This gym is for everyone. If you are underweight and want to gain mass, you belong here. If you are over weight and want to lose fat/add muscle. You belong here. If you are already fit. Id appreciate your help.
Now. You will find me in FPH threads being a dick to FP. In the gym I will not. I don't like fat people, but if you want to get fit, while we are here, I won't talk shit and I wont allow others to either.
There are no hardgainers and you aren't big boned. It's your diet. Period. I fell for the hardgainer thing. It's bullshit. I haven't been eating enough of good nutritional food nor working hard enough to turn that into muscle. Period. I can lie to myself and blame my metabolism or I can be honest w myself. I do not eat enough. And if you're fat, sorry, you eat too much and work too little. These are the hard facts we all must face.
I've purchased a food scale and for a little while I'm weighing out everything. I know for a fact that the shake I just drank had 680 calories and 40g Protein. I know exactly how much that chicken, rice, and broccoli my lunch is worth. Eventually Ill be able to look at a chunk of chicken and say ' thats about 100g of chicken' and I won't weigh it anymore.
We'll talk about the work plenty. But we must address how much and what we are eating.
Back when I was sitting at around 235 I dropped my weight down to 201 over about 6 months and I did it entirely with diet changes alone. No excersize no weight lifting or running or nothing, just changed what I was eating. If you are fat, no amount of jogging is going to help, no amount of pushups or pilates will change anything, you can run for 5 hours a day and do 300 reps on the weights and you aren't going to lose shit until you STOP EATING THE FUCKING PIZZA ALREADY.
Diet is 95% of the battle when it comes to losing weight, working out is almost incidental. Remember you're body is designed to hold onto that fat and not let go, it purposely burns as slow as possible, it's easier to just not eat it than to burn it off. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of fat.
I bought a new bathroom scale a couple months ago. On the footplate where you stand are 4 metallic pads. If you are barefoot it calculates BMI and body fat and a few other things.
Ive always thought those things pretty iffy at best. But they have been around a little while. Maybe the tech and the algos to figure this stuff out is better these days. idk.
This thing seems to think Im the epitome of health. Every category is 'Standard' or 'Excellent'. It does at least ack that my weight is on the low end. But everything else is A+, and I don't think that can be right. No one who has abused their body as I have should list this well.
He's pandering to fat people by telling them it's not their fault. Promoting fasting for extended period like it's some holy grail * Says calories don't matter, but really he's just being pedantic to stir up some controversy
At the end of the day, I can't take him seriously because his conclusions are derived from his experience with his patients, an exceptional minority of sick and dying people. I'd take the word of a non-pHd'd coach over this quack any day.
Also, none of the fat people I know who follow him ever succeeded in losing weight because obviously they rebound from that fasting and make up for those calories and more.
I'm a 5'7" guy with a morning weight of 270 lbs (yeah, I know) I don't want to get too specific and dox myself.
I have three questions that I will provide back-round for but for the impatient they are:
1. is hypertrophy important at all; or is strength king and thus the primary aim and I should let the chips fall where they may? Any truth to rep ranges dictating hypertrophy and strength?
2. Is it healthier to get to a proper body weight and then try hitting the weights again? or am I better off to fast while trying to gain strength in the weight room?
3. Caffeine, Creatine, Cardio: how much of each would you recommend?
I got up to damn near 300 lbs and decided to start fixing myself before it was too late. So before the holocough I started lifting weights and trying to lose weight. My weight has yo-yoed back and forth and I am just gonna commit to fasting. By day 2 of a fast I start getting cramps in my rib-cage multiple times a day. I started taking salt which seemed to help but not eliminate the problem. So I may just start alternating my fasting days. I would like to fast 3 days a week but don't know if I should be lifting on those days.
I started lifting again over a year ago now and my numbers are good (I used to lift when I was younger and it seemed to come back pretty quickly) but am having trouble figuring out my next steps in this area. I bench, squat, deadlift and row once per week. I do band assisted pullups twice per week. On the three major lifts I started by doing 5 X 5 and thought I should be aiming from muscle growth to help shed fat and started doing higher reps on everything but feel like crap doing that.
As of now I am taking a week off as I am sore as hell from going to failure on all my lifts the last couple of weeks. I want input on what I should do moving forward in the weight room while trying to lose weight. My current numbers are as follows: Bench: don't know my max but have gotten 3 sets of 5 at 345 and have gotten one set of five at 355 (barely got 5th rep). Squat: disproportionally weak compared to bench but I am built weird. Tried to get 435 for 3 sets of 6 before I decided to take a week off and only got 6 on first set then 5 and finally 4 on the last set. Deadlift: I use a hex-bar with the handles up because I really suck at deadlift. so I just do the weight that I squat with and it feels easier (probably because I am basically doing rack pulls in this set up).
I have only done jump roping for cardio and have been very sporadic with it. Should I do lighter weights for more reps while I try and lose weight while increasing cardio? I feel like I shouldn't be getting over-trained since I am only doing the major lifts once per week but have been fatigued much more than I figured I should be. I am middle age so that might be part of it.
Before I get too old to do it should I be aiming for more hypertrophy than strength in order to serve as a base to build further strength on? If so should I be going to failure with lighter weights at higher reps or is that all bro science bullshit? Should I just focus on trying to maintain strength for the next six months while I focus on losing weight? My weight has gone up and down while I have been trying to accomplish both at the same time, so maybe I need to shift focus instead.
If any of you guys fast, do you do it while lifting on those days? I have tried and it seemed okay but don't know if I am shooting myself in the foot in the long term.
