aj_rock

Great shape? Hmm... 1) Not being at risk for diabetes, CHD, CAD, MI, stroke, and all that jazz 2) All the general stuff other people said. But no really, I consider lowering risks for whatever lifestyle type diseases to be about as important as it gets.

Mmmm ok last little addendum; I suggested LISS purely for the fact that you'll want to burn off a few more calories, rather than just continue reducing intake. LISS is actually highly NOT useful for baseball. I mean, think about it; what do you do? Stand around, stand around, stand around some more... OMG BALL! RUN! THROW! Stand around, stand around, stand around... Heck, depending on how often you have practice you can just drop the LISS and just work harder during practice. But the LISS was suggested purely for body composition, not baseball ... Which, after re-reading what you said, IS what you intend to do. Well then. Carry on

Quite a few kids around here find it helpful to make lunch-type items en masse in one day and then just slowly consume it over the week. That idea might help. And yes, LISS = low-intensity steady-state. Basically, if you do that for about 30 minutes maybe twice a week, it helps improve recovery, increases calories burned on the order of 150-200 calories, and is low-impact enough that it shouldn't negatively affect leg strength. LISS starts being more of a demand on your body when you do it for a reaaaaaaaally long time. But yeah, think light jog/fast walk.

Well I'm in the gym four days a week for around two hours. Then there's rugby practice. Then there's bi-weekly soccer with work. And studying for a PT certificate. And applying for thesis positions at school. And running things in preperation for the local soccer league. Drinking on weekends. A few shows I keep up with. Maybe a bit of random gaming. ... Yeah, I keep busy

If you're gonna go the calorie counting route, a couple of easy switches might help. Trade straight up bacon for back bacon; it's leaner, so you can eat more of it (tastes the same too!). 1% milk will let you drink more and get more protein from that. Protein bars are actually not that great in terms of protein to carb/fat ratios; maybe another animal protein source, like beef, or even fish would help here. I wouldn't point fingers at BMR slowdown just yet. Bring your cardio back up to speed, and I think you'll start shifting weight again following your minor hiatus. For baseball specifically, rotator cuff injuries are fairly common, due to muscular imbalances. Basically, you end up being able to accelerate your shoulders going in one direction faster than you can de-accelerately after wards. Think swinging the bat, but then you get all turned and strain your shoulders after the swing. Look up rotator cuff exercises and I think it should be easy to see why they would help. Corey's right, that if you want to eat more on exercise days and less on rest days, that can help. The stipulation then is that you would HAVE to reduce working days to 3 or 4, rather than 6; otherwise, you eat above on six days and then essentially eat nothing day seven. Which is workable. Not very fun though. In general, women *do* seem to need to do cardio more than guys, simply because it's inadvisable to drop your calories too low; it makes it hard to meet vitamin/mineral/nutrient requirements. You end up being better off doing an extra 150-200 cals worth of cardio than eating a similar amount less. So an example would be a two day push/pull split done twice a week, with hard cardio, maybe HIIT after one and easy LISS cardio after the other.

Hmm well... My first thought is maybe a bit more protein. Couldn't hurt secondly, especially if you want to consider athletic performance (like in baseball), you should really have more carbs. You'll notice a bit of a weight spike, but its transient water/glycogen weight, not fat, so no worries. But carbs are pretty much neccessary for most people to perform athletically. Especially if you're training six days a week. If every session is hard training, you need more food (read; carbs) period, in order to facilitate adaptation. That or you need to cut the amount of work done during some days (so hard work, easy recovery, rinse and repeat) Anyways, that aside, need moar details. What's plateaued? Fat loss? Strength gains? Both? Have you taken any legitimate breaks from working out? Or did you just figure that since you slacked on the cardio, you can work through the weight lifting Pure conjecture without knowing more, but I'd hesitantly say you could stand to re-comp for a bit longer, simply because you messed up the last couple months. Fat loss is probably also lower than you think because a semi-ketogenic diet like what you're eating right now initially causes transient weight loss of up to 5-6 pounds. Lastly, if you have your heart set on playing baseball, look into the training methods ideal for playing. Short sprints with long rest periods simulate base running. Explosive lifts like OL, combined with lots of rotator cuff/shoulder work, should help improve your swing/prevent injuries.

For good motivation, try looking up some papers on why large amounts of bed-rest are terrible news for your body. If TL:DR, they use months of bed-rest to simulate the bodily de-conditioning astronauts experience in space. You know, the kind where they wear those crazy pants and have to work out a bajillion hours a day to prevent? Yeah, that.

Can I suggest NOT worrying about ratios? Instead, aim for: 1 gram of protein per lb bodyweight. MINIMUM 50 g of fat. Make sure you get plenty omega-3. At most 70g carbs if you want to be ketogenic. If not, scale carb intake with activity level. For physically active, take around 9-10g per lb bodyweight. THEN, figure out how much to eat total. As long as you hit these minimums, eat what you feel best.

Ok, the longer time-span makes more sense I'll still hesitantly say your BF% level is lower than to be expected from your efforts, for two reasons: 1) Checking your workout logs, your LBM just doesn't sync up with where your lifts are at. I don't have any concrete evidence to back that up; thats just in my experience. But 185 LBM at around 6' tall is usually beast-level; you'd be absolutely JACKED if that was the case. Of course, your pictures could potentially prove me horrendously wrong. All the more power to yah if you do 2) that's stillllll an abnormal level of muscle gain, even spreading it over 8 months still puts you at gaining 2.5# LBM for 8 straight months. Beginners in their first year of training can usually expect UP TO 20 pounds over that first year, averaging to 1 2/3 of a pound a month. Again, especially considering the heavy fat loss component in the first four months of training, I simply don't see 20 pounds LBM happening over even 8 months. I'd say, tentatively, that you've been low-balled on the BF%. Based on your workout log, I'd put your LBM at closer to 165-170 right now, giving you a BF% more in the 17-18% range. Take away say, ten# lbm since you began 8 months ago, that puts your starting range closer to 29-31%. I don't mean to be a debby downer though man Atypical body fat patterns (AKA if you dont store a lot of abdominal fat, then US Navy/most circumference methods can be thrown right out the window) will skew data like that. At the same time, to respond to your initial inquiry, if my BF estimate for you is correct, you're probably still seeing basic recomposition, aka, still losing some fat while gaining strength, which will retard size appearance. Say your arms got stronger. Your biceps may be increasing in size at a similar rate that fat on your arms is decreasing. Net; no size change, but the arms should appear more 'vascular', and be less squishy. As long as strength keeps going up, and your BF% seems in check, I think you're primed to just keep course. Do what you do until you stop seeing gains, then we'll re-evaluate.

Only 100? Pretty ambitious

Like I said, at the worst, look at the ingredients. If it lists lactase, that's the enzyme that gets added to lactose-free milk to get rid of the lactose.

So glad that show is dying. They cancelled it after the current season.

I remember having ice baths available during training for football. Like a cold pack, helps to reduce inflammation (which you get lots of in contact-heavy sports >.>) As for the steam room, it's a relaxant. Ever notice how people just seem to move... slower, in warm, humic climates? Your body just relaxes in the presence of warm humidity, in order to reduce chances of overexertion/over-heating.

So had no one paid attention to the 225 @ 25% to 205 @10%? In four months? That right there is a jump in LBM from 165 to 185. Not something I'd complain about. I'm a little skeptical of losing 35 pounds fat while gaining 20 pounds muscle though mate. In four months, thats 5 pounds per month LBM. Without drugs, the best rate seen amongst most people is 2LBM gained per month, and that's not while consciously attempting to lose fat Sorry bud, but I'm gonna call shenanigans. Might want to re-calculate your LBM

Yeah Knightwatch! Maybe I'll have to jump into this challenge as well then

There is very little requirement by the body to immediately ingest excess protein. Your body increases utilization of free amino-acids in the body for quite a few hours after exercise, so whether you drink some fast-acting protein versus digesting some solid protein over a couple hours makes very little difference.

Zen: that's interesting! I come from an almost complete reversed background; both parents, while uber smart, never went to post-secondary and as a result probably didn't achieve as much in their careers as they could. That's pretty funny about taking tests just because you like taking them though The invention of random quizzes on facebook and whatnot must have been horribly distracting! I think the philosophy + LSAT would make you more.... ummm.... egg and tadpole bahahahah. I haven't the faintest idea how the political ladder works in the states though. Just remember that both law and political work are fairly soul draining activities.

yeah, lactose = milk sugar, which is seperate from the whey. Lactase (lactose digesting enzyme) is also an ingredient in most whey powders, so fear not teh horrors of lactose intolerance!

Just don't tell ETF... no telling what pictures he might subject us to.

More importantly, does the search turn anything up?

Invaluable post ETF. Thanks for your time Zen: maybe you could share a bit more of your thinking? Law school vs business management vs all other grad studies is pretty broad. You sound more into the MBA, but why the others then? Law school seems to be a pretty infamous back up for a lot of people who catapulted into the public eye

His pic is an over-exaggeration of people who lift their ass off the bench when they press. That or we're seeing the only pictoral demonstration of failing an olympic lift backwards when your feet are nailed to the ground Anywho... I compete in club rugby (canada); just entering my second year, but I already won an award! No trophy though, just a fancy looking pint glass.

You're right ETF; some more background is probably called for. I'm taking Mechanical Engineering in Toronto right now, but I have one more year after I finish a 16 month work placement. While here, I've decided that pure engineering work isn't really what I've been aiming for, and through class exposure n what not, I've decided I really want to get into more business oriented things. I've also discovered that I find human biology (like what we discuss here) intensely fascinating. The problem is that, while I'm working through a minor in bio engineering, I don't quite have the marks to go into a masters degree in bio, and I reaaaally don't want to do med school. So the pure bio path is kinda closed. Meanwhile, my school offers something called the Skoll Program, a B.asc MBA combination for engineering students interested in doing business/management. From what I've gathered, tradition MBA paths for engineers is basically a crapshoot on whether you get through; in order to have a workplace sponsor you to do an MBA, they need to have a position open, desire to have you do management, etc. that's all rather hard to do, especially if you work at a place that has a crapload of engineers. It makes sense to distinguish yourself early so that I can avoid the 5-6 years spent working, all the while the odds of me going back to school slowly fading away, as LIFE settles in. It's not management I want per say; it's the leadership. It's directing people to shape MY visions, and I'll go the entreprenurial route if I have to. I'm also working throuogh a PT certificate and I'm seriously looking at setting up my own business in the field. I want to do this, and I feel my soft skill set is perfect for it. So right now, the only school I'm aware of that will offer the MBA right away is mine. But I want to look at other schools that will give me a similar opportunity. I'll have 16 months of work under my belt, albeit not strongly business related, but I do have some management experience through volunteering and such. My marks, coming from engineering, are acceptable where they are (not stellar, but acceptable), and hence my focus on the GMAT. A score of 650 is req'd for my school, but again that's only one. So yeah, my plans are only really laid out for the next 2 years... However as I get into developing my own side business and what not, I'll be in a better spot to evaluate what my real long-term goals are. But I strongly feel that an MBA will be part of them.

For body fat: track the metrics rather than a %. If the waist size /caliper numbers are going down, you're doing good. Strength is ok. Measurements... what do you really want to know, besides body fat or strength? wrist and neck measurements are sometimes used to BF% estimation... As for movement patterns, just post vids of you performing the exercise, we'll let you know how you're doing.

Waist:hip ratio is another popular one. Very good for discerning risks for diabetes, HBP, CHD/CAD, etc.