Eleanorsbee

Time vs progress and believing in the process

 

when I started, its difficult to understand that you might be hungry for the 1st week, step on the scales and nothing has changed ...... or 6 weeks of being good and exercising, and you dont look any different in the mirror. .... after 3 months, you won't be a 6 pack ripped Adonis .... after a year you still won't be a 6pack ripped Adonis .... after 2 years, you only have a 2 pack and still cant deadlift 145kg 

 

It takes time, its a lifestyle change .... make your goals small 

Hello ... congrats on starting out on a new journey, not only will you  get fitter and healthier you will learn slot about how your body works 

 

your scales don't tell you how much fat you have or how much muscle you have, they tell you the weight of your entire body at that exact point in time, the sum of your fat, muscle, bone, blood, water, bowel contents, womb activity, stomach contents. Because if this your weight can fluctuate many lbs depending on what you are eating and what time of month it is.

 

Food plays a massive amount with the scale, eat something with starchy carbs or salt and you retain water.

 

exersise also contributes to your weight, start working out and your muscles store glycogen increasing your weight.

 

your initial weight loss was most likely water loss from eating more veg, less sodium, less carbs .

 

whenyou went back to eating processed food, refined carbs, high sodium stuffs, your body naturally started retaining water again .

 

It takes along time to build muscle , a lot of working out and eating well.

 

fat you can loose quicker, but still takes time 

 

water ... You can gain and loose that over night 

physically, the workout isn't all that ,,, about 1 1/2 hrs work for an average fit person I would say 

 

 

What would kill you would be onset of ligament damage through continual repetition of doing the same moves over and over again.

 

I think my training would be get a running coach to make sure I was running in an efficient manor and wasn't dragging a foot or anything, invest in some serious good running shoes and post up a couple of you tube videos of the squats, sit-ups and pushups to make sure form was spot on to avoid injury 

 

I think I would also break up the pushups into triangle, wide, narrow, classic, fist, palm pushups - agin with the intention of minimising repetition as much as possible which would cause tendon damage

 

and

 

I would swap sit-ups for  .. errr, grams of protien .... so 100 pushups, 100 squats and 100g of chicken

infect 10% body fat is pretty low, you won't ever achieve it unless you dial in the diet !

depends on how much you eat as well ...... light, average, heavy intensity .... makes little difference if you are packing away 6000kcal a day of mcdonalds

I dont get how people can't eat enough ... I am trying to bulk up and still need to restrict my calories ... hmmmpfpf

well there are rules. .. in no particular order

 

 

(1) 

 

Eat less than maintenance calories you get smaller

Eat at maintenance calories you stay the same 

Eat more than maintenance calories you get bigger

 

thats the important rule .. the defining rule ... so if you want to get bigger, you NEED to eat more, there is no other way around it ... eat more !

 

(2) 

 

then ... you need to put your body into an environment that encourages it to grow muscle and not fat ... your body doesn't know that you are trying to get muscle, it just gets the calories and uses them where needed .. if you have a sedentary life, it will put them in your butt and chest ..... if you have a life of picking up heavy things, its going to use them to grow your muscles to make that easier.

 

so your environment needs to change ..... you want muscles, do stuff that encourages your body to grow them .... following  a lifting program like sl5x5 or SS is ideal they are programs that increase in difficulty every time you go ... it forces your body to adapt ..... you dont have to lift weights, you can do body weight exercises BUT, the important bit is increasing the difficulty to make your body grow ..... if you can do 5 pushups, your body will not grow if you just do 5 pushups every day, it can already do that so you need to increase the difficulty, increase the reps, then increase the angle etc etc etc

 

(3)

 

Quality of food ..... it does matter, !!!  to grow muscles you need protein, to replenish glycogen quickly you want carbs, to get enough nutrients you want vegetables, lots of them. Fortunately because you are trying to get bigger, you can afford to eat some less healthy choices as well, a few extra calories from a mars bar isn't going to set you back ... drinking full fat milk (the tasty one) doesn't screw up your macros as if you were on a deficit.

 

Now you know this you are free to ask the next set of questions

 

(1) what workout should I do and how often

(2) how many calories am i eating ... how many should I eat.

(3) do I really need to do that many squats 

what are your goals ?

 

nuts, cheese, yes they are healthy, but they are jam packed with calories, if you are trying to cut they will hamper your efforts i.e. 100g of almond is 500kcal. 

 

try snacking on veg, Broccoli, carrots, celery ..... you would have to eat over a kg of carrots to weigh in at the same calorie amount as 100g of almonds.

 

try eating a kg of carrots and keep snacking 

I do the seatbelt and long distance challenge.

 

If you can sit in a car for 5+ hours without the seat belt digging in to your belly ... thats the ideal weight 

 

I also do the quick turn challenge that I discovered when snowboarding .... dont know if it works for women because you have boobs and they have their own physics .... but ... I travel rapidly in one direction, then suddenly change direction by 90deg .... if all my body moves at the same time, I am at my ideal weight .... if by body turns, and my belly and moobs follow slightly afterwards ... I am too heavy 

straightleg deadlift ?

my only advice is "dont have a time frame"  ..... if for some reason you dont make it, the annoyance, the depression the negativity, stress that follows going off track or missing a deadline can really set you back, its just not worth it.

 

that said, what you are planning is doable.

 

but beware of the pitfalls

 

at 235lb, loosing 5.5lbs a month is easy ....... by the time you get to 75kg, trying to loose 5.5kg a month is a LOT harder, your calorie intake will need to be a lot less than it is now, your body will lose fat slower, you will hit plateaus where for a few weeks you lose nothing and more than anything you will be fed up of having spent the last year in a calorie deficit.

 

 

you can and you probably will achieve this goal if to stick to your plan especially if you hang out here with a decent network of people ... but rather than make it a time frame, make it a lifestyle, 1st I am going to shed fat, next I am going to get super strong .... might take a year, might take 3, but this is who I am 

whey protein rocks 

 

I look forward to my daily pint of milk mixed with a scoop and a half of chocolate brownie flavoured protien ..... its a cup of what "should" be naughty milkshake, but is indeed a big whack of protein OM NOM NOM NOM NOM 

 

and the stuff you can make with it ... protien pancakes, protein muffins, protein pudding ...... definately one of the best protein sources in my books 

cheating ? ... its not a game, there are no rules,  how can you cheat.

 

and thusly protien powders .. they are just a processed food, no different to a mars bar ... is it cheating to replenish glycogen after a workout with a mars bar because its absorbed more quickly than a roasted sweet potato ????

 

your entire argument is based solely on rules that you and your friend are appending to "fitness" .... so the only people capable of answering your question is you or your friend. ... as in my world eating mars bars, protien shakes 5am caffeine tablets ...... its all good stuff to nourish MY body to attain MY goals 

When I start something new, I always get a couple of lbs increase for a couple of weeks.

 

BUT

 

when I very first started working out and lifting heavy, I put on a load of weight initially, that I dont think did ever go ... it jumped up, and then came down at a rate consistent with regular fat loss.

 

I lift 3 times a week, I am sure that muscles hold on to glycogen ready for lifting and that few lbs of weight that I initially put on, will only go if I stop lifting and my muscles learn they do not need that about of glycogen in them.

 

Basically scale weight, tells you how much you weigh, NOT what it is or why its there ... just watch the trend, if you are planning on loosing weight, watch it come down slowly and dont expect a sudden 5 lb drop, because the weight doesn't matter ... 200lbs or 205lbs carrying extra glycogen ? ... makes no difference .... but the alb a week drop in fat .. thats what counts 

As an obese father, I agree with these statements.  I started with walking, then diet, then weights

 

 

as a midly overweight other I started with walking & diet and then weights.

 

just walking places and eating correctly, saw the weight drop off .... as it got addictive, I got in to body weight, then sandbags, then barbells, then a heavy bag, then all of them.

yup totally agree with magicfatso ... the bedroom is for sleeping and err ... you know .... get that TV out of there, if she wants to stay up watching TV, then the place to do that is in the living room.

I took my ring off to go tot he gym about 3 weeks ago, haven got round to putting it back on yet.

 

I just dont find them particularily comfortable .... even wearing 16b boxing gloves they hurt when you hit a heavy bag ..... on the rowing machine they take chunks out your palm, chin-ups, rows, curls they shread your finger.

 

thats just the gym.

 

working on cars they get caught up, digging in the garden they destroy your finger, driving a car they wear the leather on the steering wheel and gear stick .... moisturising a baby, you end up with a slimy metal ring on your finger that stays slimey ..... cooking they attract dirt and you need to take them off to clean 

you cant tone up flab .... what you can do is get rid of it .... and you can put muscle on as well.

 

its more than possible to go from having a soft, slow body do having one carved out of wood that is capable of playing with a child all day long and still have enough energy to make dinner in the evening 

 

there are some rules you need to obey though

 

(1) Time .... its going to take time, it won't happen in weeks, it won't happen in months .... but before you know it your baby will be a 4 year old ... imagine being a toned, fit, athletic mom that can keep up with her kiddy ... the time will pass what ever you do, so put it to good use, a little bit of effort everyday and a few years time, you will look completely different

 

(2) Food .... it determines your size, to a point it also determine your shape .... eat more than you burn and you get bigger, eat less than you burn and smaller  ...... what you need to do is eat less and do resistance exercise to loose fat and retain the muscle you have ..... once you loose the fat, eat more and do resistant exercise to put on muscle 

 

(3) Exercise .... it makes you fit, it makes you strong ..... it burns less calories than you think, so make the most effort for loosing or gaining weight around your diet ... use exercise to get fit or strong !

 

 

As for the cardio, I have been considering adding cardio on my off days, but I don't want to attempt too much too quick and set myself up for failure, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

 

 

 

I do cardio on my off days ... it doesn't in anyway interfere with the weights, if anything the blood flow and jiggling about seems to make recovery quicker and eases soreness ..... the nice thing about cardio is its driven by you .. unlike weights where you are increasing weight and trying to do more each time, with cardio, if its hard work, you just slow down and its easier ..... but it keeps you CV in check

 

people talk about it interfering with gains and burning up calories when you are trying to bulk ... but a 5km run doesn't take it out of you, it burns minimal calories that is replaced and then some with mars bar and it certainly doesn't produce enough stress to start eating muscle

100% do Weights at the gym .... its the perfect place for it, they have weights, they have people that can help, advise, pick you up off the floor

 

you dont need a gym to do cardio, do cardio on your off days, do it at the weekend, briskly go for a walk a jog in the evenings .... cardio can become part of daily routine 

Gave up on SL5x5 3 months ago due to not being able to get past 75kg Bench and 37.5kg OHP.

 

3 months of doing a 12x3 on lighter weights and I last week I switched back to SL5x5 for the winter bulk.

 

 

WHOOOOP .... 1st attempt at 77.5kg Bench and smashed it ... 1st attempt at 40kg OHP and smashed it 

 

Next week is benching for 80kg and OHP for 42.5kg 

 

PBs for the win 

Bodyweight squats in high reps burn serious calories,

 

According to Calorie Lab, a 135-pound person doing squats for 15 minutes can burn 108 calories .... thats a 1/3 of a mars bar .... or a medium sized banana 

 

doing continual squats for 15mins is hard work ..... doing 45 mins of squats is harder than not eating a mars bar 

 

hence the saying "you cant out run the fork"

 

 

the amount of food controls your scale weight

the amount of exercise controls your fitness and BF% 

sounds like DOMS ... "DELAYED" onset muscle soreness 

 

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), also called muscle fever, is the pain and stiffness felt in muscles several hours to days after unaccustomed or strenuous exercise. The soreness is felt most strongly 24 to 72 hours after the exercise.

 

its perfectly normal ... just a pain in  the ass (literally if you have been doing squats ) ..... not much you can do about it, I have found it eases by using the muscle not resting it ... so go for a couple of walks, also drink more water .. it will get nutrients around your body quicker 

 

dunno if its just me, but I have also found staying away from sugar really helps ... cake, biscuits, bread .... cut it out, probably a placebo to be honest, but I did read once about sugar causing inflammation in the body, so no sugar might ease it  bit.

 

and you can safely work out again with DOMS ... if anything it might even help the pain out 

you cant make her change ... but if she is overwhelmed, scared, insecure, you can hold her hand.

 

she is not up for exersize yet, doesn't want to go to the gym and scared about looking silly running ...... so start walking, go for walks after dinner in the evening, go walk somewhere at the weekend .. hire bikes and cycle somewhere .... dont make exersize a chore or the goal to get fit .... just make it part of your lifestyle "I walk to the shops" " I go for a ride in the country side"

 

YOU !!!! ...... cook ... girls like there partners to cook them dinner, from a sex that has had domestic chores forced on them for the best part of the last few hundred centuries ... having the man pick up the whisk is a big deal.

 

cook for her 1/2 of the week, and cook her something healthy 

 

start easy and build on it

 

I am a guy .. My wife is slimmer than me, and we do 30 mins yoga together 3 times a week .... she doesn't go the gym, she doesn't run ...... but I do all the cooking, she is that size because thats what I have grown her to be !

walk or run and drink loads of water .... cures everything