advice for a new start
narcissa87
Posts: 19
Hey guys, I don't know if you can help me as this is more of a psychological issue but it's worth trying.
Some information about my journey: I'm 26 years old, 1.68 m and was weighing 63 kg 3 years ago. At the peak of a severe depression period I stopped eating and lost 8kgs. When I started eating again I went back up to 58, where I stayed for few months. Bad eating during summer waitressing put me up to about 62. I then went back to healthy eating and going to the gym (I didn't know better and just did some treadmill and 4 classes per week on average of various exercises). I lost maybe a kg, didn't track calories. Last February I decided I'd get skinny no matter what and went on a fad diet for couple of weeks made of 5-600 calories per day. Wasn't too hard because I was home all day doing practically nothing. Finally dropped to 54 kgs.
I started introducing more food slowly along with exercise at home. Maintained on 55 for the next months. Started working as a waitress on May and kept my home workouts. My nutrition was all over the place so I saw a dietitian to help me make a plan and lose more weight. She insisted I really shouldn't and made a plan for me to get adequate nutrition. That worked as I stopped having disordered eating but I was short in money and stopped seeing her.
Dumbells started not being enough to work out, plus I had started reading about the benefits of heavy lifting so I got myself a gym membership but the trainer there refused to let me use the barbell and forced me on a high reps machines program that I stuck to hoping in short time he'll let me move to the barbell. He kept refusing until we argued and finally accepted I could do it, so now I'm on it since a month. My program is based on starting strength and is laid out like this:
Workout A
Squats 3x5 (52kg as of last)
Bench press 3x5 (24.5kg as of last)
Incline bench press 3x5 (22kg as of last)
Deadlifts 1x5 (52kg as of last)
Workout B
Squats 3x5
Overhead press 3x5 (22kg as of last)
Lunges with elevated leg on bench 3x10 (empty bar of 17kg as of last)
Glute bridges 3x5 (62kg as of last)
In addition to this I do some bodyweight exercises after lifting based on convict conditioning: leg raises, chin ups, pushups, bridge, wall headstand.
My weekly activity consists of 40 hours waitressing in a hotel restaurant that is extremely busy. Those hours are usually split in 4 hours evening shifts daily and 3x4hours morning shifts. On those morning shifts I take the bike to work, 20 minutes plus 30 on the way back.
Now to the issue. I've tried tracking and planning for months but it has rarely worked. I realise I get too stressed from it and always end up eating more. My duary isn't very accurate to look at because often when I don't follow the plan I get frustrated and don't bother logging what I actually ate. When I do, I see that I reach 2500-2700 calories. That's too much to cut and I've actually slowly but steadily gained, I now weigh 56-57 kgs after few months spent on 55. It's not a lot but it's in the opposite direction of where I'd like to go. And I've measured myself too, in the last couple of months I've gained 1-2 cm everywhere.
I know that in order to lose I need to keep a deficit but I was wondering if you had any advice on doing so without careful planning and logging since it leads me on stressing and overeating. I'm probably asking for the impossible. I know I have a lot of stress due to busy lifestyle (my job mainly, working out is what makes me happy so I'm not really willing to decrease it). I've also ordered relora supplements to see if they're gonna work with reducing overeating.
I'm very interested in leangains and carb cycling, trying to transition to it but like I said I stress overeat and not stick to plans, even though I managed to stay on 2000 calories or less some days unlike before trying leangains.
I hope all this doesn't sound too stupid, I'm really at loss.
P.S. I've posted pics of me on the bf estimation thread just so you know how much more work in need since height and weight alone aren't enough info.
Some information about my journey: I'm 26 years old, 1.68 m and was weighing 63 kg 3 years ago. At the peak of a severe depression period I stopped eating and lost 8kgs. When I started eating again I went back up to 58, where I stayed for few months. Bad eating during summer waitressing put me up to about 62. I then went back to healthy eating and going to the gym (I didn't know better and just did some treadmill and 4 classes per week on average of various exercises). I lost maybe a kg, didn't track calories. Last February I decided I'd get skinny no matter what and went on a fad diet for couple of weeks made of 5-600 calories per day. Wasn't too hard because I was home all day doing practically nothing. Finally dropped to 54 kgs.
I started introducing more food slowly along with exercise at home. Maintained on 55 for the next months. Started working as a waitress on May and kept my home workouts. My nutrition was all over the place so I saw a dietitian to help me make a plan and lose more weight. She insisted I really shouldn't and made a plan for me to get adequate nutrition. That worked as I stopped having disordered eating but I was short in money and stopped seeing her.
Dumbells started not being enough to work out, plus I had started reading about the benefits of heavy lifting so I got myself a gym membership but the trainer there refused to let me use the barbell and forced me on a high reps machines program that I stuck to hoping in short time he'll let me move to the barbell. He kept refusing until we argued and finally accepted I could do it, so now I'm on it since a month. My program is based on starting strength and is laid out like this:
Workout A
Squats 3x5 (52kg as of last)
Bench press 3x5 (24.5kg as of last)
Incline bench press 3x5 (22kg as of last)
Deadlifts 1x5 (52kg as of last)
Workout B
Squats 3x5
Overhead press 3x5 (22kg as of last)
Lunges with elevated leg on bench 3x10 (empty bar of 17kg as of last)
Glute bridges 3x5 (62kg as of last)
In addition to this I do some bodyweight exercises after lifting based on convict conditioning: leg raises, chin ups, pushups, bridge, wall headstand.
My weekly activity consists of 40 hours waitressing in a hotel restaurant that is extremely busy. Those hours are usually split in 4 hours evening shifts daily and 3x4hours morning shifts. On those morning shifts I take the bike to work, 20 minutes plus 30 on the way back.
Now to the issue. I've tried tracking and planning for months but it has rarely worked. I realise I get too stressed from it and always end up eating more. My duary isn't very accurate to look at because often when I don't follow the plan I get frustrated and don't bother logging what I actually ate. When I do, I see that I reach 2500-2700 calories. That's too much to cut and I've actually slowly but steadily gained, I now weigh 56-57 kgs after few months spent on 55. It's not a lot but it's in the opposite direction of where I'd like to go. And I've measured myself too, in the last couple of months I've gained 1-2 cm everywhere.
I know that in order to lose I need to keep a deficit but I was wondering if you had any advice on doing so without careful planning and logging since it leads me on stressing and overeating. I'm probably asking for the impossible. I know I have a lot of stress due to busy lifestyle (my job mainly, working out is what makes me happy so I'm not really willing to decrease it). I've also ordered relora supplements to see if they're gonna work with reducing overeating.
I'm very interested in leangains and carb cycling, trying to transition to it but like I said I stress overeat and not stick to plans, even though I managed to stay on 2000 calories or less some days unlike before trying leangains.
I hope all this doesn't sound too stupid, I'm really at loss.
P.S. I've posted pics of me on the bf estimation thread just so you know how much more work in need since height and weight alone aren't enough info.
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Replies
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I'll let the pros weigh in on your intake questions. What I would like to know is why you are trying to lose weight at your current size. I saw your pics in the bf% thread, and I honestly think you do not have that much weight to lose. If I were you, young and just starting out serious barbell training, I would eat without tracking (or at least caring much about the number, except maybe protein) and enjoy those novice gains. You will never be able to gain muscle and strength as you can now. You have a very active lifestyle, with a job that has you running around all day and biking and lifting, and you need to eat enough to keep that up.
Your lifting program, was that something you designed yourself or was it the trainer? There is a lot going on, especially if you include the bodyweight exercises. I would cut all but maybe five of those exercises out.0 -
Your lifting routine looks very unbalanced - there are not enough pulls to pushes.
The relora looks like a bunch of bs to me at first glance. I would not bother with it tbh.
We will get back to you regarding the other points shortly.0 -
I just think I need to drop some bf% and that needs at least a small deficit, isn't that right?
I'm probably too stressed about results and how to achieve them that I don't give it time. Rationally I know I need to be patient but my mind often goes on its own and the stress leads me to do silly things. I thought I'd take a different approach: Calculated my macros again through leangains and focus on hitting those, cycling between heavy lifting days and non and try to not care much about the exact calorie number. I also implemented vitamin D3 since couple of days, and it seems like I'm less prone to irrational cravings. I don't know if it's just a coincidence but I'll see how it goes.
About my training plan, I set it up because like I said that trainer was too focused on making me do high reps and machines. Honestly machines bore me a lot and also high reps is not what I want to do. I've added the bodyweight exercises purely because I want to become strong enough to do pistol squats, headstands,chin ups and bridges, from an ego point of view. Leg raises and push ups are just an aid to core and upper body strength.
P.S. Through leangains the macros come out as C308g/F46g/P109 for training days and C55g/F74g/P109g for resting days. That amounts to 2,076 and 1321 kcal respectively. I'm not following religiously but today that was a heavy lifting day for example, my plan includes C279g/F49g/P122g (with all the margin of human error obviously). Calories should be 2060 but I try to ignore the number like I said. We'll see at the end of the day and mostly the next two resting days how I do.
EDIT: Thank you Sara, I've thought about it lately as I read through people's routines. Could you recommend what exercises to add and if I should remove any of those that are in my routine?0 -
How long does that routine take you, and how much total time do you have?
In the past 4 weeks, how much have your lifts gone up in weight?0 -
If I do most/all of the bodyweight exercises roughly 1,5 hours.
I only started 4 weeks ago with lifting heavy (on my 5th week now), with this program, and I started with an empty barbell (17kg). So all the numbers I reported on my first post is the progress from 17kg in a 4 weeks span.0 -
Is your routine 2 x a week or 3 x a week with alternating workouts?0
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3x week, alternating A, B, A then B, A, B0
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bump
No hurry, just to bring the thread back in the first page in case it gets forgotten. In the meantime it's my second day of not logging/planning calories, just quickly checking I get at least 100g of protein per day, though I still do grossly count calories in my head.
I also added few small sessions of extra home yoga, before bed and at wake up usually to help relieve my overall stress.0 -
Attempted to plan and log my calories today, too soon it seems: kind of binged on chocolate. I'm afraid I won't be able to count anymore without stress eating as a result and how am I supposed to cut if I can't count/plan? Got 8 kgs to lose now...
I've attempted starting IF few times in the last weeks with no success (woke up hungry and couldn't skip breakfast) but today was suddenly easy. I hope it goes on.
About training, should I add barbell rows and/or inverted rows? Would that balance it? And what about some HIIT sessions (maybe on the treadmill), would that be helpful in my situation?0 -
Really sorry about the delays in responding to your thread. Bumping this to the top.0
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No worries, you're doing this out of your free time, it's hard to take care of all in little time.0
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Here's a few things to consider:
1) Remove incline bench from A day, make sure you do your chin ups on this day.
2) Add in Barbell or Pendlay rows on B day.
This should help balance out the push/pull ratio.
As far as issues with calorie tracking, if you have problems tracking and you think it's causing you to over-eat for psychological reasons then you should explore food selection ideas to help you create a deficit through satiety. (And stop tracking).
Examples that you can try would include increasing the volume of low energy density foods. Green vegetables, higher fiber foods, and you'll probably want to minimize your consumption of heavily refined/processed foods in this case because they tend towards higher energy density and low satiety.0
