Hey guys,

Long-time lurker but finally decided to jump in. I know these logs can be really boring, so I'll try to keep this quick. Just a little about me:

-25 years old, 6'0, 240 lbs. I was a high school athlete who has always stayed "relatively" in shape post-hs. Didn't do any real lifting/just played rec sports.

Went to law school, put on about 20 lbs throughout the ordeal, and now I'm paying for it. It was a stressful 3 years, but I'm done and trying to get back to a decent size.

I started lifting in late 2015, but never really checked my diet. All of my lifts have progressed from the beginning, but I definitely could have been a lot better if I had been eating right as well. I currently work out 7 days/week and without a workout in the morning, I will go crazy. It helps me burn off the stress of my job/gives me energy throughout the day.

I work out every morning from 7-8 and get to work at 9. I've been with this routine for the last few months and I don't forsee myself breaking it. Gym is probably my favorite thing to do tbh, just never could lock down the diet. ( I assume this is a common problem )

My current workout regime is as follows:

Monday- chest/tri/calves
Tuesday- back/bi/abs
wednesday-cardio
thursday- shoulders/traps/calves
friday- legs/abs
saturday-cardio/rest
sunday-cardio/rest

I'm doing Jim Stopanni's shortcut to size currently and I'm in week 10. I was planning on just restarting it when finished, as I definitely missed some exercises/had an injury that prevented me from going heavy very often. Also, I got married about 5 weeks ago, so I did miss some time with the honeymoon/weeks leading up to it.

Finally, my goal isn't really a number tbh. I always felt like I should ignore the scale and if I like what I see in the mirror, that's good. I definitely don't look 240 at the moment and get pegged as 220 by most people. Not exactly in shape necessarily, but I hide the extra 20 lbs relatively well. Also, I'll be playing on a rec softball/rec basketball team with local attorneys starting at the end of summer, so it would be nice to be leaner/stronger for these teams. However, if I had to put a # on it, sub 200 would be pretty sick.

Pros: Former athlete; love the gym; goal in mind

Cons: Never really locked a diet down in my life; fiend for diet soda

Any advice/help/tips/etc. would be appreciated! I'd hate for this to be just another food log thread, so I was thinking about keeping it to a minimum and maybe posting weekly screenies of myfitnesspal? I do have a few questions if anyone wouldn't mind...

1. Is it okay to repeat the same 12 week program again? Before this program, I would just lift whatever muscle group with the same 4-5 exercises. I started to plateau, of course, so I picked this up and I'm a huge fan of it. I struggle with any program that has too many rest days, as that makes those days of work miserable.

2. I eat a ton of fruits, which I just recently found out is super high sugar. I guess I always knew it was high in sugar I guess lol, but like idk, I always figured it was fine. I'm going to try to cut back on them, but didn't know if folks had any suggestions for substitute snacks?

Thanks everyone in advance for the guidance! I'll take all the comments, whether they are flaming me for bad eating days or constructive advice!

Welcome and congrats on the marriage!

How frequently you post doesn't matter much imo as long as you're honest with yourself. Perhaps you don't even need a regular peer review of your food logs - you can just ask questions when you're not sure about your diet.

Not all sugar is created equal. Fructose that's found in fruit has a lower GI than sucrose found in most processed sweet foods, thus fruit are more satiating than processed foods due to giving energy slower to the body. Choosing satiating foods (incl. also leafy vegetables, oats, lean meat; generally, foods that are high in protein and/or fiber) will ensure that you'll be able to consume fewer calories a day without feeling hungry.

Hey ****, thanks for stopping by and thank you for the congrats!

I'll read through that information at work today. Good stuff man.

Good luck and congrats on tying the knot.

Imo there are probably better programs out there to follow, as 1x a week frequency per muscle group is likely not optimal. Since you don't like rest days maybe something like an upper/lower/legs/push/pull 5x per week or a legs/push/pull 6x per week.

I guess c00n is blocked haha, but didn't mean to call you an expletive bro! lol


Anything you would recommend Rav? I like to lift heavy and this program helped me raise my main lifts (bench/squat/deadlift/row)

Again, I'm still pretty inexperienced in terms of gym programs. Might need to list my current lifts, so they are below:

Bench- 4/8/210
Row- 4/8/195
Squat- 4/8/285
Deadlift 4/8/275

I do other secondary exercises during each specific muscle group day, but these seem like the big 4 exercises. I could be completely wrong though, so if someone corrects me if I'm wrong, it's mucho appreciated.

Ah I'm hesitant to recommend something specific because I don't feel qualified and I also don't know your experience level, like if you can still progress linearly, your goals, preferences, etc.

No problem Rav! Rather wait for someone to come along with more experiences/qualification than just spouting off.

Did cardio today, usually mix up some HIIT and incline running. Did 35 minutes for 500 calories.

Had a lawyer luncheon today though and didn't eat very well. The only food provided was pasta and meatballs. I ate mostly salad, but ended up eating some pasta/meatballs. I tracked it all in mfp, so I know how many calories I have left to eat today.

Back at lifting tomorrow. I think I'm going to finish my current program, if only because I have like 15-20 days left at this point. I'll probably switch it up/again would appreciate advice from anyone on a recommended workout regime.

Hope everyone has a good eating day!

I'd look for something with a bit more frequency (legs more than once a week, more emphasis on compound barbell lifts), maybe something like PHAT or GZCL's Jacked and Tan 2.0 program. Still decent hypertrophy but will get decent bang for your buck.

Post form check vids asap.

I'll look into those programs, thanks Aidan!

As for form vids, I'll have my gym partner take some vids next week for me. Fwiw, I lift with a coworker who's been into bodybuilding for almost a decade now. He wouldn't even let me begin lifting anything until my form was practiced. Like, I deadlifted just the bar + a 10 on each side for like 3 weeks because I kept rounding out my back. It was frustrating at the time when I was starting out, but now I'm thankful he was strict with me.


Had my third straight day calorie deficit day yesterday and honestly, I can't even remember the last time I've done that. No diet soda since the weekend either, so going for day 4 today of healthy eating

Well, i had a pretty bad weekend.

I got a call on late Friday from a client that she 1. wasn't willing to pay anymore and 2. didn't feel like bringing us the paperwork we needed for her upcoming trial. This turned into a 3 hour discussion where my partner and I end up getting the shaft and have to work all weekend, essentially for free, as the CL owes us money for work we already completed. Didn't really leave the office except to sleep, so that sucked.

Accordingly, my diet didn't really go so well. We got free pizza friday night for working, so I ate that, unfortunately. Saturday, we ended up eating chick fil A, so I got grilled chicken sandwich and ditched the bun on both of them. No fries or sides, so didn't do absolutely awful. Still, snacked and ended up drinking some diet soda for caffeine to stay awake, so I'd call it a pretty rough weekend diet-wise.

Today I'm "working from home" and I'm off Wednesday, so I'll get back on full gym schedule/eating right. I'll take some form vids this week as well and I'm doing some research today on a different workout routine to suit my needs more. Any advice would be appreciated.

(For those who didn't read above, I'm trying to gain strength/lose fat, I like to workout 5-7 days/week and I like cardio work, if it's applicable. Been lifting for last 18 months or so, but never took it that serious until now )

Exactly what are you concerned about with diet soda?

I just drink (drank?) too much of it in the past. During school, I was drinking probably 1 12oz can/day. I've read a lot of information saying that, while it's not calories, it makes your body crave real sugar more and it dehydrates you. Been trying to sub out diet soda for water and just cut it out of my diet as its completely useless and gives no benefit.

What do you think though? Again, that is just what I've read, but maybe that's all garbage.

It doesn't dehydrate you. It's fluid with a bit of caffeine in it. Caffeine is a mild diuretic, but the net fluid balance of drinking diet soda is positive. Whether it makes you crave sugar or not is probably individual. For many, myself included, it blunts the appetite and prevents sweet craving.

You should probably drink water and its hard to drink too much. I drink lots of both.

180 mg of aspartame a day!!!!!


Scary.

Can aspartame have a noticeable effect on cognition / depression if taken in a dose that's too small for its negative side effects to show up?

Overall, seems like a solid goal to just drink water instead of diet soda though, yeah?



I'm not that concerned health-wise as much as weight loss wise is all!

Sure, in a vacuum. But there's a lot of things you should be doing more of / less of and attempting to get better at each one of those things has a willpower/stress/money/etc. cost attached to it. You're one week into a log in a forum that is, essentially, a graveyard of failed logs with a handful of active ones getting bumped, for now. If relaxing the restriction on diet sodas makes it a little easier for you to stick to logging and dieting, then it's a no-brainer.

Maybe worry more about this stuff when you've reached your goal weight and kept the weight off for a couple of months.

Thanks Renton. I will keep that in mind.

Day 2 of good logging, going for day 3 tomorrow.

Quick question: I'm tracking my macros through MFP. On my good days, I tend to come out with 50% protein, 25-35% fat, 15-25% carb. Is that a good breakdown for someone attempting to lose weight? I use to see a formula for lb/g of protein, but after an admittedly very quick search, I didn't see it.

Anyone have it handy?

Finally, I got some free supplements today as well. My friend's mom works at GNC and just gets a bunch of free **** all the time. I'll post some pictures of some of the supplements and maybe could get some reviews of them? I would never spend money on supplements at this early stage when proper dieting/exercise would be enough, but if I'm getting them for free, seems like it would be dumb to just let them go to waste.

That ratio is good imo.

2g protein per kg bodyweight for a non-obese lifting person. Somewhat less for an obese lifting person. Even less for a non-lifter. Cutting diets should have a somewhat higher % of calories as protein than maintenance or bulking ones.

Cooool, good.


Okay, I should probably aim for slightly less than 2g/kg for my goals it would appear.

4th day in a row logging and staying under calorie goal. Almost caved in to eating some salty junk food like pretzels or chips last night but opened a can of corn and a can of peas and ate some veggies instead. It may not seem like much, but it was a big deal for me, as snacking is definitely one of my top 3, if not top weakness.

Also, did some HIIT cardio and incline running today. 35 minutes, 485 calories burned. Still looking for a different program, but I think I'll just finish this one out for the next 10 days in the meantime.

Well, long time since posting (almost 2 weeks)...but I haven't fallen off the wagon!

Had a week with back to back trials which were expedited, so I have had no time to post. Managed to win one and essentially tie on the other, so I'm happy with both outcomes.

Back to H&F though....

Been tracking my calories and had one bad day in the last two weeks. Other than that, been under my caloric goal each day + working out + just trying to get my macros looking better. I also finished my workout program, so I picked up Arnold's blueprint to mass from a friend. Two days in and holy ****, this is a ****ing workout man. I'm absolutely gassed when I leave the gym and I missed that feeling. Old workout plan wasn't giving me that "push it to the brink" feeling anymore.

And I'll post some pics of these free supplements. See if anyone has any input on them at all

I was convinced to switch up to Lee Labradara's lean body program. It's a high rep/lower weight lifting and lots of incline cardio. Seems like the program for me, since my goal is to lose weight/get lean, but I love lifting, so I can't just give it up.

I did a week of blueprint for mass from Arnold's program and I loved it. It's just an insane amount of time in the gym, like 2 hours per day almost, which is tough to sustain. Also, I'm not really trying to bulk or gain mass, so it seemed counterproductive? I don't know, in my best guess, it seems like if I was doing heavy lifting + eating right, I would still lose weight so it wouldn't matter.


But I'm a huge donk, so I'm looking for advice. Only thing I think i'm right on is that no matter what program I do, if I don't lock down diet, I won't see results. Diet slightly fell off with 4th of July, but that's okay imo. I had an insane last 3 weeks at work, but my schedule calms down a lot for the rest of the summer....so I'm rededicating to eating right. I had a good 17 days logging, 3 bad for 4th of july, but back to good today, so I don't think the log is like, completely off the rails lol.

Anyone have any experience with the workout programs and advice on which one I should do?


P.S. such a donk, I don't exactly know how to post the pictures of supplements I have for free? They are "AbCuts, advanced CLA Belly Fat Formula" and "GNC total lean CLA"

Like I said, I wouldn't be buying supps but I got them both for free, so seems like why not give it a try?

I'd like to see pics of whatever is in this. Try imgur.com.

Word. I'll try to figure it out at work tomorrow.