*** The 2019 Gym Rats Thread ***

Soldato
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How would i go about making a pre prepared afternoon meal that can be reheated in microwave all in one?

So for example a chicken breast (spicy coating eg cajun or with some chillies added), a portion of plain rice or pasta, and a portion of brocoli. All in one plastic microwavable container that i can keep 5 of in the fridge for a week and just pick one out every day to take to work. Would that work?

A chicken breast is only about 150 calories. a portion of rice or pasta about 200 calories and not much from the veg. I somehow need to double that amount.
 
Soldato
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chicken and avocado's a good mix (maybe not cajun) gives you some good fats and calories.

the prep'd food book Somnambulist suggest, or other online guides, everything under 'food prepper' header will be easily microwaved
 
Soldato
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Ive just worked out one day's meal plan as follows. Does this look reasonable?

What i now need to do is have a bit of a list of evening meals that i can switch in and out. The breakfast and daytime meals will stay roughly the same.

Breakfast.
4 boiled eggs - 280 calories
1 pint milk - 370
total 650.

lunch
sandwich - 400
crisps - 130
drink - 70
chocolate bar - 210
total 810

4pm
chicken breast - 150
rice - 200
brocoli - 30
total 380

evening meal
2 jacket potaoes - 370
1 tin stewed steak - 590
brocoli - 30
1 pint milk - 370
total 1360

grand total 3200
 
Soldato
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Edit: drafted before your post above was made....dude don't say you want to do more prep and getting cals from real food and then throw a plan out with loads of milk and daily chocolate bars...

@danlightbulb Time to be honest with yourself and it seems like you already understand this, you need to get over your fussy eating, you are an adult and you know you have issues with food, the only way to address them is to push the boundaries.

Regardless of pushing boundaries or not you need to plan ahead, you need to plan out healthier snacks, better meals etc. From a cost and calorie benefit this is very important.

Why is 3200 cals your target? Whats your BMR, your TDEE, BMI, age, etc do you know your numbers? 3.2k is a lot, and as you said you previously did this and aimed for high cals and got podgy. Eating the same high cals but being cleaner doing it isn't going to stop you getting podgy, you clearly were eating much more then you needed to.

On to the thoughts on your day.

Breakfast
An important step would be making time for breakfast, you only need 5 minutes, if you don't think you can do that then you're going to struggle sticking to anything diet related.
Your breakfast goals of 700 cals for breakfast, half of it from milk means you need to be drinking 750ml of semi skimmed.....or 530ml whole milk, you need to seriously stop being lazy here.

300ml Milk (used whole milk)
100g porridge oats
Stick probably 200ml of the milk + the oats in the microwave for 90sec - 120sec
30g scoop of whey protein mixed with a little water, just enough to make it pourable, throw that in to the porridge when its done in the microwave.
Throw a handful of frozen blueberries on top (or frozen mixed fruit) to help cool it down and making it quicker to eat and you when up with:

Protein: 45g
Carbs: 80g
Fats: 20g
Total Cals: 693

Lunch+Snack
My lunches are prepped on a sunday night, takes me 45 mins start to finish, and most of this is sat watching tv waiting for stuff to cook. Chicken in oven, rice in rice cooker, come back after 35-40 mins, server up, done. I use the cooking juices from the chicken and olive oil to help add flavour to the rice as well just to keep things interesting.

My daily food at work costs £1.75 per day and is the following breakdown:

200g chicken (cooked weight, batch 1.5kg frozen chicken for this) throw on Nandos medium sauce and mixed herbs.
50g rice (dry weight, batch 275g for the week just for ease, and use a rice cooker)
10g olive oil
300 ml cranberry juice
25g nuts (yes I know you don't like nuts but see below)

Protein: 53g
Carbs: 61g
Fats: 28g
Total Cals: 710

Im really sorry but here is where i get really annoying. I just cant stand nuts. Ive tried to eat them on a few occasions previously and i just cant stand the taste of them. I also dont like peanut butter or nutty spreads for the same reason.
Yes I know I have nuts in my snack but have you considered peanut butter + chocolate spread combo on wholemeal bread. I don't like peanut butter but this goes down a treat! go figure.

Switch the nuts for the PB+Choc spread (15g of each) and your lunch + snack profile will look as follows:

Protein: 56g
Carbs: 83g
Fats: 29g
Total Cals: 821


Dinner
Your evening meal plans just sound lazy and way over 1k cals, this does depend on portion sizing but again a little planning and portion sizing goes a long way.
Heres some examples of the evening meals I have and none of them take longer then 20 mins of prep/attention to make.

Spaghetti Bolognese + sprinkling of cheese: 150g lean mince, 75g dry weight spaghetti, 150g Sauce, 20g Cheese
Total Cals: 715cals

Sweet + Sour Chicken: 200g Chicken, 50g dry weight rice, 200g Sauce
Total Cals: 620

Sausage Mash and Beans: 3 sausages, 200g mash potato, Baked beans, 20g cheese
Total Cals: 820

We often have slow cooked casseroles, meatballs, etc keeping the portions roughly similar a lot of stuff comes out around the same cal values so you can just at a small amount of extra carbs or meat and you will be getting close to your 1k cals target without a huge glass or milk or desert!

Veg on any of these meals is not counted towards cals and we try to add colour to everything, even if its just a side portion, so do the same.

Not including any extras just the breakfast, lunch, dinner posted above gets you to 2.2k cals

Extras:
Protein shakes, 1 before bed, and on training days 1 intra and 1 post workout. 400+ cals, remember you don't need the same cals on a non training day to a training day.
For anything to increase your cals you just need to up the portion size.
go from 15g to 25g for the spreads on your snack and you add 130 cals
increase rice portion from 50g to 75g and you add 90 cals per portion
if you like the snack have 2 of them, 265-380 cals extra depending on spread amounts
increase meat portion of dinner by 50g, 50-75 cals extra.
 
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Soldato
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I would eat a bit cleaner. That doesn't mean chicken breast, brown rice and broccoli every day - just dropping daily plan of ready meals, crisps and chocolate.

Get those mega tubs of Ainsley spice sensation couscous. Portion of that with half a tin of beans/chick peas mixed in, table spoon of olive oil and some chicken + veg of choice.

Super easy quick lunch you can heat in microwave at work. 600-700 calories and done.

If you are not concerned about keeping it super lean, drop the chicken breast for thigh/legs.

What are your goals and where are you at now?

Any reason why you haven't mentioned shakes? I would argue they make for a much better thing to fill the calorie gap than crisps and chocolate.
 
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@Syla5 thanks for that really detailed reply.

3200 is based on when I trained previously and also on a 2500 cal maintenance level + 500 for aiming for 1lb a week weight gain + a bit of a buffer. I did the starting strength programme which is what I'm going to be doing again, but starting from the bottom as Ive not weight trained in 3 years. At age 29 I was only 120lb and over a period of a few years training poorly and eating pretty haphazardly too I got my weight up to about 160 lb. I found from experience that if I ate less than 3k calories a day my energy levels and lifting progress was noticeably worse.

In 2012 I stopped training and started mountain biking. I've gone up and down over the years since, and dabbled in the weightlifting for a couple months at a time then stopped again. I am now 170lb at age 39 (I'm 5'10" and small framed). Although I don't know for sure, I'd put my bodyfat level at around 15-18%. I play 6 a-side football once a week after work, and on weekends I sometimes hike or mountain bike. I currently do gym sessions twice a week on Wednesday's and Friday's (mainly cardio and some machines at the moment - nothing structured). My plan is to do the starting strength programme twice per week after work 6-7pm, so I know from previous experience that I'll need to eat around 4pm.

When I trained starting strength previously I got my 3x5 squat upto 120kg, my deadlift to 140kg, and my bench to 70kg. The highest weight I have been when I was really pushing hard was 184lb. At this weight I started to have sleeping problems - I would wake in the night choking from acid reflux. I put this down to being too fat/heavy or eating too much fat. It went away when my weight dropped down again and I haven't had the problem in a number of years now. I was previously having about 4 pints of milk a day to get the calories in. I do want to avoid this much milk but I'm quite happy with 2 pints I think. It really helps getting the cals up given my small appetite.


@Avenged7Fold

My goal is to do starting strength again and focus on the compound lifts. I want to lift heavy again.

Regarding food, I really don't know what is wrong with my brain here lol. I was an awful eater as a child, and in adulthood its got better as ive got older but I like a limited range of foods, like almost all my food to be spicy, don't like sloppy, creamy foods or textures, don't like cheese sauces (tomato based sauces are fine).

I feel quite happy eating what I know I like. Adding chillies keeps it interesting enough for me. I just need to flex things slightly to get in the extra veg and reducing the fat content I think, and lifting the calories overall.

As far as shakes go, I'd much rather just drink a pint of milk. It has a good macro split and if I want lower fat I can go for semi-skimmed instead.

I know this probably sounds lazy but I do just prefer simple cook foods. I eat a lot of oven foods and ready meals for my evening meal because I'm out a lot and they keep well in the freezer/fridge. I only ever cook for myself so single portion foods are just easier and not that much more expensive. I'll save a fair bit of money if I can cut out my takeaway consumption. I use takeaways a lot because I haven't got around to going shopping and have run out of food.

I have never liked the smells of breakfasts, they make me feel a bit sick in the morning. Things like the smells of porridge, cereals, toast, butter. I'd much rather neck a pint of cold milk and have some kind of cold snack like eggs or a dry oats bar or a biscuit/choc bar like twix, kit kat etc. My appetite doesn't wake up till 10am.


I do want to take some food to work, but this is likely to be an extra meal (my 4pm meal), not a replacement for my canteen lunch. I can't really take a lot of stuff that requires prep to work as we don't have the facilities. I don't want to be mixing shakes or dealing with dishing out messy stuff at work.

If I tried to get my calorie target from 3 meals plus snacks I'd really struggle because of having to cart everything I need to work. This is what I used to try and do and why I'd end up stuffing biscuits and chocolate bars in to get my target for the day. I think if I go for 4 meals this should help negate this issue.


In summary: I know my diet and planning is awful. But at the same time I can't jump straight to a 100% healthy pre-prepping every meal and making my own bright green shakes kind of deal. I need to make some steps towards that by doing the easy things first.

Question - what is wrong with jacket potatoes and a tin of stewed steak, with some broccoli on the side for one of my evening meals? Its simple, I can add chillies to the stewed steak when I warm it up for some kick, and potatoes with skin on are ok aren't they? I quite like that meal its one of my favourites, and can easily stock up the tins in my cupboard.
 
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Aye, shakes fill the hole perfectly for me especially when I run out of meal prep towards the end of the week and need a quick meal replacement.

35g protein powder
250ml almond milk
Banana
25g almond butter
Nesquick powder to boost the taste a little.

Though I can appreciate that it can be a little difficult storing some of this stuff at your desk if you're not blessed with a draw/larger space, there's really no excuse for not bringing it in on the daily. I've been doing it for almost a year now and I have to get public transport for 1hr+ each way. Most stuff can be stored in a cool bag if you're not lucky enough to have a fridge.

Regardless, you just gotta eat man. Whether you like the 'smell' of it or not. Get it down you. Put the effort in on one of your days off and do efficient meal prep for the week. I've found that efficiency and dedication in the kitchen translates to your training, especially if you KNOW you're giving your body everything it needs.

I am on my last 4 weeks on a long deficit to get a nice 14 month transformation pic since i started this gymbro business.

Awesome dude! Look forward to seeing how far you've come!
 
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Soldato
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In 2012 I stopped training and started mountain biking. I've gone up and down over the years since, and dabbled in the weightlifting for a couple months at a time then stopped again. I am now 170lb at age 39 (I'm 5'10" and small framed). Although I don't know for sure, I'd put my bodyfat level at around 15-18%. I play 6 a-side football once a week after work, and on weekends I sometimes hike or mountain bike. I currently do gym sessions twice a week on Wednesday's and Friday's (mainly cardio and some machines at the moment - nothing structured). My plan is to do the starting strength programme twice per week after work 6-7pm, so I know from previous experience that I'll need to eat around 4pm.

I am 5ft 8", and started my recent training back up weighing 172lb, with weight to lose. Your not massively dissimilar to me, yet I worked out my maintenance to be 2.4k on training days and 1.9k on off days. I currently hit 2.3K and 1.8k respectively with the aim of losing weight, while trying to put on a bit of muscle, its a fine balance but possible. If I lose to quickly I will increase.

Also 184lb and 5ft 10" is not fat.... and I would be shocked if the weight was causing your acid reflux and sleep issues....Ive been 184lb and not even close to fat...podgy yes, unhealthily fat...not even close.

When it comes to bulking I will only go +300 over maintenance as I have always found if I go way over I just add fat, which is just a waste.

Working out 4 days per week doing weights is the aim. So with that in mind I have a weekly total cals that I aim for, 15.5k is maintenance and I hit 14.8k. A problem with you feeling low on energy is likely down to the junk food you eat. That will change if you throw in good fats and carbs, and stop skipping breakfast...

Also as your getting older you want to consider getting more of your calories from protein and good fats and not carbs. Makes a difference.

Weight training 2 days per week you really don't need to be on 3.2k cals per day, also you don't need to push past the advised +500 cals unless you stop gaining weight completely.

Honestly aim for cleaning everything up and 2.9k cals on training days, and 2.5k cals on non training days, that should still see you add weight.

Breakfast, really get on with it, you will soon be enjoying it, I am surprised glugging down 1 pint of cold milk in the morning doesn't make you feel sick!

You don't need everything from 3 meals... I have breakfast before work, I take my daily lunch meal and a container with some nuts in and cranberry juice job done. Yes I portion up my lunch all on a Sunday, the only thing I need to do is grab it out of the fridge in the morning.

Dinners can be created the same way, stop making single portions. Make a proper meal and portion it out, then in the following nights you can chop and change between previous meals. Portioning out mash potato works surprisingly well when warmed up in the microwave, take advantage, then just boil up some fresh veg while your meat portion warms in the microwave.

You don't need to be drinking protein shakes at work, I don't. 1 scoop of hydrolysed whey and BCAA's as my intra workout drink, 1 scoop of whey post workout with dextrose and creatine, and 1 scoop of Caesin protein around 8pm for the night time. That's 400cals and 71g protein.

Challenge yourself to stop creating barriers before you have begun.
 
Soldato
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@Syla5 3200 is based on when I trained previously and also on a 2500 cal maintenance level + 500 for aiming for 1lb a week weight gain + a bit of a buffer. I did the starting strength programme which is what I'm going to be doing again, but starting from the bottom as Ive not weight trained in 3 years. At age 29 I was only 120lb and over a period of a few years training poorly and eating pretty haphazardly too I got my weight up to about 160 lb. I found from experience that if I ate less than 3k calories a day my energy levels and lifting progress was noticeably worse.


I would imagine your maintenance is way lower unless you are doing a really physical job all day. I would also add that your real body fat is also higher than it actually is, unless you were just a pile of bones and organs when you were 120lb.

I imagine you put on weight due to one reason, a considerable calorie surplus. You are small framed so probably struggle to put on weight but inconsistent training accompanied with poor eating will lead to putting on a fair amount of fat even on the most 'ecto' of body types.

Just because you are a fussy eater, doesn't mean you have to eat junk. I would re-examine what you can and can't eat and probably look at cutting down the portion of your diet that seems to contain a fair amount of saturated fats.

Your energy levels suffered due to poor diet, not low calories. Sure your strength will go up but at 3200 calories daily, lifting twice a week on starting strength and with your body, i'd be surprised if you don't put on a fair amount of unwanted weight.
 
Soldato
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I would imagine your maintenance is way lower unless you are doing a really physical job all day. I would also add that your real body fat is also higher than it actually is, unless you were just a pile of bones and organs when you were 120lb.

When i first started training, at sub 120lb, the electronic scales I had wouldnt even register a bodyfat level. I think the manual said the lower limit was 5%. I know these things arent accurate but just as an indicator, there was really nothing to me but skin and bone.

I imagine you put on weight due to one reason, a considerable calorie surplus. You are small framed so probably struggle to put on weight but inconsistent training accompanied with poor eating will lead to putting on a fair amount of fat even on the most 'ecto' of body types.

Just because you are a fussy eater, doesn't mean you have to eat junk. I would re-examine what you can and can't eat and probably look at cutting down the portion of your diet that seems to contain a fair amount of saturated fats.

Your energy levels suffered due to poor diet, not low calories. Sure your strength will go up but at 3200 calories daily, lifting twice a week on starting strength and with your body, i'd be surprised if you don't put on a fair amount of unwanted weight.

I think youre right that 3200 is high to start with. I was aiming for that previously when I had trained my way up to 120kg squat and was struggling to progress. I dont know if youve ever visited the starting strength forums but if someone has stalled the first thing thats ever said is "eat more".

Its a bit different for me now i am already 170lb. Ill go for 2900 and see how far i get in the lifts over the coming weeks.
 
Soldato
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I think youre right that 3200 is high to start with. I was aiming for that previously when I had trained my way up to 120kg squat and was struggling to progress. I dont know if youve ever visited the starting strength forums but if someone has stalled the first thing thats ever said is "eat more".

Its a bit different for me now i am already 170lb. Ill go for 2900 and see how far i get in the lifts over the coming weeks.

I trained up to and squatted 145-150kg for reps, still didn't need 3.2k cals per day. If you are already in a surplus and gaining fat, you will still be gaining muscle and can still stall in training, the "eat more" responses generically point to people not eating enough.
 
Soldato
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When i first started training, at sub 120lb, the electronic scales I had wouldnt even register a bodyfat level. I think the manual said the lower limit was 5%. I know these things arent accurate but just as an indicator, there was really nothing to me but skin and bone.



I think youre right that 3200 is high to start with. I was aiming for that previously when I had trained my way up to 120kg squat and was struggling to progress. I dont know if youve ever visited the starting strength forums but if someone has stalled the first thing thats ever said is "eat more".

Its a bit different for me now i am already 170lb. Ill go for 2900 and see how far i get in the lifts over the coming weeks.

Those scales are based on electrical resistance and are useless for extreme body types and inaccurate for the best of body types. 120lb at your height is a very extreme body type.

I know starting strength and stuff people recommend like GOMAD. People recommend it because overeating for many is not a problem, so long as they progress on their lifts. For them, strength is a priority even if it means putting on loads of fat. If you just want to get strong and don't mind how it looks, then shovel in tons of food being careful of too much of the bad stuff. Be mindful that even drinking tons of whole milk like GOMAD comes with its own nasty long term health affects aside from added weight.

Honestly, there are many people in this thread with very impressive lifts that don't consume 3200 daily even with all their muscle mass.
 
Soldato
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I wasnt doing any cardio back then either. Now ill still be doing footy once a week and cycling / hiking some weekends. Thats the main reason i cant do 3x per week lifting which the starting strength programme advocates.

Thanks for the help. Im going to do a meal prep session on sunday this week with 5 meals for the week and see how i get on with that. im tracking my daily food in myfitnesspal at the moment too. ill monitor weight weekly.
 
Soldato
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Once you are in the swing of things, meal prep will save you more aggro than anything. Take progress pics and trust the mirror and lift numbers over the scales.

Make sure to pop by and post your progress.

Good luck!
 
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Been back training for the last 2 weeks since screwing up back, doing some rehab (just winging it), basically consists of destroying my soul running (crawling) up and down with the prowler for most the session and then throwing in a few complexes
(RDL->Row->Power clean-> press and repeat til forearm pump or death). Actually quite enjoying the prowler, trying to throw in some rope pulls, chest push etc with it and can feel my core coming along.
 
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Does it matter when you take creatine? IE before or after training? Take on off days?

I think the attitude with creatine is to take it whenever. There has been studies showing that there are benefits one way or another but your end goal is to stay loaded up, so ensuring you take it daily to keep yourself topped off is the important part and will make more of a difference than timing. When in the day you take it doesn't matter as much, as it takes a while from ingestion for it to be useful but you are constantly losing excess creatine anyway when you pee and the way i see it is that a fraction of a top up dose won't effect performance regardless.
 
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