Advice please

jo_marnes

Hi,

After many weeks following this group, I thought I'd chime in and ask for some direction. Firstly, a bit of background - I lost 25kg after the birth of my youngest (now almost 6 yrs). This was achieved by exercising for the first time in my life and also an increased awareness of my diet and intake. I reached goal weight and found MFP - as a guide to know how much to eat more than anything else. For a while I was underweight - I lost my period and was exercising probably too frequently for my diet to sustain. For the past 2 yrs I have increased my intake from 1400 kcals to 1700 - 18000 kcals and maintained at 52-54kg. My periods are back and I have cut down on the 100% cardio I WAS doing, adding in P90X last year and now following NROL Supercharged having gone through NROLFW last year.

My problems now are that I'm not seeing any real muscle/ strength gain. This is now my focus and my goal is really to LOOK like I lift - I want definition and to look strong. I think I probably need to eat more but I am scared about putting on fat. I think it would help me to have someone tell me what to do so I can try it for a bit!

I have answered your questions req'd:



Provide your stats (height/weight/age/bodyfat% if you know it/etc) - 165cm/ 53kg/ ? body fat %

What's your current gross intake of calories, on average? 1700 kcals according to my last 90 days

What's your current average intake of protein, carbs, and fats, in grams? (GRAMS, not percent!) - 110g/ 170g/ 30g

Do you use a food scale and measure everything? Yes.

Do you track all of your intake, daily? (Everything?) Yes - although sometimes I'll eat extra chocolate at the end of the night if I have cals left over ;-)

Do you take cheat days or days off? If a Friday isn't logged it's because I had a few too many wines.....

How much weight have you lost so far and over what time period? 25kg over 6 yrs, gained 2kg in past 24 mths

Describe your activity (exercise and non exercise) and did you change that activity withing the last couple of months? I do NROL supercharged 3 times per week, with combat class/ walks/ Body Pump/ cardio based DVDs on alternate days. I have one rest day per week. Non exercise - I am a mum of 3 so I run around after them and do housework/ chores etc. I am busy in the day but as I also study full time, I can spend a lot of time sat down. However, this would be a lot less time sat down than someone with an office job I expect. I get up at 6.30 am and sit down for my dinner at 9pm. I go to bed around 11pm. I don't often sleep through, usually wake once or twice in the night.

How long have you been stalled and if it is not a complete stall please be very specific as to how much you have lost over the stalled period - I'm not looking to lose - I need direction in to how to increase my strength and add muscle please.

Are you breastfeeding? No

Do you have thyroid issues/risks or PCOS? No - but I do have celiac disease if that makes any difference?


Many thanks in advance!

Jo xx

SideSteel

What has your weight done in the past 90 days and when did you start NROL?

Are your lifts increasing?

jo_marnes

Weight has not changed in past year, let alone 90 days.

Have been doing NROL in various formats since Jan 13. I have seen increases in strength, but beginners gains really..... no progress in past 6 mths (although did have a month break over xmas due to illness). I am currently on supercharged hypertrophy 1 stage.... so varying reps each workout and adjusting weights accordingly. Each A and B workout goes through 6 times, with sets of 4x 6 reps, 3 x 12 reps and 2 x 20 reps (and repeat).

My A workout is step ups, bench press, Romanian DL, kneeling lat pulldowns. My B workout is offset reverse lunges, shoulder press, front squat and kneeling cable row. Each starts with a 5 min warm up run, abdominal warm up/ strength. Each finishes with a metabolic complex. Each workout takes me an hour.

Sarauk2sf

Tagging

SideSteel

Moving this up. Hope to get to it soon.

jo_marnes

Thanks guys! xx

jo_marnes

Addit:

Measured my body fat % in the only methods I have access to;

Scale at gym - 21.5%
7 site calliper test - 16%

jo_marnes

Hey guys,

I know you are v busy.... any idea when u might have a starting point for me? I don't mind waiting, but knowing a rough timescale will save me keep coming back to check - many thanks,

Jo

SideSteel

Hey guys,

I know you are v busy.... any idea when u might have a starting point for me? I don't mind waiting, but knowing a rough timescale will save me keep coming back to check - many thanks,

Jo

Not likely that we will get to this until Sunday. Sara is flying out for her PL meet tonight and we go over each of these together for quality reasons.

jo_marnes

No worries, thanks :-)

SideSteel

Ok, we would like you to do three things:


1) Set your calories and macros as follows and eat this daily:

1800 calories
225 carbohydrate
50 fat
110 protein

2) Drop 1 DVD session from your training plan converting that to an additional rest day.


3) Be aware that there are items in your food diary that are being logged as calories that do not have macronutrients entered. Alcohol would be one example (wine) and you also have some chocolates logged that for some reason are macronutrient void. This may throw off your totals. You can correct the chocolate entry by selecting one that has macros entered in. For alcohol it's technically not any of the three macronutrients so you could run into a scenario where you hit your calorie limit w/o hitting your macro totals. In this situation make sure you hit your protein target and hit at least 40g fat. From there you can "borrow from" fat or carbs or a combination of the two to allow the caloric space for the alcohol.


We would like you to do this for two weeks and weigh yourself daily under identical circumstances. Record your daily weight and reply to us in 2 weeks with a list of your weigh ins and we can monitor rate of bodyweight change.

jo_marnes

Will do. Couple of things.... is the 1800 gross or net?

Also, I don't have scales at home to weigh myself - will use the ones at the gym and log as frequently as possible.

Can I ask what your thought process is behind this? Just so I'm not following blind ;-)

Thank you!

SideSteel

Will do. Couple of things.... is the 1800 gross or net?

Also, I don't have scales at home to weigh myself - will use the ones at the gym and log as frequently as possible.

Can I ask what your thought process is behind this? Just so I'm not following blind ;-)

Thank you!

The 1800 is gross.

The thought process is to gradually increase energy intake and reduce activity to get you to very slowly gain.

jo_marnes

Ok, macros adjusted. Day one has prompted another question.... do I eat more cals if I am still hungry after 1800? This doesn't often happen, but it might if I run or have a heavy cal burn from workouts.

Thanks for your assistance, really appreciate it xx

jo_marnes

bump :-)

Sarauk2sf

Ok, macros adjusted. Day one has prompted another question.... do I eat more cals if I am still hungry after 1800? This doesn't often happen, but it might if I run or have a heavy cal burn from workouts.

Thanks for your assistance, really appreciate it xx

If you have a particularly active day and you are hungry, then you should eat a bit more.

jo_marnes

Thanks Sara :-)

jo_marnes

Hi Sara and Sidesteel,

So it has been a little over 2 weeks. I have stuck to the plan suggested. Here are my weigh ins and my workouts;

19/2: 53kg NROL
20/2: Walk
21/2: 52.3kg Body Pump
22/2: NROL
23/2: 52.6kg Body Combat
24/2: Rest
25/2: 53kg Run (30 mins)
26/2: 40 min circuit
27/2: 52.2kg NROL
28/2: 52.8kg NROL
1/3: Rest
2/3: 52.7kg Body Combat
3/3: 53.6kg NROL
4/3: 45 min walk/ run
5/3: Rest
6/3: Rest
7/3: 52.2kg NROL

Thank you!

jo_marnes

Hey guys, can u tag so I know you've seen this? Thanks,

Jo xx

SideSteel

Add another 100 calories, all to carbohydrate (increase carbs by 25g).

Check back with us in two weeks, don't worry if you start gaining a bit as increasing carbs can cause some water retention.

jo_marnes

Yikes, ok, I'm going to feel like a beach ball. LOL

jo_marnes

Hi,

Sorry for the delay checking in. I have been sticking to your suggestions, although some days I do not quite hit macros, but I'm not far off.

I have recently had Implanon (contraceptive implant) put in and it has been playing havoc with bloating.... hence why I have waited a while to get some reasonably accurate weigh ins. The past 2 weeks have been;

Sun-53.5kg
Thurs - 54kg
Fri - 53.3kg
Sun - 53kg
Mon - 53kg
Tues 53.3kg
Fri - 53.8kg
Sat - 53.6kg
Sun - 52.7kg

As mentioned before I am only weighing in on days I actually go to the gym (no scales at home). I am having 2 rest days per week.

Shall I maintain like this for a while? What do you advise as a next step? Thanks,

Jo

Sarauk2sf

Hi!

Your calories were about 1,850 for the last few weeks. Your fats and protein look good, so add 100 calories to carbs (up by 25g) to set yourself averaging 1,950.

If you can sit there for 2 weeks and check back.

Hopefully the bump in calories will help your lifts also.

jo_marnes

Ok will do, thanks. Sometimes I have an extra bit of chocolate after I've completed my diary if I have remaining cals, so prob has been more like 1900 on average. I'll do 1950 for a fortnight :-)

Sarauk2sf

Locking so we can track active threads easier. Please PM one of us to unlock your thread, including a link to it, when you are ready to update.

Sarauk2sf

Unlocked at OPs request.

jo_marnes

Thanks Sara :-)

Ok so I realise it has been a while since I checked in, but rest assured I have been following your advice. I have had a lot on and had to juggle life - you know how it goes.

Anyway, I have been eating the recommended amount of cals (1950) - when I haven't it is usually because my activity that week has been less, so I have adjusted - but not by much.

The good news is my lifts are improving - not by a massive amount, but a bit. Although, sometimes it is hard to tell if that is just the program I'm following and the various stages of it. I am now on the strength & power stage of NROL supercharged. This focuses on a workout with 2 max lifts (either squats and lat pull downs or DLs and bench) followed by 4 exercises of 2 x 15 reps. With my warm up and cool down these sessions are taking me around 70 mins to complete. I am finding that I can only do 2 of these a week and achieve my best - so I am subbing 1 lifting session for a bodypump - my thoughts are that it keeps the muscles working without injury.... what are your thoughts on this? Then I am doing 2 cardio sessions.... and sometimes a walk on one of the 2 rest days.

So now for the weigh ins..... it has been interesting. I certainly see a pattern with my monthly cycle. I gain/ lose up to 2 kgs (5lbs) over the month.

I don't weigh every day (only when at the gym) but the past 2.5 weeks have looked like this;

54kg
54.5kg
53kg
54.4kg
53.7kg
53.2kg
54.1kg
54.4kg
54.7kg
54.9kg
53.8kg
55.1kg (today - my heaviest yet although it is that TOM)

I was also prompted to measure my thighs (a random thread on here) and have gained 0.5cm since the start of the year.

In summary, I am happy with my lifts and would like to achieve more. But I am also freaking (a little) about gaining - this is probably just me trying to get out of the mindset I have been in for a long time, but it is still weird to watch the numbers go up. Although I am enjoying eating, haha. Your thoughts and ideas are much appreciated :-)

jo_marnes

bump :-)

Sarauk2sf

Hi!

I am not sure that you can say that you are gaining as there is not much of an increase in weight, and what there is, is impacted by your cycle.

Are you gaining on your waist?

Does the gain in your thighs bother you? It is probably mainly glycogen but may be a bit of muscle. Are you looking to gain muscle in your legs?

jo_marnes

Fair points... I guess the 'average' is just higher than the average when I started.... but there isn't much in it. I will check my waist another day - today I am bloated! lol. Will get back to you on that asap.

In regards to muscle gain in my legs I'm not that bothered. I'm happy with my legs, I am more concerned about my upper body not looking teeny in comparison. But my upper body is looking fitter and stronger - I am happy with how I look right now. I want to increase my strength and fitness - that is my primary goal. My weight is just a constant nagging in the back of my head, coming off of years of weight loss and that kind of mentality.

jo_marnes

Yup, waist up 1cm also