OT | Official Fitness & Health Thread

[averageposter]

While I haven't done most of the videos series suggested here regarding abs, I apply the same principal I do to any other muscle group when training them. Lift Heavy.

Obligatory "abs are made in the kitchen "aside, if you are looking to strengthen your core or for vanity reasons building those muscles is important as well in addition to losing the obscuring fat covering.. I don't have the patience for hours of crunches and planking type exercises bore me to death so I designed my workout around high resistance and low reps.

Usually I pre-exhaust the abs by standing to standing ab rollouts, then inverted sit-ups on a inversion table holding a plate to 12 or so, Seated or kneeling cable pull downs to 12, ab raises on a hyper extension table holding a plate to 12, and repeat til I literally can't do another set no rest, I might rest pause to get a full set in but from exercise to exercise no extra rest. I do work in some twisting exercises like side bends or Russian twist appropriately weighted as needed but its not part of my 4 times weekly routine as a rule.

This has worked really well for me. I dropped a ton of weight but didn't really get the abs to pop, a couple of months of this focused training did the trick. A year later its still a struggle as you can add weight, vary reps etc.

[Nebula1]

Ab Ripper X is pretty sweet but I just invested in an incline ab bench and use it instead. It's pretty easy to find on under $100.

Sauce, I love your avatar btw.

[Miasma]

I'm getting married on Saturday and I decided I didn't want to be a bum anymore. For about 9 weeks I've probably been hovering around 1,100 calories a day. I barely eat meat, and if I do it's lean chicken or crab. Usually have an apple for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and a vegetable noodle medley for dinner, adding in some peanuts for 'protein'. I think I've been consuming about ten different vegetables a day. Formerly, I'd go grocery shopping once a month, but now it's a weekly thing. I think there were whole months where I didn't eat fruits or vegetables at all (just pure carbs). I stopped shopping at Pick n Save and found that Woodman's is not only cheaper, but has a wider variety. Its surprising how good a healthy meal can taste if you buy the right product and cook it correctly. I always hated planned exercise (I've never walked into a gym in my life to workout). I'd rather play a sport or something to keep myself more engaged. I've been jogging with my dog 3-4x a week at night with maybe some light lifting. Most importantly, when I tried to diet/exercise in the past, the thing that would ruin it for me was going too extreme, too fast, causing me to dislike it and eventually stop. Shin splits will do that too. I think just merely being mindful of what I put in my body is enough for me. I think the mental pay off is as big or bigger than the physical one. Just thinking about my past lethargy is disgusting.

[Nebula1]

1100 calories??? That's not much.

Are you female?

[Miasma]

Lol, no. I know it's not the healthiest to cut a ton, but I read that around 1,200 is an acceptable amount. I think that's about what you need to drop 2lbs per week. It's not like I'm starving, either. I've found these vegetable and tofu dumplings and spring rolls that are really low in calories (like 190 calories per serving), so you can actually eat a fair amount and not go insane.

[averageposter]

Lol, no. I know it's not the healthiest to cut a ton, but I read that around 1,200 is an acceptable amount. I think that's about what you need to drop 2lbs per week. It's not like I'm starving, either. I've found these vegetable and tofu dumplings and spring rolls that are really low in calories (like 190 calories per serving), so you can actually eat a fair amount and not go insane.

1500-1800 is the prescribed minimum for Men
1500-1200 is the minimum range for Women.

The difference is attributed to the average muscle content difference due to being male and having testosterone essentially.

The issue is getting the right nutrients to keep your body functioning whilst minimizing muscle loss during the diet. Dropping below those ranges it becomes very difficult to do so. Especially if extra exercise is also a part of the plan. Further still if lean meat is minimized.

I dropped from 236 to 135 in 9 months doing 1800 a day, plus weight lifting, plus cardio. But I did it high protein and a sports multivitamin.

I would highly recommend using a web based basal metabolic calculator and then a daily calorie requirement calculator to find out what you truly burn in an average day, and then seeing if being that low is safe. I was very concerned about losing muscle mass during my diet. And you will lose lean mass on a diet its inevitable, but you can minimize it making sure to eat enough protein and lifting during the diet. It will be incredibly difficult to keep it off if the muscle goes along with the bad.

[Miasma]

Lol, no. I know it's not the healthiest to cut a ton, but I read that around 1,200 is an acceptable amount. I think that's about what you need to drop 2lbs per week. It's not like I'm starving, either. I've found these vegetable and tofu dumplings and spring rolls that are really low in calories (like 190 calories per serving), so you can actually eat a fair amount and not go insane.

1500-1800 is the prescribed minimum for Men
1500-1200 is the minimum range for Women.

The difference is attributed to the average muscle content difference due to being male and having testosterone essentially.

The issue is getting the right nutrients to keep your body functioning whilst minimizing muscle loss during the diet. Dropping below those ranges it becomes very difficult to do so. Especially if extra exercise is also a part of the plan. Further still if lean meat is minimized.

I dropped from 236 to 135 in 9 months doing 1800 a day, plus weight lifting, plus cardio. But I did it high protein and a sports multivitamin.

I would highly recommend using a web based basal metabolic calculator and then a daily calorie requirement calculator to find out what you truly burn in an average day, and then seeing if being that low is safe. I was very concerned about losing muscle mass during my diet. And you will lose lean mean on a diet its inevitable, but you can minimize it making sure to eat enough protein and lifting during the diet. It will be incredibly difficult to keep it off if the muscle goes along with the bad.

Thanks for the info.

[Nebula1]

Lol, no. I know it's not the healthiest to cut a ton, but I read that around 1,200 is an acceptable amount. I think that's about what you need to drop 2lbs per week. It's not like I'm starving, either. I've found these vegetable and tofu dumplings and spring rolls that are really low in calories (like 190 calories per serving), so you can actually eat a fair amount and not go insane.

Yes just to be clear, I was really asking because of the amount. AP has given you some good numbers to consider.

[Sauce Boss]

Ab Ripper X is pretty sweet but I just invested in an incline ab bench and use it instead. It's pretty easy to find on under $100.

Sauce, I love your avatar btw.

I thought dunking Scorpion's head was fitting for a basketball forum. Glad to hear you like it.

Lol, no. I know it's not the healthiest to cut a ton, but I read that around 1,200 is an acceptable amount. I think that's about what you need to drop 2lbs per week. It's not like I'm starving, either. I've found these vegetable and tofu dumplings and spring rolls that are really low in calories (like 190 calories per serving), so you can actually eat a fair amount and not go insane.

1500-1800 is the prescribed minimum for Men
1500-1200 is the minimum range for Women.

The difference is attributed to the average muscle content difference due to being male and having testosterone essentially.

The issue is getting the right nutrients to keep your body functioning whilst minimizing muscle loss during the diet. Dropping below those ranges it becomes very difficult to do so. Especially if extra exercise is also a part of the plan. Further still if lean meat is minimized.

I dropped from 236 to 135 in 9 months doing 1800 a day, plus weight lifting, plus cardio. But I did it high protein and a sports multivitamin.

I would highly recommend using a web based basal metabolic calculator and then a daily calorie requirement calculator to find out what you truly burn in an average day, and then seeing if being that low is safe. I was very concerned about losing muscle mass during my diet. And you will lose lean mass on a diet its inevitable, but you can minimize it making sure to eat enough protein and lifting during the diet. It will be incredibly difficult to keep it off if the muscle goes along with the bad.

Good info. I averaged out my last month of eating and it is at about 1100 a day as well. I might try to just jump back into doing the 3 month P90X program and up my intake to help with the added exercise. I kind of cut way back since I've been sitting in front of a computer for twelve hours a day for work the past few months without exercise. I didn't need to be eating 2000 a day with that lifestyle, so I made a deficit to help out. Since I'm making more room for exercise, I'll bring up my intake with that added activity while keeping my diet clean.

[HurricaneKid]

And it varies by height/weight, age, etc.

You can look up your TDEE/BMR here:
http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate): The amount of calories you need to consume to maintain your body if you were comatose (base level).

The TDEE calculator will allow you to choose your activity level. Obviously the more exercise the more calories you burn and the more you will need to consume to stay at your weight. Construction workers will naturally burn more calories than a desk jockey. Or you can just use your BMR, carefully track the calories you exercise and come up with a more accurate figure. Either way, 1100 calories is not likely enough unless you are really tiny. When you go that far off your natural caloric burn you will lose weight. But when the loss is that significant its likely to be muscle.

[averageposter]

The categories you pick from for the daily caloric expenditure modifiers are varied, but as an engineer I didn't like trying to fit myself into a category it seemed inexact. So I picked the lowest category sedentary job/no exercise and manually added my exercise to it and figured out my jobs contribution. I wore a fit bit, or pedometer tracked my steps for a while determined what I averaged and all that stuff to come up with what I really burned in an average day, Basal+Job+Exercise. I fit the amount of exercise I was comfortable committing to and adjusted the level of it to allow comfortable clean eating at the deficit of my choosing.

Its more work on the front end to figure all of it out, but then you're sure if you are doing your job, the weight will come off in the healthiest steady way possible. Retaining that muscle helps keep it off, building muscle is even better, and you can build some even on a diet if all the other things are right. Packing on lean mass say post cutting weight once you've relaxed and returned to a more maintenance diet will let you enjoy a lot more food on the back end.

[Jez2983]

This great old thread... good to see again. Have to say I've been aggressively hitting the weights all summer and I'm in peak shape. I still play ball about 2 hours a night with another hour of lifting and an expanded program over the weekends.

Now that we're entering autumn, this is my favorite time to really buckle down and go to the next level. Up your weight!

How's the knee travelling, mate? Obviously you're back playing, which is awesome. Surfing?

I'm just running heaps lately. At least 1x 1/2 mara a week. Lots of quite early mornings coz of the young kids

Appreciate you asking... I'm officially 10 months removed from surgery and probably 90% at this point. Occassionally I'll get some soreness and I still lack some jumping explosion but I feel pretty great. Good news is my jumper has improved quite a bit since I worked on it so much early in the rehab process.

Surfing will have to wait until next summer since I couldn't handle swimming the waves safely... in due time.

However, I've gotten really aggressive in the weight room and with my diet and both have made me a better basketball player. My range has increased, my form is better and my endurance is back. All in all, the injury has actually made me a more-rounded and stronger athlete.

Are you running outside or treadmill? I've been doing a quick mile or two on the treadmill before lifting to get my heartrate up and get a nice sweat. Are you lifting too?

Me and lifting doesn't work I'm skinny as hell and it's hard to commit to the time and diet I need to get any bigger. I love all bad food too (and beer) and it doesn't really work with 2 young kids!

My build suits running. I'm doing a 1/2 mara at least every weekend and a couple of runs during the week. All outside as it's going into summer here.

In any case, great to hear you did so well with your rehab, you were obviously really committed! Most people tell me they don't feel really great until their second year, so if you feel this good now, you'll be awesome next year! Great job nebs.

[Thunder Muscle]

Man I remember thinking 1800 calories was tough to stay under, let alone 1100! I don't think I could do that day in and day out. I just jumped on the scale and 3+ weeks into t25 I thought I'd see a bigger drop on the scale, but have lost 1-1.5" off my waist which actually to me is more ideal as clothes fit better. Then again I had a larger pasta meal last night so maybe not the best morning to weigh self.

Is there any truth to gaining muscle = weight gain/slow losing weight? I'm guessing throughout the last couple weeks I've added muscle.

[averageposter]

Is there any truth to gaining muscle = weight gain/slow losing weight? I'm guessing throughout the last couple weeks I've added muscle.

Sure, its pretty common advice to keep an eye on how your clothes fit in addition to the scale. Over time couple of weeks to a month you could be swapping a fair amount of fat for a smaller amount of lean mass and see not much change on the scale or at least not as much as the deficit would suggest. If you are at a modest deficit and nutritionally doing the right things you can still build muscle. Once I finished dieting and hit the bottom of what I thought was pushing healthy limits at 135, my waist was 28-29" , I started working on adding lean mass back through bulks and cuts, I'm currently about 150 and the waist is exactly the same as the bottom end. On the way down originally 150 looked very different. Its why those height to weight only body mass charts aren't very good for a body builder.

I tried to minimize looking at the scale anyway, once a week or every two weeks max. You can drive yourself nuts. Eat a salty meal and gain a pound of water, switch pre-workouts and try one with Creatine monohydrate and you might gain 2 or 3 pounds of water. The daily swings just due to sodium intake make frequent weigh ins a bad idea if the swings bother you.

[LUKE23]

If you want to get in shape, don't cut calories. Eat a lot of healthy calories and exercise regularly. There is no way 1,100 calories is healthy for an adult male though.

[Thunder Muscle]

Is there any truth to gaining muscle = weight gain/slow losing weight? I'm guessing throughout the last couple weeks I've added muscle.

Sure, its pretty common advice to keep an eye on how your clothes fit in addition to the scale. Over time couple of weeks to a month you could be swapping a fair amount of fat for a smaller amount of lean mass and see not much change on the scale or at least not as much as the deficit would suggest. If you are at a modest deficit and nutritionally doing the right things you can still build muscle. Once I finished dieting and hit the bottom of what I thought was pushing healthy limits at 135, my waist was 28-29" , I started working on adding lean mass back through bulks and cuts, I'm currently about 150 and the waist is exactly the same as the bottom end. On the way down originally 150 looked very different. Its why those height to weight only body mass charts aren't very good for a body builder.

I tried to minimize looking at the scale anyway, once a week or every two weeks max. You can drive yourself nuts. Eat a salty meal and gain a pound of water, switch pre-workouts and try one with Creatine monohydrate and you might gain 2 or 3 pounds of water. The daily swings just due to sodium intake make frequent weigh ins a bad idea if the swings bother you.

Yeah, I've really tried to tell myself to not go on the scale much. I'm trying to go more off of clothes and just how I feel, which both have been improved. I'm not looking to shed a certain amount/% of weight so the scale shouldn't matter. For me, my alert weight amount is 200# and I was getting near it thus started working out. If I continue I'm pretty much succeeding at that goal. Now it is just a matter of keeping active and feeling good in the process. It is still hard b/c actual weight # is embedded in our society that it peaks the interest from time to time.

[Nebula1]

Is there any truth to gaining muscle = weight gain/slow losing weight? I'm guessing throughout the last couple weeks I've added muscle.

Sure, its pretty common advice to keep an eye on how your clothes fit in addition to the scale. Over time couple of weeks to a month you could be swapping a fair amount of fat for a smaller amount of lean mass and see not much change on the scale or at least not as much as the deficit would suggest. If you are at a modest deficit and nutritionally doing the right things you can still build muscle. Once I finished dieting and hit the bottom of what I thought was pushing healthy limits at 135, my waist was 28-29" , I started working on adding lean mass back through bulks and cuts, I'm currently about 150 and the waist is exactly the same as the bottom end. On the way down originally 150 looked very different. Its why those height to weight only body mass charts aren't very good for a body builder.

I tried to minimize looking at the scale anyway, once a week or every two weeks max. You can drive yourself nuts. Eat a salty meal and gain a pound of water, switch pre-workouts and try one with Creatine monohydrate and you might gain 2 or 3 pounds of water. The daily swings just due to sodium intake make frequent weigh ins a bad idea if the swings bother you.

Yeah, sometimes it's better to just take a "before" selfie and know what you want it to look like. Then it simply becomes a matter of getting there.

I do weigh in daily, but I actually like weight so I want to make sure it's staying on.

[Nebula1]

What is your favorite chest exercise?

Right now I'm all about the cable flys.

[averageposter]

What is your favorite chest exercise?

Right now I'm all about the cable flys.

Cable flys are good, cable cross too. The constant tension and ability to change the angle gives you endless amounts of variation.

The bulk of my work is done Free weights though so I guess the plain old variable bench would be my favorite.

[Nebula1]

^sometimes I get tired of the free weights and I'm enjoying the versatility of the cables. Obviously I rotate through a bunch of different stuff, but I find the cables really give me a good bang for the buck.

Tonight is no weights and all ball for a few hours. Mondays are probably my favorite since ball > weights still in my mind.