How many pull ups can you do?

[PlayerHader]

Actually T-BONE, the diet program has a built in calorie surplus if you choose according to their guidelines. If you want to cut weight you need to bump down a level or so in their recommended levels.

[Gobias Industries]

I rely heavily on Subway mostly because I don't trust myself to cook anything decent for me. I need to spend some time in the kitchen, I know.

Skinless chicken breasts on a foreman grill are easy. I have that for dinner a couple nights a week. At my local pick n save, they have a pack of six individually wrapped organic breasts for 9.99. Throw a little hot sauce on the side for dipping and it's a healthy meal that takes 5 minutes to cook. I usually side that with brown rice and a blended smoothie consisting of spinach, banana, 1 orange, 1 apple, slice of ginger, and any other veggies laying around.

 

As for whey protein shakes (soy based), I've been trying to ween myself off them. I don't like what I've read about soy. Alternatives I've used are organic hemp protein (mixed with my fruit and veggie smoothie) and the last three weeks I've been drinking a blended mixture of a plain greek yogurt, skim milk, ovaltine mix, ice and a banana for my recovery shake. Tastes great, and it's a staple among marathon runners.

[southpaw121505]

Southpaw

 

Thanks for the tips....I will get put my goal at 2500 calories a day...and start from there.

 

I work from home and generally work out from Noon to 1 Pm on Mon, Tues, Wed and Friday. (MW, I have been doing the p90x Weight workout, on Fridays I have been doing the upper body Weight training videos from the Insanity program...one of the bonus CD's that mixes Cardio with weight lifting)

 

I am pretty good at mixing in Cardio workouts, from Treadmill, elipitcal, biking outside, Swimming, basketball and occasionally jogging....I will try to get up in the morning and get in some cardio before breakfast (not a morning person, and have to get a daughter off to school, so I will have to work on that)

 

As for weight lifting.....What I struggle with is knowing what exercises to do...my upperbody has never been very developed (always have been weak), but my lower legs have always been great...I have had body builders ask me how I have such developed Calves...they must come naturally, but I have worked out with guys that are weight guys and while I could never lift what they did on upper body exercises, I could usually do whatever they were doing when doing Leg exercises.

 

do you have any specific workouts with reps that you would reccomend...assuming I did weight training MWF...

 

Thanks....i appreciate you advice.

 

I'd recommend MWF as you suggested, little more volume on upper body because: it's weaker than your lower body and your're going to hit your lower body some on cardio as well. Do your lifting program and fit in 3-5 cardio sessions a week for now. I'd shoot for one high intensity interval training cardio session and the rest can be lower intensity but make sure you get them in, even 40-60 mins on a treadmil walking or on an elliptical will help mobilize those fat storeswe want to burn for energy. Options for doing your cardio: after lifting or on off days, HIIT should be on "off" days.

 

You can google high intensity interval training(HIIT) for more examples, but you want to give maximum effort for 20-40 seconds, and then low effort, walk or jog for 1-2 minutes. What I do is start on a treadmill walking or lightly jogging and at the 2 minute mark I switch to an all out sprint for ~30 seconds. Every even number I'll sprint, 2 min mark, 4 min mark, etc. You only need to do this for 10-20 mins. Start at 10, that's only 4 sprints, so make them all out. Add more time/sprints every week.

 

fortheloveofweeks,

Add up the calories for a day every day. Use packaging, google, Subway's website. It's boring and take a few minutes out of your day, but it's a neccessary evil.

 

 

I do some sort of workout seven days a week most weeks, with a bare minimum being an hour on the elliptical or a 4 mile run either on the treadmill or outside. I've dropped about 25 pounds this year, almost all of it fat (or so my hand-held body fat monitor says), and have a lot more muscle tone than I really have ever had. I lift 5-6 days a week, rotating between a day each of upper body, core, and leg work. I keep a daily food log and limit my caloric intake to ~2300 calories a day. Usually end up with about 10-15% fat, and the remainder split between carbs (usually eaten earlier in the day) and protein.

 

What are the major disadvantages to doing what I would consider at least a moderate workout every day? Before I started doing this back in early January, I had lots of little chronic aches and pains, but they've slowly gone away as I've been hitting the gym almost every day. Am I inviting injury by working out every day? Would you recommend altering anything?

 

How does caffeine play in to a diet?

 

Awesome progress first of all. If you were going from inactive to working out I would never throw you into 7 days a week due to that injury fear, especially with tendons and ligaments. But you are very active and it sounds like your body has adjusted. If fat loss is your goal, being that active is fine as long as you are recovering from it. You just need to monitor your body, if you feel very worn down, give your body a recovery day. It becomes harder to train that often when your goal is strength gains. Strength training needs to be very intense, and very low volume. Meaning you might only do 3 sets of 3-6 reps, for only 3-4 exercises per day. If you're truly pushing your strength limits and pushing to the max in that rep range, and increasing weights consistently, then your cns will be so beat up that you'll need rest days.

 

My personal opinion is to train heavy all the time. Even when trying to cut fat. The reason is that by rocking your body and central nervous system like that, your body feels it needs to hold on to that muscle to handle the workload placed on it and is more likely to burn fat as fuel. This goes back to our optimal talk though. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I'm a perfectionist with this stuff so I'm laying out what would be a perfect scenario to simultaneously burn fat and preserve muscle. This doesn't mean other methods won't do the trick. If you like moderate activity then by all means. You're very active and I admire that.

 

 

You say P90x eats muscle to lose weight...

 

What if I don't do the diet program along with it? Will I build muscle then?

 

 

No, the diet program is fine. The training is what I don't find optimal for muscle/strength gains. If you read what I wrote about strength training above, low volume high intensity, that doesn't sound anything like p90x. Which is high volume, low intensity. I guarantee some people will dispute that, but that's because you don't understand the definition of intensity. Intensity is maximal effort in short burst, ie giving your all to get out 5 reps on a squat. P90x IS good for endurance and burning a lot of calories, which helps for fat loss. It sucks for muscle gain because the intensity is just not high enough to break down the muscle fibers that elicit muscle growth. Muscular endurance is not the same thing as muscular strength, both important and endurance can help you train with more intensity and get stronger, but they are different. Confused yet?

[greeg35]

and the caffeine question southpaw? Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[southpaw121505]

Caffeine can give you a slight boost on your metabolism, meaning more calories burned even at rest. I'm leery even saying this because caffeine is something you don't want to go overboard with. Please don't start downing coffee expecting dramatic results, and if you're new to caffeine, start slow to assess how you'll react to it. If you drink coffee already or want to try it, go for it, just realize the effect is small compared to diet and training. If those two account for 99% of results, supplements(caffeine) account for 1. If your diet and training is spot on, why not take all the extra avantages you can? Point is, it's still miniscule compared to the basics.

 

There's more on this I'll possibly get into later. I'll have to think about it, I'm not used to consulting people that I know very little about their medical history.

[milwaukeesportsfan]

I'm up to five pull ups in a row! Progress. It's a beautiful thing.

[homer]

No, the diet program is fine. The training is what I don't find optimal for muscle/strength gains. If you read what I wrote about strength training above, low volume high intensity, that doesn't sound anything like p90x. Which is high volume, low intensity. I guarantee some people will dispute that, but that's because you don't understand the definition of intensity. Intensity is maximal effort in short burst, ie giving your all to get out 5 reps on a squat. P90x IS good for endurance and burning a lot of calories, which helps for fat loss. It sucks for muscle gain because the intensity is just not high enough to break down the muscle fibers that elicit muscle growth. Muscular endurance is not the same thing as muscular strength, both important and endurance can help you train with more intensity and get stronger, but they are different. Confused yet?

I think it's important to note that P90X will increase strength and you will lose weight. BUT....you probably won't gain the same strength as you would doing a low volume, high intensity type workout. I would counter that you will lose more weight doing P90X than the other workout though. It all depends on what your workout goals are. If all you want to do is lose weight, build up your cardio endurance, and firm up your body then a program like P90X or Insanity are perfectly fine. But if you want to bulk up you should look at doing something else with more weight resistance and higher intensity (as southpaw suggests).

 

Wasn't sure if that was totally clear to everyone so I thought I'd summarize. I have a B.S. in exercise physiology so I have a little knowledge on the subject (very little...since I got the degree 15 years ago and didn't do much with it).

[southpaw121505]

I think it's important to note that P90X will increase strength and you will lose weight. BUT....you probably won't gain the same strength as you would doing a low volume, high intensity type workout.

Agreed. I still say any strength gains are more to the noob factor than because of the program design.

 

 

I would counter that you will lose more weight doing P90X than the other workout though.

 

Initially, yeah, if calorie intake doesn't change you will burn more cals through p90x. But, not much more than a standard lifting routine with less dreadful cardio sessions. The difference in cals burned is small enough that you can easily adjust your diet to put you in an equal deficit to p90x and still lose the weight. The reason I prefer that route is that I think it preserves more muscle in the long run, which helps your metabolism and keeps you burning fat. You're also more likely to stick to that type of routine if you aren't dreading every single workout.

[homer]

I'm up to 8, 6, 4 on chin ups. Yay me. I will have a celebratory beer when I can do 10, 8, 6.

[southpaw121505]

Props just for doing chins/pulls. Great movement.

 

 

Any updates? Questions? Did everyone fall off the wagon? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[milwaukeesportsfan]

I'm still only able to do about five pull ups. I can feel a breakthrough coming any day now, though. They're getting easier.

[Blindcheck]

Props just for doing chins/pulls. Great movement.

 

 

Any updates? Questions? Did everyone fall off the wagon? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I have been doing my weights MWF....i have not gotten the number of cardio sessions I need, but am working at that....as the weather gets nicer, it will become easier, as I love to get out on the bike.

 

I had been struggling with food, but just had some test results and my numbers were not so good, so I have been very dedicated to eating better in the last week....(as my daughter pointed out, that I am in search of the World's best Grilled Chicken sandwich...as that is the only thing on most menu's that isn't horrible for me...or at least isn't the great unknown when ordering off a menu)

 

Here are my test numbers.....I am getting tested again in 3 to 4 months (38 years old for reference)

 

Total Cholesterol 186 mg/dl

HDL cholesterol 30 mg/dl

Tryglcerides 230 mg/dl

LDL cholesterol 110 mg/dl

Chol/HDLC Ration 6.2

 

Glucose 89 mg/dl

Waist Circumference 44 in

Blood Pressure 130/80

 

This is the highest my Blood pressure has ever been....and My doctor has put me on Niaspan in attempts to get my good cholesterol number higher (I have been taking 1500 MG of Niaspan a day for 2 years and my good cholesterol number has not budged)

 

This is also the first time my Trygycerides have been elevated and it is the highest my LDL cholesterol has been.

 

[T B0NE 10]

What would you reccomend for supplements? I'm getting a lot of conflicting information online.

 

Whey Protein?

Creatine?

My friend uses Jack3d, how about that?

Multivitamin?

 

I'm 20 years old, 5'10 and about 160 lbs.

 

I'm about to start a round of P90x along with running and biking.

 

I'm not doing the p90x diet program. I'm mainly looking to get into shape again and build some muscle.

[And That]

I don't like creatine, but I'm not trying to add a bunch of muscle/water weight. And I'm not an expert.

 

I use Optimum Nutrition Pro Complex for protein. I like that is has a number of different kinds of protein that release at different intervals. Post-workout, I use 2:1:1 Recovery. Really impressed by how well it works.

 

I wouldn't buy either of those from the manufacturer's website, or at a GNC, though. Online discounters (like Amazon) usually have much better deals.

 

I'm down a little more than 40 pounds this year, and for the first time in my life, I can do pull-ups. I have the tall-person problem (I'm ~6'6) mentioned earlier, but now I can do 8-10 of them. I'm also up to 10 miles for running and I plan on doing my first marathon next summer.

[GAME05]

i took creatine when i lifted and noticed it gave me a lot more strength during the workout than without it. i felt like i had a little more energy, too. if you're cut already, it will help you look a little bigger, even though the size is actually just water weight in your muscle. however, when you go off of creatine, you just pee all that size gain back out.

[Gobias Industries]

What would you reccomend for supplements? I'm getting a lot of conflicting information online.

 

Whey Protein?

Creatine?

My friend uses Jack3d, how about that?

Multivitamin?

 

I'm 20 years old, 5'10 and about 160 lbs.

 

I'm about to start a round of P90x along with running and biking.

 

I'm not doing the p90x diet program. I'm mainly looking to get into shape again and build some muscle.

Pretty much what Toby said. I'd go with the Gold Standard Whey Protein before and after your workout and get the Casein Protein that you take right before bed. Order from Amazon. You have a pretty similar build to me....I'd say if you cut out bad carbs and try to eat 5-6 smallish meals a day you'll be cut in no time. After you build a base, I'd lose the Whey Protein and try to take something more natural for your protein source i.e Greek Yogurt, egg whites, etc. Cottage Cheese is a good source of Casein protein, so you could lose that supplement too. If you want to do that much cardio your gonna have to take in a TON of protein.

 

It's odd, right now it seems like i'm losing strength wrt to pullups. I'm 6'0 but have the arms of someone much taller (I can dunk easily)....but still, I went from being to doing 3 reps of 8 easily, right when I took the pullup bar out of the package. Now I'm struggling to do 3 sets of 4. I don't get it.

[southpaw121505]

Regarding the whey protein, I don't really see it as a supplement, I consider it food. It's a convenient way to get your protein in. Whey vs casein doesn't matter a whole lot. Digestion and muscle building/fat loss is a slowww process. Hitting your desired calorie and macro (carb/pro/fat) numbers over the course of the day is what matters and sometimes a protein shake is more convenient than cooking up some chicken.

 

Creatine is good for strength and recovery but everyone responds to it differently. Some may see dramatic results from while some barely notice it. Try a plain creatine monohydrate, the expensive ones are just gimmicky and not neccessary. You don't need a loading phase or any of that either, they just want you to buy more of their product. Five grams a day, at any time. Doesn't have to be around your workout. It works once it is saturated into your muscles and thats from taking it daily, no one dose is going to make a difference.

 

Jack3d is a pre workout and the main thing in it to get you ready to workout is caffeine, I use coffee for this purpose, much cheaper. If using it gets you in the zone to have awesome workouts then by all means, but it's not worth the price in my opinion.

 

I'd say everyone should take a multivitamin. Unless your diet is incredibly balanced with a lot of fruits and vegetables then most would probably benefit from a multi.

 

 

For the most part, supplements are a rip off.