Well this gives me some hope. I tried to do a squat on the smith machine (I've never done a squat before) and gave it two attempts before my body said no; it was just to fucking awkward feeling that I didn't think I could do it without injuring myself. I'll ask my trainer if I can try to do a traditional squat on Monday.
Well taken, I guess I've just been nervous about going in the open because I have an arthritic hip. Feh. Stubborness. Something going *pop* could spell trouble, however squats are not high on my list for workouts. Hoist has a lay-down squat machine at my gym that's less painful, and they tilt for perfect form (so they say).
Wait, is this a personal trainer, like he spots you when you lift? And he has you use a smith machine for squats? Honestly if this is the case you need a new trainer dawg.
Hey everyone, I am kind of a fat fuck, so I have decided to do something about it. My exercise routine is sorted, so I was wondering if anybody would be cool enough to check my diet out and let me know if it is a good start (or if I'm missing anything). I have ate this for 2 weeks and feel great: Monday to Friday Breakfast - One apple, One banana Lunch - Homemade Tuna salad (1 tin), no dressing but blob of light mayo (salad = lettuce, cucumber, tomato, scallions) Dinner: Varies but e.g. Baked beans on toast with wholemeal bread (2 slices) and two poached eggs or roasted salmon with asparagus and boiled potatos or homemade tomato soup or grilled beef steak on a bed of roasted vegetables or roasted chicken breast on bed of roasted vegetables. Nothing above contains butter or cheese and all is home cooked. Saturday and Sunday Breakfast: Scrambled eggs (3) on wholemeal toast (2 slices) Lunch and dinner is same as the week days. All I am drinking is water. Literally nothing else. Thanks for any input guys and girls.
I've been recently having trouble with the grip on a lot of workouts (i.e. can't hold the dumbell steady during dumbell bench and bent over dumbell rows). What are some good things to do to work on this? Because it really interferes with the rows since the weiht pushes back into my wrist while trying to lift.
Throw a grain into your breakfast, like a piece of toast or two. More well-rounded food group meals will drop your weight but you need to be active too. Try substituting eggs whith egg whites if you don't mind eating them. I make egg white omelettes to give them more appeal. I have been eating six small meals a day for the past six weeks and have lost eight pounds. Activity is a must, though.
I'm going to sound like a chimp that just found his dick pushing it since I started it three months ago and have had amazing results, but have you tried the paleo approach? Basically no grains whatsoever, no legumes, no processed food etc... I wouldn't recommend going full on right away, maybe start with taking away grains, then a month or two later take away beans, then experiment with and without dairy to see how you feel. I actually recorded this stuff on a spreadsheet but this was a typical day for me on the first month of ditching Neolithic foods: 6:30 AM 2 soft boiled eggs over a cannellini bean puree with spinach. 11:15 AM 27 oz water with two propel packets 12:45 PM Hot Italian sausage with Moroccan medley: chick peas, zucchini, mushrooms and cauliflower 6:45 PM Ground turkey shish patties and channa nu saak (chickpea curry) 7:00 PM Indian salad: Tomato, onion and cucumber with salt, pepper, cilantro and vinegar A typical day now: 7:00 AM Two eggs fried in bacon grease, spinach, sunflower greens and pine nuts 1:00 PM Paleo Meatlof, fra diavlo sauce, broccoli, pine nuts 7:00 PM Roast beef with brussel sprouts and bacon 8:00 PM thumbnail size of 100% cocoa chocolate, 4 thumbnail sizes of 91% cocoa chocolate. My diet looked a lot like yours before I started doing this and I'm down about 25 pounds without even tweaking exercise or alcohol intake, more important is I feel WAY better. Also I take one day a week to eat whatever the fuck I want, and as much of it as possible, so a typical cheat day looks like: 9:00 AM McDonald’s Sausage egg and cheese biscuit and hash brown 9:00 AM coffee with milk and sugar 2:30 PM Shitload of pizza and wings 7:00 PM Taco Bell: Crunch wrap supreme, soft taco (I had steak instead of beef on both) 7:00 PM Large Mountain Dew Throughout: Half a pint of chocolate oreo ice cream I don't really go hardcore like that anymore because I feel like I got hit by a bus the next day so I've reigned it in, my cheat day yesterday was this: 7:15 AM Two fried eggs, spinach, broccoli, pine nuts 1:30 PM Asian restaurant: Hibachi beef, fried rice, mixed vegetables, spring roll 5:00 PM Almond flour based bread with almond butter 7:30 PM Roast beef with brussel sprouts Your diet may get you where you want to be, but I encourage you (and really anyone) to try something like paleo and see where it takes you. Also for that matter, try shit like just going gluten free, going vegan, going vegetarian etc and see what makes you feel best. People are so scared to dramatically change and experiment with their diet and they really shouldn't be. Wow, that post was way longer and rantier than I intended.
Switch to Barbell you have more stability and it is safer. If you are holding heavy DB's above your head during Bench Press you have to drop them, where as you can just put the Barbell on the safety pins during Barbell. If you are looking to train your grip either Deadlift, Pinch plates (not eating plates, gym plates) or DB's, alternatively pull ups etc.
Actually I disagree with this on the safety issue. Once the weight is fully locked yes, you can simply put a barbell back on the rack as opposed to a dumbbell where you have to bring it back down, but most people fail on the initial push off the chest, and for this dumbbells are infinitely safer since you can simply let go and have them drop to your sides as opposed to a barbell where if it comes down on you it's a pain the the rear to get it off. With dumbbells, if you can get the weight to a lockout position you should have enough control to bring it back down and then drop it. For grip I'm a big fan of using a towel to build your grip. Grab a couple of towels and hang them over your pullup bar, then hang from them. If you can you can also do a few pullups, plus you can also use them on the chest supported row machine. I also have these that I tool around with at home when watching tv.
My current daily diet is typically 8:00 am - fish oil capsules, one of those breakfast replacement drinks 12:45 am - a couple of rolls of sushi 6:30 pm - steak and soft whole eggs with spinach, rocket, mushroom and whole eggs 9:30 pm - some fruit or a couple of cookies I recognize that there's a shitload of room for improvement... But my general daily time spent preparing food is something like 20 minutes tops, maybe 25 including stopping into the store for goceries and waiting in line for sushi. The paleo thing as I understand it seems like a good idea and if someone else was doing my food shopping and preparation, I'd be more open to it. But as I understand it - organic / non grain fed animals for the animal products in a paleo diet are key to seeing results, and that shit is borderline impossible to find here, and what is available is easily 3 times the price of the alternatives.
I'm seeing very good results despite that I'm not eating grass fed meat. Up in New England it's easily triple the mass produced prices you see in big grocery stores as well, so I get grass fed if it's on sale (once a month if I'm lucky) or go to the local butcher for my meat which is usually about the same price as the grocery store. It's not ideal since it's still grain fed, but it's still better than the mutant shit they sell in mass quantities. Robb Wolf, who's one of the thought leaders in the movement, doesn't even eat grass fed meat all the time and suggests doing what I do if you're looking to keep costs down, but does recommend supplementation with fish oil. Basically the ideal ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 is 1:1 but because of grain fed meat we get more like 20:1, so it's good to take fish oil and other stuff like omega 3 eggs (only about a 20% mark up in price) to offset it. Again, it's not ideal because when you take the omega 3 as a supplement you're converting it in your own liver instead of having the animal do it for you, but it's still better (in theory) to go paleo with grain fed meat than ditch the idea all together and eat a modern diet.
Just to add, the diet is still a pain in the ass for me to follow since no restaurants comply with it so I need to be three steps ahead on what I'm eating and prep all the food myself. But it's TOTALLY worth it to me and the GF, and I'd be hard pressed to find that it wouldn't be for just about anyone once they've given it a shot. And dude, sushi is a normal thing for you to eat? I could spend $20 on it at the grocery store and not even be full, is it reasonably priced where you are?
I think Paleo is probably the best thing people can do for nutrition, losing weight and living a healthy lifestyle, but it is a lot of work and an expensive lifestyle, especially here in the UK as we do not have the variety others have. Not to mention having a nut allergy makes it a pain for snacking and a lot of the recipes people post. Instead I just follow this really basic diet: <a class="postlink" href="http://jiujitsumania.com/guaranteed-and-simple-weight-loss-program/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://jiujitsumania.com/guaranteed-and ... s-program/</a> It just follows a few simple principles, and doesn't restrict you so much that you have to plan your meals or worry about whether food is cave man worthy.
Thanks for all the helpful tips. I'd love to try Paleo but my financial situation and where I live in England make it extremely difficult. But I can certainly adopt some ideas from it to make my current diet more effective, so nice one. Because of my fruit intake in the day, I am going to go for a high fibre breakfast, i.e. Porridge.
Sushi train and the eat in places here are expensive. The take away places around the business district are way cheaper, the place I ususally go to is ludicrosly cheap, I get a big lunch of really good food for about $7.50. But you'd usually get that kind of feed for < $12 from the average priced places.
I'll have to do some digging, but I read an article awhile back that outlined a study done: twelve overweight/obese boys, aged about 13, were broken into three groups. Group 1: Ate a normal, high-sugar cereal breakfast with milk and juice. Group 2: Ate steel-cut oats, some fruit and organic juice. Group 3: Ate eggs, grapefruit and water. Calorically, all the breakfasts worked out to the same calorie load. The boys were allowed to eat what they wanted, as much as they wanted from lunchtime onwards. The study followed them for a month, and in general (I'm winging this here, so please forgive me if this isn't entirely accurate), the kids in Group 1 gained the most weight, and they were statistically only marginally different than the kids in Group 2. Group 2 kids were MUCH hungrier when lunchtime rolled around than anyone else. Group 3 kids were sated, did not feel hungry come lunch and lost the most weight. This with the same calorie load for breakfast, just broken down differently. The point is that whole grains will spike your insulin, thus making you hungrier about two hours later. If you're going to switch to porridge, be aware of this. Breakfast is a pretty important meal, and if you're going to try a Paleo approach that meal is your best bet. Make THAT one strictly no grains, dairy, legumes, sugars, etc and see what happens. That might be helpful.
Thanks for the tips. It's definitely something I need to think about as I don't want to eat too much fruit. At the moment it is part of my breakfast, lunch and general snacking (a long with raw vegetables: radishes, carrots, spinach etc). For example, I've had this every day (not all at once of course, this spreads throughout the day): 1 Apple, 1 Banana, 1 Tangerine, Bunch of Grapes, handful of Blueberries and handful of Kiwi berries My theory is "this is great! It's replacing snacks such as salty potato chips etc.", but I know there is a high level of sugar in fruit - so I hope I'm not inadvertently fucking my diet here. Is the above a little too much fruit for a whole day? It breaks down: Breakfast: 1 Apple, 1 Banana (6am) Lunch: Tuna Salad (12pm) Snack: Tangerine (1.30pm) Dinner: Roast Salmon with Asparagus (for example) (6.30pm) At 7pm I'll go for a two mile jog and do some bicep/shoulder weights. Post dinner/exercise snacking: Small bowl of raw carrots, spinach and radishes, Small bowl of berries/grapes (8.30pm) And that's a whole day, roughly broken down into the times I eat (can vary give or take an hour on each meal due to the nature of my job). I also need a breakfast that's relatively quick, and at the moment, nothing can beat peeling and eating a banana while I drive to work. So fast. If I need to adapt my lifestyle (i.e. get up earlier) to accommodate a better/more nutritious breakfast, then I'm happy to if I just find the "right" one to go for.
I definitely agree with this. Personally I don't eat fruit right now because weight loss is goal number one and I have a long way to go, but my girlfriend eats it liberally and has lost about 15 pounds without even trying, she's actually lighter now than when she was swimming competitively in high school, she hasn't done any exercise other than walking around for a few months. One thing I would suggest though, like Dcc said, start your day off with a high protein/low carbohydrate breakfast. I understand you want to keep it simple so maybe hard boil some and peal some eggs on Sunday night and put them in a container to eat during the week, or just make some extra meat with dinner that you won't mind eating cold. Ideally you'd want to pair this with a vegetable so maybe cut up a pepper one or two nights a week to bring with you in the morning. If all else fails pair the protein with fruit, because fruit and protein will set a better tone for your hunger during the day than just fruit.
YES. This. 1000000000x this. REAL food will change your life. Processed shit will make you not healthy. You can get by, but it's not optimal. My advice for paleo on a budget, do the best you can afford.
I hear from trainers that egg whites are great, I've been using them lately again. Are those "Omega 3" eggs that cost more at the store really that more healthy than normal eggs?