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31Y/O Beginner Routine and Diet. What Do You Think?

Beginners
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#1

Hello everyone.

I am a 31 year male who would like to get fit for the first time in his life, I’m at time where I’m trying to leave my negative mindset behind and embrace more positivity. I am about 180 lbs. and skinny fat. I don’t know my exact body fact percentage.

My goals are to gain muscle and lose fat (about 10lb). Which is why I am here asking advice from experienced weight lifters :slightly_smiling_face:.

After looking up “What is the best for a beginner” and also the fact that I’m 31 and not 20 I have come up with a sample upper/lower routine and a diet.

My mind set is too keep things simple because I am new, so my diet may seem bland but I think it’s easy to cook and cheap (I’m on a budget). Please refer to my spreadsheet I made. I tried my best to calculate portions and find nutritional info. Considering my goals, is there something you would change?

Sample diet
Sample diet1165×508 20.2 KB

For my workout I have chosen and upper/lower routine that I have also uploaded. What do you think?
Or would something Jason Blaha’s Ice Cream Fitness 5x5 Novice Program be more preferential
Whole body workout?

workout
workout335×567 12.3 KB

Thank you in advance.

#2

The diet is fine, although you should know the macros are more important than the foodstuffs themselves. In fact, when you get right down to it, so long as your cals total around 2225, and your protein is ~180 or higher, you should be fine vis a vis losing fat and gaining muscle (or at least not losing it).

As for the lifting regimen: Do you have any lifting experience?

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#3

Either of these similar but better…

#4

Thank you for your feed back, I appreciate it. I have experience lifting weights for 3 months in the past which is why I didn’t bother mentioning it. I will look up macros and see what I can come up with. For now I guess I will default to the diet I have listed on the right.

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#5

Interesting, I read both of the articles and found Blending size and strength to be cool and I might go for it. Thank you.

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#6

The lower body workouts are severely lacking, especially for a beginner. There’s alot of fluff and a notable lack of attention to the posterior chain. 2 sets of 5 DL is not gonna really build your glutes or ingrain proper hinge mechanics.

I personally like symmetry in my workouts, so if you were to program lower days like your upper days (alternating antagonist movement patterns) it’d look something like:

Lower body A
Front squat
RDL
Bulgarian split squat
GHR or lying leg curl

Lower body B
Back squat
Snatch-grip RDL
Split squat
BB hip thrust

#7

After looking at my routine you are right, it is lacking I’ll have to update it. Thank you for the feedback.

#8

For the diet, I think the fats are low, but if you can adhere to it, I guess it should be good?

Look at some macro calculators and it’ll give you a better idea. I’m 33, and also 180 and my macros put my calories around 2500

For training, the Jason Blaha program isnt some sort of revolutionary improvement upon the original 5x5. I’d opt for 5/3/1 BBB personally.

#9

Looking back over diet …vegetables??
-as a beginner can pretty much knock yourself out with greens/colourful veg and will only do good things

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#10

I just want to add that your polite attitude has made a nice change around these here parts. I’m pretty sure you are supposed to tell everyone they are stupid and haven’t got a clue by now.

I have a basic push/pull beginner routine that worked really well for me, will post it later when I have time to find it.

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#11

I second this.

Also, that Blending Size and Strength routine looks pretty good regardless of training experience. Plenty of practice to get good at the lifts and it won’t neglect the smaller muscles that everyone likes to forget about until they start hurting.

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