ajhellman

Eric, Thanks for the advice, it's definitely helpful, especially on the pull-up front. I'm still going strong w/ fitness, a few updates: 1) I've stopped holding myself hardcore to the original 1700-1800 cal/day as before, I've allowed things to flex up a bit, provided the extra calories are made up of good stuff (protein, fiber, doughnuts, etc), as a result I've continued my veeeery slow downward trend and am an even 166 lb, 18.0% BF. I'm at the point where I don't care to lose weight but I'm still trying to get the BF lowered... 2) Continuing the running, just ran another 5K, and I've got a 5K Tough Mudder later this summer and an 8K in the fall. Good weather means I'm running between 3-5 mi once or twice a week. 3) Building a power rack into my basement fitness area and just got an olympic barbell set w/ 300 lb of weights, so w/in a couple weeks I'll be set up to start an actual lifting regimen, which I'm excited about. The other benefit of the power rack is I'll have a bar on it that I can start to practice pull-up exercises like was suggested. As far as lifting regimens to look at, I haven't quite decided which one to try, Strong Lifts seems good, I've also been looking at One Man One Barbell program from Jerred Moon, which seems like it might be appropriate for where I'm coming from. Anyone have experience or success with either of those programs? Thanks again, Adam

I should have clarified, a typical run for me at 3.1 - 3.2 miles burns around 450 calories. The 750 was referring to if I took it to 5 miles and beyond. At this point, I'm not confident that I have the endurance or breathing stamina for that distance yet. I definitely get what you're saying. One common theme I have read is that folks often plateau in their fitness when they are eating too little. Somewhat counterintuitive but the explanation makes sense. The fact that I've been holding down a diet at 1700-1800 for quite a while, and the weight has basically leveled off, despite a lot of activity might be an indicator of that. What level do you think would be more appropriate? 2000 calories? Adding it back in as carbs is quite easy (bowl of pasta, cereal, etc), but adding it back in as protein is tougher, I already struggle w/ getting enough protein in (using Rule-of-thumb of 1.0 - 1.25 x bodyweight = 168 - 210g). Tonight I'll study the strength programs that you mentioned, starting strength & Strong Lift. What do you think of the routine that I linked to from the Matthews website? I also noticed that those lifting programs don't really target core work (tho I'm sure those muscles are worked when doing the lifts). Any suggested paths to supplement for that? Thanks, Adam

Thanks for the feedback. When I write it all down, it does seem like a lot...which is probably good to question.... At this point I usually structure the workout by waking up early in the morning and completing it before the rest of the house (wife + 3 kids) wakes up. This seems to work well and I usually will keep it at 1 workout per day, ~5 workouts per week. Occasionally will add an extra afternoon run in if the conditions and weather line up. If anything I think it makes so that I progress through the conditioning programs at a slower rate (for instance the Daily Burn Live to Fail program is structured for 13 weeks, but for me will be more like 21 weeks or so). I will take a look at the lifting programs you've suggested. At my level, beginner suits me just fine. As far as diet, the main reason I am in "cutting" mode is to get rid of the belly fat. I know that I'm trying to maintain a high activity level but aside from cutting calories I'm not sure of any other way to do that, right? I should clarify that on my runs I'm not out there logging 5-8 miles at a time and burning 750 calories at a pop, I'm usually staying at the 2-3 mile with a 9-10 min/mi pace. So, not what I would categorize as an expert runner......boy I'd love to eat 2300 calories!!! Thanks, Adam

Hello folks, first time here. Seems like a nice wealth of information here in NF, so I'll jump right in... I'm a 35 y.o. male, 6'0" 168 lb. For the last decade or so I've been fortunate to stay relatively steady in my overall weight & appearance, though it did start to creep up a bit (177 lb last year). After deciding it's time to be in control of my fitness before I lose control of things as I get older, I started last July with regular workouts & diet. One thing I will say, is that I think fitness is one of the most written about topics you'd be able to find out in literature & online, just a crazy amount of information & approaches and strategies out there, many of which are contradictory...certainly can make things challenging for those inexperienced and in the beginning stages (and also that don't have the money or choose not to pay a trainer or gym to manage their approach). A basic summary of my goals though, I think is a good starting point: 1) Lean out, get BF% below 15%, get rid of my belly fat 2) Running & OCRs - Always work on improving times (currently around 31:30 5K or so) and increasing distances (can comfortably run a 5K but not tried much further, would top out at 10m, maybe a half-marathon as stretch goal) 3) Build strength - I've always been somewhat wiry, I want to be able to take advantage of my frame a bit more, no body builder stuff here but I feel relatively weak for my size, also would help for the leaning out thing in #1 4) Pull-up - I want to be able to do pull-ups! Being fit means I should be able to lift my own body weight around. Certainly can't do one now...I also see this as important to being able to compete in OCRs 5) Core - Going back to #1 and getting rid of belly fat, I want to develop a strong solid core for general all-around fitness From a diet perspective, fortunately my wife is an educated medical professional, has been practicing solid healthy diet choices for decades, has instilled that in the household so I've got a relatively good diet to start from. After going through various measurements & calculations, loosely laid out in this article: https://legionathletics.com/how-many-calories-should-i-eat/, I hold myself to around 1700 - 1800 calories per day. From that alone I had been able to drop from 177 to 168. My goal is to get BF% down to the 12 - 15% range (currently at about 18.5%). Does this seem right? Hope so.... Through social circles I've also found an enjoyment of outdoor running. Not the biggest fan of treadmill, but I do it when its convenient and also cold out (I live in Wisconsin). I've run a few 5Ks and found them to be a blast. I'm also signed up for a Tough Mudder event later on this summer, and would love to eventually grow to Spartan or similar. I currently try to run 2x a week, but I don't really have much "strategy" going on that quite yet. The cardio I think helps in conjunction w/ my diet to keep the weight steadily if slowly going down. As far as weighted exercise, I've been using my DailyBurn subscription to get the ball rolling. I do everything in my basement which has a bit of space set aside for fitness equipment. I'm currently in the middle of Ben Booker's Live to Fail series, which is a real good general introductory weightlifting program. It only requires a box and dumbells. It certainly gets me sweating and I feel it throughout the day, but I see myself progressing after this program is done to hopefully the next step. I'm thinking of trying the Black Fire program which is quite a bit more intense in its pace and probably blends a lot more cardio in rather than just straight strength conditioning. This spring I'm going to build a power rack into my basement fitness area so that I can incorporate traditional barbell exercises for strength conditioning, as well as provide a pull-up bar to train on. That being said I'm not sure what type of strength program I should use with the barbell. Any recommendations on where to start? I've looked at Michael Matthews & his articles as a consideration (https://www.muscleforlife.com/how-to-build-a-workout-routine/) but not sure where that falls on the spectrum of programs out there, or if it's really right for me. In general I shoot for a combination that results in ~5x / week exercising. Here's a schedule I'm thinking of: - Running - 1x - 2x / week - HIIT strength / cardio (such as Black Fire or some other active weighted program) - 1x - 2x / week - Strength (paced weights, recovery time, etc) - 2x - 3x / week (would likely include ab / core work) - Additional training to supplement throughout - NF's Pull-Up Training - https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/do-a-pull-up/ Does any of this make sense? As you can see I'm trying out a lot of stuff, but generally trying to incorporate good stuff into my routine, while also not getting too bored with only one thing. Thoughts? I don't have experience in this to say that any of this is wasting my time or not..... Thanks, Adam PS sorry for the long post and also if this ended up in the wrong forum / subforum...there's so many...