Thats a good idea. I seem to want to "revolutionise" everything at the same time. When i get motivated I decide i'm going to: start lifting, start running, start eating good, stop wasting as much time on fb/stuff like that, start reviewing poker play and really working on that, working for school.

All at same time and it doesn't work out so good. Which is what I did last week.

So this past week I worked out Monday Tuesday Thursday Sunday. And before lifting at the gym i went and shot around basketball but would'nt let myself walk etc. Basically jogging for 20 mins-half hour, but I'm doing something else at same time so i'm not just "jogging".

However I did not eat very well at all. My mom got home from surgery sunday night on her foot, and monday morning my dad left for business in europe for the week, so for the week I was cooking/cleaning/shopping/getting my sister places/trying to work out/2 days driving 5-6 hours to go talk to some schools. So wednesday was a bit burnt out after a trip and we decided to order chinese which wasn't great, but was proud of myself because on way home from the interview I was hungry and usually get something bad to munch on in the car and a pop or something. But this time just got a sparking water (normal not flavored or anything like that) and bought a bag of mini carrots instead.

Then thursday my moms friend came over to hang out with her and her son works at a pizza place so she brought over a couple pizzas, I pigged out a bit and friday during the day ate leftover pizza for lunch. Not ideal! But again baby steps, not going to change over night! Pumped for next week

Nothing wrong with having pizza sometimes, have you ever heard of IIFYM? Check it out:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=121703981

It's the diet I follow and it's really easy to follow, the hardest part is counting calories/macros but honestly that's a lot easier than eating nothing but chicken and brown rice 6x a day and avoiding sugars and pizza and stuff. It's really easy to count calories nowadays actually with myfitnesspal or the other apps out there.

Basically you find your maintenance caloric weight and depending on your goals to lose fat/gain muscle just eat around 500kcal more or less than that. It may take you a couple weeks to find your maintenance but once that's done it's pretty simple to just cut.

The only other guidelines you need to follow is 1g protein/lbs of lean body mass, and 0.45g fat/lbs of bodyweight. But once you hit those minimums just fill the rest of your calories in with whatever else you want (fat/carb/protein, etc). Disregard nutrient timing and meal frequency and all that. There's a bunch of science to back this up unlike the crap spewed in magazines.

Also for workouts, how much can you bench/squat/deadlift. There's a lot of programs out there for all different strength levels. Just pick a good program for your level and focus on progressive overload.

Anyways, yeah just though this info could help you out since it's pretty much made living healthy super easy for me lol, basically lift 3-4x a week and then eat whatever I want as long as it fits my macros.

hey man just saw this. Glanced through that site quick and will take a look tomorrow, late and falling asleep . The idea of an app does sound interesting, might have to look into those

So past 2 weeks I've been going to the gym quite regularly. Was getting there and shooting around, (but not allowed to walk) for about a half hour-hour depending how i was feeling. The other day ran for the first time, i think like a mile and a half. Started running 1 min 7mph, 1 min 3.5 mph. But started to get worn out and shin splints so changed to 1 min 7mph, 2 min 3.5 after awhile. And just went for 20 mins. Kind of pathetic but i guess have to start somewhere. Really have to focus on the cardio as I guess my goal right now is just weight loss, so I should be concentrating on that. Will work on running increasing the length of total time, and decreasing the walking time a bit every week i guess.

First week I ate ok, however this past week was rough. Brother was back from college, grandparents, cousins etc. Drank almost every night, junk food while watching football games and just eating alot on thanksgiving.

Weighed in around 223 today . Kind of disapointed about that but excited to get back on track.

this morning was 222

so didn't get time to check out that site. But while I was waiting at the garage today while car was getting repaired downloaded that my fitnesspal app. That thing is awesome. Never knew something like that existed. So set in my goals. Lose 2 pounds/week and all my info.

So my goal is 1520 calories/day (more if i exercise)

Today I was a bit over, 1604 but mom was baking cookies and had some thanksgiving leftovers. Also was out of yogurt and banana which is my usual breakfast so i had some sweet cereal.

Going to the gym tomorrow at 6, to lift and run with my dad. Last year for my moms birthday he was going to lose like 20 pounds, and lost about 30. He used to be super fit, playing 2 sports in college but is now overweight and out of shape as well, so we're going to try to do this together somewhat.

Good luck dude. Sounds like your mind runs a mile a minute. Slow down and concentrate. This eating healthy and exercise thing is something you need to take some time to learn. Do a little research, it will go a long way. MFP is a great app but you still have to put in work and thought into your daily lifestyle. Work the program and it will work for you.

Yeah I think I get a bit excited and go for things without really taking time to look into them. Thats good advice .

Today woke up to go work out at 6. Lifted, chest day. And then ran 1.5 miles doing the 1 min running 2 mins walking for 20 mins. WAs alot easier today. Think I'll do one more day of that then thursday try 1 min running 1.5 min walking.

Felt really sluggish at the beginning but is an awesome way to start your day, now i feel great (although think i'll be tired earlier than usual tonight) Might consider working out in the mornings instead of at the 1-2 pm area.

Also thinking about doing stationary bike while watching tv shows just because why not. But think I'll wait a week or 2 as just this running is alot for me at the moment. But something to think about later on

1465 calories today, although exercised so a little bit under what I could eat

1500 kcal a day is extremely low for somebody who is 220 lbs lol. I'm around that weight and I'm having 5500kcal (I'm bulking right now though), you sure that you're counting right? How much weight do you wanna lose, cuz the more weight you lose the less calories you're gonna have to eat in order to keep losing weight, so if you're really only having like 2500 right now, you'll end up having less than 1500 by the end of the cut (which to me seems quite ridiculous). So basically what I'm saying is either your metabolism is super low (maybe it's naturally low, or maybe you ****ed it up by undereating for a prolonged period of time or some other way), or you're counting calories wrong.

Anyways, yeah as already mentioned, don't go too fast with this fitness thing.

Also man, I'm assuming your strength numbers aren't all that high. If you can't bench 2 plates, squat 3 plates and deadlift 3.5 plates then you're better off hitting each of your bodyparts 3x a week, or at least twice a week (upper/lower 2x/week etc) rather than doing one of those split routines that only hit each bodypart once a week. Check this guy's routine out, also sub to his youtube channel, he got a lot of good info there and dispels all the broscience and myths about working out/nutrition. I think going through all his videos quickly (shouldn't take more than a couple hours) should give you enough fundamental info to just pick out whatever exercise regimen and nutrition plan you wanna follow.

Novice training routine:

IIFYM explained: (also explaining why the only thing cardio does is increase your daily calorie expenditure, meaning you can lose weight without doing cardio [or even exercise in general] if you eat less calories than you expend)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feY6vi6ORXo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pbhzdg63FE

hmm.. the videos didnt post in above post...

earlier in the log I'm not sure if i was measuring right.

But past 2-3 days, was using that app you said. Actually measuring things to see exactly how much i was eating. Entering recipes etc, so for sure of my calories for past couple days. Am planning on doing this for 3-4 weeks until I have a reasonable idea of how many calories things are so I can estimate, as before I was just eating whatever/whenever

Just entered my weight, height etc, said i wanted to lose 2lbs/week and it said net 1520 calories/day.

I'm this heavy mostly because of beer. I was on average probably drinking 50-55 beers a week for the past 2 years. Also with that came eating crap (durums, etc) a 4th meal after going home drunk. Along with no longer doing almost any physical activity at first caused by and then bad habits from knee surgery.

Usually when I would go back to america from belgium in the summer, and wouldn't drink as much. I'd lose weight while just doing nothing different.

My work out now is based on that, its 3 days. Chest. Back. And Legs, main 3 things. But doing, Chest... Back... legs... rest a day... chest... back.. legs

Also running that little bit on chest and back days.

Heading to the gym now, but will check the videos you posted this evening

So today did back. And ran again same amount as yesterday.

Ate 1770 calories was 16 under limit (ate some chips to fill out last 200 calories )

Not much else to say.. Will do legs tomorrow, no running after, maybe will go shoot around before.

LOL yeah beer has a lot of calories in them man. It's ok to drink beers (it's ok to eat anything literally) just as long as you fit them in your macros. Also the food you eat when drunk obviously has added calories too, so when you go out you should plug in what you remember having the next day and then try to subtract what you ate the next couple days or something whilst still hitting minimum protein and fat requirements (or you could do what I do and like literally having 0% carb diet throughout the day and then binge drink at night filling my remaining calories with alcohol), I only do this if I plan on drinking obviously.

Try find a way to include the things you enjoy into your diet and simply fitting them into your macros. Shouldn't get too hard once you experiement a bit with this and figure out the methods you prefer, IIFYM/flexible dieting or whatever you wanna call it is meant to be a nutrition plan that you can adjust to your lifestyle and preferences and it basically preaches moderation and a good balanced diet.
If you prefer eating 6x a day, do it!
If you prefer eating one gigantic meal a day, do it!
If you prefer having you post workout shake after every workout, do it!
If you prefer eating McDonalds in the middle of your rest periods while lifting heavy, do it!
Just make sure you fit them into your macros

Your workout looks pretty intense btw, good luck with that, it'll definitely work (I'm assuming you're having a bit of arms and shoulder work in there too) but if you want my opinion it's that it's a lot more work than necessary (unless you're an advanced lifter or something) to get equal gains on a program that will require a less time spent in the gym.

Hmm, one final comment, is that if you stick to this diet for a while, I think you'll notice you'll be losing a lot of weight (like 2+ lbs a week) for a while (maybe like 1-2 months), but eventually the weight loss will come to a stall because I think you may actually be undereating right now and thus ****ing your metabolism up a bit, which means you may need to take a break from dieting in a bit in order to rev your metabolism back up and then go back to a slight caloric deficit to lose the rest of the weight.
Whatever happens, just make sure to update this log with your weight changes every week, if you lose 3+ lbs a week it means you're going too fast and should slow down. 1-2 lbs a week > 3+lbs a week in the longrun.

Yeah when I do chest I do triceps, back and biceps, leg and shoulders.

Probably could do it other ways but for the moment I'm just at home and really enjoy going to the gym, kind of the highlight of my day! Meal wise I'm not too sure, I remember when I was posting above and it was like 1200-1400 at times I would feel hungry and tired. (Was also during exam period)

Right now I'm eating probably 1820/day i work out and i feel great.

Beginning of the week i weighed 222.1 and this morning I weighed 219.8. So 2.3 lbs this week. I ate around 1520 calories (if didn't work out) and 1820 if i did work out. Saturday went out for some beers and had some bar food and stuff, was around 2400-2500 but a couple days i was below so evened out alright.

This "set" of 3 workout days I bumped the running up to 23 mins (an extra 1 min run/2 min walking) think i'll add 3 mins every "set" until i get to 30-40 mins, at which point I'll decrease the walking times by something like 15 seconds every "set" or something like that. We'll see how it goes.

Not sure if its just in my head but I thought I could already see a slight difference in my face, from losing weight. From when I came back and was around 225. I've put on muscle for sure, and overall lost a bit over 5 pounds, so starting to feel a bit more confident and everything

2 lbs a week is a good weight loss goal that is sustainable over a prolonged period of time. Keep shooting for 1-2 lbs a week until you're happy with how lean you've become, don't be too OCD about this though (as in don't measure your weight every morning lol).

And for eating above your calorie goal one day and then below the next, that's completely cool if it evens out, protein synthesis lasts for up to 72 hours so it should be totally fine to overeat one day and undereat the next as long as it evens out over time. Hell, if you wanted to take it to extremes you could eat 0 calories one day and then double your calorie goals the next day (although this is only theoretical and seems pretty dumb to do in the real world). The only thing that really matters is your average daily intake should be hit over the course of the week and you actually count your calorie correct.

You definitely notice changes in your face from losing fat, it's pretty cool imo lol. Anyways, gj keep doing what you're doing!

Please don't listen to this. God Damn this is so dumb. Eating 0 then doubling, gtfo. This is worse than the eating McDonald's while training advice.

There's a reason I said it was theoretical. Theoretically it would work and that is because of pure physics. Have you heard of the law of thermodynamics? In fact there are people who do this successfully, have you heard of the warrior diet? There's also a famous diet right now similar to this that's got quite a big following known as Intermittent Fasting where you fast for 16 hours and eat in an 8 hour feeding period. I never recommended any of the following, I just gave guidelines as to how to incorporate a nutritional plan that he can follow through with for a prolonged period of time and fit into his lifestyle rather than giving him some generic meal plan that says ''eat chicken and brown rice for every meal and then don't have any egg yolks for breakfast'', and if you read my post I actually mentioned that eating 1 day and fasting the next is imo a stupid idea and not fitting to most lifestyles but it would theoretically work given the law of thermodynamics.

IDGAF what nutriotional plan or diet someone follows, just as long as the food they eat throughout the course of the day/week falls within their goal macros/micros and caloric intake.

I guarantee you that if we took 2 twins and they were both trying to lose weight and used them as an experiment then this would be the result:
Variables: their TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) = 3000
They will consume 2500 kcal/day in order to lose weight with macros
180g Protein
100g Fat
220g Carbs

Now let's say one of them consumes those macros from nothing but twinkies, poptarts, mcdonalds, taco bell, wendy's and if they can't hit their protein requirement then they'll take a couple whey shakes.

The other one consumes those macros from nothing but ''clean bro foods'' such as grilled chicken, brown rice and egg whites.

Each of them also hit their micros of course because they take their multivitamins etc.

If their workout is also the same then the end result in body composition and weight loss will be EXACTLY THE SAME, given a tiny minute difference that likely won't have anything to do with diet.

Let's say we add in another twin (making them triplets) and he only eats 1 gigantic meal a day having his entire macros and calories in that one single meal. Sure he's gonna be ****ing stuffed and bloated after that meal and likely quite hungry during the other part of the day, but the end result in body composition will still be exactly the same. And since protein synthesis lasts for up to 72 hours it would theoretically be possible to eat double your macros 1 day, then 0 calories the next.

I hope you come up with something better than ''goddamn this is so dumb'' as a response. I would also suggest you google some people who eat whatever they like so long as it fits their macros with fantastic results (all natural too btw): Timbahwolf (a.k.a Kane Sumabat), Alberto Nunez, Matt Ogus, Robbie Sardania, Josef Rakich.

Now considering Alex would prolly be happy with half their results then there's no reason he shouldn't follow the IIFYM protocol as all it really is, is a way of simplifying one's life in terms of healthy living rather than making it seem so much tougher than it really is. IIFYM/flexible dieting or whatever you wanna call it, is not a diet, it's simply a nutritional guideline that can be used with whatever other dieting protocol someone chooses to employ.

E.G. Someone eats 6 meals a day of chicken and brown rice? Well if it fits within the macros it's still IIFYM, but if they eat 2000kcal extra of chicken and brown rice they'll still gain weight
Someone eats nothing but junk food but hits their macros? Still IIFYM if they hit their macros
Someone follows Intermittent Fasting? Still gotta hit your macros if you want the results!

Understand what I'm trying to say?
Finally, I'll leave you with my 6 month progress pictures of IIFYM (1st pic on left is before obviously), please note that during this period I ate a cup of ice cream every single day. Now you can GTFO and keep spouting your broscience... BRO!

I don't follow bro science, bro. I eat well balanced meals and live a healthy lifestyle

You must have been licking your chops at the opportunity to post pictures of yourself.

I still stand by that the way you put in the 2 previous posts was dumb. Gtfo, lol.

good for you then, no I posted the pics as an example of IIFYM with before after pics to reinforce my points. I'm happy you eat well balanced meals and live a healthy lifestyle, but what you did, was take what I said and took it to an extreme. E.g. when I say you could theoretically eat double calories one day then 0 the next, you thought I was actually advising this, when I never advised this I just said that this would theoretically work based on scientific evidence. Also I would like to ask you, do you think ice cream is unhealthy? How about chocolate? How about burgers or pizza? I hope you do not avoid these foods simply because you deem them to be ''unhealthy''.

It would be nice if you could explain why the stuff I mentioned was dumb rather than simply saying ''it was dumb'' when the things I mentioned are backed by scientific evidence.

I don't love posting pics, but I could easily post pics of others who follow IIFYM without appearing to be such a ******

Timbahwolf who follows Intermittent Fasting (8 hour eating window, 16 hour fast) and his main food sources are bacon and poptarts):



Alberto Nunez who ate pancakes and poptarts 2 weeks out of his contest (pro bber):

Matt Ogus, famous youtuber, and also going for his pro card in bbing:

Josef Rakich who maintains sub 10% bf levels everyday eating at least a burger eveyrday:

Ori Hofmleker, the person known to bring the warrior diet to light (one single meal a day):


Once again, I'm not showing you all this because I like posting naked pictures of men, I'm not posting this either to say ''eat this, not that'' or ''follow this dieting protocol because it works!'' I'm posting this because I'm trying to make a point that there's more than one way to reach your goals and that at the end of the day, the only real thing that will matter is the control of your macros, micros and calories. IIFYM then you can eat it if you want.

If you want more evidence (actual scientific articles) that I can't bother to explain but you can go ahead and read for sure if you want. Then I'll link a couple of websites:
http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/food...0.HTM#Contents
http://www.alanaragon.com/researchreview
There's a lot more too if you ended up reading all the articles in those websites and come back with ''more info needed dumb****''. lol

You can eat whatever you want when you're roiding it up

lol he's natty bro, im sorry you think a physique like that isn't achievable natty. He's not even that big jesus, like 170 lbs I think?

I'm not going to keep this going to long because we are talking about different people here. All of the diets you speak of I have heard of. I've looked into a lot of them and even recently considered doing IF for 3 weeks but decided against it because of migraine issues I've dealt with forever now. I'm not saying these "diets" don't work because there is obviously proof out there that they do but for your average Joe, a consistent well balanced structured way of eating will probably be more successful in the long run. OP is not on the same mission you were right now.

Trust me, I have friends who eat like beasts and put down 4k calories a day, eat pie, snickers, ice cream, burgers and are ripped. But that's not OP, he is not there yet. Maybe one day he will be. One more quick thing, yes you eat a bowl of ice cream everyday and it worked but from what your pictures say, you were bulking, OP is not. I could very easily fit a cup of ice cream, pop tarts or a donut in my daily meals and compensate by reducing other meals, I just choose not to.

I'm not going to follow up the comment above about roids and what not because I don't know you personally and its not my place to say or even care to judge. I will keep that opinion to myself. I was waiting to see how long it would take for the term "natty" to be used. That is a douchey saying. Makes my eyes want to bleed every time I read bb.com.

I think we have derailed OP's log long enough. Good luck to him and good luck to you.

natty my ass lol.

The whole eat 10k calorie a day and then even it out for the rest of the week is bs dadue, eat balanced and eat everyday.

Make sure u eat enough of your macros and get ur protein and **** aswell.

I think it's good for a beginner like Alex to hear different perspectives. And if you read my posts rather than taking one extreme example and calling it ''dumb'', I never said that, in fact I never mentioned that he shouldn't have a balanced healthy lifestyle. In fact, my whole point of all of this is talk of IIFYM is that it's perfectly possible to get in good shape by having a balanced healthy diet whilst enjoying the foods you eat which is what I preached in the first place, you kinda went off-topic when I simply gave an example of what is theoretically possible and saying it is not, when it is scientifically proven to be correct (optimal? Probably not, but will it work? Judging by science and some real-world examples, ABSOLUTELY).

I also agree with you when you say, maybe I can eat ice cream everyday, but maybe Alex can't. Macros, and IIFYM are highly individualistic, what may work for one person may not work for another. And as I already mentioned, my calorie intake is far higher than Alex's meaning I can easily fit ice cream and other treats in my diet, in fact I find it easier dieting with calorically dense foods than not. If I was eating 2500kcal a day though, then yes I would probably be eating more salads, whole grains, lean meats because those foods will satiate me more and prevent me from over eating.

And I will finally agree with not bothering about replying about the debate on whether those people I posted are natty or not as I find those conversations quite ******ed and unsolvable + I also want to quit derailing this thread!

I don't think xptboy deserved all that hate. saying its dumb etc, did you read what he said in the post, the exact same thing as you

But thanks for everyones input. Was interesting read.

Every morning I have been waking up, take my morning piss/crap and weigh myself after. Not a big deal if i don't but has just become a habit... why not.

Yesterday wasn't great day, Drove 3 hours and took a test for a college and then driving back, got some munchies in car ride home after not eating so much. Got home and family had ordered pizza. Only had 2 pieces, was right at my calories for the day, was super proud of myself. Around midnight finished up movie and was heading back upstairs and saw the pizza still sitting out. Ate an extra slice and a half . Oh well.

Yesterday was rest day, heading into the gym today to do chest and will bump the running up to 26 mins which should get me over the 2 mile mark (was around 1.8 or 1.9 with 23.

I think I'm going to hope to get to around 200 by the time I head off to school mid january. Is a bit ambitious (is a bit more than 2 lbs/week) but would be really happy if i could do that. I have a before picture I took after thanksgiving when I started posting again in this thread, hopefully will have a beast before after sometime

That is a plan tailored to elite level athletes who have far different goals than you have. You need to be doing a plan that best meets your needs. I second the recommendation of starting strength. For reasons explained in the FAQ, its a plan that meets your currently needs very well.

FWIW I'm a former DII college basketball player, I got really out of shape after graduating, I found this forum and started doing SS maybe 3 years ago or so, after SS I progressed to other workout plans which met my needs/goals at the time, and now I'm in pretty good shape. Check out my log if you want and perhaps try doing the things I've done.

You seem overly stubborn, and you seem to be looking for shortcuts. Take the time to read the FAQ, take the time to fully educate yourself about long and short term effects of nutrition and different diets, and then implement the optimal plan for you into your life in a way that is sustainable long term. From reading this log so far, I get the impression that you're simply going to constantly go in and out of being motivated and you're never going to really get to where you want. Start doing things the right way, realize that you'll only get to where you want to be with hard work, and no more shortcuts.