friedpet Member

Met with a trainer once who told me to avoid eating fruit on its own because "any excess calories that aren't burned in the next thirty minutes are stored as fat." I did not schedule a second appointment.

So it's possible to be too under-muscled to effectively recomp? I'm usually very patient if I'm seeing some sort of progress, even if it's slow. My concern is that I put in five months of effort last year for essentially nothing, and I want to avoid that again if I can.

Starting this week after external stressors caused an unfortunate setback.

I'm not sure how much more I can increase the weights without risking injury. As I said, I do my big compound lifts in 4 sets of 3-5 reps. Most of the time, I fail to hit five reps on the last set; if I do hit it, I'll increase weight the following session.

I do log everything I eat on days I track, so that's an accurate view of my diet (minus the holiday weeks). My cheat day isn't an all-out splurge; I'll typically have a plate of phad Thai from a local restaurant and a small dessert with snacks scattered on either side. My weight has remained steady for the past few months,…

My ultimate goal is to lose my belly fat. I'm not looking for a six-pack; just a flat stomach. Eating more to achieve that goal seems counterintuitive and will present a challenge psychologically. What I'm doing clearly isn't working, though, so I might as well give it a shot. Given my lack of activity outside of the gym…

Started my diet in April 2019 at 175lbs. Lowest weight was 148lbs in March 2020. I am 6'0". According to calculators, my TDEE for sedentary is 2034.9 calories, so yes, I'm eating below that. However, I do have one day per week I don't track (though I don't go crazy), so I expect that day is making up for the deficit in the…

I wasn't including barbell weight in my figures, so I guess that would change both my bench press and squat to 115lbs (52kgs) before the gym closed. Still underwhelming, it would seem, and not progressing as they should. Arnold press weights are per dumbbell. I've been told before that my calorie targets are low, but my…

I increase weight on a lift when I hit the recommended rep/set cap for the weight. For example, I'll increase my bench press weight when I can do four sets of five reps as prescribed in the PHUL program. I don't always go to failure, but I have no more than 2 RIR when I don't reach the target number of reps in a set. I do…

Yeah, I realized after posting that some more context would probably be useful. I'm 36 years old and not a complete newbie to weight training. Prior to the first closure in March, I'd been training for about a year using a different program. My starting weight was 175, and I dropped to ~150. Fluffed up to 155 during the…

I've seen this posted fairly frequently here. Do you have any links or information about where this advice comes from? I'd like to see the research behind it.

That I would see ribs, forehead vascularity, and a BMI of 20 without seeing a flat stomach.

Judging from your responses to others, I gather you aren't a proponent of the recomp approach when one nears the end of their initial fat loss process. If my assumption is correct, why don't you believe in it?

My OH is my training partner, but she hates it as much as I do, so we have a hard time motivating each other. Regular progress with overloading is usually enough to make it tolerable for me, so I'm hoping this new approach will provide some. Adding LBM wasn't a goal of mine when I started out; my entire fixation has been…

In all sincerity, if you have any tips for making exercise a pleasure, I'm open to them. Weight training is the least abhorrent method for me, but it's still far from enjoyable. I've been consistently going to the gym 3-4 times per week for over a year now because I hate how I look more than I hate working out. I was…

Thanks for the link! I'll check out the PHUL routine and rummage around in that forum for more info. You're correct about the psychological difficulty. If I had to choose, I'd take Arthur Fleck's physique over my current one any day. I believe it's called Former Fat Boy syndrome in these parts. However, I'd appreciate not…

Here are my most recent status pictures, taken last Friday immediately after waking up. Perhaps my perception is skewed, but it looks to me like my stomach isn't flat. It protrudes off of my ab wall, and when I flex my abs, I can poke a good 0.5-1 inches of squishy stuff before I feel the muscle. I admit that I am…

The workout plan was adapted from my gym's (LifeTime Fitness) beginner upper/lower body training routines. A full circuit hits most of the major muscle groups. Also, I've had my patient pants on for the last ten months. Not terribly long, I know, but I'd find them easier to tolerate if they were loosening at the same rate…

I have a few questions for the OP (and anyone else), but first, some context: Stats:* Height: 183cm * Starting Weight: 80kg (April 2019) * Current Weight: 68kg * BMI: 20.3 * BF: ~15% * BMR: ~1653 * TDEE (sedentary): 1984 * TDEE (lightly active): 2273 Diet:* Daily Calories: 1600-1700 * Macros: 30P/30F/40C * Protocol: 17:7…