I’ve been lifting for the past four years, but I never really knew what I was doing, and then I encounered T-mag, and I read and read and read until I thought I knew what was up. I then stared on Ian King’s two 12 week programs, Limping and Super Strength, and started eating a diet along the lines of Massive Eating, P+C and P+F meals. Ever since I started this new regimen, I’ve been totally exhaused most of the time. I’ve never experienced anything like this! Here is all of the possible relevant information. Please take a look and see if you can figure out the culprit!
Ht.: 6’3" Wt." 170 Bf:. 10% Age:23
Diet: 5-6 meals a day 400/250/60g C/P/F
Divided into p+c (morning and post-wo) and P+F (late)
Rest: 8 hrs of sleep a night
Training: 4 days/ week weightlifting, on week 5 of 12 of Ian King’s 12 week plans. Note that these are shorter training sessions timewise than what I was accustomed to before I stumbled upon this website.
Other Activity: Fair amount of random walking, jog 2-3x week, breakdance for 2-3 hrs 3x/ week, lots o’ guitar playing.
That’s everything I could think of. Please help me out, I can’t go on living as gravity’s bitch!
First off, you need to take a break. Rest for at least 4 days and try to do nothing but allow yourself to recover. You sound like you’re overtrained. You may also want to consider re-calculating your caloric needs.
How many calories were you taking in before beginning Massive Eating? By the numbers you posted, you’re getting around 3,100 cals per day now. Were you getting more than that before? How about volume? You said you were used to longer workouts before starting Limping and Super Strength. Is your overall volume greater now (including your walking, jogging, dancing, etc.) than it was before?
It sounds like you’ve changed something recently that’s lead to this lethargy you’re feeling. Or you moved from one routine/diet to this one without giving yourself an adequate break.
Anyway, and I should have asked this first, what are your goals? Fat loss? Mass gain? And what has happened so far since you started this current routine?
If you’re bulking, your cals should be higher based on the Massive Eating guidelines. You and I both weigh the same and I come up with around 3,800 cals for bulking. But it sounds like you’re more active than I throughout the day, so maybe that number should be even higher. Anyway, please answer the above questions and that’ll make it easier to address your problem.
Sounds to me like your not taking enough steroids. You should start taking 3 grams a week. Also mix in some ecstasy. This si what probodybuilders do and they are smart. Do whatever probodybuilders do. It will work, I promise Groove
Tyler - Before I changed my diet, I’m not really sure how many calories I was eating. There wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of structure there. Based on my grocery bills as of late, I’m eating more. My overall volume is decidedly less than before. I realied from reading articles on this site and posts on this board that I was probably (understatement) overtraining, as before I used to do a lot more running (30+mi/week at times) and lift 5 or 6 days a week @ high volume. Before I started this program, I took 10 days off to hopefully undo the overtraining rut I was stuck in at that point, and I took it from there.
As for my goals for this program - I care more about gaining strength than anything else, and in this regard, I’ve seen good results so far. I’d also like to try and gain some mass, but I’m afraid of turning into a tub-o-lard. Sorry about that last comment, it seems like no matter how many articles I read, I still have trouble conving myself to eat something like 3800-4000 cal day.
Die Nadel, my personal life/ relationships are good and I’m a grad student, so I live a relatively easy life for the time being, and I’m basically under less stress right now than at almost any other point in my life, which is what I assume you are getting at.
Well, I don’t know quite what to tell you. I still think you might benefit from taking some time off. If you do, and you get good rest and eat enough, there’s really no reason I can think of why you wouldn’t come back to it feeling better. But if you don’t feel better, then you may want to check in with your doc and have him test your T-levels and thyroid functioning.
As for gaining fat, I know exactly how you feel. Been there, done that. If you would like to bulk a bit, I would suggest slowly upping your calories and make sure you track any body composition changes closely. However, I think the first thing you need to do is figure out this fatigue, then move on from there. Best of luck.
You also could of lowered your immune system by overtraining and your body if fighting a cold also,and u don’t even know it. If you keep it up you will defeintly be taking some days off.
Don’t forget your vit.C to help promote that immune system.
Groove