brendanwhite84 Member

Hi Melinda; feel free to add me if you like. I spent the last two years going from skinnyfat gamer with an office job to reasonably well-toned fitness freak with some decent races and lifting numbers under his belt. 166 lbs skinny fat -> 148 lowest racing weight -> 170 decently muscled right now -> future goal of 173 with…

I think the success of a buddy system would depend in part on how willing to go upside your buddy's head, as they say, the two of you are going to be. If the goal is to keep each other accountable then you have to keep each other accountable by any means necessary. The physics and biochemistry governing weight management…

I plan to log my food and lift weights until I snuff it, basically, or am rendered incapable. There's lots of stuff in life that requires constant upkeep: chores, hygiene, eating and drinking. It's part of being an adult, and it just so happens that in a society that's more-or-less solved the problem of food availability…

As much dislike and contempt as I have for vocal Fat Activism, I will give FAs one thing in that there is a diet industry out there that profits from intentionally confusing the hell out of what is basically a settled issue in science. Bugs me like crazy.

Stronglifts has some pretty good form pointers available on its website. YouTube is also good.

The fitness apps / tools I've used generally overestimate caloric burn by a wide margin, in my experience. Treadmills, fitness watches, etc. When I want my numbers to be accurate I wear a good heart rate monitor that links to my watch. It reduces the burn numbers by a good 30-35% from what the default algorithm estimates.…

I generally wait 2 minutes between sets, but if I've just done a brutal deadlift or squat set and my heart is still pumping hard, I'll just wait until it slows down again.

Ruth Kazez's free and simple Zero to 1650 plan worked for me. Google it. :smile: Make sure you buy good goggles. Leaky ones suck.

I think the difference in perceived intensity is due to strain on your legs and feet. I checked some old records of two comparable runs, one on street and one on treadmill, and my average heart rate only differed by 1 BPM.

Hi and welcome. About jogging, what's your endurance like for walking? When I started running I could walk 5 KM (3 mi) quite comfortably in under an hour. I'm not suggesting this is necessarily the definitive entry point for jogging, but it's just my personal experience. At that time when I started I found it difficult to…

I've actually been to a triathlon camp - it included running. Much wine was drunk after dark.

I've never bothered stretching before or after running, for what it's worth - and I've done some fairly long runs.

This might help: http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/fullness-factor Researching foods that have improved satiation values is probably what you want to do.

I've lean bulked for about a year now - it's worked well. Up 21 lbs from my starting weight. 250 extra kcals per day, sufficient protein, and in my case I've supplemented with creatine monohydrate. I've also been lifting heavy. I haven't yet gone back in for another Bod Pod session but my intuition is that my body fat has…

I have anecdotal evidence from going from 166 lbs (BMI 21.3, 15% body fat per Bod Pod) to 148 lbs (BMI 19, 7.5% body fat per Bod Pod) for a total of 18 pounds lost at 1 lb per week, during which I was doing fairly heavy cardio and mostly eating back my exercise calories. I didn't find it untenably difficult from a hunger…

When I started weight training I began with an unloaded men's olympic bar (45 lbs) for most lifts other than deadlift. I was at BMI 18.75 and coming from an endurance sports background, so not exactly a powerhouse. Women's olympic bars are 33 lbs unloaded - that might not be a bad place to start for a few sets of 5 reps…

I started strength training completely by myself by buying some home gym equipment and using an app. The good thing about that particular app (Stronglifts 5x5, which I don't use anymore because I hate squats and it overdoes them IMO, haha) is that its creator provides pretty decent form advice on the app / his website.…

I saw them with Premium - their autoplay destroyed my monthly cellular data usage in seconds, so by the time I found the option to disable autoplay I was over. I cancelled my Premium over it; ad-free should be ad-free, I don't care if they're only advertising their own junk. Still going to use the app, of course. Still…

+1 for compound heavy lifts. Women should not worry about getting bulky (if any women here have ever worried about that). I'm a tall guy with a lean frame and obviously higher testosterone than any of you and I have busted my *kitten* on heavy free weights to achieve a decent toned look that I couldn't even remotely…

Good for you for deciding on a plan of action. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how unrestricted your eating will feel if you let yourself have a good variety of what you're accustomed to, but re-oriented to be correct in terms of the quantity of calories. It's not terribly hard and it's really liberating finding…

Crushed black pepper on cottage cheese is tasty.

Definite improvements in my body composition that endurance sports can't match - my 'off-season weightlifter' body composition looks harder and better-defined than my 'triathlon season' body (although I'm hoping to retain my better composition in next year's tri season due to training less intensely for smaller races). I…

Could be less of a variance; I don't recall the literature other than that I saw it and it covered that topic. I completely agree that 'big bones' is pretty much a dodge for people who don't want to face an unpleasant fact.

If it makes you feel any better, Garmin Connect refused to upload a 13.5 hour race I did so I couldn't analyze it or put it on Strava. :)

I seem to recall reading somewhere (if someone can find something like this, please post it) that two people of the same gender and height can have their skeletal mass differ by roughly 8 lbs. Anecdotally, in my experience "big bones" mostly come up from people who've never had a DEXA scan or other reliable body…

Given your age and that your hormones should be skewed in your favour, I'd probably be inclined to eat at a slight calorie deficit (maybe -0.5 lb per week) while engaging in strength / resistance training, and eating a high ratio of protein within the established deficit. I guess that partially depends on how many pounds…

When I was training for a long triathlon that practically prevented me from strength training my legs, I just benched and overhead pressed, then did some pull-ups and barbell curls. You could also barbell row. That said, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'only use my upper body'. If you can't stand on your feet or…

For anyone on the fence, I've had good results with Wendler 5/3/1 Boring But Big, on a longer (6-week) deload cycle. I originally picked it because I found SL5x5 a bit squat-heavy and I wanted to get in more deadlift volume, which I much prefer.

For what it's worth, my experience is that clinical information and stuff of that caliber is best for all these things. I did some work with a university kinesiology department one time that did wonders for me figuring out my metabolism and dietary needs.

Carbohydrates are the only non-essential macronutrient. Some fats and some varieties of protein are essential in order to stay alive. And I say this as a very high carb intake individual. +1 for a varied diet within the confines of what you arrive at for a calorie limit. Edit: Not sure what the Woo votes are all about. My…