Getting into shape.

[Zman007 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Zman007]

Eat less. Move more.

Your lifestyle needs to change.

Eat real food: fruits, veggies, lean meats, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, and low fat dairy. Make moderate reductions to your daily caloric consumption and monitor your weight. You want to see it go down about 1-2 lbs per week.

Move more. Work will help. Cardiovascular exercise is a must, aim for 30-45 minutest off moderate aerobic exercise on at least 4-5 days of the week. Your bodyweight routine is rather pointless. Invest in a gym if you can. Otherwise drop the bodyweight squats for squat jumps. Pushups are fine, if you can do more than 30 at a time do explosive pushups. Find a way to do chinups or bodyweight rows to preserve balance in you shoulders. Raise the intensity of your ab work. 5 sets to fatigue and technical failure for each exercise, more is not always better. Shouldn't take more than 20minutes. Ignore bigmoes advice about avoiding failure, it's faulty advice inmost cases and less than optimal at best. Oh, don't forget to bust your ass, intensity and consistency are the biggestfactors affecting success.

[ManWithPlan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close ManWithPlan]

Regarding the HCG stuff, I'd rather not mess with it. I don't want pregnant woman's hormone inside me

Granted I don't know much about hormones and nutrition, but I recommend anyone to stay away from stuff like that.

To me, it sounds like playing russian roulette with your health.

[bigmoe5067 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bigmoe5067]

dont listen to someone who doesnt know what they are talking about.

A) avoid dairy at all costs.
B) why are you telling someone who is struggling with fatigue so increase his workout intensity? makes zero sense. this guy isnt ready for it. he should be doing whole body workouts 3 days a week and cardio 3 days a week.

this guy isnt training to be an athlete. he is trying to get into better shape. suggest something thats within his scope of reality. he will be ready for actual intense exercise in 2 months from now.

i train people, and unless training a conditioned athlete i was taught to work people at submax to acclimate to training before pushing to failure. also submaximal progressive training is the best type of training for busy people, or athletes whom are still spending 3-4 days a week dedicating time to their sport injuries and fatigue are the biggest pre-determinants of someone not finishing a program. especially someone who doesnt have access to adequate nutrition. this guy is already struggling with soreness and fatigue at his job.

[bigmoe5067 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bigmoe5067]

i would say keep the body weight squats, and focus on power as opposed repetition, but decrease what you have their significantly. add jump squats, and split squats to your routine. power and balance do everyone some good.

split your core routine up into 4 exercise ( crunches, leg lifts, side bends, and russian twists or some variation of a russian twist) do them in a circuit. and do 3-4 circuits.

do you pushups in a 2-1-4 fashion to keep your shoulders strong. 2 seconds up, hold one second, 4 seconds back to starting position.

the biggest factors affecting success are avoiding injury/ consistency, tracking your progress and adding more intensity to each subsequent workout, and form....intensity will come as you get acclimated to training. as you add intensity to your workouts, eventually you will go to failure, and at that point your body will be able to recover from it by the next training session, with limited fatigue/soreness

[bigmoe5067 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bigmoe5067]

pain does not equal gain, remember that....if you push it too hard to failure, and you are excessively sore the next day, you incurred muscle damage. the amount of catabolism incurred was more than the anabolism of your body could build back up that night/next day. as you train more, it takes much more work to create that much catabolism. always ALWAYS avoid training to the point of soreness that affects daily living. that is a sign of overtraining.

dont ever listen to anyone suggesting that someone of your size and fitness level who just started training to increase the intensity of your workouts. they are going to get you hurt. start small and make progress

[Dontrike Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dontrike]

Well first let's not try to argue. Definitely don't need this thread closed.

Eat less. Move more.

Your lifestyle needs to change.

Eat real food: fruits, veggies, lean meats, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, and low fat dairy. Make moderate reductions to your daily caloric consumption and monitor your weight. You want to see it go down about 1-2 lbs per week.

Move more. Work will help. Cardiovascular exercise is a must, aim for 30-45 minutest off moderate aerobic exercise on at least 4-5 days of the week. Your bodyweight routine is rather pointless. Invest in a gym if you can. Otherwise drop the bodyweight squats for squat jumps. Pushups are fine, if you can do more than 30 at a time do explosive pushups. Find a way to do chinups or bodyweight rows to preserve balance in you shoulders. Raise the intensity of your ab work. 5 sets to fatigue and technical failure for each exercise, more is not always better. Shouldn't take more than 20minutes. Ignore bigmoes advice about avoiding failure, it's faulty advice inmost cases and less than optimal at best. Oh, don't forget to bust your ass, intensity and consistency are the biggestfactors affecting success.

I will agree that things definitely need to change. I don't have the funds for a gym membership currently and my home definitely isn't made for jumping as I almost hit my head on the ceiling as is in my work out area.

I have been watching what goes inside of me, although I can't monitor my weight at all, (I don't even truly know what I weigh now) I need to pick up a scale.

Regarding the HCG stuff, I'd rather not mess with it. I don't want pregnant woman's hormone inside me

Granted I don't know much about hormones and nutrition, but I recommend anyone to stay away from stuff like that.

To me, it sounds like playing russian roulette with your health.

I definitely don't want to be messing with something advanced like that to start out with.

dont listen to someone who doesnt know what they are talking about.

A) avoid dairy at all costs.

Is dairy really that bad? Normally I have the normal amount for a bowl of cereal, a couple slices of cheese with a sandwich, but overall my dairy consumption isn't normally high anyway.

i would say keep the body weight squats, and focus on power as opposed repetition, but decrease what you have their significantly. add jump squats, and split squats to your routine. power and balance do everyone some good.

split your core routine up into 4 exercise ( crunches, leg lifts, side bends, and russian twists or some variation of a russian twist) do them in a circuit. and do 3-4 circuits.

do you pushups in a 2-1-4 fashion to keep your shoulders strong. 2 seconds up, hold one second, 4 seconds back to starting position.

the biggest factors affecting success are avoiding injury/ consistency, tracking your progress and adding more intensity to each subsequent workout, and form....intensity will come as you get acclimated to training. as you add intensity to your workouts, eventually you will go to failure, and at that point your body will be able to recover from it by the next training session, with limited fatigue/soreness

For something like bodyweight squats, or any exercise for that matter, what is power? As for jump squats I really don't have any places inside without hitting my head.

That does make sense. I tend to take things a bit far some times and end up really hurting for a little too long and working up is definitely the way to go to begin with for me.

I haven't done what I first posted in quite some time, about 2 months because of my break up mostly. I will admit that they routine wasn't doing much, it did something, but it should have done a little more if I was doing everything correctly.

pain does not equal gain, remember that....if you push it too hard to failure, and you are excessively sore the next day, you incurred muscle damage. the amount of catabolism incurred was more than the anabolism of your body could build back up that night/next day. as you train more, it takes much more work to create that much catabolism. always ALWAYS avoid training to the point of soreness that affects daily living. that is a sign of overtraining.

dont ever listen to anyone suggesting that someone of your size and fitness level who just started training to increase the intensity of your workouts. they are going to get you hurt. start small and make progress

Maybe that was some of my problem here. I usually tried to go the point of exhaustion.

Thanks for the input. I definitely have a lot to consider.

[bigmoe5067 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bigmoe5067]

health is not a race. the is no fowl is taking the long road. and if it were a race, so goes the old adage "slow and steady wins the race"

remember that when you train, it isnt just your muscles being trained. blood vessels are growing, nerves are growing, but more importantly your bones, ligaments and tendons are getting thicker. early on after a few weeks of training your muscles might think they are ready, but it doesnt mean the bones, tendons, and ligaments are ready for the intense stress you are going to put on them. building joint strength comes slow in the first month or two of training. prep them first and you will be ready to handle intense exercise later with much less risk of an injury that will only impede your progress.

i used to take steroids years ago when i was young, stupid and full of ignorance. testosterone propinate specifically. i put on so much mass so fast. and was increasing my lifts so fast. then one day i was shrugging and i tore the connective tissue that connected my levator scapulae to my scapula. my connective tissue wasnt ready for the weight my traps could handle. one of the worst moments of my life. it was also the defining moment on how i percieved my physique, and its relation to my health....my main point. let progress happen, dont push for it

[Dontrike Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dontrike]

It definitely is not a race, but like everyone else I do tend to get inpatient, even when I am normally a super patient person.

I have noticed a bit of a change in my stomach, it feels like there is less there and I could swear that it looks a little thinner in one spot. While last night I didn't have the best choice for a mid night snack for two different reasons I know it was one of those slip ups that tend to happen. Watching what I eat has been much easier than I thought, even though it is still a little difficult for true healthy food in the house.

The weather really needs to get better over here. Mid 40s with the wind coming off of Lake Erie only makes it colder. Maybe when it picks up later this week I can start biking again. I will need to get used to work and today I am surprisingly not sore considering how bad yesterday was for me.

One question. This happens to me when I am walking/standing for long periods of time and I stand the wrong way it feels like my leg pushing up into my pelvis and it is quite a bit of discomfort for a moment until I can figure out how to stand so it doesn't happen. This isn't normal or good is it?

[Zman007 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Zman007]

dont listen to someone who doesnt know what they are talking about.

A) avoid dairy at all costs.
B) why are you telling someone who is struggling with fatigue so increase his workout intensity? makes zero sense. this guy isnt ready for it. he should be doing whole body workouts 3 days a week and cardio 3 days a week.

this guy isnt training to be an athlete. he is trying to get into better shape. suggest something thats within his scope of reality. he will be ready for actual intense exercise in 2 months from now.

i train people, and unless training a conditioned athlete i was taught to work people at submax to acclimate to training before pushing to failure. also submaximal progressive training is the best type of training for busy people, or athletes whom are still spending 3-4 days a week dedicating time to their sport injuries and fatigue are the biggest pre-determinants of someone not finishing a program. especially someone who doesnt have access to adequate nutrition. this guy is already struggling with soreness and fatigue at his job.

You really get off on turning things into a giant pissing contest where you can demonstrate your obviously superior intellect. Unfortunately, I'm going to humor you just this once.

A. Avoiding diary at all costs, guess I should run out and tell those people I know with PhDs in Nutrition that they are wrong based upon your word. Facts. Dairy, especially low fat diary is nutritionally dense and can easily have a place in most peoples diets barring lactose intolerance. It is a sign of the misguided to recommend the exclusion of an entire nutritious food group.

B. I told him to up his intensity and greatly decrease his overall volume. You do make a valid point, in my rush of a post I did forget to mention that his strength based workouts should only be 3 times a week.

My recommendations are within his scope of reality. I have 50+ yr old female non athletes who train in a similar fashion. He is young and can handle it. He has many lifestyle related issues. My recommendations were also aimed at streamlining his workouts to help alleviate his time crunch.

I train the people who train people in addition to my own clients. And its not my job to get through school, its my career. You make topics black and white. They aren't. He is much more likely to suffer overuse injuries following his current routine than getting injured following my recommendations. His job fatigue and soreness are multifaceted problems. Again oversimplification.

Your focus on power as opposed to repetition is what I just said in your words. Clever. Even the addition of jump squats.

Your core routine neglects the transverse abdominal and is likely to lead to a core imbalance. Try some planks or other "inner" abdominal exercises.

Push ups alone won't protect the shoulders. You have to have a semblance of push/pull balance meaning there should be some rows or pull up/chin up type exercises in there. I've personally dealth with enough people that have required serious overhauls after a stint in the army. If you want me to my arrogant voice I'd say you need to balance scapula adduction and abduction across your routine to maintain shoulder health. A routine without adduction leads to a condition/imbalance known as protracted scapula.

Your catabolsm/anabolism explanation is simplistic and not correct. You can train and get sore, its perfectly acceptable and expected to a certain degree. The only way he is possibly training to a level of soreness that affects daily living is though too much volume. Something that has already been addressed.

Don't listen to either of us since we both know everything and told you to increase your intensity. Errr....

bigmoe is right. Health is not a race. But, you are young and have a head start. Don't screw it up.

[Zman007 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Zman007]

One question. This happens to me when I am walking/standing for long periods of time and I stand the wrong way it feels like my leg pushing up into my pelvis and it is quite a bit of discomfort for a moment until I can figure out how to stand so it doesn't happen. This isn't normal or good is it?

Great job on making progress so far. Keep it up!

About your hip. It sounds like you have some internal hip issues, maybe a medial glute issue. There are a lot of possibilities which make it very difficult to give you any definitive answers. You could add some lying lateral leg raises to your routine to help strength your med glute. I would also back off on the number of bodyweight squats you are doing which has already been suggested.

Is it when your hip seems to lean off to one side?

If this issue continues to bother you it would be a good idea to have it checked out.

[Dontrike Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dontrike]

I haven't done the crunch/squat/push up routine in quite some time, but I can definitely decrease them, well at least the crunches and squats, was only doing a couple dozen push ups before.

The hip thing doesn't feel like it moves off to the side, but more like my leg actually goes into my pelvis as if it is being pushed in, normally if I start to put my weight on that leg more often then I should, but of course only when I walk or stand for too long with little rest.

I will definitely start taking my breaks more now and I bet in time I will get used to it much like I did with my first job and that was me just standing in the same spot flipping burgers for 4-10 hours with plenty of walking and lifting thrown in on the side.

[thatguy88 Member Find all posts View Profile Close thatguy88]

B) why are you telling someone who is struggling with fatigue so increase his workout intensity? makes zero sense. this guy isnt ready for it. he should be doing whole body workouts 3 days a week and cardio 3 days a week.

So how are you supposed to increase your stamina if you fatigue easily? You go at slower rates for the 30-45 minutes a day. No, you don't exercise your "whole body" 3 days a week. You alternate parts of your body in which you excercise with rep max's every 72 hours (recovery time for muscles). You do Cardio every day, 5 days of the week, at a different rate. None of us are telling him to sprint for 45 minutes. That would be dumb.

SOURCE: Several Health and Wellness classes.

[bigmoe5067 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bigmoe5067]

alternating body parts wont help him build stamina faster on its own. our lactate threshold doesnt quite work that way. what your suggesting is great for someone trying to add muscle, not build health. whole body exercises are ideal for beginner training....baby steps. this way he gets used to his workouts while saving large quantities of energy for his cardio.

at Zman, everything other than your assumption about milk i agree with. im in nutritional research, actually logging data now on vitamin D levels in wetsern new york in relation to the areas UV index over, charting how they change over a years time. milk is nutrient dense on a macro level. too bad we usually arent looking for macro nutrient density in our food. ideal foods are micro dense and calorically light. not to mention its the milk of another animal, and a single cup a day over a lifespan increases your risk of colon cancer upwards of 20%, and can be linked to some diseases like asthma. oh, and it has been proven to remove calcium from your bones, not add to it. dairy should not be a food group PERIOD

but besides that i agree. i assumed you were some guy telling a random person to step it up, not considering his massive size and current fitness level. thats how people get hurt. the main thing i dont want to see

as for his shoulders, without weights or access to a gym, its going to be hard to a way to balance his shoulders. i dont see how body weight rows would help that much. the eccentric based pushups were a quick fix.

your tranverse dont necessarily need training. they spend so much time stabilizing internal pressures throughout other exercises alone.

the cata/ana was just trying to at its most simplest explain why he shouldnt train to extreme soreness, and i still dont believe you ever need to train beyond mild soreness. when your ready to handle hard training, you are never more than mildly sore. its more of a continously fatigued feel.


i will say i was expecting an idiot response but other than your assumptions on dairy, i dont have much of a rebuttle. we seem to agree but our gameplans are still very much different. unless your an athlete i start you as slow as possible. so i will concede to you since you are in a sense "higher up" on the exercise physio food chain. i train people because getting an exercise physio BA first was the easiest means of getting into my nutrition program without becoming a dietician first. Its a joint BS/Ms program.

i guess if we are listing sources- Bachelor of health and wellness, Bachelor of exercise physiology, current grad student in Nutritional Research.

[bigmoe5067 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bigmoe5067]

Back to Dairy as i think people should know
- there is a strong association between lactose and ischemic heart disease
- there is a strong association between dairy and bladder, prostate, colorectal, and testicular cancers
- dairy fat is the primary source of exposure to dioxin, a higher up on the EPA's known cancer causer list.
- cheese increases acidity, which aids in calcium removal
-one study showed that 2.5 servings of dairy a day increases prostate cancer risk by 30%
- dairy protein increases IGF-1, which people like because it stimulates growth. it also stimulates growth of cancer cells, specifically in the prostate
- high lactose consumption increases the risk of ovarian cancer by nearly 40%

the problem is low fat milks are lactose heavy, whish has a variety of health implications. high fat milk has less lactose but dairy fat has its own just as negative health implications.

more people too are lactose intolerant than we realize. the symptoms are just so mild that we assume, fatigue, upset stomache, elevating allergic responses and other mild symptoms are coming from another source.

and as for calcium as a source, milk isnt even a good one. per 100 calories milk has 189mg of calcium. thats excluding how skewed the number really is considering how poorly absorpable milk calcium is. bok choy however, has 775 mg of calcium per 100 calories. collard greens had 539mg.

lets just say, cow milk was meant for baby cows
-

[vulcan Retired ModeratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close vulcan]

^ This doesn't bode well, I have always drunk a lot of milk.

I might cut down to just having it in coffee only.