Don't Know What to Do in the Gym

[quote]Nich wrote:

there is no such thing as “Toning”

[/quote]

Thanks Nich, I forgot to mention that so-called “toning” is nonsense. You “look toned” when you have more muscle covered by less fat. Period.

Your first post was alot more helpful then your second, Kruiser but thanks anyways.

No need to bite my fuckin head off dudes, so I went off of what I’d heard before and said ‘toning’ alright… so what its a sin to be ignorant now? I just started reading these forums gimme a break.

And I do want to get stronger, I just didnt want to get fat or keep the fat in the process.

I will keep you posted and I plan on starting , Starting Strength as soon as I sign up at the gym.

[quote]scanzler wrote:
I don’t want to really get bigger, I just want to get toned yknow? Toned arms and legs, toned chest but not necessarily huge pecs, and abs obviously.

Will Starting Strength work for that?[/quote]

If you talk like this on T-Nation you’re going to get flamed… badly. In fact, if I were me three months ago, I’d be flaming you right now. But hey, I’m over that.

So here’s the low-down. You are a victim of popular culture. A culture that glorifies the metrosexual, demonises the Alpha Male, villifies muscle and labels those that are large and strong “lunkheads”. The alien physiques that populate the sport of bodybuilding have made the desire to put on muscle somewhat taboo (“What? You want to look like Jay Cutler?!”). The widespread commercialism of the western world has buried all decent nutritional information under a blanket of marketing and misinformation. The grossly fat and unaceptably skinny have become such a large portion of the population that they have begun to regard their physical state as “natural”. Luckily for you, you’ve found T-Nation.

I regard the nation as a “re-education” site. A place where you can forget said bullshit and concentrate on being a strong, healthy, virile member of society. Here, it’s okay to be better than average. No-one is going to rip on you because your stonger than them. No-one will accuse you of steroids if you’ve built a bit of muscle (an exaggeration, but you get the point). All the information is here; you just have to ask, and read.

On this site, there is no such thing as toning. At least, not in the conventional sense. Toning is a word fitness instuctors use to avoid bodybuilding connotations. It translates into English as “more muscle, less fat”. If you want to look strong “more muscle, less fat”. If you want to look athletic “more muscle, less fat”. If you want to look like a male model… well you see where this is going. Muscle is good, fat is bad; roughly speaking. As a beginner, eat healthy, do starting strength and you’ll kill two birds whit the one stone.

So feel free to ask questions, look around, and… oh,yes… pull your goddamn pants up ;).

FUCK! THIS IS SOME STRONG SHIT!

Alright, regardless if you guys hate me or not sorry for the mistake.

Eitherway you cant talk me out of not trying Starting Strength so I think your all stuck with me. ;p

I just need to figure out this healthy eating business, considering im gonna be living alone soon prolly, I really need help figuring out some good meal plans. Right now my diet is pathetic and consist of like pizza , iced tea and shit.

This is a very good thread regarding Starting Strength, read up!

hey OP, dont get us wrong.
we dont hate you. no not at all
its just when someone says what you said it triggers an urge in some of us to go off and pull a berzerker on someone. :wink:

and you MUST do your own searching and reading.
most of this info is all overt he site we ahve years of info here waiting for you to search
if you cant find it then ask.

diet is very important go to www.fitday.com,there you can jot down everything you eat and see exactly how much,or in most peoples case how little they are eating.
most people under eat and that is a fact.

it can be confusing if you let it be,but as far as diet its mainly habit. and you have a few rules just stick to this and you will be fine
meat
vegies
dairy
whole grains
fats eg nuts,olive oil,fish oil avacado ect

eat plenty and eat often with lots of water and green tea or regular tea
cut out sugars and processed foods,
great read right here 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs

and welcome to T-Nation we employ the “tough love” type of thinking
there will be times when some one will come out and straight up tell you that you are an idiot. we are not shy around these parts.
lots of alphas here so kind of get used to it you will learn a lot hear.

[quote]scanzler wrote:
Alright, regardless if you guys hate me or not sorry for the mistake.

Eitherway you cant talk me out of not trying Starting Strength so I think your all stuck with me. ;p

I just need to figure out this healthy eating business, considering im gonna be living alone soon prolly, I really need help figuring out some good meal plans. Right now my diet is pathetic and consist of like pizza , iced tea and shit. [/quote]

Nobody hates you and it’s really not a mistake to use generally accepted terminology. The “I don’t wanna get too big, I just wanna tone” attitude just gets our collective goat around here. This place isn’t for the overly sensitive so thicken up your skin and realize that it’s just an internet forum.

We’re also not trying to talk you out of anything. Starting Strength is a great program that will serve you well for quite some time.

Healthy eating is very simple mainly because everyone already knows how to do it. Most people just don’t. Many times it’s just too convenient to stop for fast food or order a pizza. The answer is to always have a healthy alternative at the ready. Buy a LOT of fresh wholesome foods, cook it all up, package it in those cheap tupperwares. Voila! Now you have meals for the next several days. Add in a supply of protein powders and healthy snacks and you won’t be as tempted to skip a meal or cheat. As a plus, you’ll save money for those times when you DO want to kick back and enjoy a favorite treat. There are tons of great recipes all over T-Nation and Figure Athlete (our sister site). Start looking around. I’ll try to look up some links to send you.

http://www.figureathlete.com/category.jsp?categoryID=70&pageNo=1&s=forumsNavTop

Check out ‘Recipes with Photos’ near the top. It’s 37 pages of suggestions by professional fitness chef Lisa Marie (who is nothing short of amazing).

[quote]scanzler wrote:
Right now my diet is pathetic and consist of like pizza , iced tea and shit. [/quote]

Perhaps surprisingly, pizza is not necessarily a bad bodybuilding food at all, especially for a younger guy such as yourself. But it is vitally important which specific kind of pizza you eat. Some are nutritional disasters (for example Pizza Hut) while others can be fine.

What you want to look for is, first, fat calories not exceeding protein calories. A rough way of figuring this is looking at fat grams vs protein grams. The fat grams should preferably be less than half the protein grams but being moderately more than half is acceptable, particularly for a younger guy.

You also want a reasonable amount of protein for the total calories. You would do well to have about 35 or 40 grams of protein per serving (you don’t have to be superprecise.) If that is something like 600 or 700 calories, that’s OK.

Protein grams should also be around or better than half as much as the carb grams.

Example nutritionally-good pizza:

http://www.cicis.com/Images/NutritionInfo.gif

The beef pizza (the nutritionally-best choice of these) is per 4 slices of the buffet pizza, 38 g protein; 26 g fat (true, 19 is half of 38 and would be better); abdout 72 g carbs (so protein is a little better than half the carb grams); and about 680 cal.

Another example:

http://www.hungryhowies.com/nutrition/

For the Hungry Howie’s large cheese-only pizza (in this case, their beef pretty much just adds fat) 3 slices gives 36 g protein, 15 g fat (less than half the protein grams, which is very good), 76 g carbs (so protein is very nearly half the carb grams), and 624 calories.

Of the two, the HH is the better choice but if the other is more convenient, so be it.

(Note, not all HH franchises follow the company’s standard recipe. Some serve obviously-greasy pizzas. The standard HH pizza does not seem greasy, and in fact is not.)

Papa Johns also has some good choices.

So, switch (if need be) to one of the nutritionally-better pizzas instead of one of the disasters such as Pizza Hut. And switch (if need be) to unsweet tea if drinking sweet tea.

These two changes alone could be very major and are easy to do.