[quote]Jointe1992 wrote:
Yeah I should have had eggs for lunch instead of bread and Tuna. By the way, is whole wheat bread good to eat? I find it to be a great source for carbs. I’ve picked a bread with next to none additives.
For breakfast I mostly eat porridge (whole) and a Greek yoghurt.[/quote]
Well not for me-I would not eat oats or wheat as a staple because for ME they seem to be allergenic. If I eat too much gluten I wake up at night with inflammation in the sinuses, and my feet can feel a little swollen too. This was the most important thing for me to cut because when I woke up at night the only thing that would get me back to sleep was to eat more carbs/sugar.
If you sleep fine at night then go ahead as long as you stay within your daily carb goals.
I get most of my carbs from potatoes and rice now, plus 200-300 cals from fruit. Other than that there are traces in vegetables, and I drink some milk. I have had high fiber tortillas that have gluten and oat fiber, and that very night it woke me up with nasal inflammation. I have been able to eat bread made primarily from Rye (about 100-150 cals from bread in a day max). Being sluggish in the day can be a sign of sensitivity to wheat, beans, or oats (as well as nasal inflammation, or joint pain, or intestinal discomfort). But just keeping carbs in the 100-200 gram range is removing a large amount of the natural plant toxins and allergens.
Oh, you reminded me of another thing. Yogurt is a good thing, but if you can find naturally picked vegetables, like cucumbers, cabbage or green tomatoes they help your digestion and protect your intestines. They have to have live cultures though.
Yeah I’m sleeping well and it’s easy for me to get carbs that way so my main source of carbs will be bread, I also try to eat brown rice or potatoes for dinner.
Today I’ve also reached my caloric limit with ~2668 cals, 185g protein, 186g carbs and 128g fat. I’m getting a hold of this now, I also got some whey protein the other day and with that it’s easy to add some quick proteins if I need it, mixed with milk it gives about 240 cals, 35g protein and 15 carbs.
It’s not actually yoghurt I’m eating, I think the english translation is somethink like “quark” or “quark-curd”. Nutritional values are per 100g: 60 kcal, 11g protein, 4g carbsand 0,1g fat. One can is 250g.
Sometimes I make a salad with lettuce, cucumber and red tomatoes/red cherry tomatoes. Sometimes I add red onions and/or mozarella cheese to it. I also make a dressing with olive oil.
[quote]Jointe1992 wrote:
Mertdawg I have a question, you said I might feel weaker for a couple of weeks. Why is that? Shouldn’t I feel stronger since I’m eating more?[/quote]
Actually when I read that you were eating more I was going to delete that. I got the feeling that you were eating a lot of carbs, and very little fat, and you wanted to keep getting stronger fast but not gain any fat, or lose a little fat while getting stronger. So I thought that my recommendations would be cutting your carbs at first, which takes 5-10 days for some people to get used to. Apparently we have raised your total intake enough, plus the healthy fats should improve your hormone levels. If you feel good now, the improvement in hormones from healthy fats and control of carbs can make you stronger and add muscle pretty quickly and even while losing fat.
I am curious though. You said that you were “eating normally” with some extra protein. I took this to mean that you were eating a maintenence calorie level which I would expect to be about 2350, plus a little extra protein on training days. If you were eating less, and eating less fat, I assumed you were eating more carbs. If that is true, your fat in your diet was probably unhealthy low. What do you think your diet looked like in terms of protein, carbs and fat and total cals before?
Another thing, if you live at northern latitudes, I have seen recommendations to get about 3000 IU of vitamin D-3 per day. I highly recommend doing this.
What I meant by eating “normally” was basically just eating whenever I got hungry, eating some extra protein. When I started counting I realised I haven’t been eating enough. A rough estimate would be around 1900-2400 cals, 100-160g protein, 80-140g carbs and 30-80g fats.
I’ve gotten more used to eating now, for 2 days I’ve waited to count until around 21:00 and I’ve been pretty close to my limits with just one more meal to go so that’s great! Still having a little hard time getting enough fat. Yesterday on a training day I got ~100g fats. Normally I eat an avocado on training days for some extra fat but unforunately the one I had saved for yesterday had mould on it.
I know it’s not been long but I feel that I haven’t lost any bloat around the stomach. However I have no accurate way of measuring this. Other than that It’s going well, my lifts are increasing except for the squats which are on deload at the moment.
I have no idea on how to count how many vitamins I get, should all of it be from supplements? I’m taking that vitamin supplement I mentioned earlier twice a day.
Well your current amounts (2350 baseline) is right on the balance between fat loss and muscle gain, so neither one is going to happen fast, but it should be the best balance to keep getting stronger and to slowly cut you bodyfat%. Based on where you started, 2 pounds of muscle and a loss of 1% bodyfat a month would be a dream situation especially for several months.
Your initial diet looks a) a little low in protein; b) a little low in carbs and c) very low in fats so the addition of fats should put you into a more muscle friendly state.
I personally don’t worry about a multivitamin any more.
I take about 60 micrograms of vitamin D3 most days.
I take liquid iodine once a week
I take about 3 grams of vitamin c a day
I cycle berries and green leafy vegetables
I eat at least 15 egg yolks a week
I get 350 IU of vitamin A from animal sources a week: an iu is about 1 chicken liver, 5 ml of (some brands) cod liver, or 50-60 grams of beef liver.
And I will take magnesium and zinc a few times a week.
It is hard to imagine that someone 85 kg and around 15-18% fat would gain fat on 2350 cals, and less than 200 grams of carbs, but if your fat percent goes up over a month then try cutting about 15 grams of fat (which seems to be the hard thing to get too anyway). If you are still not losing a little fat try another 15 grams, but wait a month to see.
You may not be built for squats. Squats are great but if you do them and you are not in a good movement pattern, or not built for them they can wear you down. Do you feel “clumsy” on squats or do they feel natural? How tall are you, and can you easily squat until your hips are as low as the knees or lower?
I’m probably going to try that Tanita scale again soon to see if anything has changed, I’ll try to do it the at the same time of the day as last time. I should probably do this once a month.
That’s a plethora of vitamins you’re taking, a multivitamin seems simpler for me. I could probably eat more fruit and vegetables. I bought a calf liver last week and it was enough for 2 dinners, with brown rice and soy. I’ve started to eat 4 eggs for lunch in order to get enough fat during the day. I’ve had eggs for lunch this entire week.
To be honest I don’t think there is such a thing as not built for squats (unless you’re born with a serious deformity) as it’s a natural thing for humans to do. Not necessarily with a barbell but to sit down in a squat position is common.
As for my squats I can’t say it feels clumsy, sure there are some kinks and small things to fix with my form. I’ve posted form checks on this forum before, here are some link to my threads:
This was at the end of January when I hit the 225 lbs mark
This is a thread I made recently due to having trouble with knees caving in, which seemed to just start out of the blue. I’m going to upload some more videos to that thread in a moment as per request.
I’m about 185cm tall, and I have no problems squatting down so that my hips are parallel with my knees or lower. When I stretch before squats I go “ATG” so there is definitely no problems with flexibility.
Your squats look pretty good so there really should be no issue with progressing. You do tend to come up at the hips and bend over at the waist first which turns it into more of a back exercise. In the long run, you want to think about starting the squat NOT by pushing with your hips downward, but by pushing with your traps upward into the bar. But its darn good for 185 cm and this is where you are going to build real muscle with squats.
I would not change your workout anyway as it has been giving good results.
Yes there are some things I could fix with my squat, when I initiate the squat I push my hips back and go down. In my form check thread they are saying I could use a day to deload 50% and do paused reps in order to maintain tightness throughout the movement. Seems as if there is always something that needs fixing.
Currently I’m planning on reaching the 300lbs mark for my squats and then move onto Madcows 5x5 which is kinda the same except for one day where I do lighter weights as far as I understand.
I wanted to mention that since you are actually around 15% bodyfat, skin folds may be more consistent. When people get over 15% they may lose a lot of visceral fat first but not see skinfold changes. I am not saying that they are more accurate, because I’ve seen people with low skinfolds but more visceral fat, but they may be more consistent at sub 15% because the tanita is more dependent on hydration, and whether your blood has gotten flowing to your arms and legs yet etc.
Did a google image search on “skin folds” while eating my lunch, bad idea…
From what I can tell it is excessive skin hanging over itself? Or are you talking about skin fold measurement with a caliper?
So far I don’t know if I’ve lost any fat, probably going to hit the Tanita this week and check. I’ll try to do it around the same time of the day as the last time. My lifts have increased however! Except for the squat which is on a deload but I’m confident that I’ll get all my reps once I’m back at 240 lbs.
I meant a caliper measurement. This is the time to get strong anyway. If your fat is not rising and you are getting stronger then ride it as long as you can.
I’ll get a read from the Tanita scale on friday, I’ll return with the results then, do you think I should get a caliper to cross measure?
I’m out of vitamin supplements so the only vitamins I’m getting is from the food that I eat, I have been buying more fruits and vegetables. The sun is more present now as well so if I take a walk in the sun on my resting days I should get enough vitamin D?
I haven’t been eating calf liver every week like you suggested, one liver seems to be enough for two meals with some rice or potatoes.
I’m not counting calories every day now as I’m more aware of what I’m eating, I do count some days just to make sure I’m eating enough.
Should my fat % have increased I’ll drop the fat I eat down to 90-100g, as of now I’m trying to eat 130 grams but mostly I end up at 100+ so I don’t expect my bodyfat to have increased.
As I said my lifts are going up, pretty sure I’ll nail a 300 pound deadlift next week!
[quote]Jointe1992 wrote:
I’ll get a read from the Tanita scale on friday, I’ll return with the results then, do you think I should get a caliper to cross measure?
I’m out of vitamin supplements so the only vitamins I’m getting is from the food that I eat, I have been buying more fruits and vegetables. The sun is more present now as well so if I take a walk in the sun on my resting days I should get enough vitamin D?
I haven’t been eating calf liver every week like you suggested, one liver seems to be enough for two meals with some rice or potatoes.
I’m not counting calories every day now as I’m more aware of what I’m eating, I do count some days just to make sure I’m eating enough.
Should my fat % have increased I’ll drop the fat I eat down to 90-100g, as of now I’m trying to eat 130 grams but mostly I end up at 100+ so I don’t expect my bodyfat to have increased.
As I said my lifts are going up, pretty sure I’ll nail a 300 pound deadlift next week! [/quote]
I’ve seen people successfully track their bodyfat from 15 down to 10% with a tanita device. Its just that they did it every week, and some weeks they got higher readings, but on balance the tendancy was down. Does the tanita you use have a setting for “active”? If not, you may already be leaner than what it says.
If you get in the sun then vitamin D is less of an issue.
For the liver, let me clarify. I recommend 4 oz of liver (a little over 100 grams) once a week. That alone has 3.5 days worth of vitamin A. I would not go over 200 grams of liver a week, and 100 is enough, especially with eggs in the diet.
Like the knowledge you are sharing in the forums. Whether someone agrees or not, you post good details which merit discussion.
The comment about liver got me thinking some more. Recently I’ve also started to look at some foods as something that’s great to throw in once or twice a week but probably have significant diminishing returns after that. Lifters in general always tend to think if something is good, then MORE must be good…but moderation and variety often seems to be the key.
Any more particular foods you think are GREAT to get a serving or two of a week but don’t need to be eaten everyday?
[quote]Jointe1992 wrote:
I’m not sure it would be a good idea to cut back 300 calories so that I will be on maintenance as I’m still lifting and want to get stronger. [/quote]
If you feel good, leave it. If you are getting stronger, that is the most important now, and I would not do something radical based on one measurement. The BEST thing would be to go for at least another 30 days.