OcUK Health Seekers: Post your progress pics

[mrthingyx]

I wouldn't describe that as a 'fairly clean' diet.

Too much 'cheap' crud in there (chocolate, crisps and Batchelor's Sauce? WTF?) that should be replaced by steak.

Or maybe just oats.

 

[Delvis]

4k? Noice

 

[Phaser]

Got a huge bag of oats so might cut down on things like chips etc with meals and use the oats to maintain the calories...

 

[Ultra_Extreme]

I wouldn't describe that as a 'fairly clean' diet.

Too much 'cheap' crud in there (chocolate, crisps and Batchelor's Sauce? WTF?) that should be replaced by steak.

Or maybe just oats.

its not fairly clean its awful! Calories from chocolate and crisps have no place in a high cal lifting diet, you are priming your fat storage mechanisms with constant wasted insulin spikes. When big bodybuilders talk about 4000kcal+ diets they are talking about eating racks of ribs, whole gammons, 20oz steaks bowls of potatoes and pasta. It really isnt hard at all to hit 4k+ on good solid meat veg and tatties. Topping up with crisps and chocolate and weight gainers while eating ostensibly 2 crap meals is not eating big it is simply eating bad.

Bottom line is your diets crap which is making your lifts weak, slowing progression and hampering gains. you need to find a way to get 4 large meals into your day @ around 800 to 1000kcal a pop, thats a baseline

 

[Delvis]

Breakfast would be a good start, along with a meal after your evening meal. That'll put things up nicely

 

[Phaser]

I get what you're saying, but I don't think a bag of crisps or a bowl of cereal here or there should be shot down in flames, it's not like I'm eating 20 bars of chocolate and relying on them to get my macros...

It definitely could be improved though, I think I'll try and plan my meals and when I eat for the next couple of weeks and see how I get on.

Do you have an example of your diet posted up anywhere?

I agree totally Delvis, I'm trying to work on getting up earlier so I can squeeze in a decent breakfast. I do try and have a shake as soon as I wake up though. Usually have a snack after my evening meal, turkey / chicken and salad wrap etc.

Will start a log so I'm not taking over this thread

 

[Ultra_Extreme]

its not to do with the calories m8 its the biochemical asphyxiation its driving. Ill put it real simple terms, stimulating your insulin response several times a day tells your body to be fat and shed muscle. Yes its more complex than that and id put it very differently if i was talking to (another) degree graduate in human biology, but its basically true. If you eat that much crap in a day your bodys growth chemicals get stunted, lower your insulin response lower your IGF-1 and GH responses too. Your metabolism slows, your fats are retained and your general energy levels are poor.

You really mustn't think of dieting being as simple as kcal in versus kcal out, in general that is only useful in slimming down fat people, in hard gainers the macro balance and hormonal stimulation factors are far more important. Your diet represents everything that is wrong with the modern western diet, we havent evolved to handle that kind of calorie breakdown and as a result our inherent biology breaks down and becomes counter intuitive and inefficient.

 

[Syla5]

underlining what UE said, i would be suprised if you couldnt easily gain on 2600ish cals of clean diet.

Something along the lines of:

Breakfast
Protein 30g
Oats 70g
Blueberries (handful 25gish)
banana
510 cals

Day Meals:
Chicken 100g (pre cooked weights)
Brown Rice 50g (pre cooked weights)
Good oil tablespoon
415 cals

3 of the above! 10 12 and 2

Mixed nuts to snack on through the day 50g 325cals

Dinner:
100g Mince Burger
250g Potatos
100g Veg
400cals

Late evening snack
3 egg white omlette 50cals

This should see you aruond 2600 cals, throw in a post work out shake on training days your at 2850 and if you want to have milk instead of water in your breakfast shake thats easily another 200+ cals

If you did that your looking at a marco breakdown something like this:

Protien 190g
Carbs 280g
Fats 95g
Cals 2850

i would be suprised if something like this didnt save you money as well!

and your welcome to swap out chicken for steak, or fish if you are not cash restricted on your diet

 

[Delvis]

Aye a log will be good matey.

Just think about changing up the cookie and chocolate squares up, they won't be helping matters...Plus they'll taste nicer once a month

 

[Delvis]

Nice simple breakdown UE, don't suppose you have any papers I can read up on? Might email you actually if thats cool.

 

[Ultra_Extreme]

The diet proposed by Syla5 would certainly work better than what you do now, if you found you werent gaining on it all you do is increase some of the macros extra potato here double the meat there etc. If you stopped the sugars and kept cals over 2600 id be very surprised if not only did you not gain faster than ever, but if your lifts didnt shoot up aswell.

 

[Freefaller]

You're slipping big boy!

I can't see anything in his post! I guess he's posted a picture - in which case it's blocked at work.

 

[Phaser]

Cheers lads.

 

[mrthingyx]

its not fairly clean its awful! Calories from chocolate and crisps have no place in a high cal lifting diet, you are priming your fat storage mechanisms with constant wasted insulin spikes. When big bodybuilders talk about 4000kcal+ diets they are talking about eating racks of ribs, whole gammons, 20oz steaks bowls of potatoes and pasta. It really isnt hard at all to hit 4k+ on good solid meat veg and tatties. Topping up with crisps and chocolate and weight gainers while eating ostensibly 2 crap meals is not eating big it is simply eating bad.

Bottom line is your diets crap which is making your lifts weak, slowing progression and hampering gains. you need to find a way to get 4 large meals into your day @ around 800 to 1000kcal a pop, thats a baseline

XD

 

[icecold]

Phaser, post up your HST routine/workouts.

Further to UE's point, I'm going to bet that you have minimal training induced (i.e. non-insulin facilitated) growth going on.

You say your deadlift 5 rep max is 50kg, which can't be true.

You have the body of someone who has done P90X, or similar, and hasn't really been doing proper resistance training.

 

[Phaser]

The reason for alternating between barbell curls and chin ups is that I wanted to do both (had some good results off chin ups) but didn't want to overtrain / tire myself out - same with the pushdowns / dips.

I alternate the shrugs / crunches as I don't think they need to be done every session but still wanted to include them.

No leg work which I know is normally a big no no, but I didn't want to risk making this mobility issue worse.

I'll welcome some improvements / tweaks, I threw this together after a break and I just wanted a solid program to concentrate on for a couple of months.

I'm on my last week now, thinking it might be worth trying out some PBs afterwards so I can get a definitive answer as to what I can lift and go from there?

 

[Delvis]

No leg work makes me sad.

I've not read about your mobility problems, but whats the issue again?

 

[Syla5]

no form of leg work at all makes baby panda's die

 

[Phaser]

I was referred to physio as a child for tight hamstrings, I was only young though so didn't bother doing the exercises (wish I had now!)

Didn't really think anything of it growing up until last year when I got into lifting weights properly and realised I couldn't physically squat.

I started doing stretches although it was when I got a spare 20 minutes, not a strict routine. Didn't really make any difference so I substituted my squat with the leg press and lunges (realise these aren't as effective).

Fast forward to a few months back where I started getting pain in my knees. Thought I'd overdone it on the leg press, had a month off but was still getting the pains, some days to the point where I couldn't walk. Went to the Doctors who said I should just take ibuprofen everyday (wtf?!). I said I'd prefer to find the root cause and pushed to be referred to physio. Whilst I was there I explained I couldn't squat properly and was it related. He pushed my legs around a bit and said my hips, hamstrings, glutes etc were so tight it was like I had the mobility of a 70 year old with arthritis, and that this was probably causing the knee pain. (Had xrays on both my knee and hip which didn't show anything).

So now I'm doing stretches everyday but 3 weeks on, I've not really noticed any difference.

 

[Skillmister]

The reason for alternating between barbell curls and chin ups is that I wanted to do both (had some good results off chin ups) but didn't want to overtrain / tire myself out - same with the pushdowns / dips.

Oh lawd.