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I used to eat breakfast cereal every morning, which often contains twice the RDA of sugar in just one serving. I switched to oatmeal w/berries and sliced almonds - it's great.

I drink a lot of coffee - little doses of sugar throughout the day. Cut all sugar from my coffee.

Bring fruits and vegetables to work to snack on - cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, Persian cucumbers, carrots. No more granola bars or rare cookie

This was also an "adage" that I lived by during my healthier time...

Breakfast like a king
Lunch like a Lord
Dinner like a Pauper

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

yellowfever wrote:
I've been exercising since the military. I'm leaning towards functional fitness now. Problem is I don't know much about the training philosophy behind it. I gotta do some studying

The problem that I've personally had in searching for "functional fitness" stuff, is that I invariably come across a bunch of CrossFit bullgak. I've had a few doctors personally tell me to NOT do specific lifts already, and I don't need some ill-thought CF "workout" being thrown into the mix and making things generally worse.

I'm at a point right now where, I have a bunch of knowledge regarding lifting and getting/being fit... but I too easily find excuses to not do so. Right now, I have a gym membership, but with the end of semester a couple weeks away, my routine is to wake up, go to school, get the kids, cook dinner, eat, do homework/work on large assignments, go to bed hopefully before midnight.... and repeat 5 days a week.

If my job situation doesn't improve soon, I'll be ditching the gym membership, but I'll have more free time with my kids, so park time, setting my road bike up on a trainer and actually riding it will be much more down my alley.

At first I had that same problem. That's where researching came in. I love guns. In a gun magazine I bought there was an article by an ex delta guy by the name Pat McNamara on functional exercises. I think it was a three part series. What he teaches is what I was looking for. I've found others but can't remember the names. You could that and see if it's what you are after.

Lol I herniated two of my disks while i was lifting.

that was fun.

iv been out of it but decided to diet instead.

lost 40 pounds in the 2 months iv been out.

dont herniate your disks fella its not fun.

 TheMeanDM wrote:
This was also an "adage" that I lived by during my healthier time...

Breakfast like a king
Lunch like a Lord
Dinner like a Pauper

I have not eaten a real breakfast for years. Oops?

 TheMeanDM wrote:
This was also an "adage" that I lived by during my healthier time...

Breakfast like a king
Lunch like a Lord
Dinner like a Pauper

To go along with this, one of the things I read in another of my books, was to essentially "front load" your protein for the day. Basically, get 80-90% of your protein at breakfast/lunch, with a very small amount of protein at dinner, if any. Of course, this comes down to each person individually, how they process foods, when they workout, etc.

The basic premise, according to the medical dude who wrote that section of the book, is that if you have most of your protein intake in the latter half of the day, especially at the evening meal, when you sleep, your body uses that protein which triggers an "I'm fething hungry!!!" response to the brain when you wake up, thus leading to a higher likelihood of overeating the next day.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 TheMeanDM wrote:
This was also an "adage" that I lived by during my healthier time...

Breakfast like a king
Lunch like a Lord
Dinner like a Pauper

I have not eaten a real breakfast for years. Oops?

Yeah, I hardly have breakfast either.

Good thread.

I've just started a 6 week cut on Monday, after being a greedy SOB since Xmas. I've been lifting for years, so I know my way around a room full of weights.

It's the diet that I have a problem with. I just can't seem to shift that last 15lbs. Chicken, turkey, lean beef, brown rice and vegetables is pretty much 80% of what I'm eating during a cut.

Question; I know alcohol is calorie heavy, and cutting out the beers is basically what makes me lose weight, but is a small glass of brandy a couple of nights a week really going to mess things up that bad?

Hard liquor/e.g. "spirits" give you a little more bang for your calorie buck.....you can drink less, get fewer calories, and have a higher alcohol content.

http://magazine.foxnews.com/food-wellness/truth-about-wine-beer-and-liquor-and-dieting

If you want to, you can always adjust what you eat during the day before going out to enjoy some alcohol.

Often the problem becomes eating/snacking while drinking.

I suppose this is the place to ask... what's the best way for a teenager to get stronger in the arms without going to a gym? I've got 4 and 8kg cattlebells and some resistance bands.

Pistols at Dawn wrote:Good thread.

I've just started a 6 week cut on Monday, after being a greedy SOB since Xmas. I've been lifting for years, so I know my way around a room full of weights.

It's the diet that I have a problem with. I just can't seem to shift that last 15lbs. Chicken, turkey, lean beef, brown rice and vegetables is pretty much 80% of what I'm eating during a cut.

Question; I know alcohol is calorie heavy, and cutting out the beers is basically what makes me lose weight, but is a small glass of brandy a couple of nights a week really going to mess things up that bad?

TheMeanDM wrote:Hard liquor/e.g. "spirits" give you a little more bang for your calorie buck.....you can drink less, get fewer calories, and have a higher alcohol content.

http://magazine.foxnews.com/food-wellness/truth-about-wine-beer-and-liquor-and-dieting

If you want to, you can always adjust what you eat during the day before going out to enjoy some alcohol.

Often the problem becomes eating/snacking while drinking.

IMHO it’s ok to break the diet from time to time, as long as you compensate elsewhere. When you know you are going off the wagon run a few more laps, do a few more reps, eat a healthier lunch, etc. But sticking to a draconian diet with no flex is just going to make you unhappy. Note: IIRC some diets work but only allowing certain types of food, I’m just talking calorie counting here.

I never reached my ideal target because I wasn’t willing to make all the lifestyle changes needed to maintain my weight there. I was not willing to cut out the occasional pizza or beer that added up to those last 10 pounds. But I accepted that, and am happy at the current weight.

On the topic of targets: Another thing that helps is competition. If you are loosing weight with someone else at the same time, you can help keep each other honest. My running joke when I was loosing weight was that my target was "5lbs less then my brother”. He was swearing by WeightWatchers, and claiming that if I didn’t join or do something similar, I’d never loose anything.

Showed him.

I'll reiterate, there's no such thing as a bad food. All that matters is the big picture, and how much protein and calories you are taking in. However, alcohol is a bit problematic in that it is a fat burning suppressant. I seriously doubt a pint of liquor spread out over the course of a week would do much damage, Problem is that amounts to an extra 1000 calories to burn or more.

Maybe I'm crazy or lucky, but I got down to probably under 10% BF (my goal) without ever completely cutting out ice cream or pizza from my diet. I was eating like a whole pizza by myself every two weeks as a cheat day...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 TheMeanDM wrote:
This was also an "adage" that I lived by during my healthier time...

Breakfast like a king
Lunch like a Lord
Dinner like a Pauper

I have not eaten a real breakfast for years. Oops?

I've never eaten a very large breakfast. My biggest meal is typically post workout. I think not eating at least 25g of protein/10g carbs/10g fat or more in the morning is setting yourself up for dietary failure though. Your body needs some immediate nutrients.

SUgar is by far the biggest cause of weight gain in the world right now. Even if the tag says sugar free go look for any ingredient with "lose" at the end and its a sugar substitute. 35 grams a day for an active male is the FDA recommended intake. Check the carbs and if it has a high number yet only 1 or 2g of fiber and maybe no sugar, they snuck something in. 35g is less than one can of coke and that's for an active male, the normal sedentary male which is the vast majority of the population, especially gamers, is 28-30g. I quit playing in game stores, partially because I see overweight people eating and drinking massive amounts of garbage and find its disgusting how little they care about themselves. Doesn't help that the stores usually have a fridge of coke and energy drinks and horrible snacks. Not being elitist, I just cant stand there and watch people committing suicide while I game. Once in a blue moon pizza or sweet is ok, that's a cheat meal, but not soda after soda after soda and a whole medium pizza each.

That said, I was one of those guys a few years back before the military started threatening to boot me out for my waist, 40inches. So after that reality check I started p90x3, then Combat and passed the next PT test with a much better 33 inch waist. Then I did Beast and wondered why I wasn't in the gym. So about a year ago I started going to the gym and lifting. I figure I had to work out like a bodybuilder to do well, might as well work on being one. So 420 in the morning I am up and out the door to hit the gym by 5am til 730 and off to work. I started taking some testosterone boosters(not steroids or PEDs) recently and not only do I sleep so much better at night(with wild ass dreams every night) I have noticed a massive change physically in my upper torso. I also shoot for my weight in grams of protein every day although I rarely get there and I cant afford the 3500 cals of food I should be eating so I haven't gotten massive, but I look good in a tank top so I am not too worried

I am not a sedentary person in my opinion. I sit in front of a computer at work but once off I go home and usually work in my yard for several hours before maybe spending 30-45 minutes working on minis. I have a 2 acre fruit orchard and it takes a lot of physical work, especially when I clear more land by hand or plant new trees. This during certain seasons provides a decent and massively varied amount of fruit which obviously is pretty good for the diet.

I usually work out 6 days a week. Ill get a workout program from somewhere, typically I follow bodybuilding.com and get plans off there that are workable in a busy gym and rotate out plans every 8 weeks or so. Next week for example I am starting the Rock's Hercules program, looks to be a ball buster, did the legs this morning coming off an injury just to do it since I have a PT test this weekend I am not doing the run on. Yeah I feel it, cant wait until tomorrow. Especially on leg day which is probably the most important work out day of the week, I side with the Arnold quote where if you don't feel sick doing leg day, you aren't working it hard enough.

I suck at squats so am only doing around 160. Bench I have improved in the last six months from 150 to 265 with a working weight in the 220s. On arm day I do about 40 chin ups after my warm up. My deadlift is only about 200.

Found a functional shoulder exercise I really enjoy that smokes the hell out of me. Get a barbell, either the 35 or 45 and start slowly paddling a kayak. Make sure you have space and aren't right next to a mirror. Wow it is a smoker for ending should day. Good compound exercise, works your shoulders all around and works your core.

My biggest pet peeve and I totally blame my co-worker who used to be a professional body builder is chicken legs. You see all these guys working their upper torsos every day, benching massive weight, then they stand up and have tiny legs and are so out of proportion it looks silly. I see this a lot in the afternoons, especially at an army gym I was working out in. For some reason chicken legs abound in the army. Then again most of these guys go in and just do chest and arms and chit chat with each other on how much their biceps hurt(true story). Then they go home. The only genuinely big muscular guys I saw in my time there were actually on the leg press and squat racks. Go figure.

Tips I abide by
-No cell phone, leave it in the car. Buy a stop watch if you need a timer or an MP3 player if you need music. Phones are too tempting a distraction.

-Not there to socialize-yeah all the regulars say hi, fist bump, and maybe carry on a quick casual conversation in between sets, but the point of being there is to work out. If you have time to talk, you aren't working hard enough.

-Don't work out in a group. Its too slow and too easy to socialize.

-Warm up- I start every workout with 200 strokes as fast as I can on a rowing machine on medium difficulty. Its not an exercise, its a warm up, and a good total body one at that.

Lastly, "if it jiggles, its fat."

I miss being in shape.

Just about 2 years ago I had been coming out of a few years of depression, and finally had had a job where I could afford going to the gym and being able to afford the supplements. Went from 155 lb to 195 lb in 5 months of lifting. Then, last January I ended up tearing my labrum in my left shoulder, and had to go through 2 orthopedists before I got anything beyond "it's just tendinitis". Finally got surgery in October, and I'm still recovering. If things keep progressing and healing, I should be able to start easing back into lifting around September. And I broke my foot last June, so that had taken out the ability to run/hike/outdoor activities all last summer. In the mean time I've lost almost all of the weight I had put on, and haven't been able to do any decent amount of painting since the injury.

Well, I've decided to join the dark side and run a couple cycles of prohormones to aid in fat loss. Mainly because I'd rather not spend 8-10 months cutting down to 175. I need to be a minimum of 200 before I get my half sleeve done to avoid stretching. Please note, prohormones are not steroids, and they are legal to some extent. They still do have potent effects that can aid in both muscle growth and fat loss.

Looking at it mainly because at least 30lbs I've put on can be accounted for due to medication side effects. Complete bs.

I plan to, cut normally over 60 days with a calorie and carb restricted diet. Use said prohormes for 6 weeks, tapering up and then off. Cut again normally for 120-150 days. Use prohormones again for 6 weeks with a taper. Entire program will run roughly 8-9 months to achieve a finished product of hopefully sub 8% body fat. Hopefully will be able to increase strength to my goals of 365 bench, 440 squat, 540 deadlift at under 180lbs. Well, only the bench portion of that should be hard. With any luck I'll hit 495 squat and 635 deadlift since I'm only 40/50lbs away from those numbers already.

I'd like to reach this level of definition by January 2017 for my next birthday



I was probably only 1-2% body fat away here. I really want those lower abdominal veins to pop and I have a few in my upper abs that were on the verge of emerging.



My arms, chest, shoulders, and quads will all look absurdly vascular if all goes well.

I hate going to the gym, all the exercises suck and feel like being on a hampster wheel.

What did it for me was getting into mountain biking. I enjoy being outside and the challenge of a trail as motivation to get fit. The last two years of intense mountain biking have helped me drop 30 lbs, but I'm plateauing at ~190lbs right now, probably due to diet. I'll typically ride 7-15+ miles a day of hard trail riding at 8500-10000ft elevation, which is hard work and man I'll be sweating and tired after riding like that. According to my fitbit and MapMyRide app, I'm burning between 600-1200ish calories per session.

The effect has been noticable, my lungs and heart can go for miles now, and I can climb grades that in years past I'd have had a hard time walking up. It's the only time in my life I've ever felt like an athlete. It really is a great feeling, my quads and legs are like iron now instead of the doughy sticks they were a few years ago. I recently completed a 63 mile ride with over 4000ft of climbing, so all the hard work has definitely paid off in terms of strength and stamina. I'm also really into hiking and snowshoeing during the winter months.

Also gave up alcohol 100%, and that helped me lose 15 lbs right there over the course of a year. Beer has a staggering amount of calories, especially high quality craft beers, all that adds up real fast into a huge gut. My gut has slimmed down considerably since getting sober, but I'm nowhere near having a six pack.

Diet is the next thing holding me back I think. I really eat a lot of junk food, love sugary drinks (ginger beer, root beer) and other garbage fast food.

Felt like I was plateauing with squats so I ended up increasing my load by 20 pounds and was able to do 5 sets of 8 at 165 185 205 225 and 245 (7.5 reps got an assist on the last one)

 Ustrello wrote:
Felt like I was plateauing with squats so I ended up increasing my load by 20 pounds and was able to do 5 sets of 8 at 165 185 205 225 and 245 (7.5 reps got an assist on the last one)

Just as a suggestion, you may want to try variations on the lift... Drop a bunch of weight and do a workout with super-sets, do some workouts by upping the weight a ton, and going for 3-5 reps, etc.

Also, how low are you going on your squats?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:
Felt like I was plateauing with squats so I ended up increasing my load by 20 pounds and was able to do 5 sets of 8 at 165 185 205 225 and 245 (7.5 reps got an assist on the last one)

Just as a suggestion, you may want to try variations on the lift... Drop a bunch of weight and do a workout with super-sets, do some workouts by upping the weight a ton, and going for 3-5 reps, etc.

Also, how low are you going on your squats?

Very deep, but that is a decent idea switching up the weight.

 Ustrello wrote:

Very deep, but that is a decent idea switching up the weight.

Good, lol... I used to be a "parellel" guy myself, but once I was trained on the proper motion to allow full range squats, it made all the difference in the world.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

Very deep, but that is a decent idea switching up the weight.

Good, lol... I used to be a "parellel" guy myself, but once I was trained on the proper motion to allow full range squats, it made all the difference in the world.

No I try to go deep every time (though I was so tired on the 245 I got two parallel squats in by mistake) but I try and go as deep as possible without hitting the ground.

Also comic is relevant

Thanks for this thread. Working on returning to my former slightly below average level of performance. My home gym is also the game room (garage), and I have about a 5 person group. We are thinking of punitive exercises during 40k. Havent really put it together yet, but I am thinking ITC based. Anyhoo, read a Crossfit journal (issue 6, 2003) about how they formulated their workouts and I kind of dig it. 3 day cycles tgen a rest day. Where each day is a single or combo of Cardio (C), Weights(W), Gymnastics(G). Single element days are focused on the task and technique. Dual element days are 3-5 Rounds for time. And Triple Days are as many rounds as possible (AMRAP) for 20 min. Tabata can be thrown into any.

Day/Elem
1. C
2. W+G
3. C+W+G
4. REST
5. W
6. C+G
7. C+W+G
8. REST
9. G
10.C+W
11.C+W+G
12.REST

I dig it.

Today day2 I went easy.
300 Jump rope warmup.
For Time:
20-15-10-5-1
-65lb Thruster
-Jumping Pullup
Embarassing 16:10

Well, this is something I need to start paying attention to.
I started a desk job, which means being stuck in one spot, despite the 4 miles I walk a day to get around.

I've always been scared off doing exercising at home due to having a surgically fused spine (neck to waist), guess it's time to learn what I can and can't get up to. :s

Cycling is so damn good for losing weight. I don't do it (because I'd need to buy a new bike, and new ones - better ones - cost around 600+ euros here and that is like 1/3 or how much Warlord titan costs ), but a friend of mine keeps posting his cycling 'achievements'. So for 80ish km (~3 hours cycling) you can burn liek 2000 kcal. Not to mention all of them cardiovascular bonuses.

One thing I realized is my problem is that if the food is readily available, I will eat more of it. But If I purchase the food myself and ration it I do better.
For example. I live on campus. I get 1 meal a day from the dining hall, typically lunch and I will tend to binge and eat sweets I normally do not. If im home and my family buy sweets, I eat it. But if they dont, I normally dont crave sweets. Like, none at all. If I shop on my own, I will buy healthy stuff, but not if someone stuffs my fridge with bad stuff.

Does anyone know how well biking compares to running? I love running, but since I've started biking to school I'm too tired to go running.

I prefer biking to running but I have damaged feet and ankles. Biking is far less jarring than running and better for your joints and bones. That and saying you just rode 30 miles sounds far more impressive than saying you went and ran a 5 miles.

I am on my second week of the Hercules workout. I usually rotate my workouts every 8-12 weeks so I had gotten used to my old 3 days and repeat split. This workout is pretty tough after having gotten used to the old one.

I usually will add a few exercises and modify a few things that I feel work better. Like I did arms today and instead of spider curls, I did pyramid one arm preacher/spider curls and pyramid tricept pushdowns. I added seated curls and bench dips to take up more time. I try and spend 2 hours working out and the base workout is too short in my opinion.

But overall the workout is no joke. I fear leg days. I usually am not even halfway and I am already saying "Make the bad man stop."

Apparently I am making visible improvements now as I have had multiple people come up to me and commented on me looking better. I was at 13%body fat last time I checked. Trying to get to 10-11% by the end of summer.

Here's a shortcut to have a look.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/dwayne-johnson-rock-hard-hercules-workout-and-diet-plan.html

 Matthew wrote:
Does anyone know how well biking compares to running? I love running, but since I've started biking to school I'm too tired to go running.

IIRC, you burn less calories for the same distances, but you take less physical impacts on the bike. As Col. Dash points out, because you can cover so much more ground by bike (unless you're riding a BMX bike, or maybe a mountain bike, tires dependent) than you can via running, when you tell people how far you've ridden it does sound much more impressive.

How much you get out of it also depends on where you're riding.... If you have a ton of hills in your regular ride, you're gonna get more out of it than a much more flat route.

 Matthew wrote:
Does anyone know how well biking compares to running? I love running, but since I've started biking to school I'm too tired to go running.

What kind of biking? What are you riding?

 Ashiraya wrote:

 TheMeanDM wrote:
This was also an "adage" that I lived by during my healthier time...

Breakfast like a king
Lunch like a Lord
Dinner like a Pauper

I have not eaten a real breakfast for years. Oops?

I also just realised, does this picture mean that I, as a woman, want to eat a big breakfast, a tiny lunch and a big dinner?