Critique Me Please

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Hi there,

If you have a few moments, can you help let me know if I am on the right or wrong path. I don't want to be wasting my own time doing things the wrong way and I want to ensure I get the most out of what I'm doing.

Typical Diet
Breakfast: Alpen with Bran Flakes and 2% milk. I'll usually cut up some fruit as well, blackberries, strawberries or banana.
If I don't opt for the above I'll have a 3 egg omelette with ham and onion.

Snack: Some nuts, usually almonds, or if I don't go with the cereal with fruit I'll have some fruit here instead. Usually a banana or an apple.

Lunch: Salad with a variety of veg and some tuna. I don't use any dressing but I will use hot sauce (tobasco usually).

If I don't opt for the above I will have a tuna wrap (spinach wrap or whole wheat) with lettuce, banana peppers, red onion and pesto.

Snack: Usually same snack as in the morning.

Dinner: Meat and veg, no carbs as I have dinner at 6 or 7pm daily, and I don't work out until 8pm. The meat is always clean and oven cooked, and the veg is boiled. If I make too much I will bring some in to work the following day for a snack or if there's lots I'll include it in my salad instead of tuna.

Post workout: Protein & Creatine shake with 2% milk. Usually one scoop of each, or if I had a really hard workout I'll have 2 protein and 1 creatine. I don't usually have this until after 8pm, usually 8.45pmish.

Exercise
I'm following the following program at the moment: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/kris-gethin-dtp-4-weeks-to-maximum-muscle.html

Once I'm done with it I will move on to: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/hrt-animal-hellraiser-trainer-training-overview.html

I'm in the gym 5 or 6 times per week and have been for the past 9 weeks. I also have a personal trainer for 2 days a week and he does light weights and cardio with me. Since I started this 9 weeks ago my weight has gone up 6 lbs but my body is slimming. My arms and shoulders have more muscle on them and my stomach is reducing in size. My goal here is to reduce my body fat while building muscle. When I started 9 weeks ago my body fat was around 24% I'm not sure what it is now. I was 148 lbs when I started and I'm 154 lbs now. I'm 5ft 4 inches.

Any help or critique is more than welcome and is the point of this thread. What am I doing wrong?

Stench Blossoms

Have you worked out how many calories you should be eating and worked out how many calories you are eating?

Ditch the Bran Flakes. Have a better breakfast.

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Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Have you worked out how many calories you should be eating and worked out how many calories you are eating?

I have to admit I haven't, sadly. Can you recommend a good site for this? Something like fitday.com maybe?

Ditch the Bran Flakes. Have a better breakfast.

What would you suggest?

Stench Blossoms

The stickies at the top of the forum are worth reading.

Are you looking to lose or gain?

I would suggest eggs + meat + veg or porridge.

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I'm looking to bring my bodyfat % down to 10% while similarly gaining lots of muscle.

I'll check out the stickys. Thanks

btkm8unsl0w5r4

The ops diet sounds really good to me. Have you had body fat done, you could be putting on lean mass which is a good thing because as you increase muscle your calorie requirement increases and the same diet becomes more and more deficient.

On a side note, breakfast cereals get a bad rap on here and generally with trainers, however the nutritional information on the back does not agree with the general consensus that its a evil food that is laced with sugar. If you take that the average person has three the serving amount at 100g of say fruit and fibre the breakdown is as follows

Calories 380
Protein 8
Carbohydrate 69
Fat 6
Fibre 9
Alcohol 0

Not a sin on 2000kcal per day and of the 69g carbs only a fraction is sugars. If you getting your protien from other sources, is a few bowels of cereal going to kill you? Better than no breakfast surely?

Porrage as a comparison

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size
2 Serving (100g)
Amount Per Serving
Calories
384
Calories from Fat
36
% Daily Value*
Total Fat
4.0g
6%
Total Carbohydrates
75.0g
26%
Dietary Fiber
7.0g
28%
Protein
10.0g
* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Porage is no worse or better

Stench Blossoms

There's a reason they get a bad rep. They're sh!te and the media would you believe they are fantastic which is why people need to be educated better about nutrition.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

There's a reason they get a bad rep. They're sh!te and the media would you believe they are fantastic which is why people need to be educated better about nutrition.

How is porridge better? And don't give me the gi or blood sugar bluff, we will assume the op is not diabetic and can balance his blood sugar using insulin and glucagon and fluctuates within the normal range. Vegetables are made of carbohydrate also.

Chancer3001

fruit and fibre - Sugar is the 3rd highest ingredient

and 24% of it is sugars.

A quarter of every mouthful is sugar...

Thats why its not good.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Porridge is worse then, assuming we are equating all carbohydrate as bad sugar. Heaven forbid a bit of fruit crept in...sure all of that is sugar.

nice_guy80

Lina Acidic Briefcase wrote: »

Porridge is worse then, assuming we are equating all carbohydrate as bad sugar. Heaven forbid a bit of fruit crept in...sure all of that is sugar.

not all carbs were created equal.
and not all sugars are created equal!

Mellor

Lina Acidic Briefcase wrote: »

How is porridge better? And don't give me the gi or blood sugar bluff, we will assume the op is not diabetic and can balance his blood sugar using insulin and glucagon and fluctuates within the normal range. Vegetables are made of carbohydrate also.

You compared 100g of raw oats with100g of cereal. That's pretty pointless. You need to compare them as consumed. Raw oats bulk up when preparing, cereal doesn't.

100g of cereal plus 250ml milk
Is prob on par with 50g oats.

The macro breakdown would be a lot dufferent now.

Stench Blossoms

^^^ + It would be a lot harder to eat 100g of porridge but not as hard to eat 100g of cereal.

And I did suggest eggs and veg before porridge.

Burkatron

I also have a personal trainer for 2 days a week and he does light weights and cardio with me. Since I started this 9 weeks ago my weight has gone up 6 lbs

I'm just shocked no one has picked up on this little nugget!!

Also DTP?? Really?? There's far better ways to train then doing 300 reps of 1 excercise in 1 session! Also if you're following this programme your suppose to follow the exact diet & supplementation of the diet! I can't believe I sat through the video of this a few weeks back,

There's 1 PT (allegedly)in the country who is "DTP certified" is this who you're going to??

papu

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I have to admit I haven't, sadly. Can you recommend a good site for this? Something like fitday.com maybe?



What would you suggest?

http://www.livestrong.com

is pretty decent for tracking calories , it has an iphone app aswell.

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Burkatron wrote: »

I'm just shocked no one has picked up on this little nugget!!

Also DTP?? Really?? There's far better ways to train then doing 300 reps of 1 excercise in 1 session! Also if you're following this programme your suppose to follow the exact diet & supplementation of the diet! I can't believe I sat through the video of this a few weeks back,

There's 1 PT (allegedly)in the country who is "DTP certified" is this who you're going to??

He does that with me because the other 3 or 4 days I'm doing heavy weights, otherwise I would get no cardio in. And when I say cardio, he doesn't have running or anything. He has me doing burpees, jumping lunges, lunges with weights above my head, that sort of thing. With him it's more high intensity than the training I do on my own.

I'm a member of Gold's Gym in the states so it's not anyone you know.

Burkatron

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He does that with me because the other 3 or 4 days I'm doing heavy weights, otherwise I would get no cardio in. And when I say cardio, he doesn't have running or anything. He has me doing burpees, jumping lunges, lunges with weights above my head, that sort of thing. With him it's more high intensity than the training I do on my own.

I'm a member of Gold's Gym in the states so it's not anyone you know.

If you're following the DTP programme you're NOT lifting heavy weights!
Did your PT recommend these or are you picking these off of Bodybuilding.com yourself?

You should be asking your PT these questions instead of internet forums. I can't even go into the second programme you want to follow because I stopped reading it when I saw "HellCentric phase"...WTF?? There are far better programmes that don't make up pseudo science words to make them sound awesome.

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Burkatron wrote: »

If you're following the DTP programme you're NOT lifting heavy weights!
Did your PT recommend these or are you picking these off of Bodybuilding.com yourself?

I'm doing that programme with heavy weights, as in I'm lifting heavy weights with the exercises outlined. I'm not doing 30 reps of a light weight in one set as he outlines. For example last night while doing dumbbell curls I did 15x30 lbs, 15x35lbs, 10x 40lbs x 2. Granted, for some of you beasts out there this might be considered light but for me it isn't.

You should be asking your PT these questions instead of internet forums.

If everyone did that this forum would be fairly idle wouldn't it? Relying solely on a personal trainer is a dumb approach if you ask me. It's better to get opinions of several people instead of going with one individual. What is wrong with trying to learn?

I can't even go into the second programme you want to follow because I stopped reading it when I saw "HellCentric phase"...WTF?? There are far better programmes that don't make up pseudo science words to make them sound awesome.

Most fitness sites out there use ridiculous naming conventions. I didn't come up with them or start it, so don't be blaming me for it. While the name is ridiculous the HellCentric exercises look fairly intense, and a buddy of mine recommended it after sticking with it.

LeinsterDub

papu wrote: »

http://www.livestrong.com

is pretty decent for tracking calories , it has an iphone app aswell.

Or http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ if you've an issue with that site's founders questionable background

Burkatron

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I'm doing that programme with heavy weights, as in I'm lifting heavy weights with the exercises outlined. I'm not doing 30 reps of a light weight in one set as he outlines. For example last night while doing dumbbell curls I did 15x30 lbs, 15x35lbs, 10x 40lbs x 2. Granted, for some of you beasts out there this might be considered light but for me it isn't.

I'm 2 inches taller then you & the same weight, I'm hardly a beast! If you can lift 15 of something it's not heavy enough to give the appropriate stimulus you want! Your relatively new to weight training, there's a term called newb gains, you should be exploiting this period instead of pissing about with DTP training!
Heavy weights, low reps eat everything around you up to your maintenance or 500 cals below

If everyone did that this forum would be fairly idle wouldn't it? Relying solely on a personal trainer is a dumb approach if you ask me. It's better to get opinions of several people instead of going with one individual. What is wrong with trying to learn?

Not everyone on here uses a personal trainer, so no, it wouldn't be quiet! Why would you pay for a PT that (I hope) you've researched to see the results they've gotten with people to make sure they're right for you & then go & trust random strangers on the internet!? But yep, my approach is the dumb 1! :rolleyes:

Most fitness sites out there use ridiculous naming conventions. I didn't come up with them or start it, so don't be blaming me for it. While the name is ridiculous the HellCentric exercises look fairly intense, and a buddy of mine recommended it after sticking with it.

Again, you pay for PT but you go with a random programme recommended by your friend?? Fair enough, some sites use ridiculous names, these are the 1's that should be avoided. Go look up Starting strength (or any of the 5x5 variants) or Westside 4SB (The name is ridiculous but they don't talk about hellcentric phases or super kablamo combos & all that jazz!!)