weight lifting advice

JacquelineEllen

Hi,
I'm new to weight lifting and wanted to see if anyone had any advice for a beginner. How many calories should I be eating if seriously weight training? Right now I am eating 1,300 a day about. How much protein should I be getting? I see a lot of people drink those protein shakes I don't understand why or what is the benefit of them why not just eat food with natural protein? Finally, is working legs and stomach Tuesdays and arms and back Thursdays enough? What is a "typical" weight lifters schedule look like? Any advice would help thanks!

jimmie65

Take a look at Starting Strength or New Rules of Lifting for Women (both books) or the website for StrongLifts 5x5.

I'm going to say that split routines once a week would be wasting your time. If you can only lift twice a week, you definitely need to be doing the big lifts - deadlifts, squats, bench presses, and military presses.

smiling_sushi

I can tell you what I'm doing, and then you can use that information however you'd like.

Currently, I eat between 1800-1900 calories a day, because I am still wanting to lose weight and that is still a deficit (albeit a rather small one) for me. You generally have to eat more calories than you think in order to help you recover from lifting.

I set my macros at 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat, and my max calories at 1900. This means I aim to eat 190g carbs, 63g fat, and 143g protein every day. I consume a fair amount of protein in the form of "natural" food, but I add 1 scoop of protein powder (24 g of protein) to a shake or smoothie every day, simply because it's an efficient way to reach my protein goals without going over in calories. I have to eat something with a significant amount of protein in it for every meal and snack in order to reach my goals.

I'm currently doing the New Rules of Lifting for Women program 3 days a week. Every workout is a full body workout, which I believe is the most efficient way to lift. I lift on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays in order to give my body at least 48 hours to recover from lifting, and believe me, I need it most of the time. NWOL4W is a very beginner friendly program, and I would suggest that you at least consider looking into it.

JacquelineEllen

So I definitely need to up my calories kinda confused how you figure out to how much but i will get that book lifting for women from the library thanks for the suggestions!

Crazy4Healthy

How many calories you consume is really dependent on what you are looking to accomplish right now (it will change as your goals change). Are you at maintenance or still looking to lose some? If at maintenance, you should continue to eat at least that each day and increase on the days you workout, or go with a TDEE version and just eat the same each day. If you are still looking to lose, you can still factor in a deficit, but I would recommend sticking to 200-250 a day and still plan to eat back your exercise cals. If you are at maintenance and looking to build muscle, you will want to eat a bit of a surplus.

I also eat 40c/30p/30f and find protein shakes are useful, especially on workout days when I need to get more protein to satisfy my macros. If you can get all your protein from natural sources, that is awesome. I typically don't need the shakes on non-workout days to get my levels. You definitely need more protein to keep help maintain and develop more muscle (especially on a deficit).

I agree with all the previous programs mentioned. I have done NROL4W and StrongLifts and right now I'm doing New Rules of Lifting for Men (hypertrophy). All good programs and a good place to start. Compound lifts are definitely the way to go and I highly recommend trying for 3 days a week, but you can probably get away with two if needed. You will love it so much, you will want to do three. :drinker:

ETA: You likely only need to add 200-300 on the days you workout to cover the workout.