I do DVDs so I don't need to strength train

stroutman81

This is how I go about calories.

I set maintenance at 14-16 calories per pound. Most tend to start most women or people who've already lost a considerable amount of weight at 14 and most men and highly active people at 16. Of course there are always those outliers who seem to have a sluggish metabolism or seem to be mostly sedentary... and in those cases, I might slide the entire spectrum down slightly, to say, 12-14 cals/lb. On the other side of the fence, there are always those who seem to be gifted in the metabolism department or they're highly highly active and I might slide their maintenance spectrum up to 16-18.

It all depends on the individual and circumstances.... but it's just a starting point anyhow... so not all that important. It's how they adapt their approach according to what's happening in response to the starting point that is important.

Once a reasonable estimate has been made about maintenance, I subtract 25-35% from it to reach a daily calorie target. There are cases where I'll go above or below this range... but by and large this is the range I work with. I'll typically hover on the lower end of that range for lighter folks and the higher end of the range for heavier folks.

With this method, you don't have to worry about eating exercise calories back or not. Here's why...

The 14-16 calories per pound for maintenance assumes the person is exercising most days of the week. So exercise calories are already factored in. Meaning anything below this maintenance intake should be a "raw" deficit... meaning it doesn't need any manipulation. It's net, in other words.

Make sense?

Errmmmmm...... no..... Sorry, I'm being really thick about this (I've never quite got to grips with this stuff and numbers are not my strong point LOL).

So with regards to the above - for me, at 137lbs x 14cals, that comes to 1918 for maintenance per day. If I subtract 25% from 1918 to give me a deficit, that sets me 1438.5 as a daily goal. If I then go for a run that uses, say, 500 cals, BUT my daily goal is 1438, does that not mean that I am only actually giving my body 938 calories to sort itself out on from actual food/drink consumed?

*Puts on dunce hat and waits*

No because the 14 cals/lb already has the calories expended via exercise factored in.

A general rule of thumb for BMR is 10 cals/lb.

So for a 130 lb woman, her BMR is likely in the neighborhood of 1300.

Assuming she's active, she probably expends 500 additional calories per day via formal exercise and plain old moving around. Which is approximately 4 more calories per pound.

So 10 for BMR + 4 for activity = 14 for maintenance.

Now do you see how the exercise is already factored in?

Lanfear

Make sense?


No because the 14 cals/lb already has the calories expended via exercise factored in.

A general rule of thumb for BMR is 10 cals/lb.

So for a 130 lb woman, her BMR is likely in the neighborhood of 1300.

Assuming she's active, she probably expends 500 additional calories per day via formal exercise and plain old moving around. Which is approximately 4 more calories per pound.

So 10 for BMR + 4 for activity = 14 for maintenance.

Now do you see how the exercise is already factored in?

Yes, that's a bit clearer. Sorry, my brain cell seems to have gone AWOL when it comes to this stuff!! Thank you

stroutman81

No need for apologies. All good questions.

Best to you!

mullichicken25

bump...good stuff

Lyadeia

Just curious as to what you think of my current plan that I am doing now. Most, if not all, of the info that I am using comes from Tom Venuto's book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. (I am actually not doing *exactly* this *now* because the gym that I joined doesn't open for a month...so the exercise I do is about 5 days a week cardio and circuit training with dumbbells at home until that glorious day when I have access to better dumbbells, barbells, cable machines, and an assisted pull up machine, lol)

As far as nutrition, I have my goal set at 1500 calories. I weigh around 145 or so right now (5'5" female with close to 30% body fat...sad, sad, sad number...) I have actually been using his suggestions for calorie and carb cycling which seem to work, if for nothing else but to keep me sane about cravings and "cheating." So for 3 days straight I eat at 1500 cals or slightly under and I try to have a macro split of around 30% carbs, 20% fat, and 50% protein. Then every 4th day I eat around 1800 cals with more carbs and fat and less protein. This is all still "good" food without junky processed sugary crap, just different amount and different ratios of macros. I am not sure if what Tom says is 100% accurate for how it works in the body, but I can honestly say that it sooo helps me to stay on track and not even want to have a junk food cheat by slightly increasing carbs and cals every 4th day. It's like a built-in cheat day, only it's not really "cheating" if that makes sense. The first week I tried this nutrition method, I lost 1.8 pounds on the scale without even exercising at all. Last week I was exercising and I lost 2.6 pounds.

I guess before I mention my planned workouts, I should mention that my goals are to lose a significant amount of body fat, and then to strengthen the muscles. You can see my end goals in my signature, which I receive numerous messages about everyday, lol. But the goals are simply where I want to be for my ultimate goal of competing in figure competitions. I will most likely stay around 17-18% body fat otherwise. Just throwing that out there so more people won't flame me, haha...

I was planning on doing strength training workouts 4 days a week and cardio workouts 5 days a week. The strength workouts will change every 8 weeks or so simply because I get bored right around the 2 month mark of any program I start. I wanted to start off with an 8 week rotation of "The New Bodybuilding Workout" outlined in Tom Venuto's website. Basically it's a 2 day split workout working upper body and lower body separately. There are 4 different routines, 2 upper and 2 lower, that you alternate throughout the week.

As far as cardio goes, on the days that I do weight training, I was planning on doing a shorter cardio workout. Something like 20 to 30 minutes or so on that evil stair climber. On the days that I do cardio without weight training, I was planning on a longer cardio workout, like a 45 to 60 minute class such as Turbo Kick.

From my understanding after reading his e-book and going through his website, someone like me with more body fat to lose than others would benefit more from additional cardio sessions which is why I was going to do them 5 days a week. I have other plans that use just 3 days of weight training per week, but most of the splits that appeal to me according to the time I have in the gym and my goals seem to work best with 4 days a week alternating body parts. Some of the other plans that I was looking at including other training techniques such as Escalating Density Training, but the vote is still out on that one. I am not sure of the benefits other than what the random users on the internet say about it, although it seems as though it would work for fat loss? IDK.

I used to do P90X...a lot. When I was at my lowest body fat % (which was roughly 20%) that is how I got there. Only I added extra cardio to the mix so I was doing 3 days of weights and 5 days of cardio with 1 day of that horribly long and boring as crap yoga. My plans are similar to that, just different exercises for the weights using more than just dumbbells at home.

All in all, does this sound OK for my goals? Are there specific plans for weight training that you would recommend? I am not a beginner, just changing the direction of where I am going. I haven't used anything less than 15 pounds for anything in years. I just didn't see a difference because my diet was awful! I'm cleaning up the diet and trying to train the best I can...without the money to afford hiring a trainer for help which is why I went to Tom Venuto. And his stuff seems solid to me.

Lyadeia

Bump for the O/P to see my question. :bigsmile:

jayb0ne

Bump to check back on this later

stroutman81

Just curious as to what you think of my current plan that I am doing now. Most, if not all, of the info that I am using comes from Tom Venuto's book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. (I am actually not doing *exactly* this *now* because the gym that I joined doesn't open for a month...so the exercise I do is about 5 days a week cardio and circuit training with dumbbells at home until that glorious day when I have access to better dumbbells, barbells, cable machines, and an assisted pull up machine, lol)

As far as nutrition, I have my goal set at 1500 calories. I weigh around 145 or so right now (5'5" female with close to 30% body fat...sad, sad, sad number...) I have actually been using his suggestions for calorie and carb cycling which seem to work, if for nothing else but to keep me sane about cravings and "cheating." So for 3 days straight I eat at 1500 cals or slightly under and I try to have a macro split of around 30% carbs, 20% fat, and 50% protein. Then every 4th day I eat around 1800 cals with more carbs and fat and less protein. This is all still "good" food without junky processed sugary crap, just different amount and different ratios of macros. I am not sure if what Tom says is 100% accurate for how it works in the body, but I can honestly say that it sooo helps me to stay on track and not even want to have a junk food cheat by slightly increasing carbs and cals every 4th day. It's like a built-in cheat day, only it's not really "cheating" if that makes sense. The first week I tried this nutrition method, I lost 1.8 pounds on the scale without even exercising at all. Last week I was exercising and I lost 2.6 pounds.

I guess before I mention my planned workouts, I should mention that my goals are to lose a significant amount of body fat, and then to strengthen the muscles. You can see my end goals in my signature, which I receive numerous messages about everyday, lol. But the goals are simply where I want to be for my ultimate goal of competing in figure competitions. I will most likely stay around 17-18% body fat otherwise. Just throwing that out there so more people won't flame me, haha...

I was planning on doing strength training workouts 4 days a week and cardio workouts 5 days a week. The strength workouts will change every 8 weeks or so simply because I get bored right around the 2 month mark of any program I start. I wanted to start off with an 8 week rotation of "The New Bodybuilding Workout" outlined in Tom Venuto's website. Basically it's a 2 day split workout working upper body and lower body separately. There are 4 different routines, 2 upper and 2 lower, that you alternate throughout the week.

As far as cardio goes, on the days that I do weight training, I was planning on doing a shorter cardio workout. Something like 20 to 30 minutes or so on that evil stair climber. On the days that I do cardio without weight training, I was planning on a longer cardio workout, like a 45 to 60 minute class such as Turbo Kick.

From my understanding after reading his e-book and going through his website, someone like me with more body fat to lose than others would benefit more from additional cardio sessions which is why I was going to do them 5 days a week. I have other plans that use just 3 days of weight training per week, but most of the splits that appeal to me according to the time I have in the gym and my goals seem to work best with 4 days a week alternating body parts. Some of the other plans that I was looking at including other training techniques such as Escalating Density Training, but the vote is still out on that one. I am not sure of the benefits other than what the random users on the internet say about it, although it seems as though it would work for fat loss? IDK.

I used to do P90X...a lot. When I was at my lowest body fat % (which was roughly 20%) that is how I got there. Only I added extra cardio to the mix so I was doing 3 days of weights and 5 days of cardio with 1 day of that horribly long and boring as crap yoga. My plans are similar to that, just different exercises for the weights using more than just dumbbells at home.

All in all, does this sound OK for my goals? Are there specific plans for weight training that you would recommend? I am not a beginner, just changing the direction of where I am going. I haven't used anything less than 15 pounds for anything in years. I just didn't see a difference because my diet was awful! I'm cleaning up the diet and trying to train the best I can...without the money to afford hiring a trainer for help which is why I went to Tom Venuto. And his stuff seems solid to me.

Firstly, Tom is a buddy of mine. And his stuff is definitely worth reading. He's one of the good guys... so you're in good hands.

If the carb/cal cycling thing fits your psychology... stick with it. Personally, it's not for me. In fact, I find it's not for most of the people i work with. I'm more a fan of straight calorie and nutrient targets across a week in general. There are certainly instances where I'll deviate from this.... but my take is why muddy the waters if you don't have to.

I'm also much more loose on food selection than Tom is, which probably helps my way.

As for the strength training you outlined, I've not seen Tom's split but an upper/lower split is my favorite way to set things up. Especially for "bulking" purposes. For muscle maintenance while in a calorie deficit, I'm more inclined to stick with full body training 2-3 times per week in most instances.

Here's the thing... the program just isn't important to me. Your body doesn't care what the program is. It simply cares that you're providing it sufficient stimulus to trigger muscle preservation. And this is best accomplished by focusing on the big movements:

Barbell Squats, front squats, goblet squats, rear foot elevated split squats, reverse lunges, alternating lunges, step ups, leg presses, conventional deadlifts, romanian deadlifts, rack pulls, barbell hip thrusts, glute ham raises, bench press (various angles), pushups, dips, rows (barbell and dumbbell), cable rows, pull/chinups, overhead presses, etc, etc

These are the movements that are the most economical... they call on the greatest amount of muscle and allow for you to use the most amount of weight. Using these with loads that keep you between 3-12 reps and hitting each major movement or muscle group 2+ times per week is the name of the game.

This can be accomplished with an endless array/mixture of setups.

Long story short... your plan sounds just fine. It's likely not how I'd structure things... but that's not that important. As long as the basic rules are covered and a sane amount of volume is performed in each session.... it's really hard to go wrong.

I'll typically switch things up every 4-8 weeks myself. But in rank novices, which I know you said you're not, I'll typically keep progressing without a change until a change is warranted. Put differently... I don't change things for the sake of change... that whole keep your body guessing nonsense is a lot of bologna without context.

As long as you have some consistency in programming from which you can progress with for a certain period of time... that's what matters.

tgh1914

Hey Steve, just wanting to pick your brain again.

A few weeks ago I started heavy lifting. I've P90X for 3 rounds & just think I've gotten out of it what I can, so it's time to increase size & strength with the compound lifts at a gym.

Anyway, my goal is to increase size & strength as much as I can given my short frame. I'm torn between 2 basic programs. A personal trainer that I just had 3 sessions with (no more) got me started on a routine that's basically Wendler's 5/3/1. He also mapped out how I'd continue it over the next several weeks. It only calls for a true load progression about monthly, but includes several of the compound lifts that I've seen you list.

The other routine, I'm considering is StrongLifts 5x5. I'm gonna guess you're familiar with it but just in case, it's basically an A & B workout of squats, deadlifts, BB rows & Presses at 5x5 3 days per week. You increase load about 5 lbs each day each exercise until you stall in your ability to hit the new load at 5x5, then dial back a little. Obviously there is much more load progression since you're adding 5 lbs every time.

My basic question is, since I'm a newcomer to true heavy lifting, wouldn't I be best suited with the SL 5x5 routine since more load progression = more gains? Or is it not that simple? Wendlers 5/3/1 seems to be more appropriate for experienced heavy lifters who are closer to their genetic potential. What say ye?

stroutman81

Hey Steve, just wanting to pick your brain again.

A few weeks ago I started heavy lifting. I've P90X for 3 rounds & just think I've gotten out of it what I can, so it's time to increase size & strength with the compound lifts at a gym.

Anyway, my goal is to increase size & strength as much as I can given my short frame. I'm torn between 2 basic programs. A personal trainer that I just had 3 sessions with (no more) got me started on a routine that's basically Wendler's 5/3/1. He also mapped out how I'd continue it over the next several weeks. It only calls for a true load progression about monthly, but includes several of the compound lifts that I've seen you list.

The other routine, I'm considering is StrongLifts 5x5. I'm gonna guess you're familiar with it but just in case, it's basically an A & B workout of squats, deadlifts, BB rows & Presses at 5x5 3 days per week. You increase load about 5 lbs each day each exercise until you stall in your ability to hit the new load at 5x5, then dial back a little. Obviously there is much more load progression since you're adding 5 lbs every time.

My basic question is, since I'm a newcomer to true heavy lifting, wouldn't I be best suited with the SL 5x5 routine since more load progression = more gains? Or is it not that simple? Wendlers 5/3/1 seems to be more appropriate for experienced heavy lifters who are closer to their genetic potential. What say ye?

You hit the nail on the head. At the very heart of programming is the concept of providing as much overload as possible ( in terms of frequency) while allowing for recovery. When you're relatively new to true strength training (and even when you're coming back from a leave), your strength levels simply aren't close to where your genetic max is.

Sure, exercises and loads can feel tough. But in your body's mind, the loads don't generate enough "fatigue" to justify infrequent overload.

This is why a lot of the beginner strength training programs suggest overload at every workout. Keep this up until it stops working. Then back off, as SL suggests, and ramp up again from this new backoff point, which will hopefully allow for some accumulated fatigue to dissipate and allow for you to blow by your previous sticking point.

When that stops working, it probably makes sense to structure things slightly differently where you're overload is weekly instead of at each session.

I highly suggest reading Mark Rippetoe's Practical Programming. It's by far and away one of the best books out there for describing this stuff.

Long story short.... yes, I'd be more inclined to start with the SL program for the reasons you mentioned. Jim's 5/3/1 is fantastic. You'd see progress with it for sure. But I think something like the SL setup is better suited for you currently.

seph_house

bump

Lyadeia

Thanks for the response. It is nice to know that out of all the years of trial and error, I finally found something that not only makes sense to me but also the rest of the fitness community (at least the good ones).

Until the gym is finished being built, I will just be doing the circuit training from Power 90 and cardio from Turbo Jam at home. Basically it's a 3 day per week total body weight routine and some cardio on 3 other days with Sunday as a rest day. But at least I know that my gym plan looks like a winner...and the nutrition since that is what I struggle with the most, lol.

Thanks!

stroutman81

You're welcome.

stroutman81

bump

blynnblair

Bump, I just started strength training and like all of the advice.

Thanks Steve!

mamamudbug

Bump

stroutman81

You're welcome!

robin52077

bump

Scott613

<---- does dvds with strength training in them. I Usually do 6-8 reps on whatever Im working out that day.

stroutman81

<---- does dvds with strength training in them. I Usually do 6-8 reps on whatever Im working out that day.

Okay. But that's not the typical DVD, now is it? The vast majority of the DVDs on the market revolve around cardio with weights, which I explicitly discussed in this thread.

If you want to head the prepackaged program route that has 'real' strength training in DVD format... something like p90x or whatever... that's perfectly fine.

But again, that's not really what I'm referring to in this thread.

veganbaum

bump

LAXerwigen

Great info!

Lanfear

Bump for this one!

stroutman81

Thanks for the bumps, guys.

gracemleone

bump for later

deninevi

bump

stroutman81

I'll see your bump and raise you a bumpity bump.

stroutman81

bump

stroutman81

dump

yeah, you know what I mean

reneelee

Its late and I want to read this tomorrow so I'm bumping.