>> Working out: NEED DIET ADVICE! <<

[Spidey]

Ok, so after sitting on my ass for a few years in front of a PC all day I've become rather unhappy with my overall physical condition. I'm not fat by any means, but I'm not in good shape either. Anyway, I've been going to the gym 4-6 times a week for the past 3 weeks and really pushing my body. My objective here is to get the sculpted look, "cut" not "ripped".

I've got a great routine down where I go to the gym for an hour plus almost every day, but I'm not sure what I need to be doing in my off time to help in a forward progression. Mainly my diet. So, now to my question... For you serious health fanatics, what do you eat when not in the gym? I've been eating wheat cereal for breakfast, a light lunch, and a salad and meat for dinner avoiding sugar and caffeine all day. What foods should I stay away from, and what foods are going to help my body/muscles grow? I heard someone say that they eat something right before bed after a good workout to "feed" their muscles, but I can't remember the what it was, or why really.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Bryan330i]

I am so far from an expert on the subject but I do have a couple of things that have worked for me. To start, I have always had issues of size and have never been a thin person, even at my best I am way over the ideal weight charts. I have learned to deal with it though; understanding that some things will never change-I will never be under 210-215, never.

I track my progress by body fat measuring and look at those changes. My last one was 182 lean 59 fat, total 241, 23% body fat-way too high but not that noticeable for someone to say “hey look at the fat guy.” Nevertheless, I have started to correct this problem, not to get to what the weight charts say because that would be impossible, I would have absolutely no body fat at all. My first goal is to lose 25 pounds of body fat, which would get me to 216 pounds -15% B/F.

What I have found in the past is that a diet with GREAT fluctuation works best for me. I have varied calories by 1000-2000 a day. I usually try to stick with a very good, balanced-low calorie diet with no more than 150 grams of carbs per day. I usually do this on all cardio days. When I say cardio days for me that is all cardio at a minimum of 1 hour very hard. On two days each week I do massive weights. On these days I jump calories up by a minimum of 1,000. Also, I use a very high glycemic index food like pure grape juice (rapid sugar absorption) combined with at least 25-30 grams of easily digested protein immediately after working out. Then eat a balanced meal within 1-2 hours after that, and then a small protein meal right before bed.

I have found that by doing this I have gained muscle while also getting rid of fat and your body never has time to adjust to lower calories because of the increase 2 days each week. I am far from an expert on the subject, but I have discovered that this works best for me and a lot of people seem to agree with this approach. Good luck, believe me I have far too much experience with what you are going through.

 

[junglestylz]

I am trim and in pretty good condition but I have never broken the 160lb point. (160lb point was right out of basic training)

 

[Bryan330i]

I can remember 160, I think I was 14.

 

[Spidey]

Great advice Bryan, thanks! Do you know how I should calculate my calorie intake? I'm 5'10" 190lbs if that helps. I've been going religiously 4-6 times a week to the gym. When I'm there I do 30 min of cardio to get my heart rate up, then I do about 45 min of weights. Today, I went and bought some protein shakes and bars to snack on in between meals and after working out. I also bought a jump rope so I can get an early morning cardio workout in before my day even starts. I've already cut sugar and caffeine out of my diet. Is there anything else that I need to absolutely avoid?

Once again, thank for all the help.

 

[Bryan330i]

At 5"10", 190, active male under 30, you need 4194 calories per day to maintain. This is based on fairly significant daily activity, and based on a magazine I have.

It also says:

To reduce weight, decrease your daily caloric intake by 250 calories and increase your energy expenditure (through activity and exercise) by 250 calories per day.

To increase weight, increase your daily caloric intake by 250 calories.

I disagree with this. I do better by staying around 2000-2500 on heavy cardio days and 4500 or so on heavy weight days, and sometimes even more. I gain muscle very quickly and have found that the most important factor is that protein sugar carb meal right after the weights. This helps your body a lot, it is like a super influx of fuel to rebuild. Otherwise, avoid the sugar whenever possible.

You sound like you have it together and are doing great. The only other thing I can think of is never go to bed hungry on a weight day or you run the risk of muscle cannibalism instead of fat due to the huge spike in metabolism from the workout and lack of fuel.


I also found this:
Cannibalism, on the contrary, is a reactionary process which, for our purposes, is antagonistic (hostile) to the stage of metabolism called anabolism where tissue is being repaired after exhaustive activity. In the absence of nutrients and/or following an extensive breakdown of tissue, the body has no choice but to cannibalize existing body tissues and cellular components for survival energy needs.

 

[Spidey]

Cool man. Thanks for all the info, I really appreciate it!!!

 

[Bryan330i]

No problem. It sounds like you are right there at 5'10" 190 with the working out you do. I am 5'10" also and I have thought that 190 would be a perfect weight. I have thought that if I went on a strick diet and stopped the weights for a while I could get there. But the weights are just way too much fun.

 

[PuShAkOv]

This thread inspirded me to start my own

 

[ooo000HITMAN000ooo]

If you want o become buff and strong you need to eat a crap load of meat.

My brother is 6feet tall and 200 pounds yet there is not an inch of fat on him he is very very strong person he can lift me up and i am 6.5 235 pounds. He works out every day for one hour 30 minuts running and 30 lifting weights. He eats almost nothing but meat, if we go whataburger he will order 6 chicken breast and eat them with water nothing else.

Befor he started this whole thing when he was 16 ( hes now 21) he used to be 5.10 270 pounds and was all fat, so i must say it has worked great for him.

 

[Spidey]

Well, I just finished my morning cardio and it was great! I hadn't jumped rope in years and forgot what a workout it is. Whew! In fact it got me so worked up that I finished off with some sit-ups and arm curls. I think this is going to be a great morning routine for me. Let's just see how well I do at 7:00am when monday rolls around. lol.

 

[ofcrimson]

i have had an enormous amount of success with dieting and excercising. in just 4 weeks, i was able to lose 8 pounds of fat and gain 4 pounds of muscle. these numbers were calculated using my body fat percentage. my plan is as follows.

see following posts. this is long .

 

[ofcrimson]

cardio 6 days per week - approximately 40 minutes per day first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. your body is in fasted state early in the morning, meaning that is will use more fat for energy. wait 1 hour after your cardio before eating your first meal. during this hour, your metabolism will be screaming and really burning fat. i worked out after getting off work later in the day.

weight train 5 or 6 times per week. your workouts should be short and intense. don't talk to your friends during you workout. get in the gym and work. i worked heavy on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and did higher rep excercises on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I did chest/shoulders/triceps on Monday, Back and biceps on Tuesday, and Legs on Wednesday. Thursday, Friday and Saturday would be a repeat of the first 3 days, but with different excercises and higher reps. the longest day for me was chest/shoulders/triceps, and usually took about 75 minutes. the shortest day was legs and took about 30 minutes. immediately after working out, i consumed a meal replacement powder and something with high glycemic (sp?) index. the liquified meal replacement powder feed my hungry muscles immediately and the carbs with a high glycemic index helped prime my system for the intake of nutrients.

for my diet, i ate 5 or 6 meals per day. lots of protein (150 - 200 grams). meal replacement powders help here and usually taste pretty good. i would take in around 100 grams of carbs. usually brown rice and fruit. fat is also a must. i tried to eat foods with "good" or unsaturated fat. natural peanut butter, or peanuts are an excellent source. i recommend that you take your body weight and multiply by 12 to compute the number of calories that you need per day. on your day off from lifting and cardio, cheat on your diet. eat whatever you want... pizza, ice cream, pie.....anything. i lose more weight when i do this then when i don't. i think that it has something to do with letting your body know that it doesn't need to store energy as fat during your workout days.

i hope this helps and isn't too long that you quit reading. i have before and after pictures from my 4 weeks and i will post them if someone is interested and can tell me how. the changes in my body were tremendous. my friends thought that i was on steroids. i absolutely was not.

 

[Spidey]

ofcrimson,

I'm actually doing exactly what you posted. 5/6 meals a day, multi vitamin, ton's of protein (shakes/bars/meats/eggs), ton's of fiber, ton's of water, and am trying to keep my calories down. I've been doing 40min of cardio in the mornings on an empty stomach, and weight training in the afternoons. I haven't lost any weight yet, but my body fat does seem to be trimming and I've noticed HUGE gains in muscle mass so I guess it's balancing out pretty well. I think I'm headed on the right track to success now. Thanks for your input though, I do appreciate it.

 

[Abdoman]

I've been working out for 17 yrs - I am 5' 7" and weigh around 195 lb. I was a personal trainer for a couple of years. I am not fat. The most import tool is the mirror. You can count calories and all that stuff, but I have to say that everyone, I mean everyone is different. My caloric intake has changed tremendously over the years. I can give you very important factors in staying in shape.

1. Eat more than 3 meals a day - six is ideal for most. If you constantly feed your body, it is less likely to store fat because it knows when it will eat and that it will have enough calories to get through the day.

2. Protein, Protein, Protein - Your body is much, much less likely to store fat with protein than with carbs. Limit you carbs and eliminate breads.

3. Work out with weights and do cardo. Don't go in half-assed on the weights. Intensity is the key to building muscle. When you do cardio you don't have to be intense. To burn fat it requires at least 20 min of cardio work.

Of course it all depends on what your goal is. If you want to lose weight and don't care about building muscle, then reverse the above sentence.

It looks like your doing all this - just keep it up. Staying in shape is a way of life.

Muscle requires more energy to maintain than fat. Having more muscle will actually increase your at rest metabolism. You can also increase your at rest metabolism for up to four hours by doing cardo in the morning.