GaryRuns Member

I was at 10k, which was my cut goal and really helped me finish off my cut, but I've increased my eating to 3,000 calories and I'm not gaining after 2.5 weeks so I'm cutting back to 7k for my step goal. Not a big difference really, and I could just eat more, but there's some psychology at play. While eating 3k calories a…

Apparently ridding the Internet of V Shred has become the mission of significant number of legit fitness channels. It's like they had a meeting and all decided to try to coordinate their efforts. It's funny because they've all, at one time or another, already posted vids (I mostly do YouTube) about how awful the company is…

If you're overweight the best answer is probably to stay at maintenance and recomp. That is, very slowly lose fat while at the same time very slowly gaining muscle, fueling the muscle growth, in part, by using your body's fat stores. There are some caveats: 1) Your use of the word "fluffy" has to mean that your body fat…

It's not dramatic, but I think I have to agree in part with @nexangelus. In your bicep flex it looks like you've lost a bit of muscle. But I think you look leaner in the latter pics, which could be contributing to your less "full" look. It's really close though. So close that I think it could just come down to differences…

I haven't really done it since I switched from endurance to resistance training, but I always ran faster when I got new running shoes. That's kinda subjective since my Garmin running watch said otherwise, but I'm pretty sure the humidity and temperature on those days was throwing off the GPS accuracy. :p Admittedly, it's a…

That's something you have to determine for yourself, unless you're looking at entering into some type of physique competition. For myself, I could probably maintain at 10%, at which I consider myself "real lean", but I think at my age, 55, I look better at around 12%, particularly in the face. Age+'real lean' tends to make…

I lift 5 days a week: upper, lower, rest, pull, legs, push, rest. From meso to meso I mostly keep my key lifts, squat, CDLs and bench, which I use primarily to increase strength, so lower reps, heavier weight. Everything else is for hypertrophy. I tweak the other exercises depending on what I want to focus on. This meso…

Your BMR, TDEE, how many calories you burn doing a particular exercise, and even the number of calories listed for particular foods, isn't 100% accurate and can vary quite a bit from person to person. The best approach is to use them as a starting point, watch your weight over a time period (a week is usually good for…

I hate big lower compounds, squats, DLs, etc., unless I PR on one that particular day, then it's my favorite! :D * Favorite upper:* pullups. It wasn't that long ago I couldn't do a single wide grip, unassisted pullup. Now I can crank out 10-12. Hardly earth shattering but it's encouraging when I think about my progress. *…

Two weeks at my estimated maintenance level of 2700 calories and it seems to be mostly accurate. Maybe off by a 100 or so a day but that's within the margin of error. I've tried to keep my step count up to the level I had to take it to during the last three weeks of my cut so that's probably the reason I'm still on a…

There are a lot of factors that come into play when attempting to gain muscle while losing fat:* What's your current body fat percentage? * How much weight training have you done up until now? * Are you eating sufficient protein? 2g/kg is a good starting point, although you can get away with slightly less. And you can…

I've been on a cut so long I forgot what it felt like to not be hungry on a day to day basis. I also forgot that when you increase calories after a cut it feels like you have to force feed yourself, and I've only increased to maintenance. I know from past experience that will go away, but it's almost as annoying as being…

I think I've finally hit my bf goal. Skulpt has me at 9.5% which might be a bit low but it's close. I'd appreciate more eyes to confirm. I'm 55 years old, 6'2" tall, sitting at 172lbs. I've been lifting about two years now but an overly aggressive bulk had me cutting for a good fraction of that time and the quarantine put…

I thought I was the only one that did something like this. My "waffle+syrup+giant-glass-of-OJ Sunday" has become my "refeed" day.

As others have pointed out, you likely set your weight loss goal to be too aggressive. People tend to be more successful at losing weight, and keeping it off, if they lose no more than about 0.5-1.0% of of their weight per week. Given your weight that would mean losing between 1 and 2 pounds per week. And MFP will never…

With regards to resistance training the two most effective supplements according to most of the scientific literature are creatine and caffeine. Note that this can vary from person to person. Some people are responders to these two supplements and some are not. I, for example, don't find caffeine particularly effective for…

If you're applying a well structured, progressive, lifting program with the goal of increasing muscle mass then 0.7g/lb/day is about the minimum effective amount of protein you want. Note that's English units, pounds, no kg involved. And also note that you should use your lean mass in the calculation, but if you don't know…

So you're saying that in a year of dieting you haven't lost any significant weight, or that you've been losing consistently and only recently has your weight loss stalled? If it's the latter then look to all the people above. Weight will fluctuate and you have to use some type of average to judge your progress. Also note…

You two are probably too young for this to apply, but you gotta love Rip's take on back pain. Definitely applies to this old guy! lol. The link below gets through all the garbage at the beginning to the meat, although, if you have a minute watch the first 5 or 6s, especially if you're not familiar with Rip. That'll give…

This is absolutely going to be the biggest factor in recovery, probably by an order of magnitude over what you'll receive from any supplement. Here's an excerpt related to the topic, although focused more on performance than recovery, from a podcast by some guys that are well regarded by most in the community:…

You can dig around on YouTube and find a video where Contreras argues that hip thrusts should be a "main lift", up there with the squat, deadlift and bench press. I couldn't figure out if it was tongue-in-cheek or not, and obviously he has a bias, but it was humorous whatever the reason.

Here's a thread you might find helpful. Not specific to stomach-friendly, but then that's likely going to vary from person to person anyway. Maybe it'll give you some ideas: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10326769/are-you-a-hard-gainer-please-read/p1

How do you insure consistency with the Skulpt Steve? I've never done any experimentation but it seems like you could get some variation depending on the placement of the device. Also, I've switched to scanning from once to twice a week and I see a pretty large variation there too, although that could also be variation in…

I do hip thrusts during pretty much every meso. Started with barbell and now it's all machine. I think they're equally effective but the machine is just so much more convenient. And for any guy that doesn't think hip thrusts are important... 😂 https://youtu.be/ViBdy1y-Gkk?t=3m20s

For the most part I don't pay attention to what I eat, especially during the day while I'm working. I just eat to function. So eating repetitively is easy and preferred. I generally eat the same things 5 times a day, 6 days a week. Those 5 meals are all different, but the same day to day. This makes it dead easy to track…

Just as an FYI, not everyone loves running. Some people love it and run just because, some people tolerate running and just use it as at tool to attain some other fitness goal, some people loathe it, and some of us have been at all of those stages at some point. Anyway, that heart rate does seem a bit high, but while the…

There are so many variables that could affect your arm measurements, water retention, amount of flex, where you measure on your arm, amount of pump, etc. I wouldn't base any major decisions like calorie intake solely on that measurement. If you're losing weight at a reasonable rate and you have noticeable fat loss and your…

If it's any consolation recent studies and reviews of previous studies have shown that, as far as strength training goes, men and women are more alike than previously believed. I didn't read in a lot of detail but conventional thinking was that because of our testosterone we had a huge advantage for strength training. It…

Lifting is such a small calorie burn that I wouldn't usually consider it worthwhile to try and adjust calories for the week or two that most people do deloads. However, if you're in lockdown and you're going to be there for weeks then you might need to adjust your calories but that will be apparent from your weight trend…

Generally you hear numbers thrown around like 0.5-1 pound of muscle per month, maximum, for a woman who is not taking any performance enhancing drugs, has her nutrition dialed in, is consistent in the gym, and is utilizing a well designed progressive lifting program. So you'd be looking at 6-12 pounds of muscle gain in a…