly men that neglect lower body work, but it would pale in comparison to anything kl0wn could come up with. So I'll just leave it at that. If one doesn't have lower back problems,  it's hard to make a case for not building a routine around either or both of these lifts (in my opinion). Assuming you have access to a gym with a squat rack, that is.

Actually, I think deadlifts are excellent for people with lower back problems too. I occasionally wake up with serious lower back pain from my (or someone else's) crappy mattress and after deadlifting I feel 100%.

And even if you don't have access to a gym with a squat rack, you can still do lower-body related stuff. Just pick the damn thing up off the floor. That's how I do my dealifts anyway...anything else is just a rack pull. Bust out some crazy olympic style lifts and get jacked. Seriously. I'd be doing that kind of stuff, but my landlord probably wouldn't like the holes in the floor if I lost control of the weight. I'm guessing a gym wouldn't either, but they usually have better floors than an early 20th century house with hardwood.

What the hell kind of gym doesn't have a squat rack anyway? Anybody who would open a gym without a squat rack is a moron and should be forcefed their pink polo.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Today I'm pretty damn pleased with myself because I got down to 200 lbs, my goal for 2005.

And to those who may be following this thread in disbelief at the extent of Bryce's (and others') efforts, you should know that I've never been nearly that stringent with my diet, and I pretty much just bicycle (with a little lifting here and there), and it still works. You don't have to do everything optimally for your body to reward you with improvements; the optimization is really fine-tuning. I urge anyone (especially as Magic players are well known for certain fitness and nutrition stereotypes) to try whatever they can, even if the intensive route isn't for you.

Weight change also isn't terribly fast most of the time. Putting on my I-make-text-charts hat for a moment, here's my weight loss this semester since I started biking:

Date: pounds +X (X = weight - 180)
2005-08-21: 216 ------------------------------------ +36
2005-08-28: 214 ---------------------------------- +34
2005-09-04: 212 -------------------------------- +32
2005-09-11: 211 ------------------------------- +31
2005-09-18: 210 ------------------------------ +30
2005-09-25: 209 ----------------------------- +29
2005-10-02: 205 ------------------------- +25
2005-10-09: 209 ----------------------------- +29
2005-10-16: 207 --------------------------- +27
2005-10-23: 205 ------------------------- +25
2005-10-30: 202 ---------------------- +22
2005-11-06: 200 -------------------- +20

Gradual change adds up. And you feel much, much healthier.

[Saucemaster]

That's awesome, Pip, congratulations.

[kl0wn]

And to those who may be following this thread in disbelief at the extent of Bryce's (and others') efforts, you should know that I've never been nearly that stringent with my diet, and I pretty much just bicycle (with a little lifting here and there), and it still works. You don't have to do everything optimally for your body to reward you with improvements; the optimization is really fine-tuning. I urge anyone (especially as Magic players are well known for certain fitness and nutrition stereotypes) to try whatever they can, even if the intensive route isn't for you.

I wholeheartedly agree with that. Just move around, stop eating the bad "food" (or eat the bad food along with EVERYTHING else if you're 20-30 lbs. underweight) and pick up heavy stuff. The only reason I've been spouting off about the details and technicalities of the process is to explain the method behind the madness. That, and for those who wish to get into the technicalities and details. But if the technicalities and details don't do it for you, then eat better/more (metabolism follows consumption), move around and pick up heavy stuff.

Weight change also isn't terribly fast most of the time. Putting on my I-make-text-charts hat for a moment, here's my weight loss this semester since I started biking:

Date: pounds +X (X = weight - 180)
2005-08-21: 216 ------------------------------------ +36
2005-08-28: 214 ---------------------------------- +34
2005-09-04: 212 -------------------------------- +32
2005-09-11: 211 ------------------------------- +31
2005-09-18: 210 ------------------------------ +30
2005-09-25: 209 ----------------------------- +29
2005-10-02: 205 ------------------------- +25
2005-10-09: 209 ----------------------------- +29
2005-10-16: 207 --------------------------- +27
2005-10-23: 205 ------------------------- +25
2005-10-30: 202 ---------------------- +22
2005-11-06: 200 -------------------- +20

Gradual change adds up. And you feel much, much healthier.

Nice. Congratulations, Phil. Your progress may not look like anything special compaired to those fad diets like Atkins and whatnot that you see on TV, but if you think about it, you've actually made more progress than those who have just changed their eating habits alone (and at a more healthy rate than just dropping 20 indiscriminate lbs. in a month). See, the scale should be the last thing that matters since muscle is more dense than fat and thusly weighs more. By becoming more physically active, you've undoubtedly added muscle whilst losing fat, so the fat loss should be more than what is alluded to by your chart there, ie: more than 16 lbs.

Forget the scale; body composition should be the name of the game. For those of you who really bust your ass trying to lose "weight", if you step on the scale and don't see much of a change after some time at it, that's a GOOD thing. It means that you're not losing indiscriminate mass, you're losing the right kind of mass. If you lose 9 lbs. of fat and gain 7 lbs. of muscle, the scale will tell you that you've only lost 2 lbs. But you'll look and feel a hell of a lot better than that.