Just had a quick question and was wondering if anyone could possibly help me out? I realise it's not so much about weight loss but I don't know where else to ask! It's kinda about food and exercise so I thought I'd go with the exercise forum.

I lost alot of weight over the years and I'm now really quite skinny. I'm roughly 6'3 and weigh about 11 stone. I'm now attempting to get some definition and gain muscle but I was just wondering if I'm going about it correctly..

I eat an average amount of food but I make sure it's "healthy" stuff. Here's a typical day:

Breakfast - Fruit smoothie or porridge
Snack - 2 apples / pear etc..
Lunch - Sandwich + fruit piece
Snack - Some ham and fruit or something.
Dinner - Fish + Rice / Pasta etc.. just a "good" meal.

I got the weight training sorted. I'm just wondering if:

1. Am I eating enough?

2. Will I need any cardio? I already have a lowish body fat % from doing a lot of running over the years (probably around 14-15% or lower). Will I need to maintain a lot of regular exercise? Or will the gym / home workouts be enough? I am quite active during the day.

Thanks in advance!

Steve.

Hi Steve

You probably aren't eating enough. Muscle building is a very energetically costly endeavor. Have you tried inputting your food intake into something like FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal.

I'd be interested in seeing where the cals and macros fall.

How do you have your weight training set up?

Also, cardio is optional. However, I suggest at least a couple of low/moderate intensity sessions each week simply for general conditioning and cardiovascular health.

Here's a quick screen shot of my food today...

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/8612/foodsqg2.jpg

I don't think it's 100% correct because for main meal I had a mixture of pasta, vegetables and bacon - an option not listed heh.

Looking at it I don't think it's nearly enough calories but this is a lot for me...

At home I do the following exercises roughly 4-5 times a week:
~50 natural press ups
~30 diamond(?) press ups - with one hand on top of the other under my chest
~40 military(?) press ups - hands shoulder width apart

And for abs:
15 crunches i think they're called (sit up but not fully up) then hold the last for 15 seconds. I try to do 5 sets of these.
Holding sit up mid-position for 20 seconds, rest for 5, repeat for sets of 10.
Same as above but slightly slanted so I feel it in my sides.

I just started these exercises by myself so I'm not sure if they're totally effective. I can definitely notice the difference in my chest, shoulders and the sides of my chest (so much for technical terms...) already.

In the gym I do:
Set of 10 heavy weight bench presses
Pull downs x 20
Bicep curl x 15
Pectorals(?) x ~20 - Sat down, arm either side and pulling it together in front of me.

And repeat. These are pretty much as many reps as I can do. I'm not sure whether I want to go for low reps of heavy weight, or more reps of lighter weights, or even mix the two?

I realise my program is totally unprofessional, being devised by myself heh.

Any tips or advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Steve.

Definitely not enough cals if you are going to add any appreciable muscle.

I'd start with at least 18 calories per pound of body weight and that's probably not enough given your current build.

That said, this is all working under the assumption that you are training properly, which we'll discuss.

Mind you, you don't have to eat as much as I suggest all at once. Your metabolism is a very adaptive piece of machinery. Start adding food to your meal plan every week or two and your metabolism will adjust to make it more 'comfortable.'

You need more protein. I'd shoot for 1 gram per pound of body weight, assuming you are relatively lean. Add some protein at breakfast. Think eggs, cottage cheese, possibly a whey shake, etc.

Instead of a sandwich at lunch, you'd be better served eating a breast of chicken/turkey or the like. If it's a possibility, then I'd recommend pre-cooking it so you have a 'stash' of it to pick from for a few days before cooking in bulk and refrigerating again.

Overall, I'd change your snacks around a bit... get more nutritious with them. Add in some nuts here and there to get your essential fats in. More veggies. Definitely not enough veggies in the diet. I'm rambling here... but hopefully you catch my drift. I'm not a fan of giving specific nutrition advice over the web. I like to shed some light on the 'mentality' behind a proper diet and have you fill in the gaps with the foods you like.

In general:

Protein: Chicken, turkey, pork tenderloin, fish, lean ground beef and steak, eggs, cottage cheese, whey, etc.

Fats: Nuts, natural peanut butter, fish, fish oil pills, flax, extra virgin olive oil. avocados, etc.

Carbs: Whole wheat pasta/bread/wraps, yams, sweet potatoes, rice, old fashion oats

Fruit is great, but you need a lot more veggies in there. If you have trouble getting enough veggies in, you might want to try a 'veggie supplement.' Something like Greens+ or the like.


What are natural press ups? Do you mean push ups?

How do you do your military "press ups?"

A whole lot of upper body pressing and no pulling = unbalanced = trouble down the road.

Also, if you go to a gym, why do you do all these calisthenics from home?

Meh. I wouldn't be wasting my time on this. A handful of weighted crunches a couple of times per week will suffice.

Honestly, I'd ditch the crap you are doing at home and throw this routine that you do in the gym out. You should be training your legs. Why aren't you?

I certainly don't want to simply throw what you are doing out like it was garbage. However, from my perspective, it is far from optimal. If you'd like some suggestions on what I'd do to improve the routine, great. If not, that's fine too.

If you do, how many days per week can you get into the gym? How much time can you allot to training?

Ideally, you can make the gym 3 days per week for 45-60 minutes of resistance training.

Depending on what you define as low and high reps, I'd answer this question by suggesting a mixture of the two.

However, I like the base of my routines to be based around low/moderate rep ranges.

Thanks a lot for the response.
I'm currently still at school so getting to the gym is sometimes a bit of a mission but I could fit in the 3 x 60 mins after school quite easily.
I do the stuff at home because I haven't had much fancy for the gym recently - I realise now though if I'm serious about this it's worth taking that time after school.
The reason I haven't been working my legs is because over the past few years I've been doing a lot of cycling and intensive running so assumed I'd be keeping the legs strengthened. I'll be honest, now I've lowered the amount of running/cycling I completely forgot about legs.
Thanks for all the advice I'm going to attempt to shift my routine to a more balanced one.
I'll keep this post updated!

Thanks again steve for taking the time!

I suggest reading (warning: it's long) the thread I created which was sticked titled "the basic lifts."