FitnessBore - 2018 edition

[Mupepe]

Did you already try a reset?

[Tasty]

Wondering what y'all think of this: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/brewster26.htm

Mostly this part:



I bought Lose It Premium exclusively to track this macronutrient stuff, and this seems like a good direction to keep headed but I'd like some input from some actual human beings.

[Mupepe]

Macro breakdown depends on your goals really. And based on a 2000 calorie diet that's about 250 grams of protein. That's probably overkill for the average person.

[Tasty]

Macro breakdown depends on your goals really. And based on a 2000 calorie diet that's about 250 grams of protein. That's probably overkill for the average person.

My calculated diet is 1821 calories, from that same article. So... >.>

What would be a good target then?

Goal is to go from 20 to 15% body fat. I know that may take a while but I feel pretty committed. I have an entire year of Lose It Premium I have to use after all! 

On a related note my grocery list tonight:

- 3 steaks
- 4 chicken breasts
- strawberries
- carrots
- Greek yogurt
- coffee
- apricots
- bananas
- pinot noir

Not too much different from my normal list except for stuff I didn't buy (cookies, chips, ice cream, whole milk, white bread.)

I'm also committing to not have any more soda outside cocktails from now on.

(I know this is all kindergarten stuff lol. )

[Mupepe]

It's not a bad macro if you're trying to lose weight. Calories in and calories out will matter a lot more with that breakdown though. I'd drop the carbs a little more and up the fat a bit more. Carb counting has always been the easiest weight loss method for me.

Just a note, there is nothing wrong with fruit as far as health goes but they do you no favors when it comes to weight loss.

[Tasty]

I'm not trying to lose weight, I've actually achieved my goal of increasing to 140 or so and I'm pretty happy with that.

[Samson Manhug]

If you lose fat and don't replace it with muscle you will lose weight.

[Tasty]

If you lose fat and don't replace it with muscle you will lose weight.

But that's basically replacing it with protein right? 🤔

[Mupepe]

If you lose fat and don't replace it with muscle you will lose weight.

But that's basically replacing it with protein right? 🤔

No. Eating protein won't make you gain muscle. Hypertrophic stimulation makes you gain muscle and you need the protein and the right exercises to make that happen.

[Mupepe]

Does anyone know anything about candy/sugar making aerobic exercise more difficult.

Lately I've been very sluggish when cycling and the past few weeks I've been eating a lot of candy bars and shit. I didn't really make the connection at first but I'm thinking the candy is fucking me up. I'm really far too tired sometimes during the workout. Like, super sluggish. It's pretty crazy. I've never had it this bad before.

I guess I already know the answer but I'd like to know if there's any research on this.

No clue on the science but I've had the same experience.

[Take My Breh Away]

Did you already try a reset?

I did a small the week before because I had a stomach bug during the middle of the week. I have two days off since my last workout was Friday, so I'll try push next week and if I'm still struggling try a reset.

[Tasty]

If you lose fat and don't replace it with muscle you will lose weight.

But that's basically replacing it with protein right? 🤔

No. Eating protein won't make you gain muscle. Hypertrophic stimulation makes you gain muscle and you need the protein and the right exercises to make that happen.

So exercise is just as important then? 🤔

[Mupepe]

Im sure you're being obtuse on purpose, but you're talking about two different things. Losing fat and gaining muscle are not mutually exclusive and rarely can you do both at the same time without chemical assistance. Diet is most important for losing fat and you won't gain muscle with diet alone. And unless you're a beginner, on PED's or genetically gifted you are probably not doing both at the same time. And diet needs to be tweaked towards gaining muscle the same as it needs to be tweaked for losing fat. The diet you use to lose fat is not going to be the diet you should use to gain muscle.

[Mupepe]

Did you already try a reset?

I did a small the week before because I had a stomach bug during the middle of the week. I have two days off since my last workout was Friday, so I'll try push next week and if I'm still struggling try a reset.

I do 10% resets after I fail to reach my goal in 3 sessions.

[Tasty]

Was being a little obtuse but I don't know enough about this stuff, so it seemed like I was given conflicting info.

I'm not trying to gain muscle. I'm also not trying to lose weight. I'm trying to adjust the foods I'm eating so that more calories are going to protein and carbs than fat.

[Kara]

Does anyone know anything about candy/sugar making aerobic exercise more difficult.

Lately I've been very sluggish when cycling and the past few weeks I've been eating a lot of candy bars and shit. I didn't really make the connection at first but I'm thinking the candy is fucking me up. I'm really far too tired sometimes during the workout. Like, super sluggish. It's pretty crazy. I've never had it this bad before.

I guess I already know the answer but I'd like to know if there's any research on this.

Sugar plays a critical role in cycling (fuel / refueling). It's not that you're eating candy bars, it's that you're eating them at the wrong times; they're best eaten during a ride, especially ones that last longer than 2 hours.

(As a bit of a tangent, since the sport predates most of the hilarious products peddled by the sports nutrition industry, flat Coca-Cola was the energy drink of choice for early professional riders and still has a cult icon status in the sport.)

Cycling is a bit of an oddity in that you're more or less a sentient internal combustion engine while engaged in it. That means that very tiny things can get magnified a great deal, so I would be hesitant to say your recent dietary indiscretions are responsible for your current state aside from maybe adding some kilos to your bod.

How often are you riding?
Are you riding at varying intensities? (Not as easy to do on a single speed, but still possible.)
Are you riding after eating? If so, how many hours have you allowed to elapse before heading out? (General rule of thumb is at least 2 hours, I prefer not to ride after eating at all.)
Are you taking care of your body when you come back and eating a recovery meal?
Are you hydrating enough?
Are you warming up at the start of your ride, or are you Henri Van Lerberghe?

e: To give you an example, I road the exact same bike (own multiple bikes brehs) this morning as yesterday morning but I wore shoes that weren't stiff enough (use flat pedals brehs) and paced myself incorrectly on top of that so I only road half the distance I road yesterday because my body was like, "Yeah we're done here."

[Kara]

I would tentatively say that you're over-training. If you're riding that often you have to vary your intensity (colloquially known as the recovery ride). Are you riding at least ~24 hours apart?

[Tasty]

I'm not trying to gain muscle. I'm also not trying to lose weight. I'm trying to adjust the foods I'm eating so that more calories are going to protein and carbs than fat.

But why would you do that? If you're not interested in muscle gain or losing weight, just focus on healthy, nutritious food.

I want a little more definition, mostly. And the whole "abs are made in the kitchen" discussion a few pages back got me to research macronutrients and whatnot, so I'm trying to decrease the amount of sugar and fat I consume (while maintaining the same amount of calories.)

I am exercising, just not weights (yet.)

[Tasty]

Hmm, thanks Dufus. That's pretty helpful.

Cutting sugar out is gonna be really hard. I'm already trying to avoid soda, but I also put a shit ton of sugar in my coffee (and I don't trust aspartame at all.) :'(

I'm also a sucker for stuff like ketchup and other toppings that are loaded with the stuff.

Though I did a whole pack of baby carrots and ranch yesterday.

[Tasty]

breh... no soda and no sugar in your coffee might be enough to lose the body fat and get those abs showing

But... coffee is gross without sugar. 😭

[Tasty]

Drink better coffee.

Maybe I'll switch to Mio energy.

[Mupepe]

Dufus is right. More definition is either lower body fat or more muscle. Start by getting rid of the overtly awful stuff. Soda if you haven't already, pure sugar, candy, that kind of crap. It's amazing the difference that stuff will make. Eat the typical healthy foods. When progress stops from that then things get complicated like counting macros, calories or keto diets. That's also when you'll probably need to start looking at bulk/cut cycles.

[Tasty]

Dufus is right. More definition is either lower body fat or more muscle. Start by getting rid of the overtly awful stuff. Soda if you haven't already, pure sugar, candy, that kind of crap. It's amazing the difference that stuff will make. Eat the typical healthy foods. When progress stops from that then things get complicated like counting macros, calories or keto diets. That's also when you'll probably need to start looking at bulk/cut cycles.

Ah OK, thanks.

How will I know when progress stops? Is it like, week to week comparisons? I imagine it's slowgoing even when it's "working."

[Mupepe]

Yep, sure is. Take progress pics week to week would be my suggestion. Combine that with a weekly weigh in. I know you said you don't want to lose weight but that's usually what happens when losing body fat so it's still a good indicator.

An outside opinion helps too. I used to have my wife evaluate me because my dysmoprhia was too strong to see any difference.

[Tasty]

Yep, sure is. Take progress pics week to week would be my suggestion. Combine that with a weekly weigh in. I know you said you don't want to lose weight but that's usually what happens when losing body fat so it's still a good indicator.

An outside opinion helps too. I used to have my wife evaluate me because my dysmoprhia was too strong to see any difference.

Good advice. Will take my first pic tonight.

Dysmorphia seems like a hard thing to shake once you get it. You OK now breh?

[Mupepe]

I'm all good 

[Take My Breh Away]

Did you already try a reset?

I did a small the week before because I had a stomach bug during the middle of the week. I have two days off since my last workout was Friday, so I'll try push next week and if I'm still struggling try a reset.

I do 10% resets after I fail to reach my goal in 3 sessions.

Did this today, everything lifted fine and dandy and was still able to do 20 minutes HIIT after. Problem solved.

[Boogie]

Just came back from 5 days in Calgary for the Stampede.  Had never been before.  Five days of lots of eating shit and drinking a lot, and no exercise other than walking and bad dancing.

Weight the morning before leaving: 182.2 lbs

I suck in a breath of dread and step on the scale this morning: 182.4 lbs

Wtf lol

[Samson Manhug]

I'm down to 165 from 190. Divorce, brehs. Best cut I've ever had.

[Tasty]

Made it through a weekday with no soda or candy. Even sidestepped a "healthy" granola bar when I saw how loaded with sugar it was (courtesy the chocolate.) Instead I ate an apple. Also had no sugar in my morning coffee and 1/2 the sugar in my afternoon one. My work fucking sucks for this. Candy and soda just lying right there. #firstworldproblems

Also switched to 1% milk in my apartment, and it's not as bad as I remember.

I can do this... I can do this...

[Samson Manhug]

I don't really understand why you are switching from to 1% milk. I don't think reducing fat will help you with your goals unless you are going for calorie restriction.

[Mupepe]

Dropping the "fat is bad" mindset is hard but it will make dieting so much easier.  You'll feel fuller quicker, fatty foods taste better () and fat even helps to blunt insulin spikes in certain foods.

[Tasty]

I don't really understand why you are switching from to 1% milk. I don't think reducing fat will help you with your goals unless you are going for calorie restriction.

Dropping the "fat is bad" mindset is hard but it will make dieting so much easier.  You'll feel fuller quicker, fatty foods taste better () and fat even helps to blunt insulin spikes in certain foods.

It's that them there anti-fat propaganda I tells ya

Fat is good. Especially fat that comes from plants. No need to avoid whole milk AFAIK. I drink 1.5% milk cause that's what I'm used to drinking.

🤔

Thank fucking god. Avoiding most dairy for even one day has been crazy hard for me.

COME BACK INTO MY ARMS, WHOLE MILK

Candy and soda just lying right there. #firstworldproblems

This is definitely the worst. Only reason why I'm not morbidly obese right now: candy costs money.

Heard a rumor we're winding down the amount of candy we're getting based on orders from the CEO. Last year I might have been pissed but now I'm like, "Yes, thank god!"

Also if it's too hard to drink your coffee without sugar you just need better coffee really. I actually don't drink coffee, but I drink tea and never take sugar with it.

At first it might seem a bit meh but it's an acquired taste (I assume coffee is similar to tea in that regard).

Also, it might depend on what kind of coffee you drink. When I was younger I drank my black tea with a shit ton of sugar and it was tasty. Then I tried to drink without sugar and preferred it that way, but only when I started drinking different kinds of tea did I really prefer it. Basically, some black teas almost feel designed to go well with sugar, and only go well with sugar. With green tea, this is not the case at all. Good quality green tea is naturally sweet when brewed with hot but not boiling water.

What I'm trying to say it, the shit you eat and drink can make it harder to avoid adding shit to it. If you eat certain foods that are kind of dry, you'll want to take some sugary sauce with it. When you drink coffee, you'll want to take sugar with it. You might want to make changes to what you eat and drink to foods and drink that do not tempt you to do such things. So even though I've had a ton of black tea with sugar in my life, the thought of adding sugar to my green tea seems pretty gross. Now that I have a habit of drinking green tea, avoiding sugar with my tea is easy.

In other words some habits make it easy to avoid this or that, other habits make it much harder to avoid those things.

My plan is to just slowly wind down the amount of sugar I put into it. I'm already down to two packs of sugar from four.

"Get better coffee" isn't really an option when it's what work has. (#firstworldproblems) I haven't tried all the flavors we have so I might go experimenting.

[Mupepe]

Put a bit of heavy cream or coconut oil in your coffee instead.  Both are much healthier than sugar.

[Mupepe]

I can't really tell the difference between whole milk and 1.5% milk... 

Anything other than whole milk tastes bad

[Tasty]

I can't really tell the difference between whole milk and 1.5% milk... 

Anything other than whole milk tastes bad

Yup. Watery with a funky after taste.

[Tasty]

andy, drink dis:

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2012/07/why-you-should-drink-more-darjeeling-tea-what-is-first-flush.html

🤔

I did like the movie...

[nachobro]

I only drink milk in protein shakes. The difference between 1% and whole isn't really noticeable to me either.

Also a weekend in Vegas only had me gaining 2 lbs. 

[Mupepe]

yo man wtf... I just found out there's sugar in milk I guess I shouldn't be too concerned about it, but still...

Sure is.  Another reason to go with whole milk.  The fat helps blunt the insulin spike from the sugar in the milk.

[Mupepe]

Well the sugar spikes your insulin which is a hormonal signal for your body to begin storing fat.  If you're worried about gaining fat then insulin spikes should be a concern unless you're doing calorie counting.

[Samson Manhug]

Protip: anything that ends in "ose" is sugar. Milk contains lactose.

[Madrun Badrun]

I woke up looking really good today.  So I ate a box of cookies. 

[Momo]

I moved from doing 1h30 min general in the gym three times a week, to three 30 min targeted routines + one weekly cardio routine. Shit hurt at the start, but I feel a lot stronger and faster now, I used to stupidly be all about putting in that hours.

[Mupepe]

Yep yep.  I used to do a lot of wasted assistance exercises and unnecessarily long breaks in between sets.  Once I dropped that crap my progress took off.  When I was at my peak I still never took more than an hour, and usually quite a bit less.  At this point I'm usually done in 30 minutes or so.

[TakingBackSunday]

Bumping to add to the discussion –

The last month I've been going to the gym 4 times a week, around 1 hour each time.  20-30 minutes is devoted to cardio, the other 20-30 is devoted to targeted weight exercises.  It's been great!  I'm obviously not super strong nor am I knowledgeable about weight training in general, but I've felt fantastic after the first week.  I've lost around 5 pounds but probably would have lost more if I wasn't doing weight exercises.  I'm basically at the point of the image on the left:



But a little skinnier.  I'm not aiming for the right image, but I'd like to be lean like Andy Murray.

Also, I finally found a protein powder that I like 

I put it in a fruit smoothie each night – is that okay?  What are other people's shake recommendations for protein?

[Cerveza mas fina]

Guys don't forget genes determine if and how much exercise has effect on you and how you end up looking

[Cerveza mas fina]

Not true Dufus.

I'm talking about this:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/is-fitness-all-in-the-genes/?_r=0

This means there is strong suggestion that fitness just doesn't work for some.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I'm sorry I don't think you understand this has nothing to do with trying to be a pro athlete.

Watch this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cywtq

I just think anyone embarking on a exercise regime should know about stuff like this.

[Mupepe]

I'd focus on weight lifting right now.  When you first start weight lifting you'll make incredibly fast gains and progress.  Don't disrupt this with cardio (they don't work well together).  Focus on weight lifting and diet for now.  Your body fat should decrease with this alone unless you on a see-food diet.  Once you get some additional mass then you can tweak your diet to add in some cardio.  You'll look much better when you lose that weight because you'll have the extra muscle mass. 

Now my personal opinion - drop the protein powder.  Get your protein from food, not supplements.  It's cheaper and more effective.  At this point do the typical "healthy" diet.  If it's filled with sugar, battered and fried or comes in a vacuum sealed plastic bag then it's probably bad for you.  And don't drink your calories.  Those changes alone mixed with weight lifting will make a hell of a difference.

[Boogie]

Tsc tsc, BrandNew, no surrogate pics here.  The real thing or gtfo.

Also, I second mups suggestion that you drop the protein powder.  There's likely no benefit you're going to get from it based on your "targeted weight exercises" (whatever that's supposed to mean  )

[Cerveza mas fina]

What you guys think of creatine? I remember using it but never felt like it helped me

[Boogie]

What you guys think of creatine? I remember using it but never felt like it helped me

Never tried it myself, so I don't have much to offer there.

[Mupepe]

I view creatine the same way I view protein. It works but most people don't need it. The only difference is creatine is much cheaper so I won't harp as much on it. Buy only monohydrate though. None of that other fancy shit because they're a waste of money.

[Samson Manhug]

I'm sorry I don't think you understand this has nothing to do with trying to be a pro athlete.

Watch this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cywtq

I just think anyone embarking on a exercise regime should know about stuff like this.

I don't think you understand that while VO2 max is genetic (and determined by age and environmental factors) that you would have to be a significant outlier to not benefit from aerobic training. Additionally, VO2 max can be trained. Worrying about maximum oxygen uptake has more to do with understanding most people will never be Lance Armstrong rather than most people won't benefit from exercise.

[Samson Manhug]

Creatine monohydrate supplementation is proven to improve athletic performance vs a control group, whether it be resistance or aerobic training. I'm sure I've posted links to studies here before.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I'm sorry I don't think you understand this has nothing to do with trying to be a pro athlete.

Watch this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cywtq

I just think anyone embarking on a exercise regime should know about stuff like this.

I don't think you understand that while VO2 max is genetic (and determined by age and environmental factors) that you would have to be a significant outlier to not benefit from aerobic training. Additionally, VO2 max can be trained. Worrying about maximum oxygen uptake has more to do with understanding most people will never be Lance Armstrong rather than most people won't benefit from exercise.

watch the doc then come back and say sorry i was wrong you dont need to be a significant outlier its pretty common

[Samson Manhug]

The conclusion of the study that minidoc was based on was that how much you VO2 max could trained could be predicted based on your DNA (and that a statistically significant portion of the test subjects could not raise their VO2 max despite aerobic training). It was not that aerobic exercise isn't beneficial for most people, and certainly not that exercise in general won't work for most people.

[Cerveza mas fina]

alright

[Cerveza mas fina]

dufus just watch the doc

[Samson Manhug]

Why do you think doing resistance exercise will mess with endurance? It's not like picking up something heavy will make you lose your wind. Overtraining can be a problem, but that can occur just from running too much.