Alright, so Gold’s Gym (I know) Opened up right by my house around October of '07, I joined and began trying to digest all the knowledge I was soaking up all over the net. I started with WannaBeBig 1.1 which I later decided was a mistake after a few months and transitioned to Starting Strength. I’ve been doing that since December or January I’d say.
I can clearly tell that I am getting stronger as I am adding weight to my lifts (although that has stalled and it’s probably time to switch to another program now) but the problem is, I’ll be entirely honest in that I began this venture for reasons of vanity, I am not losing any weight.
My measurements have remained the same and there is no visible, discernible change in my appearance. I realize it is still relatively early, but I was hoping for SOMETHING.
My diet has been pretty bland and routine essentially every meal amounts to: ~4-6 oz of chicken. a cup or so of vegetables, a few almonds/small amount of natural PB and say an apple with every other meal combined with regular servings of fish oil.
The dietary change happened after the switch to starting strength, but not too terribly long after (sorry I don’t have solid dates).
Also, forgot to mention I’m sure my form sucks hard, it just feels wrong, but I don’t have a DV cam or anyone knowledgeable to assist me. I’m not particularly sure how to address this problem.
Should I change what I’m doing?
6’1"
240 lbs
22 yrs old
How many calories do you take a day?
How many days a week do you work out?
I lift 3 days a week in accordance with starting strength, i swim the remainder of the days.
as for calorie intake… i’ll have to get back to you on that. I just eyeball the portions based on what I said in my first post.
You have to check how many calories you take in a day at least once.
This way we can know if you’re eating too little or too much, it’s probably too little tho.
Write down 3 days of every single meal you have, then calculate the calories and find the average.
That’s where I would start looking into.
I’ve been on this game for 2 months and shredded almost 10% BF not using any thermogenic or whatever, just manipulating my diet and taking CLA+Fish Oil.
Go find out how many cals you eat a day, and post here so we can help you 
Alright took me a while, but here is a pretty accurate description of my daily diet.
http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=Maleficus
As I thought, you eat too little.
You have a BMR of 1938.7.
Activity factor
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. Active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or
2 X day training, marathon, football camp,
contest, etc.)
So, Let’s use a conservative activity factor:
1938.7 x 1.55 = 3005 Kcal/day, -20% for your caloric deficit, it gives us 2400kcal for your diet.
So you have to basically eat more 1000 calories a DAY. You hurt your metabolism too much by lowering your caloric intake like that.
A problem with what you might be doing is after swimming, your internal temperature decreases. When this happens your body tells you to eat food to heat it up. Wait 15-30minutes after swimming before eating to see if you truly are hungry. However you might not be eating afterwards but this could be a problem. Also eating not enough calories is just as counter productive as eating too many calories. Make sure you fall in the right range!
Alright so I need to eat more…
more of the same? or do I need to eat something different?
Well, right now you are eating around
30% Fats, 30% Carbs, 40% Protein.
What I’d do is eat more of the same, in the same proportions. You’re already low enough on carbs.
Thanks for the help raa. I’ll try update the thread semi-regularly.
Had a solid workout today.
I’m having trouble eating the right amount of calories and keeping the ratios right. I feel like I’m eating ‘enough’ although calories seem to disagree.
http://www.fitday.com/webfit/publicjournals.html?Owner=Maleficus&Year=2008&Month=3&Day=20
just keep eating? really hard to wrap my head around considering I’m trying to lose weight.
Well I bought a food scale, turns out i’ve been eating a lot less than I thought i was.
Vegetables have so few calories, should I be eating like 2-3 cups per meal? that’s a hell of a lot of vegetables.
[quote]Maleficus wrote:
Vegetables have so few calories, should I be eating like 2-3 cups per meal? that’s a hell of a lot of vegetables.[/quote]
It won’t hurt, that’s for sure. Remember, they don’t have to be a side dish, you can add a lot of veggies to an omelet or a stir-fry, which can make it much easier to get them in. Berardi has a sample of his Gourmet Nutrition cookbook here http://www.gourmetnutrition.com/sample.pdf if you need some ideas.
Also, if you have questions about form, you could try asking one of the trainers at Gold’s to check your form if you can’t get videos up here.