Myths You can't gain muscle mass and lose fat at the same time. Your dieting should consist of a bulking period and a cutting period. Too much exercise and not enough food can work against you if you are trying to lose weight. Cutting periods should be balanced with Maintenance periods in an effort to keep your BMR at it's appropriate level. Spot-reduction is false. You cannot work out your abs to lose belly fat. Fat is lost in specific areas first, based on genetics including gender. The burn does not mean that you are doing anything right, nor that you are doing anything wrong. The burn is a lactic acid fermentation caused when your body converts glucose or glycogen in muscles into energy without oxygen. Fat is not inherently bad for you. Carbs are not inherently bad for you. Sugar is not inherently bad for you. In fact, your body likes all three. Basal Metabolic Rate Your body uses a certain amount of calories based on how much mass you have. This, combined with your basic bodily functions at rest is called your BMR(Basal Metabolic Rate). Find Your BMR and your Maintenance caloric intake (how many calories you need to maintain your body weight). This will seem like a lot of food; your BMR is likely not working at full capacity. Make sure you keep up with your BMR as you gain mass. It will raise as your weight raises. If you want to stay a certain size (woman), once you get to that size, stay at that maintenance caloric intake designated for that specific weight. Bulking Add 500 calories to your Maintenance for a clean bulk (a bulk in which very little fat is gained). Yes, this is probably going to seem like an abnormally high amount of food. Everyone goes through this. You will probably have to stretch out your meals better. If you are doing extra cardio, make sure that it is added into your BMR calculation. Cardio during a bulk helps to strengthen your heart, diaphragm, lungs, and circulatory system, but calories must be added to account for this extra exercise, otherwise you will no longer be in a bulking phase. I believe workouts that include your whole body make for the strongest person as well as the best sculpted body. These workouts include the 4/5 core exercises (Squat, Deadlift, Bench, and Military and Row). Ultimately, it is your decision, I am not the sculptor of your body. Some bulk workouts that I use personally are 5x5 and 5/3/1. It is good to switch up your routine every once in a while. This makes it so your muscles and central nervous system don't get used to the routine. This can be as simple as changing the days of your workouts. Don't overwork. Beginners will be able to gain strength while overworking, but this may lead to injury. Once you get to an intermediate phase (1-1.5 years later) you will need to start incorporating deloading phases into your workout regime (a week of extremely light training). This is actually included in the 5/3/1 workout. Try to use proper form. This is difficult without a spotter, but without proper form you are not using the proper muscles and it will result in less strength gaining in certain areas and will hurt your personal records. Improper form can also lead to injuries. Alcohol slows down or delays muscle recovery depending on how much you drink. As long as you are getting the right amount of protein and calories a day, alcohol every now and then isn't that big of a deal. Cutting Subtract 500 calories from your Maintenance for a healthy cut (one in which little muscle is lost). If you are obese you can do this for lengthy periods of time (months) and not lower your BMR much; you can also subtract up to 1000 calories from your Maintenance. If you are under 18% body fat, you should not cut for more than a couple weeks; this will lower your BMR and make it harder for you to lose weight while also making you feel drowsy and less powerful (both mentally and physically). There is a method of cutting where you drop down to an all protein diet (consisting of about 1200 calories a day), but this should only be done for a week, maximum, because your BMR lowers significantly during this time. I would actually recommend incrementing your diet down to 1200 during this week (Ie. Monday at 1700, Wednesday at 1500, Friday at 1300, Sunday at 1200), to keep your BMR high during the whole week). The week after you should return to your Maintenance caloric intake, and repeat if necessary. Though, it is unclear to me whether this method is more efficient than simply dropping a few hundred calories for a few weeks at a time. During cuts, always maintain your lifts in order to retain your muscle mass. It is possible to get stronger during a cut but you will not gain muscle mass. Some speculate this is because of a strengthening of your central nervous system or better training your muscles to work together. Too much exercise and not enough food can work against you if you are trying to lose weight. Cutting periods should be balanced with Maintenance periods in an effort to keep your BMR at it's appropriate level. (This bears repeating.) Nutrition You should be taking in your body weight (perhaps body weight and a half) in grams of protein a day. More than this will probably just cause you to stank-fart frequently. Protein burns 30% of its calories digesting. The rest of your calories can come from anywhere, including sugar (see provision below). Fat is not inherently bad for you. Carbs are not inherently bad for you. Sugar is not inherently bad for you. In fact, your body likes all three. There are many essential fats, found mainly in fish. If you want to avoid mercury, take fish oil as a supplement. A large amount of fat in one sitting makes you tired. Fats make up a large portion of every one of our cells. They are not just for storage. Carbs help you retain energy throughout the day. Especially slow-burning long-chain carbs like Oats. Carbs are made up of sugars. Longer chains take longer to process, allowing for incremental energy. Glucose is the direct source of energy for our body. Sugars metabolize right away because they don't have to be broken up. This causes a perceptive dramatic spike in energy and a crash. During the crash, you may think you need to eat more (or perhaps you will, because during your spike you actually used more energy). This can lead to overeating. Fructose (one half of sucrose), much like alcohol, actually metabolizes in your liver, leaving behind fatty acids that can be damaging later on in life; you will likely not eat enough fruit to have this damaging effect, though high-fructose corn syrup and table sugar are often overused. Glucose metabolizes through glycolysis directly in each of your cells. Sugar can be eaten directly after a workout to help restore glycogen. You don't have to give up McDonalds (or any other "treat"). In fact, I would discourage it, because if you don't like your diet you are less likely to stick to it. Just make sure to hit your protein intake for whatever you are striving for, and keep the rest of your calories in check. Eventually, you will get a feel of counting calories and will no longer really need to. Some foods good for bulking and cutting: eggs, chicken, fish, oats, yogurt, cottage cheese, deli meats,
I understand that this is basic and all, but I have to point out some things I disagree on: Disagree with this from a personal standpoint. I personally disagree quite strongly about that whole argument that "well I can eat this garbage food because I'm fitting it within the parameters of my macronutrient intake." If you're trying to eat and live healthy, why further encourage your body's already-existent pangs for food that is bad for you (sticking with the McDonalds idea) when you could go cold-turkey, deal with the pangs for a week or so, and then no longer be forced to mentally acquiesce to your food choices? I might be jumping the gun here, but when you say "during a cut you will not gain muscle mass" are you also trying to say that it's inherently impossible to do so? If so, I'm going to have to disagree with such a statement. Lastly, I would add in the explanation that BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate.
You also have said that you can't seem to get rid of that spare tire. I never said the stuff was good for you. I never said it was bad for you. Really, either statement would be quite ridiculous because there is no research on either side. McDonalds isn't inherently bad for you unless you overeat it or eat too much of the wrong things. Granted it doesn't have as much of the micro-nutrients. Like I said though, I still consider it a treat that should be utilized as such. I'm never going to give up fast-food entirely. It's convenient, and it tastes good, and there is nothing to suggest it is inherently bad for you if you eat it in moderation. This only occurs in obese people and people who were previously fit but now out-of-shape. Adding Muscle While Losing Fat - Q&A | BodyRecomposition - The Home of Lyle McDonald Furthermore peoples diets are constantly fucked up because they try this sort of thing when in reality they could have done much better on a bulk/cut cycle. I guess a definition isn't enough for you?
Funny what a good cutting stack will do for that. That's fine. I'm not saying it's inherently bad for you (although I refuse to eat it) but I am saying that it isn't good for you. Not when you explain what something is in its' entirety and leave out what the abbreviation you're using for the thing itself stands for, no.
You're seriously going to sit here and preach about how McDonalds isn't good for you and then recommend cutting stacks?
No, I stated that it worked. For me. That doesn't implicitly correlate to my advocation of it for everyone and anyone. You were pointing out that I had issues with getting my bf% down to my ideal one as a means of refuting my disagreement with your statement. All I was attempting to do with that post was provide some constructive criticism to an otherwise very solid post and state my personal disagreement of a couple statements made. I don't see why you want to devolve this into an argument over the merits/demerits of eating McDonald's sporadically over a long period of time vs. taking a thermogenic daily for a short period of time.
Even if it's just a statement for yourself, you are still advocating it by describing its effectiveness. You say that you personally don't eat McDonald's and say that it isn't good for you, while also saying that you use cutting stacks. And if you advocate for thermogenic drugs for cutting, I doubt it is a one-time thing. Anyways, no worries. I just thought it was kind of ridiculous.
A general guide to nutrition? I wouldn't recommend following an unnecessary over-eating culture, a.k.a. bulking, to any human being. No, you shouldn't. That's way too much protein for your body to absorb, and in return all you're going to accomplish is stressing out your kidneys. Mainly in fish? Yeah nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, coconuts, legumes are all barren of essential fats. *rolls eyes* Not only that, but if environmentalist and nutritionist recommend not consuming fish more than once a week because of the high amount of metals, especially mercury, (meaning eating seafood twice in a week is dangerous), then fish would be a horrible way of consuming your essential fats. Seventy-five percent of the world is lactose intolerant. The other twenty-five can get away with not experiencing bloating, excess gas, and etc. from a small amount of dairy. Nonetheless, dairy is not something our digestive system enjoys; therefore humans operate more efficient without the consumption of dairy, meaning it would not be recommended for any circumstance from a sport-nutritional standpoint. Not trying to be rude or anything, but this is not a well-developed general guide. I just don't want someone that is completely oblivious to the topic to come in here and to soak this in as if this is the best way of perceiving nutrition.
If you don't bulk, you won't gain weight. 1 gram per pound of body weight is the recommended and accepted amount for a person who is weightlifting. Plants only contain ALA, which has not been shown to have the same benefits as EPA and DHA. If you want to avoid mercury, then take a fish oil supplement. Your statistic includes those who get the bloating/gas/etc from dairy. So the other 25% have no problems absorbing lactose at all. Please let me see your source on where humans operate more efficiently without consuming dairy. Anyway, there were only two dairy products on my list.
Why would you want to gain weight? If you want, you can strive to gain muscle, but at the maximum of one pound of muscle per month; very maximum. So assuming you don't want to burn any of your stored fat in your body (which I don't see why you wouldn't want to), then that's an additional 3,500 calories in a month, or a little over 100 calories a day; not 500 calories. There's no need for that. Who recommends that? Body builders? Oh yeah I forgot they need a Ph.D. in Nutrition to post blogs and write articles in magazines. Funny how professional athletes don't need that much but an average gym rat does. No problems? Ok go drink half a gallon of milk and let me know how it goes. Or you can put your words into action and drink a gallon of milk for breakfast. Keep us updated.
Again I'm not trying to attack you; you were misinformed and it's not your fault. I just don't want this misinformation to spread any more than it has.
What is your height/weight and lifting stats? Because based on your arrogant attitude you must be a beast in the gym, I doubt it though.
8'13" 390lbs. Squatting 1440lbs. @ 12 reps. But yeah I guess how tall I am reflects how educated I am. Maybe if I take steroids everyone will believe I know all the facts about nutrition. Do you realize the lack of logic in your perception of life? Rhetorical question; of course you don't. You're questioning my credentials by asking how much mass my human body is composed of.
Height/weight is very important for judging somebody's lifts. But of course you didn't post them because they would discredit your "knowledge" of health and fitness. I'm guessing you're one of those personal trainers who doesn't even look like he works out.
I thought we were talking about the information that he provided; not my lifts? You're the one that brought up how much weight I can move... for what reason I do not know. Maybe my goals are to NOT look like a meat-head freak with c-cup bitch tits? I prefer a functional workout; I don't use any machines or even benches. I use weights and gravity. My main goal is to stay lean for the ladies and keep my heart healthy so that I can give back to mother earth as many years as I can. Great way to dodge the topic of my credentials though. Show me yours and then I'll continue talking to you. But if you're still butthurt because the logic that I used blew yours out of the water, then your stubborn ignorance is your problem to deal with and not mine. It is, not to worry. Unless you're on steroids, it is impossible for your body to absorb all of it.
Exactly. So your advice for people trying to gain mass and increase strength is useless because you just admitted you have no experience doing it yourself. Have fun being "toned."
You have just revealed that you know absolutely nothing about weightlifting and the nutrition involved in it. I've been eating like this for 1-2 years and barely gained any fat at all; that's why it's called a clean bulk. Is Vanderbilt University good enough for you? http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/Protein.htm "Both of the studies show support for the belief that increased protein in the diet can help increase muscle mass, but it should be noted that these effects were found with a combination of intake and training. These two studies further indicated that a protein intake of about 1.7 - 1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, when combined with weight training will enhance muscle development compared with similar training with an intake of 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day" Eating any one source in a sitting would be tough. Besides this, your stomach can't hold a gallon. I'd throw up drinking a gallon of anything. Nice strawman though. If I spaced a gallon of milk out over the course of the day, I would not have any problems at all. I wouldn't do that though, because that would be too much sugar for my diet. I limit sugar, no matter the source.