aj_rock

What knightwatch suggested is Eat Stop Eat, a decent read, if a little light on the background knowledge. It's just a form of calorie cycling, which is just a fancy way of saying eat less some days, eat more others. Also, if you feel you're progressing too slowly, you're probably progressing well. Only NO progress is really a bad thing. A lot of people expect fast growth the entire time they lift, while realistically, fast growth happens for a few months before slowing down.

Rest assured, EVERY industry goes through this, not just farms. IT guys complain about people who don't know computers, engineers complain about people who don't know physical properties, doctors complain about people who don't understand biology. It's part of specialization, and why I always seriously advocate trying to know a little about everything.

I said merely theoretically I was talking about achieving things that are literally impossible, like one-arm handstands with 8 45 pound plates strapped to your back, or reaching a BF % of 0% (you would have died at 2). I was making a joke guys...

Alcohol actually wrecks havoc with your recovery, because your body gets its priorities mixed up Priority numero uno when consuming alcohol = get rid of alcohol. Martin Berkhan and Alan Aragon have good articles re. alcohol and fitness. Paleo is it's own story, but if you're having alcohol, don't even try to pretend you're being strict with your diet you know what you're doing.

People who can't tell the difference between a natural lifter and a drug user shouldn't really be commenting. If you've been in a gym long enough, you can tell whos on the roids. Hint: it's the guys who pump their triceps and biceps thru 2" range of motion but are still jacked.

Hey man! How's your nutrition? It's gonna play a big part in improving your numbers, which are already pretty good.

Hey man, encouraging a solid knowledge foundation on nutrition is cool by me man. Push as much nutritional crack as you want Colgan's pretty much in line with my recommendations anyway.

Not sure if 7.5-8.5 is really intervals, but that IS an awesome time. Were you really pushing it or was this kinda easy?

Really depends what you do with it. Are you sitting on your ass drinking beers, eating nachos, pizza, and breaded wings? It's very easy to take in twice your maintenance calories doing that. *shrug* My strategy has always been to fit it into my calorie allotment, or just make sure I'm at a place where the party's poppin' and I'm on my feet anyways. Long story short, you know what you're doing. Decide accordingly. I can't really speak as to the paleo nature of alchohol (even though fermenting the sugars in whatever is about as natural as it gets...), but the easiest on the calories is hard liquor with a low-cal mix.

You'll always find you lose a lot of transient weight when you stop eating carbs, simply because your body drains out of them. Carbs store a lot of water, so to lose 3-4# of weight SOLELY from carbs is not unheard of. It is NOT, however, fat.

Maybe move to a four day split routine? Increasing training frequency of a given body part can help. Just switch something up. Frankly though, your numbers for your weight are pretty good actually, and as such, your objective of lose fat/gain muscle at the same time is not gonna work without some serious diet trickery. My advice would be to a) keep lifting 3 times a week, and continue losing fat. Once you get down to say, 88kg, bump your calories back up, and you'll probably settle around 89, setting you up for a good muscle building phase. Or, like I said, some serious diet trickery. Usually not worth the hassle though.

Guys, remember she's using small-ish plates, so shes got another six inches towards the ground that her plates could go to the ground. Regular 45's as plates and she would be very close to the ground. Your form on the deads got better as your set went on. My sole complaint; take a pen or something, hold it vertical, and watch your bar go up and down. The better deadlifts go straight up and down, and you wandered quite a bit on a couple of the early reps.

You want HR down to 120. Maybe turn the speed down even further and increase rest.

A Guide To Flexible Dieting, by Lyle McDonald. Lots of information about basic diet principles in easy(ish) to understand language. Two others would be Starting Strength (exercise technique) and Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (very similar to Flexible Dieting). Also, the BBC has tons of really good documentaries on weight management. One interesting one was 'Why are thing people not fat?'

Hey, having tons of energy is a good thing. Energy = anabolic man. If you really feel like you should be doing something, maybe work on cardio? You need cardio in rasslin right?

Nobody will believe you Welcome to NF at any rate!

Yah pretty much. Even the purported 'incompleteness' of vegetable proteins isn't really a factor. The only difference between proteins is the biological value, which measures the ratio of protein absorbed and used to build tissue in the body versus protein converted to glucose and used as energy, and even then it only really stands up when you're in a fasted state. The only other possible difference between proteins is digestibility. Animal and whey proteins take longer to absorb, while vegetable/grain and casein protein sit in your stomach longer. TL;DR, don't worry.

This. No one but the most neurotic of us could count calories forever. But its a way of realizing exactly how much (or how little) you actually eat. I'm not one to pull stats out of my ass, but if I had a dollar every time someone who was bigger ate more than they thought, and someone on the small side ate less than they thought...

Chronic or acute pain? Like is it a costant ache, or is it sharp, brought upon by stretching or touching? The area you seem to be describing is part of the back musculature, and it is very easy to tear this area if you load your back while stretching. I myself have strained muscles in this area by stretching up too far for pull-ups. If it brings nausea on though, I would consult a physician though.

Funny enough, I started as OL in grade nine, and finished off my high-school career as LB/SB. No offense to the boys up front but I just did not enjoy being one of the 'big kids'

I wantz my bench press @ 225. So many times in sport I've been held back because I've been unable to press the two 45 plates. So close....

If you're meeting your protein requirements, its just about filling up the rest of the calories. -quality liquid calories (like milk) help a lot. Liquid calories aren't sensed by the body very well so you can fill up on 'em - get more carbs. You won't feel full as easily, but since you WANT to eat more, you don't want to feel oversatiated on the fats

Yeah, your workouts will not reach any great length until you get a couple years in. 30 minutes sounds about right.

I'd say take that Monday bike ride off. You'll burn out pretty fast going at it 7 days a week. Even six is really pushing it. I know you say you want to lift, but depending on how good of a workout you get doing yoga, it might not be necessary for your goals.

There are *technically* ways to build muscle while losing fat. The most obvious one is someone on the bigger side weightlifting and eating right; they will lose fat, and gain lean muscle mass. The other ways... well... you either need to use drugs or go on some masochistic dreadfully painful workout scheme. It IS possible though. At your size, you should just lift heavy, and eat well. You'd be surprised what 10-15 pounds of muscle will look like on your frame.