Getting into shape

Aruffell

Aruffell

Aruffell

Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2004
Posts
5,653
Location
Chatham, Kent
So after joining a gym and realising that I didn't have the time between running my own company and 2 kids, I've decided that I'm going to do it again, even if I have to go at 5am to make it worthwhile as the gymgroup near me has a cheap gym that is 24/7 so seems right up my street.

Nutrition

I've been looking into this for the past day or so and am baffled by how much information there is. When I was younger, I ended up bulking quite a bit (8.5stone to 11.5stone in 3 months) and it was easy and it just consisted of eating like a horse. These days all I see is macro this and balance that. I even signed up to myfitnesspal and while my typical meals match the protein side of it, I'm 141 calories off of what my carb goal is so maybe I've done some calculations wrong. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Just been playing about with myfitnesspal, trying to plan my meals for tomorrow and came up with this - http://prntscr.com/83xrxi So straight away the macros are all out, and I don't think I have time to do this every day for each meal trying to get it right. Do people seriously do this?

It is worth noting a few things. The first being that I tend to not eat crap or jarred crap meaning that even making a spag bol, I use chopped tomatoes and pasata and sundried tomatoes etc... instead of a jar of dolmio. I also have a mrs who is on slimming world so trying to keep it as clean as possible for her diet is welcomed too, as I'm not cooking two different meals for me and then another for her and the kids.

Fitness

I'm looking to start things off with 3 days a week at the gym, but would love some form of routine set for me by the lovely helpful people on here. When I was at my last gym, they set the routine for me and while it was murder, I never noticed any results, hence me slacking off more and more.

I do suffer with bad knee joints and as an example, if I squat and stay down for any longer than 10 seconds, I do have trouble getting back up without pulling myself up on something. I'm hoping that by building up some muscle, I will be able to take the strain away slightly.

My current stats are:

5ft 11
12 stone 8
Waiting on a body fat caliper which is being delivered tomorrow

My goals are:

Get my weight up to 13 stone 5 but drop the body fat, mainly around the belly fat area.

I'm currently reading some more information on these forums, but any help is greatly appreciated.

What macros should I be aiming for?
Should I be faffing about with all this macro nonsense?
What type of exercises and weight should I be doing?

Thanks guys,

Andy
 
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First: your preconceptions. If you lift, you will either gain weight on a calorie surplus or lose it on a deficit. This means both muscle and fat. Getting huge whilst trimming down body fat is theoretically possible in a lab but not in real life, so do one or the other.

Second: lift heavy stuf. Sounds dumb and obvious, but getting big requires lifting big (relatively speaking.

Finally check out the GymRats thread (first post) as there are some great things to read and learn in there... :)
 
Hey,

Yeah i'm reading through that now.

What is the best way to tackle this then? The only surplus body fat that I really have is on my belly. I have strong abs underneath, but doing a million crunches is worthless as it's never going to burn that belly fat off.

Do I lose the belly fat first? If so, how? Or do I bulk up first?

Andy
 
Having belly fat just means you have fat: the body sees all fat as one store of energy, be it in your muscle, on your arms, legs, whatever.

So doing crunches will do nothing I am afraid. The adage "abs are made in the kitchen" regards the fact that getting a six pack is diet-related...

Should you cut or bulk? Entirely up to you. :) If you have a gut then get rid of it by all means, but if you just have a little softness around the middle (which, btw, probably also means you have a fair amount all over you but your muscles and vasvulature are not big enough to show it) then might as well bulk. Your body fat percentage can reduce simple by getting bigger muscles.

This is particularly true if in your first few months of lifting when your body has no idea what is going on...
 
A picture tends to be helpful in these situations.

Fat can be lost a lot faster than muscle can be gained, and unless you're fat then it tends to be a wiser idea initially to just build a base up (although be mindful not to actually get fat doing this with a see-it, eat-it diet) then you cut down further down the line and have something to show for your efforts. Just don't be wishy-washy with gaining since it's a slow process and should ideally always be a lot longer than any fat loss phase (think 3:1 or 4:1 over a year, 18 months etc).

When I started I was a chunky monkey and needed to slim down first since the fatter you are, the worse your calorie partioning is and the greater the amount of fat you'll gain compared to the same surplus if you were lean. If you just have a little belly then improved posture, noob gains and some lean mass will probably fix half of that without the need to diet.
 
Based on your shape and history, just start lifting and do so in a mild calorie excess.

You don't have much mass so training I'll spread your existing fat out across muscles with greater glycogen stores and vasvulature.
 
What he said ^

Also don't think about target weights too much. Everyone I know always ends up needing to go to a lower body weight than they expected in order to reach the kind of leaness they want. Similarly water, food in the GI tract and glyocgen can have a big impact on weight so when gaining having some arbitrary point where you're 'too heavy' is pointless too and it's better in that instance to go by how things are looking in the mirror or if you feel sluggish/heavy.
 
mrthingyx said:
Based on your shape and history, just start lifting and do so in a mild calorie excess.

You don't have much mass so training I'll spread your existing fat out across muscles with greater glycogen stores and vasvulature.
Click to expand...

What he said.
body looks fine, you just need to develop some muscles and you'll slowly start to notice curves in places you never had them

you will need to start eating better though if you don't already eat good foods, don't expect to get buff eating pizzas and chips
 
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Thanks for the input guys.

I do typically eat clean, with everything made from scratch, like mama used to make ;) Not a fan of jars of mixes etc... so even spag bol and curry I cook from nothing with all fresh ingredients.

I just bought a fitbit charge hr so keen to see what that thinks of my activity etc... and have been using myfitnesspal for the past day or so adding in my food to see how that goes.

Any ideas on a workout plan? I honestly can't remember how much I used to use on each machine etc...

Thanks,

Andy
 
Aruffell said:
I could yeah. So no point joining the gym as I could do that from home?

Andy
Click to expand...

you could but you might want to do the gym instead and make some friends.

at home there's a lot of temptation to skip lessons where as if your paying for a gym you likely want your monies worth.
also it's pretty boring solo
 
You bulked from 8.5 to 11.5 in 3 months so 42 lbs gained? Unfortunately I bet hardly any of that was lean muscle, perhaps 4-8lbs. I would say most people expect to gain 15-20lbs of lean muscle a year.

Ignore the bro science from aknor. Train at home if that's better for you, hard work dedication.
 
This was when I was 16, and it was a bit of both, but due to how skinny I was (5ft 11) I filled out in areas so it didn't look like I'd just piled on weight around the belly etc...

I ended up doing some girly DVD aerobic thing yesterday with my fitbit on and it nearly killed me. Goes to show how out of shape I am I guess :D
 
On a side note, Aruffell, your knees probably hurt through a combination of weakness and bad posture.

I would strongly encourage you to get your core work (not abz) brought up to scratch, as well as your mobility because chances are - if you concentrate and train hard - your pain may probably go within a month of starting.

Not promising anything and I am not training/supervising you, but you should keep it in mind and see a decent sports physio if it continues.
 
I'd agree with mythingyx. I use to get a tightness in my left knee, would come from nowhere and could affect my walking. Since I started working out and getting fit it's just kind of gone.

Everyone's different of course, if it doesn't improve alongside your fitness maybe see the Dr's for suggestions.
 
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