Retroguy2000 Member

Whey powder. Mixed in with my overnight oatmeal, or separately with water or a little milk otherwise. Or add a banana and other fruit to make it a breakfast meal.

Isolate is better, but is also min-maxing imo, and usually not worth the price. I have alerts on slickdeals set up for protein and get whatever major whey protein brand is on sale. So long as the macros are at least about 75% calories from protein that's good enough for me. Typically this means brands like Optimum…

Protein shakes, which can be anything from about 120 calories for 25g protein if mixing with water only, or make it a snack/meal replacement with added fruit and milk. It doesn't matter much when you get the protein, so if you have a meal or two that are low protein and one with fish or chicken say, have extra fish/chicken…

The only thing I've ever tracked is calories and protein. I'm sure I'm getting plenty of fiber with daily oatmeal and other foods, and I expect I get at least as much fat as needed. Basically if I get around X calories and Y grams of protein, the rest likely falls into place for me.

At least 2x weekly per muscle group is ideal, and 3-4 total workouts per week is good. In your case, calorie surplus of up to 500 daily. At least 0.7g per pound protein. Your best bet is probably start with a structured program of progressive overload like Starting Strength or Strong Lifts. Those are 3x per week.

You don't need to complete your diary. It doesn't do anything other than give you a bogus estimate of future loss.

Walking is all you need at first. If you can work up to 10K steps per day that would be great, and as you do more of it, and lose more weight, it will get easier. You don't need to do it all at once either. It could be 15 mins here, 30 mins there. Listen to some podcast or YT or music while you do it. A mall is an option,…

Consistency is key to results. Re lifting, tracking your progress and making progress should help. Some lifting exercises are slightly better than others by various metrics, but consistency, progression, intensity and nutrition are all far more important. My point being, if you don't like a particular exercise, feel free…

Lifting + progressive overload + high protein. Look into something like Starting Strength or Strong Lifts if you're new. Or if you're working out at home, at least get some adjustable db's and a bench and start from there.

That's not a workout. That's your regular daily activity level. So in Goals you should set your daily activity to Very Active or whatever it's called. The resulting number is just an estimate to get you started. Track your calories, track your weight change, adjust accordingly.

You risk losing quite a bit of muscle mass doing that, especially with no mention of frequent lifting and high protein.

@nicsflyingcircus That all sounds good. I assume front pulldown == lat prayer? The back extensions you could probably do any time you're warmed up, even as a superset with something else during rest times. With arms, supersets are a nice time saver too. Start with the side you want to focus on. For the calf machine,…

@AnnPT77 as you say, preferences. I like the creamer, and for me with my portion sizes per cup, and 3-4 cups per day, it's about 50 calories for the creamer per day. Considering I take in nearly 3,000, that's acceptable for me, and it's why I haven't felt the need to switch to the lower fat option, even though typically…

You're assuming everyone would use the same amount of milk or creamer, which is doubtful. While you're correct about the creamer calories (I'll take your word for it), I once tracked my usage from a bottle and found I was having nearly 3x as many servings from the bottle as the nutrition label showed. Hence my much lower…

How were you doing PPL at 4x per week? The PPL program is best suited for 6x, though you could also do PPL and a full body for 4x. I agree that ULUL is better for 4x. I do that with an asynchronous split, so every other day. I add arms and a little shoulders into the L days, and don't do direct arms work on the U days, I…

I've no idea what your IF window is, based on that post. Anyway, my suggestion for when your preferred IF window and your workout window do not align is simple. Eat more around your workout so that you are adequately fueled for the workout and do not feel huge hunger after it. Take that calorie amount from your other daily…

Oatmeal.

If it's a one-time thing, just guess and move on. Based on your description of "try everything" and the type of food, and a quick look at the list, I would guess 1,500 calories. It could be hundreds higher or lower than that. Unless it's happening often, I wouldn't worry about the details.

It's fine to not feel sore afterwards. That's more likely to happen after a break, or when trying a new exercise. Feeling a pump in the muscles you're targeting, and your weight/rep numbers going steadily up, are good signs.

Bottom line, there's no reason for you to need 500 calories in coffee drinks every day. Imagine if you got rid of that, that's one pound per week. Lower fat milk, less of it, and fewer cups of coffee. Wait a while after waking before having one, and try to time it for when you actually need the boost, rather than just…

Maybe not. I know in the UK it's very hard to find. They have powder creamers which aren't as good imo. There, I think you can also get the "dairy" one serving tubs that you can find in hotel dining areas for instance, and which seem to last forever so I don't trust them. Here in the US, Nestle (and other brands) sell tons…

That's a lot of milk. I use Nestle Coffee Mate liquid creamer. It comes in various flavors. I average about 14 calories per cup (water and coffee obviously) from the creamer. There are lower fat versions of the creamer too.

How does seeing calorie data from 18 months ago on a graph help you for next week? The most recent month of data for calories and weight change is all you need to help you going forwards. That's enough to calculate your TDEE and calorie deficit if any.

OK, but do you really need two years of data? How does that help going forwards, versus starting with one month of data?

I maintain my own spreadsheet, to estimate my own TDEE with. I add two entries to my sheet for each day, total calories in and exercise calories. So long as you have at least about one month of that data in your sheet, you don't need any more history to start with. Then keep it going from there. You could start a sheet…

Good for you keeping up with what you can do. I'd suggest upper body exercises where you can stay seated. For example seated chest press and shoulder press, lat pulldown, seated db curls and one arm french press for arms. You might be able to get chest supported row working for you too, for a horizontal row. You can do a…

It sounds like your better option is taking your existing data, keeping it in Sheets, and then adding new days data to it. Track your calories here, and add the final days number to your sheet. It's easy in Sheets to create whatever charts you want for whatever ranges.

Wrist curls. Supinated, lower arm flat. With a db, let it roll down your fingers then grip it back up.

Note that your arms get some volume doing chest and back. Call it 0.5 sets for simplicity. That's a prelude to me suggesting you could focus Sun and Fri more on chest and back, i.e. do less direct arms work since you're getting some volume elsewhere. With limited time, focusing on the larger muscle groups rather than…