Newbie questions!!

BearThomas131 · 24-03-2014 7:01pm #1

Hi there, just a few things I have on my mind at the moment that are really starting to make me lose motivation just basically looking for all the tips help and advice I can get as I'm desperate to get to my goal weight,

First off I'm 5,9 256lb bf of about 34-35

I started at 275 lb so I'm on the right track but I feel like my mojo has gone only after 2 months of training and Ive definitely let slip on the diet although I have not gone back to my old ways of 3 take aways a week and about 12 pints of a Saturday,

My work out cosists of 40 min interval cardio followed by compound weights and abs but after 2 months of the same thing I feel bored but not sure what way to change it up as I don't want to jeopardise my program as I feel it works,

Also the weightloss has stalled the last 3 weeks so sumthing drastic had to be done before I say f**k it again and go back to my old ways, which I really really really don't want that to happen,

Any help will be greatly appreciated thanks for reading

Penny Tration · 24-03-2014 7:02pm

Post up a daily diet and people will be able to help more easily

JJayoo · 24-03-2014 7:06pm

Swap the time you spend on abs with more cardio/weights

BearThomas131 · 24-03-2014 7:09pm

Ok well I would usually have

Breakfast:
Homemade fruit juice, some mixed nuts and 2 slices of wholegrain toast

Lunch: (also post work out)
Protein shake, 3 boiled eggs on toast

Dinner: 2 chicken fillets, veg and cous-cous

that I would consider a good day
On the weekend it can vairy but try and stay around 1800 cal all the time,

Weekends can have the of big bag of m&ms thrown in if the girlfriend is over for a movie which I know is a killer for me but considering I'm off the drink and smokes I alow a little bit of pleasure every now and again( which has become more frequent of late

)

BearThomas131 · 24-03-2014 7:11pm

Also goal weight would be about 210 lb

generic2012 · 24-03-2014 7:19pm

I would suggest weight training before your cardio. It is its own motivation, every week you will be trying to increase the weight you are lifting in each specific exercise - sounds stupid and mundane but do it for a while and you'll see what I mean. Also a lot of dieters tend to focus too much on exercise as a way to reduce weight, put your focus back on the diet. Your mentality should/will be - weight training to get strong/muscular/toned/fit/powerful/whatever, diet to help reach those goals and allow you to show off your results. This is important because they are positive associations, you wont be thinking 'I have to run for 40 minutes and eat fug all after so I can lose weight', you'll be thinking 'I want to lift 5kg more on that lift than I did last week, and I'll eat well after so I can recover, get stronger and show it off'.

You might have to sit down, stare at a blank wall and think 'Do I want this? Why do I want this? How far do I want to go?What will be different if I do this?', don't just do it for the sake of it. The main thing is a positive thought process, you have to want it, which do you want more? to eat what all round you or to be and look healthier and fitter. I don't mean that in a flippant way either, if you genuinely would be happier eating **** and sitting around all day, do it, there's no point fighting with yourself, life's too short.

Any time you waver go back to your wall and re-evaluate what you really want.

Best of luck.

BearThomas131 · 24-03-2014 7:46pm

Thanks for the reply , gonna try the weights before cardio see how I get on with that

generic2012 · 24-03-2014 8:14pm

I hope 'weights' doesn't mean sets of 20 reps?

BearThomas131 · 24-03-2014 8:17pm

No usually lift heavy and do 12 reps to start then, then probly 10 - 8 and so on for 4 sets on most things

red_0007 · 24-03-2014 10:42pm

BearThomas131 wrote: »

Hi there, just a few things I have on my mind at the moment that are really starting to make me lose motivation just basically looking for all the tips help and advice I can get as I'm desperate to get to my goal weight,

First off I'm 5,9 256lb bf of about 34-35

I started at 275 lb so I'm on the right track but I feel like my mojo has gone only after 2 months of training and Ive definitely let slip on the diet although I have not gone back to my old ways of 3 take aways a week and about 12 pints of a Saturday,

My work out cosists of 40 min interval cardio followed by compound weights and abs but after 2 months of the same thing I feel bored but not sure what way to change it up as I don't want to jeopardise my program as I feel it works,

Also the weightloss has stalled the last 3 weeks so sumthing drastic had to be done before I say f**k it again and go back to my old ways, which I really really really don't want that to happen,

BT,

One reason that your weight-loss can stall is that your body reaches an equilibrium point based on your calorie intake versus calorie demand. Essentially, your body has figured out a way to handle the effort you're putting it through, based on what you're consuming. If you want to continue to lose weight, something has to give. Either ramp up the calorie demand (more exercise) or drop the calorie intake (eat less or smarter).

What you've posted as your diet looks OK, but there's a few things to mention:

1) You say your diet is based on a good day. Be very honest with yourself. If your diet doesn't actually look like this, you won't make the progress you are expecting. At 700 calories deficit (I'm assuming you're a bloke, therefore needing about 2500 calories per day [technically more given your current weight]), you should be expecting to lose approximately 1 pound per week.

2) Fruit juices (even home-made) are sugar loaded. Yes they are natural sugars, so probably better for you than processed ones, but they are still sugars. If you're fond of the juicing thing, try substituting vegetables for some of the fruit (NB this doesn't mean get rid of the fruit, just swap it a bit). Google it and you'll find plenty of recipes on this.

3) Spread out your intake over the day a bit more. This is important to help keep your metabolism up (it takes calories for the body to process the food that you supply to it). The other thing that this does is help to ensure that it's not wasted: You're taking a protein shake alongside 3 eggs. That's a lot of protein. When the body encounters a lot of it in one go, it uses what it needs just at the time and the rest is filtered out by the kidneys - the body doesn't have a Protein store that it can dip into. You're paying good money for the Whey, so instead of taking it and 3 eggs all in one go, take it as a mid-afternoon "snack" or after the workout. This will ensure a steady supply of protein to help with repair as well as keep hunger in check.

4) On the dinner front, 2 chicken fillets is, once again, a lot of protein. If possible, split it into 2. Some now, some later.

In terms of exercise, it's +1 from me for the cardio after weights advice. The reason being: you will have depleted the readily-available energy stores (blood sugars) and so start having to metabolise other energy sources (namely fat).

In relation to your training becoming stagnant: if you read around the subject, you'll see a lot of advice concerning changing your routine every so often. The reason is very similar to earlier: the body reaches equilibrium. It has grown enough, become resilient enough etc to cope with the demands that you're putting it under. So you need to change it a bit. I know you say that you don't want to, because you feel it works: well it has worked, but it has reached a plateau, and your body is letting you know it.

To keep making progress, you need to do something different. Things to think about (in combination with each other, or individually):

1) You haven't mentioned whether you do weights on machines or bars or dumbbells. Whatever way you currently do it, try the same exercise but done with one of the other ways. For instance, if you currently do shoulder press with a machine, try dumbbells instead.

2) Change your sets and reps: Try pyramids, 10s, drop sets, whatever. Find something you like the look of and go with that. The internet is your friend on this.

3) Change your cardio (add more if you can).

4) You don't have to change everything. If your leg exercises consist of squats, leg extensions and leg curls, try changing just the squats (to machine or free weights) and leave the leg extensions and curls as they are (hard to change anyway). If you do 10 different exercises, change 3 of them.

In doing this, you will find that it's maybe a bit harder at first (you might even think you're going backwards). That's only because your body isn't used to it. But in the same way that you got used to your current workout back when you started, you will get used to this new one. And if you're really hating it, you'll be back on the old one in 8 weeks - something to look forward to? Maybe you'll find your old workout has gone by the wayside and you don't want to let go of the new one.

And as if to state the obvious, everyone is different. The only way you'll know what works for you is to try out different combinations. You've already got one that has provided some results. Now go find some more.

Cheat days are good and they give you something to look forward to. And M&Ms are undoubtedly very tasty. But a whole foo-king big bag of them? Damn!
If you have to munch whilst watching a movie, make your own pop-corn instead. And not the microwave-in-the-bag-covered-in-lard variety.

Final piece of advice: Stick at it. Nothing worth doing ever came easy.

Best of luck

Red_0007

BearThomas131 · 24-03-2014 11:30pm

Really great advice here guys, gonna take it all on board, thanks very much

generic2012 · 25-03-2014 10:59am

red_0007 wrote: »

Spread out your intake over the day a bit more. This is important to help keep your metabolism up (it takes calories for the body to process the food that you supply to it). The other thing that this does is help to ensure that it's not wasted: You're taking a protein shake alongside 3 eggs. That's a lot of protein. When the body encounters a lot of it in one go, it uses what it needs just at the time and the rest is filtered out by the kidneys - the body doesn't have a Protein store that it can dip into. You're paying good money for the Whey, so instead of taking it and 3 eggs all in one go, take it as a mid-afternoon "snack" or after the workout. This will ensure a steady supply of protein to help with repair as well as keep hunger in check. Red_0007

It has been conclusively proven that spreading out meals/increasing meal frequency does not increase metabolism. This 1997 (nearly 20 years go) review - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9155494 compared studies of the effect of meal frequency (from 1-17 meals a day) on metabolism and found -

"Studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labelled water to assess total 24 h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging"

In fact, after 36-38 hours without food there is a 3.6-10% increase in metabolic weight.

In regards to the body excrete 'extra protein' alan aragon does a good job of discussing it here - http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/is-there-a-limit-to-how-much-protein-the-body-can-use-in-a-single-meal/

Here is an extract -
'Let’s imagine an experiment involving two relatively lean 200 lb individuals. For the purposes of this illustration, I’ll assign a daily amount of protein known to adequately support the needs of the athletic population. We’ll give Person A 150 g protein spread over five meals at 30 g each. We’ll give Person B the same amount of protein, but in a single meal. Let’s say that this meal consists of a 16 oz steak, chased with a shake containing two scoops of protein powder.

If we really believed that only 30 g protein can be handled by the body in a single meal, then Person B would eventually run into protein deficiency symptoms because he supposedly is only absorbing a total of 30 g out of the 150 g we’re giving him. At 30 g/day, he’s only getting 0.33 g/kg of bodyweight, which isn’t even half of the already-low RDA of 0.8 g/kg. If the body worked this way, the human species would have quickly become extinct. The human body is more efficient and effective than we give it credit for'

The theory of excess protein damaging kidneys has also been thoroughly debunked.

red_0007 wrote: »

In relation to your training becoming stagnant: if you read around the subject, you'll see a lot of advice concerning changing your routine every so often. The reason is very similar to earlier: the body reaches equilibrium. It has grown enough, become resilient enough etc to cope with the demands that you're putting it under. So you need to change it a bit. I know you say that you don't want to, because you feel it works: well it has worked, but it has reached a plateau, and your body is letting you know it.

To keep making progress, you need to do something different. Things to think about (in combination with each other, or individually) Red_0007

etc.

You are right about the body adjusting to cardio, the body becomes fitter, which is good, you have to run faster or run longer to gain the same benefits, the same holds true with resistance training. But instead of increasing speed or duration, you add weight/reps/sets. You shouldn't 'change it up', you should pick a select few exercises and focus on increasing your performance at those. The two main reasons people 'stall' at strength training are; exercise selection - if you are doing mostly isolation exercises, for example bicep curls, there is only so long you can keep upping the weight, if you look at the squat,bench press and deadlift it is far easier to increase incrementally at say 2.5kg a session/week; rep range - likewise if you work within the 12 rep range, adding 2.5kg to your exercises can only last so long where as if you work within the 4 rep it is a lot easier to maintain progress (think 2.5 x 12 vs 2.5 x 4)

red_0007 wrote: »

Cheat days are good and they give you something to look forward to. And M&Ms are undoubtedly very tasty. But a whole foo-king big bag of them? Damn!
If you have to munch whilst watching a movie, make your own pop-corn instead. And not the microwave-in-the-bag-covered-in-lard variety. Red_0007

Cheat days are largely unnecessary but if you need them mentally to stay on the wagon go for it, just remember if you're in a 300 calorie deficit for 5 days of the week and eat a bag of M&Ms and drink a pile of coke or whatever for 2 days on top of your normal diet you will be in a weekly surplus and you will gain weight. I read some where, a man was asked if a cheat day could ruin a weeks dieting to which he responded 'can a weekend in Vegas ruin a months saving?', very good analogy I thought! There is no reason you couldn't eat what you want everyday as long as you keep your daily calories are in check. The source of calories doesn't matter as much as some people think but you should nonetheless keep satiation in mind.

This whole process is really pretty easy, use relatively heavy weights and increase the weight when you can, eat at a modest enough calorie deficit, if you have no photo shoot it doesn't matter at what date you've lost x amount of fat but if you're in a deficit you can rest assured that you are constantly losing some weight. Increasing the weights should not be ignored, after the first few weeks, if yu are increasing the weights, you are increasing muscle mass which increases you resting metabolism, on top of the energy you are using working out and recovery from it which will go a long way towards countering any effects the diet has on your metabolism.

red_0007 · 28-03-2014 10:02pm

Some agreement and disagreement on your reply Generic (but discussion is good) --

generic2012 wrote: »

It has been conclusively proven that spreading out meals/increasing meal frequency does not increase metabolism. This 1997 (nearly 20 years go) review - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9155494 compared studies of the effect of meal frequency (from 1-17 meals a day) on metabolism and found -

"Studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labelled water to assess total 24 h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging"

Crazy coincidence - the very first hit that I get from Googling "Meal Frequency Metabolism" says almost the exact same thing as you've quoted.

Pubmed has a link to an article (in process of going to print) on an animal-based study of feeding frequency on weight. Link
It notes that Insulin levels (amongst others) spiked higher in the fewer meals group than the more frequent meals group.
Increased insulin levels mean increased conversion of glucose to Glycogen for storage in the liver and fat in adipose tissue. Smaller meals result in less of a spike, so storage of calories is reduced.
The animal study noted that less frequent feeding improved conversion of feed into weight gain. Granted, this is an animal study, but physiological responses are very similar between animals and humans, (although I'm definitely not suggesting that anyone eat 12 times per day).

On a related note: the more frequent meals idea is often used by Athletes as a way to avoid having to eat 1300-1600 calories in one sitting. By spreading it out, they don't have to eat gut-busting quantities in one go. With a calorie limited diet, this is not a problem. But the one thing it does do is help keep hunger at bay.

In regards to the body excrete 'extra protein' alan aragon does a good job of discussing it here - http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/is-there-a-limit-to-how-much-protein-the-body-can-use-in-a-single-meal/

This was interesting - Aragon suggests caution when dealing with scientific studies, having picked holes in a number of them (and so your earlier suggestion of conclusive proof must be taken with a handful of salt, as should the animal study I pointed to). I do note that he manages to find time to recommend a particular protein - no vested interests there then!

The theory of excess protein damaging kidneys has also been thoroughly debunked.

This is an important point - well said.

But instead of increasing speed or duration, you add weight/reps/sets. You shouldn't 'change it up', you should pick a select few exercises and focus on increasing your performance at those. The two main reasons people 'stall' at strength training are; exercise selection - if you are doing mostly isolation exercises, for example bicep curls, there is only so long you can keep upping the weight, if you look at the squat,bench press and deadlift it is far easier to increase incrementally at say 2.5kg a session/week; rep range - likewise if you work within the 12 rep range, adding 2.5kg to your exercises can only last so long where as if you work within the 4 rep it is a lot easier to maintain progress (think 2.5 x 12 vs 2.5 x 4)

Agree on the isolation exercises - less important exercises should be given less attention. Compound exercises will result in generally faster gains/results (although I note that compound does not translate as barbell-only).

The reason you make changes is because by hitting the muscle groups in a different way, the activation of the muscle fibres will be different. This leads to different strain patterns within the muscle and possibly recruitment of different muscles (if your new exercise permits additional range of movement/degrees of freedom) which in turn leads to further growth responses/adaptation. Dropping reps to 4s (which you seem to be suggesting) is the opposite of what you originally suggested (increasing reps), so this is a bit confusing.

On cheat days - The Vegas thing is a bad analogy: You can lose your house, your car and a lot more on a bad weekend in Vegas. Nothing nearly as catastrophic is going to happen because you have some pizza instead of steamed veg, brown rice and grilled chicken.

There is no reason you couldn't eat what you want everyday as long as you keep your daily calories are in check. The source of calories doesn't matter as much as some people think

Seriously disagree on this - Nobody ever got fit and healthy by eating bags of crisps and chocolate and sticking to X calories a day. You maybe meant different, but that's not what came across.

Red

Mellor · 29-03-2014 4:13am

red_0007 wrote: »

Pubmed has a link to an article (in process of going to print) on an animal-based study of feeding frequency on weight. Link
It notes that Insulin levels (amongst others) spiked higher in the fewer meals group than the more frequent meals group.
Increased insulin levels mean increased conversion of glucose to Glycogen for storage in the liver and fat in adipose tissue. Smaller meals result in less of a spike, so storage of calories is reduced.

You are making an illogical leap there.
Insulin spikes may/may not aid fat storage but that's irrelevant here.
There won't be conversion to adipose tissue without a calorie surplus. We are talking about meal timing on a weight loss diet.
If you were saying fewer meals for weight gain, it might be a sound theory.

Also, just as an aside, the myth states that fewer meals decreases your metabolism, but what your are describing is a hormonal effect not a drop in metabolism.

red_0007 · 29-03-2014 12:46pm

Mellor wrote: »

You are making an illogical leap there.
Insulin spikes may/may not aid fat storage but that's irrelevant here.
There won't be conversion to adipose tissue without a calorie surplus. We are talking about meal timing on a weight loss diet.

Also, just as an aside, the myth states that fewer meals decreases your metabolism, but what your are describing is a hormonal effect not a drop in metabolism.

As far as I know, the "myth" only refers to increased frequency of eating. It does not make an inference as to decreased frequency. So that would be an illogical leap in its own right.

But I take your point about the possible inference in my post and I'm happy to agree that the study does not conclusively prove anything. Perhaps the handful of salt that I suggested, should have been a bucketful instead.

generic2012 · 29-03-2014 3:30pm

red_0007 wrote: »

Pubmed has a link to an article (in process of going to print) on an animal-based study of feeding frequency on weight. Link
It notes that Insulin levels (amongst others) spiked higher in the fewer meals group than the more frequent meals group.
Increased insulin levels mean increased conversion of glucose to Glycogen for storage in the liver and fat in adipose tissue. Smaller meals result in less of a spike, so storage of calories is reduced.
The animal study noted that less frequent feeding improved conversion of feed into weight gain. Granted, this is an animal study, but physiological responses are very similar between animals and humans, (although I'm definitely not suggesting that anyone eat 12 times per day).

Insulin also; causes ribosomes to manufacture protein which is what builds muscle; prevents protein breakdown; transports the branched chained amino acids in muscle cells; and allows for the transportation of glycogen into muscle cells. Glycogen isn't stored in adipose tissue apart from minuscule, negligible amounts. It's easy to to think of something as 'good' or 'bad' but it isn't always wise.

Physiological responses between 'animals' and humans aren't always very similar. Had penicillin been tested on guinea pigs, this drug that saves millions of people would never have been considered safe for humans, as it is toxic to guinea pigs. Benzene, which can cause leukemia in humans, was used as an industrial chemical despite epidemological, evidence as it didn't cause leukemia in mice. Glass fibers, flosint, opren and carbenoxalone all resulted in deaths to humans because they were tested on monkeys (with whom humans share 98% of their genes) and other animals with no ill-effects. Pigs are bred to put on as much weight in the least amount of time as possible, they are specifically bred with that purpose, I don't think it is wise to extrapolate data from a study on weight gain in pigs to back up your claim on human weight gain when there are plenty of studies on humans that say the opposite. Here is the link to the full article you linked earlier http://www.journalofanimalscience.org/content/early/2014/03/18/jas.2013-7505.full.pdf where they explain the possible reasons for the weight gain, I will quote one (M2 is the group fed twice daily, M12 is the group fed 12 times daily) - 'First, the possibility that less frequent meals may stimulate protein synthesis in growing pigs is supported, at least in part, by the greater weight gain of M2 pigs (+51 g/d) along the feeding trial, which was associated with their numerically greater carcass weight at slaughter and a significantly greater weight of the flanks (muscular parts) in that group as compared with M12 pigs.' They suggested and backed up with evidence that it could be due to muscle gain.

red_0007 wrote: »

On a related note: the more frequent meals idea is often used by Athletes as a way to avoid having to eat 1300-1600 calories in one sitting. By spreading it out, they don't have to eat gut-busting quantities in one go. With a calorie limited diet, this is not a problem. But the one thing it does do is help keep hunger at bay.

I don't think techniques on fitting more calories into your day is pertinent to a thread on weight loss. I myself don't find smaller meals through out the day help with hunger, quite the opposite but I accept that it seems to be a highly individual thing so people should find out for themselves.

red_0007 wrote: »

The reason you make changes is because by hitting the muscle groups in a different way, the activation of the muscle fibres will be different. This leads to different strain patterns within the muscle and possibly recruitment of different muscles (if your new exercise permits additional range of movement/degrees of freedom) which in turn leads to further growth responses/adaptation. Dropping reps to 4s (which you seem to be suggesting) is the opposite of what you originally suggested (increasing reps), so this is a bit confusing.

I didn't suggest using a rep range of 4, I gave an example of the higher (12) and lower (4) ends of the rep ranges most often used by people to illustrate a point. I also never suggested increasing reps, I said to increase workload you will have to increase the weight used, the reps in a set or the number of sets implemented (in my opinion, in order of effectiveness). I don't see how anyone could find that confusing.

red_0007 wrote: »

On cheat days - The Vegas thing is a bad analogy: You can lose your house, your car and a lot more on a bad weekend in Vegas. Nothing nearly as catastrophic is going to happen because you have some pizza instead of steamed veg, brown rice and grilled chicken.

The first definition the free dictionary website gives of an analogy is 'Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.' You've latched on to the dissimilar parts, and missed the whole point of an analogy altogether. If two examples were the exact same they wouldn't be two examples, they would be the one example.

red_0007 wrote: »

Seriously disagree on this - Nobody ever got fit and healthy by eating bags of crisps and chocolate and sticking to X calories a day. You maybe meant different, but that's not what came across.

A bold statement that I strongly disagree with. Look up IIFYM and all the proponents and users of it.

red_0007 wrote: »

As far as I know, the "myth" only refers to increased frequency of eating. It does not make an inference as to decreased frequency. So that would be an illogical leap in its own right..

I'm sorry but that is ridiculous, it literally doesn't make any sense. Increased and decreased are subjective terms, ie. it depends where your coming from. If I eat 4 meals a day then - 3 meals a day is decreased frequency and 5 meals a day is increased frequency. If I eat 6 meals a day then - 3 meals a day and 5 meals are both decreased frequency, the inverse is true if I eat 2 meals a day.

Data should be used to come to a conclusion, you shouldn't try and find data to back up your own conclusion. This is a thread to help BearThomas131 with his goals, regardless of which rep range/meal frequency/type of exercise is 'the best', what will ultimately get him the greatest results is what he enjoys and will keep up so the best anyone can do is supply him with accurate information without overly complicating things which can result in too much to handle.

I'd love to talk about different views on topics and debate them out until we all agree on the 'best' way to do something but here mightn’t be the place to do it.

Mellor · 30-03-2014 5:25am

red_0007 wrote: »

As far as I know, the "myth" only refers to increased frequency of eating. It does not make an inference as to decreased frequency. So that would be an illogical leap in its own right.

Not really. If increased frequency burns more cals, then alternative must be less.

red_0007 · 30-03-2014 3:21pm

I seriously messed up - shouldn't have bothered discussing my opinion, or anyone else's for that matter.

So with that in mind, Good luck BT - I'm out.

generic2012 · 30-03-2014 3:38pm

red_0007 wrote: »

I seriously messed up - shouldn't have bothered discussing my opinion, or anyone else's for that matter.

So with that in mind, Good luck BT - I'm out.

I'm responding to your original, unedited post also, where you said you should never give your opinion because there will also be someone there to argue with it.

I can't speak for mellor but I presume he'd be in agreement with me when I say that we didn't go near any of your opinions, only the objective points, opinions can't be wrong, they are individual conclusions derived from information assessed by an individual. The information, however, can be wrong. So I hope you understand that we weren't attacking your opinion, rather your information. I believed the same things you did about meal frequency etc. and once I accepted the facts I realised that nothing can just be taken for granted, thankfully, in exercise and nutrition the truth seems to be a lot simpler than the general consensus in the 'fitness industry'.

Don't continue to hold on to ideas just because you've been holding on to them for so long already.

Newbie questions!!

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