BoxRec

I started training on Oct 22nd after many a year of not doing much, getting up to 16 stone. I'm now 14.5 and headed in the right direction. I'm 43 and 5' 10.5"

I've just been through all 5 pages of this forum and there's some good stuff to read, advice to adhere to etc. but be nice to get some comments from some of the experts if I may.

At the minute I do the following

Monday - 10 mins warm up on the cross trainer, then squat, chest press, barbell rows, leg press and lat pulldowns, followed by 30 mins of mixed cardio (bike, keiser machine, rowing machine or cross trainer)

Tuesday - 40 mins cardio either swimming, or split over 4 machines of 10 mins each, or 20 mins x 2 (sometimes I do some of this HIIT)

Wednesday - Similar to Monday but squat, overhead press, deadlifts, cable flys and quads machine.

Thursday - as Tuesday

Friday - as Monday, I only do the 2 types of weights routines, which started as the Stronglifts 5 x 5 but I added a cpl of extra for each day. So I do the 2 routines on alternate days, adding 5lbs to the main 5 (squats, chest, rows, overhead and deadlifts) each session.

I have a 5 or 10 minute sauna each day too.

Saturday - out on my bike for an hour.

Diet wise I tend to eat pretty uniformly

Brekkie
Either Simaple Oats or 2, sometimes 3 boiled eggs about 7:30am, then I have 2 x bananas during the morning, 1 at 9ish and 1 at 10ish

Morning Snacking
From the night before - usually a tomatoe, iceberg lettuce or spinach, tomatoe, (occasionally we add apples and walnuts) and spring onioin salad about 11am, I also sometimes snack on blueberries.

Lunch
Depends on what missus and I had the night before, but usually either an omelette with tomatoe and spring onion, or a not massive portion of shepherds pie, or chicken with veg, or meatballs with tomatoe sauce. All always home made.

Afternoon snacking
On weights days I have a protein shake, on cardio days I usually eat an avacadoe or may have some hummus

Dinner
Can be anything, probably omelette 3 times a week, or cod (not breadcrumbed stuff), or chicken - and always with a heap of salad, fav' being spinach, iceburg lettuce, mountain of tomatoes, (walnuts and apples occasionally), and sometimes we have a spoon or 2 lentils or quinoa.

Saturday and Sunday involve eggs and lots of salad, chicken, steak, homemade burgers, fish, + I make a small loaf of wholemeal soda bread which I have a cpl of slices of each day (onky weekends).

Very rarely eat pasta or rice and we go through an absolute mountain of tomatoes, red onions, spinach, eggs, and iceburg lettuce every week, never eat pre packed chicken or fish, + we eat a ton of pepper sauce (homemade).

I drink a glass of Red Wine every day in the evening and on Friday and Saturday I have a full bottle to myself.
I drink about 2 litres of water minimum every day starting with a pint of iced water in the morning, hardly eat sweet/deserts, drink 2 x coffees (no sugar and skimmed milk) and 2 mugs of green tea each day.

I don't want to be a monk, but am open to suggestions as to improving any of the above.

Merci

Srebmun wrote:I started training on Oct 22nd after many a year of not doing much, getting up to 16 stone. I'm now 14.5 and headed in the right direction. I'm 43 and 5' 10.5"

I've just been through all 5 pages of this forum and there's some good stuff to read, advice to adhere to etc. but be nice to get some comments from some of the experts if I may.

At the minute I do the following

Monday - 10 mins warm up on the cross trainer, then squat, chest press, barbell rows, leg press and lat pulldowns, followed by 30 mins of mixed cardio (bike, keiser machine, rowing machine or cross trainer)

Tuesday - 40 mins cardio either swimming, or split over 4 machines of 10 mins each, or 20 mins x 2 (sometimes I do some of this HIIT)

Wednesday - Similar to Monday but squat, overhead press, deadlifts, cable flys and quads machine.

Thursday - as Tuesday

Friday - as Monday, I only do the 2 types of weights routines, which started as the Stronglifts 5 x 5 but I added a cpl of extra for each day. So I do the 2 routines on alternate days, adding 5lbs to the main 5 (squats, chest, rows, overhead and deadlifts) each session.

I have a 5 or 10 minute sauna each day too.

Saturday - out on my bike for an hour.

Diet wise I tend to eat pretty uniformly

Brekkie
Either Simaple Oats or 2, sometimes 3 boiled eggs about 7:30am, then I have 2 x bananas during the morning, 1 at 9ish and 1 at 10ish

Morning Snacking
From the night before - usually a tomatoe, iceberg lettuce or spinach, tomatoe, (occasionally we add apples and walnuts) and spring onioin salad about 11am, I also sometimes snack on blueberries.

Lunch
Depends on what missus and I had the night before, but usually either an omelette with tomatoe and spring onion, or a not massive portion of shepherds pie, or chicken with veg, or meatballs with tomatoe sauce. All always home made.

Afternoon snacking
On weights days I have a protein shake, on cardio days I usually eat an avacadoe or may have some hummus

Dinner
Can be anything, probably omelette 3 times a week, or cod (not breadcrumbed stuff), or chicken - and always with a heap of salad, fav' being spinach, iceburg lettuce, mountain of tomatoes, (walnuts and apples occasionally), and sometimes we have a spoon or 2 lentils or quinoa.

Saturday and Sunday involve eggs and lots of salad, chicken, steak, homemade burgers, fish, + I make a small loaf of wholemeal soda bread which I have a cpl of slices of each day (onky weekends).

Very rarely eat pasta or rice and we go through an absolute mountain of tomatoes, red onions, spinach, eggs, and iceburg lettuce every week, never eat pre packed chicken or fish, + we eat a ton of pepper sauce (homemade).

I drink a glass of Red Wine every day in the evening and on Friday and Saturday I have a full bottle to myself.
I drink about 2 litres of water minimum every day starting with a pint of iced water in the morning, hardly eat sweet/deserts, drink 2 x coffees (no sugar and skimmed milk) and 2 mugs of green tea each day.

I don't want to be a monk, but am open to suggestions as to improving any of the above.

Merci

OK, so a few comments from exercise coach specialising in body composition improvement:

Re training:
- I train my fat loss clients with weights exclusively, until they reach plateau. All respected coaches and mentors of mine say that you should be able to bring client to sub 10% body fat (ripped!) level, FAST just by weight training and good diet
- fast= or >1% bf loss a week
- 4 times a week, up to 60 mins at a time of intense training with weights is optimal. Ideally most exercises should be compound - say 3/4 of the session, 1/4 isolated stuff
- you can't out-train bad diet - just not possible

Re diet:
- the easiest and fastest (whilst healthy) way to lose body fat is to go no-starch. Paleo diet is the strictest form but at least just go no starch. Judging by your numbers, you're amongst (roughly) 75% of population that does better (for fat loss) on low-carb diet
- protein in every meal
- frequent feedings - once every 2.5-3.5 hours, can be snack or substitute meal - allow for stable blood sugar levels, portion control etc - hunger is the enemy, not food
- eat more cruciferous veggies
- iceberg lettuce is about as nutritious as cardboard
- quinoa is best of carbs but still counts as starchy carb - to be avoided for now or had for cheat meal
- skimmed milk is bollocks - go organic and full fat - goat's milk even better
- up your fats
- things that I see people do that can stop results completely (in no special order) - insufficient hydration, poor (quality or/and quantity) sleep, BOOZE
- red wine is best alcohol choice on fat loss program, but quantity must be limited - suggestion: best 2 glasses 1x a week, if hard, 2x a week but then not on consecutive days, something like Wed & Sat or Thu & Sun, anything more can stop results
- ^^same goes for cheat meals frequency have 1-2 cheat meals a week
- if craving are serious, the option is to have naughty foods immediately after workout - within 10 mins

That's off the top of my head.
Hope it helps.

Thanks man, appreciated.

Templeslave - What's the problem with skimmed milk? I appreciate the high sugar content, but surely organic is the same.

Cheers

jonoevansla wrote:Templeslave - What's the problem with skimmed milk? I appreciate the high sugar content, but surely organic is the same.

Cheers

Skimmed milk (and all dairy) is deprived of something which is very valuable - CLA - a healthy fatty acid.
Also skimmed dairy can be carcinogenic. Just found something on it:
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/unheal ... TUTVzeyATY

TempleSlave wrote:

jonoevansla wrote:Templeslave - What's the problem with skimmed milk? I appreciate the high sugar content, but surely organic is the same.

Cheers

Skimmed milk (and all dairy) is deprived of something which is very valuable - CLA - a healthy fatty acid.
Also skimmed dairy can be carcinogenic. Just found something on it:
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/unheal ... TUTVzeyATY

That article is a bit of an eye opener. I drink about 16 pints of skimmed milk per week, And have done for years. Food for thought!
Cheers

TempleSlave wrote:

Srebmun wrote:I started training on Oct 22nd after many a year of not doing much, getting up to 16 stone. I'm now 14.5 and headed in the right direction. I'm 43 and 5' 10.5"

I've just been through all 5 pages of this forum and there's some good stuff to read, advice to adhere to etc. but be nice to get some comments from some of the experts if I may.

At the minute I do the following

Monday - 10 mins warm up on the cross trainer, then squat, chest press, barbell rows, leg press and lat pulldowns, followed by 30 mins of mixed cardio (bike, keiser machine, rowing machine or cross trainer)

Tuesday - 40 mins cardio either swimming, or split over 4 machines of 10 mins each, or 20 mins x 2 (sometimes I do some of this HIIT)

Wednesday - Similar to Monday but squat, overhead press, deadlifts, cable flys and quads machine.

Thursday - as Tuesday

Friday - as Monday, I only do the 2 types of weights routines, which started as the Stronglifts 5 x 5 but I added a cpl of extra for each day. So I do the 2 routines on alternate days, adding 5lbs to the main 5 (squats, chest, rows, overhead and deadlifts) each session.

I have a 5 or 10 minute sauna each day too.

Saturday - out on my bike for an hour.

Diet wise I tend to eat pretty uniformly

Brekkie
Either Simaple Oats or 2, sometimes 3 boiled eggs about 7:30am, then I have 2 x bananas during the morning, 1 at 9ish and 1 at 10ish

Morning Snacking
From the night before - usually a tomatoe, iceberg lettuce or spinach, tomatoe, (occasionally we add apples and walnuts) and spring onioin salad about 11am, I also sometimes snack on blueberries.

Lunch
Depends on what missus and I had the night before, but usually either an omelette with tomatoe and spring onion, or a not massive portion of shepherds pie, or chicken with veg, or meatballs with tomatoe sauce. All always home made.

Afternoon snacking
On weights days I have a protein shake, on cardio days I usually eat an avacadoe or may have some hummus

Dinner
Can be anything, probably omelette 3 times a week, or cod (not breadcrumbed stuff), or chicken - and always with a heap of salad, fav' being spinach, iceburg lettuce, mountain of tomatoes, (walnuts and apples occasionally), and sometimes we have a spoon or 2 lentils or quinoa.

Saturday and Sunday involve eggs and lots of salad, chicken, steak, homemade burgers, fish, + I make a small loaf of wholemeal soda bread which I have a cpl of slices of each day (onky weekends).

Very rarely eat pasta or rice and we go through an absolute mountain of tomatoes, red onions, spinach, eggs, and iceburg lettuce every week, never eat pre packed chicken or fish, + we eat a ton of pepper sauce (homemade).

I drink a glass of Red Wine every day in the evening and on Friday and Saturday I have a full bottle to myself.
I drink about 2 litres of water minimum every day starting with a pint of iced water in the morning, hardly eat sweet/deserts, drink 2 x coffees (no sugar and skimmed milk) and 2 mugs of green tea each day.

I don't want to be a monk, but am open to suggestions as to improving any of the above.

Merci

OK, so a few comments from exercise coach specialising in body composition improvement:

Re training:
- I train my fat loss clients with weights exclusively, until they reach plateau. All respected coaches and mentors of mine say that you should be able to bring client to sub 10% body fat (ripped!) level, FAST just by weight training and good diet
- fast= or >1% bf loss a week
- 4 times a week, up to 60 mins at a time of intense training with weights is optimal. Ideally most exercises should be compound - say 3/4 of the session, 1/4 isolated stuff
- you can't out-train bad diet - just not possible

Re diet:
- the easiest and fastest (whilst healthy) way to lose body fat is to go no-starch. Paleo diet is the strictest form but at least just go no starch. Judging by your numbers, you're amongst (roughly) 75% of population that does better (for fat loss) on low-carb diet
- protein in every meal
- frequent feedings - once every 2.5-3.5 hours, can be snack or substitute meal - allow for stable blood sugar levels, portion control etc - hunger is the enemy, not food
- eat more cruciferous veggies
- iceberg lettuce is about as nutritious as cardboard
- quinoa is best of carbs but still counts as starchy carb - to be avoided for now or had for cheat meal
- skimmed milk is bollocks - go organic and full fat - goat's milk even better
- up your fats
- things that I see people do that can stop results completely (in no special order) - insufficient hydration, poor (quality or/and quantity) sleep, BOOZE
- red wine is best alcohol choice on fat loss program, but quantity must be limited - suggestion: best 2 glasses 1x a week, if hard, 2x a week but then not on consecutive days, something like Wed & Sat or Thu & Sun, anything more can stop results
- ^^same goes for cheat meals frequency have 1-2 cheat meals a week
- if craving are serious, the option is to have naughty foods immediately after workout - within 10 mins

That's off the top of my head.
Hope it helps.

Just a bit of an update for what it's worth.

Since your post I've dropped carbs to just from veg, some fruit, upped my protein/fat, have dropped my gym to 3 days a week with just the big 5 compound exercises + a long bike ride at the weekends.

I weighed myself this morning and am under 14 stone for the first time in 10+ years so have dropped a further 5+ lbs + am lifting more etc.

I am still enjoying a wine too.

I read the Gary Taubes book you recommended before also, fascinating stuff indeed, it all makes so much sense.

On a sidenote aswell and it may be coincidence but my missus has suffered with high blood pressure for years and she too is eating what I am now with no carbs and on Tuesday her blood pressure was normal for the first time in 10/15 years.

Great stuff man
Always very happy to hear about yet another case of someone applying these simple rules and having nice results!
Not sure what precisely could've brought the missus' blood pressure down. It could be the things you've cut out but also generally when you go paleo or getting close to it, the nutritional breakdown of your diet improves a lot.
I'm aware that PD may be too strict for some, but I don't know any other way that would beat it for effectiveness with fat loss, with simultaneous improvement of health. And even when people complain it's too strict, I make them follow some most important principles, give some cheat meals etc. Eventually the quality of life improves and often they get hooked anyway ;;-)
Congratulations again and also check that article on hypertension:
http://www.charlespoliquin.com/Articles ... ssure.aspx

Thanks TempleSlave - I've been reading a load on the Poliquin site, it's great.

With the food aswell, I'm eating like a bloody horse at the moment, more than I ever did, I haven't felt hungry at any stage of any day over the last few weeks. I've been testing the meat and nuts breakfast Poliquin talks about even.

Thankfully my missus is a great cook so some of the veg dishes she's making are phenomenal so I've been eating mountains of them.

Srebmun wrote:

TempleSlave wrote:

Srebmun wrote:I started training on Oct 22nd after many a year of not doing much, getting up to 16 stone. I'm now 14.5 and headed in the right direction. I'm 43 and 5' 10.5"

I've just been through all 5 pages of this forum and there's some good stuff to read, advice to adhere to etc. but be nice to get some comments from some of the experts if I may.

At the minute I do the following

Monday - 10 mins warm up on the cross trainer, then squat, chest press, barbell rows, leg press and lat pulldowns, followed by 30 mins of mixed cardio (bike, keiser machine, rowing machine or cross trainer)

Tuesday - 40 mins cardio either swimming, or split over 4 machines of 10 mins each, or 20 mins x 2 (sometimes I do some of this HIIT)

Wednesday - Similar to Monday but squat, overhead press, deadlifts, cable flys and quads machine.

Thursday - as Tuesday

Friday - as Monday, I only do the 2 types of weights routines, which started as the Stronglifts 5 x 5 but I added a cpl of extra for each day. So I do the 2 routines on alternate days, adding 5lbs to the main 5 (squats, chest, rows, overhead and deadlifts) each session.

I have a 5 or 10 minute sauna each day too.

Saturday - out on my bike for an hour.

Diet wise I tend to eat pretty uniformly

Brekkie
Either Simaple Oats or 2, sometimes 3 boiled eggs about 7:30am, then I have 2 x bananas during the morning, 1 at 9ish and 1 at 10ish

Morning Snacking
From the night before - usually a tomatoe, iceberg lettuce or spinach, tomatoe, (occasionally we add apples and walnuts) and spring onioin salad about 11am, I also sometimes snack on blueberries.

Lunch
Depends on what missus and I had the night before, but usually either an omelette with tomatoe and spring onion, or a not massive portion of shepherds pie, or chicken with veg, or meatballs with tomatoe sauce. All always home made.

Afternoon snacking
On weights days I have a protein shake, on cardio days I usually eat an avacadoe or may have some hummus

Dinner
Can be anything, probably omelette 3 times a week, or cod (not breadcrumbed stuff), or chicken - and always with a heap of salad, fav' being spinach, iceburg lettuce, mountain of tomatoes, (walnuts and apples occasionally), and sometimes we have a spoon or 2 lentils or quinoa.

Saturday and Sunday involve eggs and lots of salad, chicken, steak, homemade burgers, fish, + I make a small loaf of wholemeal soda bread which I have a cpl of slices of each day (onky weekends).

Very rarely eat pasta or rice and we go through an absolute mountain of tomatoes, red onions, spinach, eggs, and iceburg lettuce every week, never eat pre packed chicken or fish, + we eat a ton of pepper sauce (homemade).

I drink a glass of Red Wine every day in the evening and on Friday and Saturday I have a full bottle to myself.
I drink about 2 litres of water minimum every day starting with a pint of iced water in the morning, hardly eat sweet/deserts, drink 2 x coffees (no sugar and skimmed milk) and 2 mugs of green tea each day.

I don't want to be a monk, but am open to suggestions as to improving any of the above.

Merci

OK, so a few comments from exercise coach specialising in body composition improvement:

Re training:
- I train my fat loss clients with weights exclusively, until they reach plateau. All respected coaches and mentors of mine say that you should be able to bring client to sub 10% body fat (ripped!) level, FAST just by weight training and good diet
- fast= or >1% bf loss a week
- 4 times a week, up to 60 mins at a time of intense training with weights is optimal. Ideally most exercises should be compound - say 3/4 of the session, 1/4 isolated stuff
- you can't out-train bad diet - just not possible

Re diet:
- the easiest and fastest (whilst healthy) way to lose body fat is to go no-starch. Paleo diet is the strictest form but at least just go no starch. Judging by your numbers, you're amongst (roughly) 75% of population that does better (for fat loss) on low-carb diet
- protein in every meal
- frequent feedings - once every 2.5-3.5 hours, can be snack or substitute meal - allow for stable blood sugar levels, portion control etc - hunger is the enemy, not food
- eat more cruciferous veggies
- iceberg lettuce is about as nutritious as cardboard
- quinoa is best of carbs but still counts as starchy carb - to be avoided for now or had for cheat meal
- skimmed milk is bollocks - go organic and full fat - goat's milk even better
- up your fats
- things that I see people do that can stop results completely (in no special order) - insufficient hydration, poor (quality or/and quantity) sleep, BOOZE
- red wine is best alcohol choice on fat loss program, but quantity must be limited - suggestion: best 2 glasses 1x a week, if hard, 2x a week but then not on consecutive days, something like Wed & Sat or Thu & Sun, anything more can stop results
- ^^same goes for cheat meals frequency have 1-2 cheat meals a week
- if craving are serious, the option is to have naughty foods immediately after workout - within 10 mins

That's off the top of my head.
Hope it helps.

Just a bit of an update for what it's worth.

Since your post I've dropped carbs to just from veg, some fruit, upped my protein/fat, have dropped my gym to 3 days a week with just the big 5 compound exercises + a long bike ride at the weekends.

I weighed myself this morning and am under 14 stone for the first time in 10+ years so have dropped a further 5+ lbs + am lifting more etc.

I am still enjoying a wine too.

I read the Gary Taubes book you recommended before also, fascinating stuff indeed, it all makes so much sense.

On a sidenote aswell and it may be coincidence but my missus has suffered with high blood pressure for years and she too is eating what I am now with no carbs and on Tuesday her blood pressure was normal for the first time in 10/15 years.

That's awesome to read. Serious congrats
Have to say a big shout-out to templeslave as well for being willing to give such good, constructive advice for free to help others