Pretty sure I wanted to puke during the last part of my workout today...like the whole time.

Did 6x (2 Clean Pulls 2 Power Clean 2 Front Squat)

4x8 each side jumping lunges
4x8 Military Press

Then AMRAP in 13 min 6 pullups, 10 rocket jumps 100 m run. I completed 10 rounds and Skwinkle completed 8.

MattJMM2, where do you get those little floor foamy things. We're thinking of getting some for our garage so we can start lifting in it.

[Edited on February 6, 2013 at 4:43 PM. Reason : .]

2/6/2013 4:41:12 PM

I actually found them on some random deal-a-day site for cheap. I've seen them at hardware stores, some cheap ones at harbor freight.

2/6/2013 5:00:00 PM

I always look forward to shoulder day(its my weakest muscle group) and then mid workout im like WTF this sucks.

but def. making huge gains. Bulk phase starts tomorrow. yikes.

^^ Sams club has a pack of them for cheap.

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/reversible-foam-mats-8-pack/prod3310384.ip

[Edited on February 6, 2013 at 5:28 PM. Reason : kl]

2/6/2013 5:27:35 PM

What club has them? I have plugged in like 7 different zip near us, Raleigh and GA and can't find any that actually have them. And it won't tell me the price without finding a club that has them.

We totally registered for some at Target

2/6/2013 5:59:05 PM

We got ours at Walmart, packs of like 6 or 8 I think

2/6/2013 6:01:55 PM

Pretty sure Dick's has those, as well.

2/7/2013 7:36:01 AM

MattJMM2, where'd you get your Concept 2 from?

2/7/2013 10:02:43 AM

Amazon. With Prime, I got it next day for free. Although, I did order it at 6am

2/7/2013 10:27:57 AM

Need help finding a link and image from reddit in the Lounge that compared Optimum protein content on a 96 well plate assay vs some other brand.

2/7/2013 10:47:53 AM

http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/tcpmt/american_pure_whey_is_american_pure_shit/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0Ag9uT-E4EIL7dFZPZnR0WVZybGtFWnRKNzdKNm9XOVE&toomany=true#gid=0

2/7/2013 11:07:19 AM

Thanks!

2/7/2013 12:03:26 PM

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/util-a-mat-commercial-grade-reversible-floor-mats-24-x-24-8-tiles/107930.ip

$22 bucks.

[Edited on February 7, 2013 at 1:32 PM. Reason : f]

2/7/2013 1:32:07 PM

^ Thanks!

2/7/2013 2:41:09 PM

Quote :

"Need help finding a link and image from reddit in the Lounge that compared Optimum protein content on a 96 well plate assay vs some other brand. "

I got Optimum Whey on bodybuilding.com and used the coupon code L30Winner for 30% off. They had a sale at the time too, not sure if it is still on.

2/7/2013 5:20:37 PM

I've seen bits and pieces of Biggest Loser, but how does the show have the fat people "starve themselves" in the competition?

2/7/2013 5:31:57 PM

Conveniently enough, they never show them eating. Either this week or last they started a thing about diet and the fatties had like $70/each for food for the week and had to buy healthy stuff, but the show spent all lof like 5 seconds saying what each team got.

Diet is definitely not a focus point on the show.

2/7/2013 7:16:59 PM

They have chefs who come in and show them healthy cooking. Both last season and this season we've seen female chefs last season was hilarious cause one of the contestants had a crush on her and the episode from last week had a big segment on healthy nutrition and buying on a limited budget

2/7/2013 7:37:26 PM

When you're that fat you literally almost don't need to eat. You can eat like 500 calories a day and not be hungry at all.

I've got a feeling they really play up the exercise for the tv, but putting those people through exercise that strenuous is unnecessary, unproductive, and downright dangerous.

Those people's maintenance calories are so damn high that if they eat 500-1000 calories a day the fat will completely melt.

Speaking of melting, my results are pretty bad ass for 5 weeks. I should be able to do 10 neutral grip pullups in the next two weeks or so, so my strength is definitely increasing.

Looking forward to starting a lean bulk in two weeks. No dreamer bulk here baby, gonna grow the right way.

2/7/2013 7:53:12 PM

where those pics at?

2/7/2013 10:26:29 PM

ill post in two weeks when i wrap up the diet. I mean im not exactly ready for a magazine cover or anything, but ive stripped a lot of fat off despite continuing to drink a lot 3-4 nights a week. I definitely need to add a lot of muscle.

I'm going to try to do a lean gains bulk with fasting and ~300 calories over maintenance each day. If I could add like 5 lbs of muscle from mid Feb to May 1st that would give me a month of cutting to try to hit around 10% bodyfat or so for the summer.

[Edited on February 7, 2013 at 11:34 PM. Reason : a]

2/7/2013 11:32:12 PM

Just did an hour of fasted cardio, 6+ miles on the treadmill.

Breakfast to break my fast was a tuna steak, 3 eggs scrambled with onions and bell peppers (topped with Sriracha of course), and a french press full of coffee.

In the last 3 weeks or so I've dropped about 12 pounds, down from consistently around 202-205 to about 190-193. Pretty decent results.

Going to rest, eat some more (probably skinless chicken breast, avacado, a mango, and a big ass spinach salad with assorted other vegetables) and then go lift.

2/9/2013 9:35:54 AM

[quoteWhen you're that fat you literally almost don't need to eat. You can eat like 500 calories a day and not be hungry at all.
[/quote]

That's not true at all.

I used to work out 3 days strength training, and cardio 5 days.

My metabolic rate at rest is 3800 calories.
I ate at 1800 calorie a day...and loss lots of weight..but I was only good for 4 hours a day...and 1-1.5 of that was working out. I slept most of the days away.

Now I eat closer to 2400 calories and a just do walking / weekly strength and lose on average 5-10lbs a week.(5 week average)

2/9/2013 9:43:53 AM

5 pounds a week?



[Edited on February 9, 2013 at 1:46 PM. Reason : X]

2/9/2013 1:46:10 PM

It's theoretically possible with a big enough caloric deficit. If he really has a base maintenance calorie need of 3800/day and is running a dietary deficit of 1400 calories per day he'd only need to burn about another 5000 calories per week. Of course, if he really is a huge fatbody he's probably losing a lot of retained fluid and not just fat which makes it much easier to imagine.

2/9/2013 2:12:57 PM

Quote :

"Just did an hour of fasted cardio, 6+ miles on the treadmill. Breakfast to break my fast was a tuna steak, 3 eggs scrambled with onions and bell peppers (topped with Sriracha of course), and a french press full of coffee. In the last 3 weeks or so I've dropped about 12 pounds, down from consistently around 202-205 to about 190-193. Pretty decent results. Going to rest, eat some more (probably skinless chicken breast, avacado, a mango, and a big ass spinach salad with assorted other vegetables) and then go lift."

Very nutritious food selection. When you stick to foods like that, you're going to see results. What are you planning to eat post workout?

Personally, I won't do any kind of cardio pre-workout; I try to go into any weightlifting session as fresh as possible. The studies that have been done have had mixed results, but generally cardio after weights seems to yield better results, although there's a case to be made that both are (or potentially can be) suboptimal: http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2012/02/cardio-before-or-after-weights-while.html

To be clear, I'm not shitting on what you're doing at all, I'm just interested in finding out what is optimal.

[Edited on February 9, 2013 at 2:54 PM. Reason : ]

2/9/2013 2:49:03 PM

I'm going to get blasted. Probably have about 15 old fashioneds face style.

No, seriously though I'll probably have some salmon, steamed vegetables, and a mango. I was way too full to actually eat that mango earlier (fucking ton of salad filled me up). Might eat some black beans and rice as well.

2/9/2013 2:55:21 PM

We're talking about fat loss not weight loss.

Sure you can lose 5-10 lbs the first week. Your colon has 5 lbs of impacted feces in it if you eat at fucking mcdonalds. The second you switch to low carb you can shed 5 lbs of water weight too. If you stop eating protein your body will shed muscle almost instantaneously.

For fat loss 2-3 lbs a week is typically about the maximum unless you are obese. If you're obese you can lose a little more than that and you can also lose about 25% of muscle that you don't need and only carry due to your fatty physique.


I got hammered last night and had a few dark beers. Doubt i was under my maintenance calories dammit. Good news is im just waking up now so i should be able to easily stay under today.

[Edited on February 9, 2013 at 4:11 PM. Reason : a]

2/9/2013 4:05:25 PM

Quote :

"Here we go bros! Going to make the scale drop TWENTY POUNDS (20!!!) IN THREE WEEKS. (yeah i know only 7-10 lbs will be fat, but i get boned up when i see the scale dropping.) I weighed in tonight at 182.1 lbs, but that won't last long. I should be able to easily drop 10lbs in week 1, perhaps a few more but we'll see. Who's coming with me? Journey begins tomorrow. Remember it's 90% diet. We want to keep exercise at a minimum when we're trying to shed the most fat and we're not eating any carbs. We want to aim for 2 full body weight lifting sessions with LOW reps, LOW sets, LOW volume. We can drop the volume, frequency of training but we can NOT drop the weight on the bar. Less weight = lost muscle. Keep the intensity, drop the volume. We want to aim for 3 cardio sessions a week that are 30-40 minutes in length and no more. No running, no intervals, just don't fucking do it you will ruin the fat loss. Brisk walking and mixing in some hills is fine. Keep the heartrate in the fat burning zone. Don't fucking exceed this or you will not lose fat. I'm going to be shooting for 180g protein, 10g fish oil, and nothing else except fibrous vegetables and incidental fat from the lean protein rich sources. That's it bros. That's how we get lean. RIP GIRLFRIEND."

1/21/13

Well bros it's been 20 days which if I did the math right is almost three weeks. Fell a little short. A few of these new bars don't serve lite beer which is a real bitch, fucking hipsters. Also Super Bowl Sunday and a couple of late night pita pit runs in a pinch also contributed.

Experienced a big woosh today which is always awesome. Down to 166 lbs which is a 16 lb difference in twenty days. Going to continue to cut for the next 11 days, but I've increased my protein intake to about 220g a day to buffer against muscle loss.

I'd like to take the time to thank all my haters. I gather speed from you fucking with me.

2/9/2013 6:36:31 PM

congrats.

When it comes to drinking though, I'd rather sip on a good tasting beer than drink 2-3 light beers. By the time you have 2-3 beers you have roughly the same alcohol content and calories in your system as getting a good beer. The only difference is obviously the carbs which is prob 1/3 going the light beer route. But if carbs are the issue for someone trying to lose weight, I'd just go with something like scotch on the rocks or another liquor drink which is probably better from a health standpoint all around when trying to lose weight anyway.

I know that you know all that, I've just never found much of a niche for light beer myself unless someone really likes the taste of light beer or dislikes all liquors.

2/9/2013 6:59:36 PM

Absolutely you are correct it is better to drink whiskey/scotch because it is 0 carbs and tastes delicious without any additives/mixers.

However, at bars whiskey/scotch adds up to $200+ real fucking quick. For someone who goes out 2-5 times a week, it's just not cost effective. Also, bars serve like 1.5-2 oz pours which is fucking annoying to drink like that. At home I pour a nice 8-10 oz drink and sit down and watch the game and refill when necessary.

I disagree with you on the beer thing though. A miller lite contains 3.2g of carbs. If I drink 15 of them that's 47 carbs. Ideally, I need to stay under 50g carb a day or I'm simply not going to lose significant fat and stay carb depleted. So I'm already pushing it with the beer, but such is life.

A lot of the "better" beers you are talking about contain significantly more carbs than that. I'm not going to sit here and have a debate about what's a good beer and what's not, but a quick look at Flying Dog beers and they are all basically between 10-20g carb. Now beers like that typically range from 5-12% alcohol content. Personally, I don't love a lot of high gravity beers. I think they taste a little too strong, and I tend to get hangovers on a lot of them.

A miller lite has 4.2% alcohol. So let's just say I select Flying Dog K-9 Cruiser (never had this don't know shit about it, picked it because it has avg carbs and alcohol content). It's 7.4% alcohol and 10.6g carb.

So 15 miller lites is approximately 8.5 Flying Dog K-9 Cruisers in terms of alcohol consumption. However this would be almost 90 carbs as opposed to 47. That's a huge fucking difference if you're trying to burn fat and is sure to take you out of ketosis/depletion for a day or two.

We can debate "well you can drink 3 heavy beers really fast when you first get to the bar and be drunker than your buddy who only drank 4 miller lites". Maybe. Personally, I can't chug heavy beers. But I can easily drink 7 miller lites in an hour. My record is 10. It sucked though, stomach doesn't feel good pushing it like that.



Also, for those of you who like to get drunk, but have to wake up early in the morning or are trying to lose weight the "drink as many beers as you can in an hour" is a diet/lifestyle change I invented eight years ago in college. It's a great way to lose weight and honor your work/school commitments in the morning. You will get that significant buzz you are looking to achieve while significantly lowering your calorie intake AND giving your body maximum recovery time to sober up.

Think about it. Chug 8 beers in an hour. Each beer is around .02 and your body will only get rid of .02 an hour roughly. So at the end of the hour you're at .14. Not exactly "I'd fuck that haggardly bargoyle over there" level, but a nice weekday buzz with your co-workers, friends, or casual sexual partners. Let's say you reach this level at 5-7 PM and you don't have a commitment until 8 AM. You've got over TWELVE hours to recover. Compare this to drinking 15 beers from 6 PM until 2 AM on a wednesday night. You're not going to get far over the .14 level at any given time, and you're going to have less than 6 hours to recover. These are usually the mornings you go into work reeking of alcohol that's still filtering out of your body and pores. These are also the days you dirty your suit pants because you're on your hands and knees puking up bile in the office bathroom. Not to mention when you throw up you will smell like shit the rest of the day and sometimes the next day or two if you suffer from acid reflux.


Best diet advice I've given in this thread yet. Contains life skills as well. Just a bonus. RIP GIRLFRIEND

[Edited on February 9, 2013 at 7:59 PM. Reason : a]

2/9/2013 7:47:42 PM

I definitely agree on the carbs standpoint. And sure, obviously everyone has different tastes with beer. That was just my personal experience. I'm not one to drink a lot of beers quickly anymore so I've leaned toward sipping on a beer I enjoy more than a light beer or enjoying a whiskey. Our scenarios are certainly different though

2/9/2013 8:06:29 PM

Progress. Not looking too bad. If I can lose another 10 pounds or so I'll feel pretty good and should look pretty good.

[Edited on February 10, 2013 at 11:04 AM. Reason : asdas]

2/10/2013 11:02:47 AM

^ What are your goals? You look like you have some muscle mass, you'd be a good fit for a PSMF.

Just shave about 20 lbs of fat in 8-10 weeks does wonders for your build.


I haven't really experienced any size gains yet because my calorie restriction has been so severe, but my neural strength gains are surprising even me. I wish I'd known more about dieting/exercising in my early 20's.

I was the classic undereater who overtrained. Could never figure out why I got such good definition, but never really gained any noticeable strength. I was one of those retards doing 6 sets of 12 reps on every exercise putting in 2 hour sessions 4-5 times a week. That kind of routine only works on drugs and with a LOT of food.

2/10/2013 7:13:45 PM

Ideally I'd like to get down to around 185, which would be about another 10 pounds. The only thing is, I'm probably going to ramp up for triathlons this year which could make intermittent fasting, which is what I'm currently doing, out of the question.

2/10/2013 7:23:37 PM

I'm not as well versed in performance based nutrition, but can't IF actually help you with carb loading?

Like if you took in 400-500 carbs in a single sitting wouldn't that help increase your max stores?

2/10/2013 7:56:15 PM

Probably, but with triathlon training you're generally doing a couple of workouts per day and I don't know that you could get adequate caloric intake in during an 8 hour feed window if you're going to spend 3 of those hours on a bike. And what's more, how fucking much are you going to want to do distance work when you've just taken in a huge amount of carbs.

[Edited on February 10, 2013 at 8:12 PM. Reason : sdfsdf]

2/10/2013 8:08:39 PM

you could do it but it might not be pretty. I'm up to 200g protein in a sitting and it's pretty easy, but I wouldn't love adding a few hundred grams of carbs/fat haha

2/10/2013 8:12:31 PM

Right now on my fast I try to do cardio right before I break my fast and then lift right near when I would be starting my fast.

I can't even imagine doing a morning swim, and then trying to do a brick within an hour of eating, let alone an hour after eating a pot of pasta and 3 chicken breasts in the afternoon/evening.

[Edited on February 10, 2013 at 8:20 PM. Reason : sdfsdf]

2/10/2013 8:16:08 PM

You need to eat after you lift... not getting protein after a lift is a critical mistake. For athletic performance you're going to want carbs after a lift too for recovery and glycogen repletion.

Also I do fasted cardio too, but are you at least popping BCAA tabs (or powder) before it? Otherwise cardio can be really catabolic, particularly lengthy sessions...

2/10/2013 9:04:19 PM

No, I usually eat after I lift, I just try to make it the last thing I eat before I start my fast.

2/10/2013 9:08:21 PM

gotcha. just picked up some casein and psyllium husks. Just getting really afraid of catabolism now that I'm at 15%. I can't afford to lose what little muscle I possess and good lord eating ~280g of protein a day sucks a little on intermittent fasting.

2/10/2013 9:22:07 PM

Quote :

"eating ~280g of protein"

Can't think of any reason to be eating that much protein. You would be better off reducing protein to 180-200g and replacing the rest with carbs or fat.

2/10/2013 9:54:20 PM

Yeah, your body isn't going to be able to process that much protein in that short of time. Unless you are fucking massive.

2/10/2013 10:13:40 PM

protein provides more satiation, and our bodies are not very efficient at burning protein for fuel. When dieting, there's nothing wrong with high protein intake if you don't have kidney problems.

2/10/2013 11:22:16 PM

I'm not saying it's necessarily bad, I'm saying it's not optimal. For someone that weighs 165-170 lbs and has probably 140 lbs of lean mass or less, you'd rather fit in some extra carbs to increase/sustain leptin levels or more fat to keep your hormones/testosterone from getting fucked up.

[Edited on February 10, 2013 at 11:34 PM. Reason : ]

2/10/2013 11:33:17 PM

I'm doing rapid fat loss. For a category 1 dieter under 15% body fat I need 2g protein per 1lb LBM since I'm lifting weights.

I don't consume any carbs except leafy vegetables (fiber is really only 1.5-2 calories per gram for dieting purposes). I also don't consume any fat except 10g fish oil and the random gram here and there that's in chicken, turkey, 96% lean ground beef.


Preservation of LBM is the #1 focus right now while I'm shedding these last few pounds of fat to get down into the 10-12% range before I switch to hypertrophy training for the next two months.

I've had plenty of refeeds/cheat meals (drinking) along the way to spike carbs and keep my leptin bouncing around, but these last 10 days I'm aiming for no cheat/refeeds because I'm too lean to implement them.

Unfortunately, I don't have ephedrine which would be nice to keep the SNS pumping and prevent a lot of the adaptive component and decrease in thyroid production, but it being illegal I don't have access to it at the moment. I am taking a shit load of caffeine though and keeping my cardio very low intensity and short (20-40 minutes) in duration so I don't do any permanent damage to my metabolism.


I've looked into synephrine, but decided against it this round because I'm consuming a lot of yohimbine HCL and I don't want to mix too many stimulants because a had a minor heart arrythmia when I was a kid. I'll probably use it though when I'm dieting down to single digit bodyfat after my 2 month hypertrophy.

[Edited on February 11, 2013 at 12:02 AM. Reason : a]

2/10/2013 11:59:28 PM

The nice thing about once you get to 15% body fat the results become a lot more noticeable day to day. Helps keep the motivation when you can see the fat deposits disappearing daily

2/11/2013 4:56:35 AM

Sorry about the triple post. Sometimes I wonder if anyone else is actually working out or trying to burn fat.

Anyway, one of the points of me dominating this fat loss was to document it so people can later come along and implement a fat loss program instead of spinning their wheels with running and other nonsense.

Here's a proper fat loss workout for this morning. Once you get under that 15% level, it's important that you follow protocols, because it's not quite as easy as just calories in/calories out at that point.

#1 I've spent the past several weeks eating almost no saturated fats and making sure to replace the fat I'm mobilizing/burning with polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. The reason is that this fat is much easier to mobilize, which is super important once we start dealing with stubborn fat deposits (abdomen for men, legs for women).

Okay so here's a good set-up for burning these more difficult areas. Don't worry about the "time of day" ive just listed it so you can get relative ideas on timing which is important

Fast a minimum of 4 hours before starting this workout. I prefer to go 8-16 hours personally. If it's only been 4 hours or so no need to really consume anything, but if it's been 16 hours I use BCAA or glutamine tabs.

- 15mg yohimbine hcl and 200mg caffeine at 4:45 AM
- 5 minute low intensity warm-up cardio at 5:00 AM
- 30 minute lower body resistance training
- 40 minutes low intensity steady state cardio (walking can be outdoors or on treadmill either way). Now just to be clear I allowed my heart rate to go stay in the 140-150 range rather than 130-140 because the yohimbine speeds up your heart rate and can trick your fat burning zone.
- 5 minutes interval cardio wrap up.

Now, that's how you fucking burn abdominal fat bros. Note: You can't do this workout more than twice a week when you're on calorie restriction. For some people even once a week is enough.

About to consume 200g protein over the next hour now. Then another 80g for lunch then I will fast ~24-30 hours.

RIP GIRLFRIEND

[Edited on February 11, 2013 at 7:03 AM. Reason : a]

2/11/2013 7:01:46 AM

Quote :

"psyllium husks"

haha, if most of your intake is in fact protein, i can see why you'd need psyllium husks...

would be about the only way you're not shitting literal bricks

2/11/2013 9:11:47 AM

Yeah, my man should probably eat some beans rather than strictly chicken and turkey. Fiber is your friend. Celery is also virtually zero calorie all fiber. Knock back a stalk or two of that with your turkey and you'll be able to poo much more comfortably.

Ok, finishing my coffee now and then off to the gym for some low intensity cardio, then I'm going to have some bacon, eggs, and steamed vegetables for breakfast.

[Edited on February 11, 2013 at 9:44 AM. Reason : asdfsd]

2/11/2013 9:41:26 AM