not2, just read about the program. It works, trust us.

Anyone know anything about caffeine? I typically drink about 16oz of coffee every morning, and a diet soda (12oz) at lunch. I have no idea if this has any effect on my weight/exercise routine/diet/whatever. Just occured to me I should check in.

I love my coffee, but I suppose it's something I could lessen or even do without if it's terrible for me. I could definitely just cut out the diet soda if there's a reason to do that.

How are the Adidas Ironwork III for starting strength?

good. you can vs dynamos for cheaper and they should be pretty much as good

I use the Ironworks, they is good brah.

IronEggs, Did you return the Rippetoe SS shoes? I'm curious what people think of them.

I don't think you need those shoes for SS, you'd be better off overall with Chucks. Cheaper and the flat sole is better for pulling. The raised heel is much more important for those w/ poor ankle mobility who want to front squat or HBBS.

Nah, too lazy.

Caffeine is fine and some would say quite helpful. It does give your metabolism a small boost and will help keep energy levels up when you are on a deficit.

In fact many of those diet pills from a few years ago (Stacker 2, etc) were based on the idea of an EC stack (Ephedra + Caffeine) which actually did help people lose weight by controlling appetite. Unfortunately, the govt cracked down on ephedra after a bunch of idiots killed themselves by taking 10 times the amount they should have been (plus it can be used to make Crystal Meth). You can still get it is a few behind the counter meds and many do to recreate the EC stack when working on a serious deficit.

If you've ever done anything else then you completely wasted your time. Did you really come into the gym and do the same exercise with the same amount of weight and think you were doing something useful? You should be increasing weight with every workout as a novice. Or increasing number of reps per set with the same weight etc. Everything should be about getting stronger on large range of motion compound exercises.

Examples are Squats, Deadlifts, overhead presses etc. I assume you haven't been doing these and have been doing leg extensions and bicep curls?

Your absolutely terrible results on the program you were given are unsurprising. Ignore everything those people say they know nothing about training or exercise. I feel sorry for you, you seemed keen and earnest and were led astray by clueless morons through no fault of your own (although you should have questioned things way sooner). Now you have found this forum I wish you luck. Read the FAQ, hang around a bit you will learn a lot.

Thanks. I love my coffee, so this is good news for me

it's not that big a deal when. i never did the deadlift every workout thing. it all evens out pretty quickly.

after 3 weeks you're probably pretty close to where it'd be good to start DL'ing every other workout.

yeah, the front squatting really helped me out. it's a pretty fun movement to learn, too.

5.8 feet ( I am 1.75 metres )

I will do that

1) yes, I needed to do leg extensions and bicep curls, not squats, deadlifts and overhead presses, why ?

2) Well that surely was an eye opener ... The problem was that I thought I was the one who was weird for not keeping up with my program. It does make more sense now though.

So basicly I should do a basic strength program from the FAQ and after a certain amount of time I need to add cardio ?

you add cardio if it matches your goals. but generally, yes, spending a few months (or even a year) focusing on strength makes sense and is the most efficient thing to do, since strength helps in all areas of fitness.

Some nits <3 cardio or play sports or whatever. that's OK. it just means your gains in strength will stall earlier.

That you were doing those exercises is one of the main reasons why you made so little progress; they're simply inferior to the exercises discussed in Starting Strength. In general, isolation exercises are worse than compound exercises, and using machines is worse than using barbells. You'll notice that it's much easier to make progress when you're really stimulating muscle growth, as you will if you perform the SS exercises properly.

Squat Vids from today:
255 Set 2 (from side) - wife didn't start video until halfway through set.
255 Set 3 (from behind) - includes comments from random trainer

Camera card was full after these so no press or clean vids.

Comments?

According to my new body fat scale, I'm high in fat (25%). So I'm going to exercise more (which I've already started) and cut back on the fat.

According to one thing I've read it recommends a max of 30% fat and 10% sat fat in your diet. Does it mean 30% of my daily calories or something else? This item for example, what's the % here?


Calories
350
Calories from Fat
153

% Daily Value*
Total Fat 17g 26%
Saturated Fat 6g 30%

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I can't seem to find/figure out an answer.

Ignore it.

Can you explain that? My guess is good exercise+low calories=results and I'll lose the body fat as long as my fat intake isn't ridiculous high.

fat intake doesn't have much to do with it. overall calories makes a much bigger difference. to lose fat you need to be on a caloric deficit. then, you need to set protein to insure you maintain most of your LBM. anyway, read these articles. link is to part 1. there are 3 parts.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat...es-part-1.html

Not that the answer matters, as described above, but I'd imagine the advice is saying 30% of calories from fat.

If you only had 350 calories that day (LOL), and that was all you ate, 44% are from fat, 15% are saturated.

But it doesn't really matter.

For someone who has goals of adding muscle while losing weight, how optimal is doing SS + Atkin's? Clearly Atkin's can make a person lose a lot of body fat by just eating proteins so the body uses body fat for fuel but all diets operate on a calorie deficit otherwise they wouldn't work. I do SS and looking to add muscle while also losing weight (cardio included). Is Atkin's the most efficient eating system given my goals of adding muscle while losing body fat? How impacted would my muscle gains be on Atkin's?

You would be lol crushed without carbs to fuel your workout, most likely. Just do a balanced diet at a deficit.

You're going to have a hard time building muscle on any calorie deficit. You need to keep your fat intake low an any low carb diet