How's My Meal Plan & Workout

I looked around this site quite a bit and decided to join. I’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and start my exercise routine and eating plan. I’ve been going at it for about two weeks now and want advise on my eating plan and workout plan.

First off I am 225 pounds and around 25 to 30% body fat (been dealing with a military injury for a couple of years and now rehabilitated). So I have around 160 pounds of lean body mass. So I multiplied that by 12 and got 1920 cals. I know that this is very low calories but I really want to lose fat and have always had trouble doing so.

Here’s my meal plan.

9:00

Apple
2 scoops protein powder
Meal Cals: 300 Protein:44 Carbs:28 Fat:2

12:00

Shrimp
Salmon
1.5 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Balsamic Vinegar
Spinach Leaves (I don’t count cals here)
Meal Cals: 435 Protein:39 Carbs:4 Fat:30

3:00

6 oz Beef Round Eye
.5 cup Black Beans
Meal Cals: 324 Protein:42 Carbs:17 Fat:11

6:00

2 scoop carb powder
2 scoop protein powder
Meal Cals: 410 Protein:44 Carbs:54 Fat:2

9:00

4 egg whites
1 cup cottage cheese
3 oz tuna
1 Tbsp Flaxseed Oil
Meal Cals: 449 Protein:57 Carbs:9 Fat:19

Meal Plan Totals: Cals = 1918
Pro:226 (47%) Carbs:112 (23%) Fat:64 (30%)

My WorkOut:

I run a mile to 1.5 miles everyday because I’m preparing for police test and need to get my time faster. After words I will modify my cardio and perform HIIT.

Sunday: Nothing

Monday: Cardio
Bench Press (flat, Dumbbells) 4 sets/10-15 reps
Shoulder Press (seated, Dumbbells) 4 s/10-15 r
Bench Dips 4 sets to failure
Crunches (flat)

Tuesday: Cardio

Wednesday: Cardio
Leg Press (machine) 4 sets/ 10-15 reps
Hamstring Curl (machine) 4 sets/ 10-15 reps
Calf Raises 4 sets/ 10-15 reps
Crunches (flat)

Thursday: Cardio (light)

Friday: Cardio
Latbar Pulldown (wide grip) 4 sets / 10-15 reps
Bent Over Rows (one arm, dumbbell) 4 s / 10-15 rep
Bicep Curls (seated, dumbbell) 4 set/ 10-15 reps
Crunches (flat)

Saturday: Cardio

After I get my muscles built up I’ll move to more advanced exercises like dead lifts and squats and such. Also the only supplements I’m taking outside of these is HOT-ROX Extreme, a men’s one a day, L-Glutamine, and a glandular concentrate. I will be buying Surge but I want to know if there is any more supplements I should add.

So any input is greatly appreciated whether it’s for supplements, my workout, and/or my meal plan. Thank you in advance

Also I need to increase my push ups once again for this test and I’ve always seemed to have trouble knocking out a high number of these all at once.

Looks like you’re on the right track. A few questions:

  1. What the heck is carb powder, and why would you take any?

  2. You calorie target does seem a tad low, but I’m not sure what your base rate is so it’s hard to say for sure. Lower is not always better, you’ll want to track your muscle mass and make sure you’re not losing it too quickly. Also, make sure to use some form of calorie or carb cycling, very important for keeping up your metabolic rate.

  3. I don’t see any work for traps, calves, or forearms, but that may or may not be important to your plan.

i think you should invest into BCAA’s as it will help maintain your muscle with so much cardio.

Carb Powder is basically an off brand of a Surge type product that I used when I used to workout. Just use it to get some easy clean carbs in after a workout. Thanks for the notice on the traps and forearms I’ll adjust some exercises in for that but I have calf raises for my calves. And I plan on adjusting my diet based on my weight and lean body mass. Thanks for the input.

Also my protein powder has BCAA’s in it but is that enough?

Move the eggs to your first meal of the day. Breakfast should be your biggest meal of the day. Go with the eggs and toss in some spinach with it, keep the apple.

Salad is perfect I think could add some fruit to this meal.

Turn the beef and beans into a salad also with some spinach.

Surge/post workout drink.

I say make another meal and use the tuna you are eating right before bed. You are only up from 9am to 9pm, I doubt this. Add in another meal to make it easier on yourself. Again make a salad out of it.

Cottage cheese right before bed is good.

Overall I would add more fruit to your diet, but other than that I believe it looks good. Also on your workout you need to be adding big compound lifts, most of what you are doing are single join exercises. You say later you will add them, but just do it now. Once you start doing them you will kick yourself for not doing them in the first place.

With your calories that low and sets and reps so high, you run the risk of breaking down more much muscle tissue than your body can repair. Not to mention, you have nowhere to go when you hit a plateau. I’d start with a less severe calorie restriction, perhaps 2250-2300 calories/day. You should be able to drop a few pounds at that deficit, and you also leave yourself room to drop an additional 100 cals/day when you plateau every few weeks.

Also, doing 4 sets of 10-15 reps for all of your exercises is not optimal. Vary your reps, and be sure to include some heavy sets in the 3-5 rep range to maintain strength and lean body mass.

I’m angry. Angry like anyone who doesn�??t understand something is angry.
I’m 17 years old, I have been working in the gym for about 2 years and I’m still the same weight I started at, give or take a kg!
I never expected to grow massively big when I was so young, but as I enter my adulthood I AM expecting some kind of change. I’m a small bloke, and I understand that, I’m about 60kg, but the thing is that I was 60 kg about three years ago. I am 5�??10�?? at the moment. For extra information, I was a skeleton when I was little.

These days my friends say that I am �??ripped�??, but as you would understand that isn�??t enough. I am incredibly ridiculously defined, but I am small and feel pathetic relative to what I imagine I could be. The stranger thing still is that I physically get more volume in my muscles, and I become increasingly stronger the longer I train (for example I started my bench press on 50kg, and it is now sets on 70-75 kg), I started unable to do more than a few odd chinups, and I can now do a few odd one-handed, I started doing 15 pushups and now I can do over 100 reps in one set.

I am angry because I do all the �??meant to do�?? things like slow reps, like doing all the power exercises like leg press (I’m doing 250kg) and bench and squats etc. I also run a lot. a lot a lot. I’m mainly a sprinter though, not so much carb burning long distance or anything.
As far as gym, I can only do 3 times a week in the mornings, because I have 3 sprint trainings in the afternoons, and Saturdays are filled with break dancing and gymnastics training.
I’m angry because I eat so much that I am feel full as a goog about 60% of the day.
e.g. I eat on a daily basis:
2 chicken sandwiches, a carrot, a tomato or kiwi, an apple, a banana, sultanas, two eggs, 50g of tuna, two handfuls of biscuits, a muffin, tub of jelly, a yogurt, a litre of water
That is just for lunch. I usually have 4 pieces of toast for brekkie, and a full plate of (random) dinner (inc some sort of carbs and meat every meal)

It seems I can get stronger, faster, better, but I can�??t get BIGGER@!?**&#!
What is it I could be doing wrong? Or is my natural body doomed to a small frame forever? I don�??t take supplements because I don�??t have a job, but is that the only way for me?

Diet sucks. Not enough calories, breakfast is way too small, not enough complex carbs, not enough healthy fats

all you will achieve is forcing your body into the “survival mode” where your whole metabolism gets regulated down, you won’t have much energy left to do anything, you certainly won’t build any muscle tissue and as soon as you eat a bit more than you burned that day it will be stored as fat

Training plan also sucks, why are you doing some sort of split when lifting 3x/week ? This is really unproductive. Do either TBW 3x/week or maybe rotate 2xupper/1xlower and 1xupper/2xlower weeks

DL and Squat are not “advanced” movements, start doing them with very little weight, maybe an empty bar or a broomstick

If you want to improve pushups, why aren’t you doing any ?

Read as much as you can on this site, start with the beginners thread on top of this forum :slight_smile:

[quote]forevernade wrote:

[…]
What is it I could be doing wrong?
[/quote]

  1. You don’t know anything, but instead of learning to do it properly you just continue to do whatever you’ve done before thinking the results will magically appear sometime

  2. You do not eat enough

  3. You do not eat enough

  4. You do not eat enough

  5. You do not eat enough

  6. You’re probably doing the wrong exercises a wrong way

  7. You do not eat enough

Thanks alot, (incase you were wondering, yes i did find this through a search eingin lol).
I will read this beginner’s forum, because yes I am a beginner. Hopefully I can turn my insolent anger into a vessel for productivity. I will update my progress in a couple months time or something, in the meantime I’ll just try to learn.

I really have only decided I wanted to get bigger the last few months, so thats why I was just doing what my running coach told me to do before then, and I guess you cant trust a running coach to tell you how to get big :slight_smile:
Thanks again.