rontafoya Member

Like others are saying, I'd look at other measures and the big picture at this stage of the game. Body fat percentage, for example. Types of excercises. Have you considered focusing on strength and muscle gain? Having less fat and more muscle results in easier fat loss. Just focusing on the scale (especially at a healthy…

Any idea WHY your cholesterol is so high? Without that info, I don't know why everyone is spewing so much advice. I never had high cholesterol, but my numbers actually improved eating a ton of eggs, coconut oil, and bacon. Of course I had also started pumping iron so I am guessing I converted a lot of that to testosterone.…

How have I done it? I made it a commitment and priority. It was worth the sacrifices. I gained a lot of self-awareness. You begin to dislike foods that--although tasty--consume half your daily caloric budget and give you little nutrition. And you appreciate foods that taste good, satisfy you, and are relatively low in…

Depends on what cheating means. Is it crap junk food, over eating, or both? If you stay within caloric goals you can cheat a lot. If you are over eating, it'sa bad idea. A good flexible diet plan allows for some junk food, as long as your caloric goals are met.

Sounds good to me. These are nutrient dense foods you are eating. If you are able to hit your overall caloric targets while satisfying cravings, you can permamently achieve and maintain goals.

It's something you have to stay on top of, and also adjust. Your metabolism continually adjusts to what you are doing. Check out Muscle for Life (Mike Matthews)--he has a lot of good advice about this stuff, and he maintains around 8% most of the time. I'm following much of his stuff and able to maintain around 11% in my…

No, don't eat them back, if weight loss is your goal. Keep weighing yourself, listen to your body (how you feel) and as long as you are losing weight steadily (not too fast) and feeling fine, you are good. These tools you rely on are not 100% accurate in all cases. Listen to your body.

I'm not saying to ignore your exercise, just factor it into your overall activity level. Weight loss is cumulative. You average it out over time--I find that it's good to track it more or less weekly. In a given week it's OK to have break even one day, 800 deficit one day, 200 next day, etc., as long as the average is…

Accurate calorie counting would be the main thing.

Personally, I don't recommend eating back calories for a few reasons. The most important reason is it's difficult to estimate how many calories you are actually burning when you work out. Also, it depends on how much of a caloric deficit you want, as far as your diet. In other words, if your caloric target is only 5-10%…

All good. My order of priority: Compound movements barbells, compound movements dumbbells, body weight movements, last is cables/machines/isolation movements.

Make a huge batch of steel cut oats (like 3 cups dry), and freeze it in muffin tins sprayed with butter or coconut oil spray. Defrost partially for 15 min and pop them out and store them in freezer bags. You can microwave the "muffins" and it's like having fresh oatmeal. You can add almond butter, honey, walnuts, cinnamon,…

I recommend ditching the bread and fries. I lost 50 lbs eating in and out except here is what I did: Instead of eating a double double and fries, I got a 4x0 (which is 4 patties no cheese) with grilled onions and no fries and I either didn't eat the bun or just ate 1/2 of it. Overall, you have to reduce calories but doing…

Kale

I recommend dried salted seaweed snacks if you find it palatable.

My understanding is, they have good quality control and labs, and also regulations when it comes to this particular supplement. Otherwise, you may be getting your creatine from China or some other country and you risk not knowing what you're getting. I'm basing my comments from people I personally know who are in the…

I don't know whether using it on a regular basis helps or not. But I do know this from experience: If you use Braggs (the raw unfiltered good stuff) it helps with acid reflux, some minor allergies, as an antiseptic/astringent, colds, sore throat, congestion, and topically for quite a few conditions. If I was to recommend…

Both are great, except LEUCINE is the only BCAA that really helps from what I've read and experienced. Check out Mike Matthews (Muscle for Life), he links some studies where HMB (a leucine metabolite) and Leucine are where it's at as far as BCAAs. Creatine Monohydrate (from Germany) is great for anyone lifting weights.…

On the high end, rices and pastas. I don't eat them anymore, because if I'm going to eat that many calories in carbs I may as well dip bananas in honey and enjoy it more and get some nutrition. On the low end, brussels sprouts. Those fill me up.

You can but it's difficult. Do research on progressive overload--but in short, you have to keep increasing weight, reps, sets, difficulty to get stronger. With light weights your capacity to do that is limited. Possible, yes--but limited somewhat.

16 followed by 13. :smile:

Yes, it can. The key is to gain as little fat as you can; however, when in a caloric surplus and adding muscle, you will gain fat too. It's a question of your genetics plus how skilled you are with your calories, macros, and training.

NO. At least 90% of people in the gym don't know what they're doing, and about 60-70% of trainers. Do your own research and find your own motivation.

Good list, except cardio is not necessary. I got to 10% bf at 47 with zero cardio, but I agree with the rest of the list.

I went from needing a bra to not needing one

The short answer is hormones. Ghrelin, leptin, insulin, testosterone, etc. And one's sensitivity to those hormones (or lack thereof). It becomes easy to over eat if your brain doesn't even get the message you've had way more to eat than you need. There's obviously more to it than this, but hormones have a lot to do with…

It seems like metabolism is largely determined by your weight, and secondarily by your hormones. "Permanent" alteration of metabolism would seem to stem from "permanent" damage to one's hormones. On that basis, I'd be curious what the studies say specifically about that. Because a lot of hormone damage can be reversed or…

Yeah, I think so

Nice eyes and tongue

smile