Retroguy2000 Member

I know you said it's hard to find adjustable db's but I'd strongly advise looking more, including the used market. You might also be able to find a pre-made set of loadable db's, e.g. in my last visit to the UK a friend loaned me a pair like this at the link. As a pair, they're 20kg, but a single db can be quickly loaded…

There are apps which estimate foods on a plate via a picture. Probably not free, though maybe they have a free trial period. Anyway, the cost of a month of that is surely a fraction of the cost of the cruise, if that's important to you. Will Tennyson had a video recently with him on a cruise, and successfully maintaining…

Not a million miles away from there. There are at least a couple of 'older' active lifter posters here.

I'll cut and paste from a previous response I gave to someone else: Most expensive and most convenient: Fixed db's. Say you have a pair of 20's and a pair of 10's now. Fine. Then you progress, you realize you can do more for back and squats, and Romanian deadlift, so you want a pair of 30's. OK. Now it's getting expensive,…

30 pounds in 7 weeks? That's about 4 pounds per week, suggesting a deficit of 2,000 per day.

You didn't give any calorie numbers, or why you think it's very off. It's probably a lot of calories. Whatever it is, the best form of tracking is knowing your input calories and your weight change. You can compute your own TDEE from that, better than any watch or online calculator.

To add to that great advice: You've added a lot of endurance training for your legs. You shouldn't be strength training for lower body, i.e. 1-5 reps. You should also reduce lower body lifting volume. So e.g. if you're currently doing 5-10 reps for lower, add at least 5 reps to those sets, and do fewer sets. Also, don't go…

As Ann said above. It's a fools errand to attempt to estimate calories per set done. Just use the estimate provided above for total session time. Yeah, it may not seem that high compared to cardio, but that's normal.

Assuming it's overtraining and not some health issue, and this all sounds like OTS, Google says it can take at least several weeks, possibly months, to recover. Take it easy. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/overtraining-syndrome

You clearly have low bf %. You should be lifting hard with progressive overload and with a small calorie surplus. There isn't enough stored energy on your body to fuel muscle building without some extra calories.

How was your lifting recently, OP? Assuming you were previously challenging yourself and doing progressive overload, I also assume that recently your performance was dipping? Harder to get the same reps or same weight as before? That's a sign that you need a deload. As one of the people I follow on YT says, "If you don't…

You don't mention your diet and what you think your deficit has been. Just going off your post there in isolation, there isn't a connection to be made with that much exercise and "only" 11 pounds lost, since so much of weight loss is dictated by calories in, not exercise (and especially not calories from weights). However,…

You need to hit the weights, young man. You should have been doing that during weight loss too, but better late than never. And get into a calorie surplus. With progressive lifting, you could add as much as 500 calories daily surplus, but maybe 250 would be better. That's probably at least 10% more calories than you're…

@nossmf Great post. Your comment about hitting a weight from 30 years ago stuck out to me too, mostly because it seemed like such an arbitrary target, which also doesn't take into account all of the muscle you've gained in the last 30 years. That's why in general I don't like seeing people focused on specific weight goals,…

Have you lowered calories? About 10% lower bw means lower maintenance calories. You should run the MFP setup again to reset your target calories to your new bw. Lifting weights is good for body comp and other things, but won't burn many calories. I'd say check your calorie intake, and just carry on what you're doing.…

Like everyone else, I'm a little dubious about the measurement device accuracy. This is a common issue, not specific to your husband. Down six pounds in "past few months" suggests a minor calorie deficit. Say that's three months, that's an average deficit of 230 per day. A deficit under about 500 is beneficial to retaining…

Regarding "how you feel", I mean don't chase unrealistic standards of fitness influencers on social media with their staged lighting, pre-shoot pumps, good genetics, and very possibly various drugs creating unrealistic standards. And don't chase arbitrary numbers like X % bf (when it's hard to track where you're at…

BMI is one of the worst metrics for you to track. It's meant as a population average. It doesn't take into account individual gender, age, muscle mass, etc. Your metrics should be the scale, how your clothes fit, periodic pictures and measurements, how you feel, etc. Or if you want to estimate your bf % at home, try the…

Total calories and daily protein in grams are the only things I've ever looked at.

An oatmeal breakfast sets me up nicely for the day. That's either oatmeal with milk, and a separate scoop of whey powder, or overnight oats with whey powder mixed in. That extra fibre plus a daily high protein diet helps with staying on track. Daily exercise also helps, even if it's just a walk. I'm sure there are physical…

Those before and after pics are noticeably different. You're clearly leaner in the upper chest, shoulders and traps area, and your waist is probably at least 1" down. I'm still not sure you need to be doing large cuts and bulks though. At your training age and I assume also real age, and I assume all natural, muscle gains…

Well, you didn't share a pic. I'm in the Coach Greg camp of maingain from a reasonable bf, which I'd say 15% is very reasonable and healthy, i.e. maintain same body fat % with a low calorie surplus for small weight gain mostly muscle. Especially at your training age, muscle gains will likely be slow so no need for a dirty…

Do you need to lose more first? If you're happy where you're at, why not lean bulk, with 100-200 surplus for monthly weight gain of 1-2 pounds with very little fat gain?

If you're that fatigued from all the exercise, your NEAT will go down a lot. Maybe you should do a bit less.

I agree 100% with noss about the training to failure. And to add to that, the research is backing it up. You do look impressive in that pic, so you probably do need to train to failure some times, but definitely not every set. I realize you didn't say that's what you're doing, and we're inferring that via your comment…

@scottlake I see you sent me a friend req. Sorry, but I don't accept any friend reqs here. One exercise I'm thinking of for you is chest supported dumbbell row on an incline bench. Lower back doesn't get any strain there. That's for a starting point. Or a lat pulldown on the cable machine, or you can do lat prayer with…

Elliptical? Recumbent bike? Although, you don't really need to. Diet plus your walking can get you there. Resistance training could help a lot too. It's a scary prospect at first, perhaps, but strengthening the muscles there will help reduce the chance of injuries from random things like lifting household things or…

I have a heavy bias to db over kb. AFAIK, they're far more useful for meeting strength building goals especially. Most expensive and most convenient: Fixed db's. Say you have a pair of 20's and a pair of 10's now. Fine. Then you progress, you realize you can do more for back and squats, and Romanian deadlift, so you want a…

You'll probably just have to try some for yourself. I've used several of the big brands, and some of those have two or more chocolate flavors. I'll get whatever is on sale (slickdeals alerts), whether Optimum Nutrition Gold, MyProtein, Muscle Milk, Dymatize, Muscletech. Check the nutrition before purchase. Aim for at least…

Some of this was already noted by Ann above: No, lack of soreness is not evidence of anything. However, your muscles should feel tired by the end of a session. Especially if the goal is hypertrophy, rather than strength specifically. You should always be trying to progress. There are myriad ways to do this, but at the most…