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How much weight should you lift to gain muscle?
Obviously the answer will vary from person to person, but if you're looking to build muscle is there a way of knowing roughly how much you should lift (like a % of your weight)? I'm particularly interested in deadlifts and squats here. Is it just as heavy as you can, even if that's not very much? Or do I need to build up…
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How often should you go to the gym?
I swim 2 or 3 times a week but have a gym membership and want to use the weights there. Currently I'm very eager and look forward to going (I hope this attitude will last!) but I'm unsure how long to rest in between sessions to ensure my muscles recover. I've been going every 2 to 3 days but don't know if this is correct…
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Any university students on here?
There seems to be people of all ages on this forum, I was wondering if there's any other uni students I could add as friends?
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Heavy weight-low rep vs medium weight-higher rep?
I've been reading around about the difference between using heavy weights at low repetition and medium weights at higher repetition. I'm just starting out and don't really know where to begin. There's a lot of information knocking about! Over the Christmas holidays I've been working out at home using our elliptical machine…
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Dealing with unsupportive relatives
I'll start by saying I'm not trying to lose weight, I'm trying to develop healthy eating habits and exercise regularly for a multitude of reasons (stress/anxiety help, eating better to help my skin, it feels good to eat nourishing food rather than a ton of salty/greasy stuff). However my mother and grandmother both…
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Feeling bruised after eating a lot?
I've had a recurring sensation over the last few months where my skin feels bruised all over my body when I touch it (kind of like when you have mild sunburn and it's uncomfortable to touch but not super painful). It's not there all the time and it seems to be linked to something I'm eating- either in quantity or food…
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Sugar addiction!!!
It's quite well known that sugar is addictive. Does anyone have any experience with overcoming it? We got some halloween sweets in for the trick-or-treaters and my housemates have had like a chocolate bar and a bag of haribos each and I'm eating 20 bags of sweets because once I start I just can't stop. It tastes so good…
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MY DAMN SWEET TOOTH!
I have always had a sweet tooth. Chocolate, sweets, cakes, biscuits....anything sugar laden. Once I start, I struggle to stop. Especially in the cold, dark weather I just want to snuggle down with my favourite comfort foods and eat. My weight at the moment isn't a problem, my body image is good. I've been looking to gain…
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What's your pick-me-up?
Imagine you've had a crap few days, you've eaten a ton of sweets or junk of choice and you're feeling a bit demotivated and like you want to hibernate. What's your go to pick me up method? Songs, films, books, pampering, exercise, certain foods?
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3 weeks in...
It's been 3 weeks since I started trying to change my whole mindset and goals and focus on gaining muscle. It feels like it was months ago! 3 weeks isn't very long but I feel like I've just hit a breakthrough and wanted to reflect on the last couple of weeks. Prior to this, I was all about weight loss. I lost 25lbs and…
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Winter motivation?
It;s getting cold outside and I'm spending most of my time in a coat and big scarf (actually I think I'm spending most of it in a fluffy onesie..). However spending most of my time covered up and trying to keep warm from the cold and rain (I don't know what it is about Britain, we have a special kind of cold and gloom that…
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Increasing calorie intake? Foods?
I thought that when I switched to gaining muscle, increasing my calorie intake would be easy. Eat more? Yes please! But whilst it'd be easy to get my calorie intake up in chocolate and pastries, I'm struggling to increase it in healthy food. My diary is public (I'm the worst logger, I've only logged 3 days in the last week…
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Affordable workout clothes for smaller body types?
I've been looking to find some new shorts and leggings and I'm having trouble finding nice looking ones that fit and are affordable. The closest I've found is USA Pro but their UK size 6 is too big on the waist in both shorts and leggings. I'm having a similar problem in most places. Does anyone know any brands that are…
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Deciding frame size?
How do you actually determine your frame size? I've seen the fingers around wrists method but surely your hand shape is a big influence in that? I have fairly large (well, long) hands and my fingers overlap all the way to my elbow but my shoulders and rib cage seem relatively broad. What's the best method?
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Isotonic vs Isometric?
For example doing 30 squats with resistance band or going into the squat against the resistance band and holding the position for a period of time. Which style is better for toning muscles (particularly glutes!)? One where you're nearly constantly moving and changing muscle length or one where you're holding them in one…
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How sore should a sore throat be?
This is going to sound really silly but I barely ever get ill and currently I have a very painful throat. People get sore throats all the time but I don't know if mine feels so bad because it's something I've never really had or if it's actually bad. It doesn't feel swollen, I shone a light down my throat to inspect and…
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Post-workout food?
I've joined the swim team at uni and training is late in the evening (I get home at around 11 pm). After training I'm hungry and want to eat but as it's so late at night, I don't want to be cooking entire meals. I usually eat my tea around 7 before I go but was looking for some advice on what to eat afterwards.
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Ch2-Ready to face the gains!
I started losing weight a while back and lost about 20 lbs over several months. Recently I've been feeling a bit bony and don't want to go any lower. Like a lot of people, I've struggled with the mentality switch from losing weight to maintaining/eating to gain muscle when I've spent months and months choosing the lower…
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Cold weather and comfort food?
I hate the cold. I'm a Summer person through and through, I start shivering in anything under 20 C (not exactly well adapted to the North of England, am I?). Anyway, through the middle months of the year I developed great habits- cutting down on sugar, choosing options with higher quantities of fresh veggies, etc. But now…
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Booty Building
My backside is flat as a pancake and I want to give it some shape. Only there's so much advice out there from doing squats and pilates to lifting heavy weights. Do squats actually work or do I need to be looking at lifting? What's the best way to start getting some shape?
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Can you eat peach skin?
A friend and I were debating this, she peels and chops her peaches whereas I eat them whole after washing the outside. I don't really notice the fuzziness but was wondering firstly if you're meant to eat the skin (like you can with a kiwi) an secondly how many people peel them vs eating the whole?
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Do resistance bands actually do anything?
I want to tone up. I'm joining my universities swim team but wanted to do some exercises to strengthen and tone muscles on land too. I considered joining a gym but on top of swim fees that's very expensive. Of my two local gyms, one only offers 12 month memberships which are pricey and the other does give the option to pay…
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UK Nutritionists!
I was wondering if anyone on here was working in nutrition or dietetics in the UK and would mind sharing their experience of their job and how they got into it. I'm currently studying a biology degree and am interested in nutrition
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Frame size
Is the hand-around-wrist method the best way to determine your frame size? I have very long fingers, my hands are the same in length/handspan as a lot of men so using this method I appear to have a very tiny frame. Is there another way?
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lasting satisfaction
I go through cycles where I'll have a few weeks where I don't have much of an appetite or have a normal appetite followed by a few weeks where I have and enormous appetite. During those weeks, no matter how much or what I eat I always seem to feel ravenous. I don't want to be going through a pack of biscuits every day…
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Can you develop lactose intolerance?
I suppose this is really a question for a doctor but I'm currently not able to see my doctor so I thought I'd ask. I sometimes get really painful and bad gas, cramps, nausea and bloating after eating and I've been keeping a log of things that seem to trigger it and so far on the list I have chocolate; jacket potato with…
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Should I eat more?
I'm not great at logging my food, I generally make a rough estimate at what I'm eating and use the basic rule of filling up on fruit and veg, eating when I feel hungry and stopping when I'm no longer hungry (smaller portions but with the option to go back for seconds if it wasn't enough). The last couple of days I have…
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Eating too much sugar?
On my MFP food diary, my sugar intake is always red despite me having what I consider a reasonably healthy diet. The sugar recommendation confuses me because the almost entirety of the sugar is coming form fruit, which is different to added sugars like putting a tsp of granulated sugar in your tea. I have however…
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Low BMI
A lot of people (myself included) take bmi with a pinch of salt and often the issue is that people with higher muscle mass have a high bmi that would suggest they were overweight when in fact they're perfectly healthy just with more muscle. But what about when your bmi says you're underweight? I have a bmi of 17.6 which is…
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Most accurate online body fat percentage calculator?
My scales don't measure body fat percentage so I tried a few online calculators which gave me results ranging from 8% to 26%. Does anyone know of a calculator or method of working out body fat percentage that's accurate?