Dachse Wachen

Diet… not really that important in weight training really.  Preacher curls are far more important.  That’s a joke btw!  Of all the things you do in the gym, NOTHING will get close to what you need to do out of it.  What you eat is crucial.  There is an old computing term - GIGO. It means ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’.  If you eat garbage then your body will look garbage.  If you want to see good results fast then you need to establish what you body currently needs and then what you will need in training.  Before you even touch a weight you need to sort this.  And NO, you DON’T need to spend £££’s on additives and powders either.  Just eat a good clean diet.  If you must use powders I was recommended whey powder as it is cheap and useful.  That’s it.
So… I have established the following: My Basal Metabolic Rate is 1,643 kcal/day currently and when I am in training (as of 19th) my estimated energy requirement will increase from that to roughly 3,100 kcal a day. My BMI is currently 21 (skimming the bottom of normal range for an averagely built guy) but I havent got my BF% yet.
I calculated these details from the US navy seal fitness guide.  Anybody interested in a copy drop me aline, I have it in .PDF format.  Alternatively its available on torrent sites.

Why would you need to know this then? Well, your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is how many calories your body needs every day to maintain your weight.  When you are in training you need many more to help your body build muscle.  In my case, about 3,100 cals!  But you can’t get this from eating pizza and burgers sadly.  It has to come from ‘clean’ foods. If you aren’t doing this then you can pump away i nthe gym like fury and you will not see fast, impressive results.
What is Eating Clean then?

I have taken this from a variety of sites, all acknowledgements are at the end.
Cut right back on animal fats, processed fats and fat in general.

PROTEIN
You need plenty of protein as this is the most important building fuel for your muscles.  And you have to eat many meals in small quantities and eat the right thing at the right time. High protein foods include chicken, turkey, fish, red meat, eggs, milk and dairy products, quark, nuts and beans. Eat these foods or have protein supplements at least every three hours.

Five servings of fruit and vegetables should also be eaten per day. This is the absolute minimum and ideally eat more than five.

Okay, so how much protein should I eat a day?  Well… between 1.25 and 1.5 grams per pound of bodyweight (thats about 2.5 to 3 grams per kilo).  But not all in one sitting! Your stomach is the size roughly of your two clenched fists and you should only eat a meal of that size.  Small, frequent meals is the way to go.

CARBS

What about carbs?  Well, youy should only be eating carbs for breakfast and just after your workouts when your muscles need fast access to building blocks for repair and growth.

So are any carb sources OK? Of course not!  The easy rule is, if you like it don’t eat it!

Here is a guide:

Must-have carb sources: green veggies (broccoli, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, celery, asparagus, etc.)

Can-have carb sources: other veggies (except potatoes), berries (blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, etc.)

Occasional carb sources: Other fruits

Rare carb sources: brown rice, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, cream of wheat, potatoes, yams

Should-avoid carb sources: white bread, white pasta, oatmeal

Must-avoid carb source: pastries, cookies, candy and any other junk sugary food

FAT

Just cut all fats out, right? Wrong! Not all fat is bad.  Some are your friend.

The “good” fats are the essential fatty acids: fatty acids that your body can’t produce itself and that are needed for optimal function. These fats have to come from your diet or supplementation program. These essential fatty acids fall into two broad categories: omega-3 and omega-6. Most people get plenty of omega-6 from their diet, especially if it’s rich in animal protein sources. However, omega-3 deficiency is very common in North America, mostly because fish consumption is generally very low. Omega-3 fatty acids, especially the all-important DHA and EPA, have several benefits when it comes to being healthy and building a muscular physique.

Sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon are all good in this respect.  Also use Olive oil and linseed oil as they are good sources too.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids:

- Increase insulin sensitivity, which has positive effects on both muscle building (facilitating nutrient transport to the muscle) and fat loss (reducing the amount of nutrients stored as fat).

- Increase the body’s use of fat for fuel, especially when exercising.

- Improve nervous system recovery/regeneration and function.

- Improve cardiovascular health by improving blood flow, reducing triglycerides (”bad” fatty acids), as well as the formation of plaque and blood clots

PRE AND POST WORKOUT

Pre-workout make sure you have eaten in order to provide sufficient energy to fuel your workout, but not too much as to bloat you. Eat small amounts of slow release carb foods such as wholewheat pasta, granary bread, banana, blueberries, broccoli, tomatoes or a small salad.

Then after training you need to ensure you have sufficient protein for growth and repair as well as carbs to replenish your stores. The best time to fuel for a workout is actually after the previous exercise session. Have fast acting carbs like glucose (fizzy drinks), a small amount of chocolate or the supplement maltodextrin here.

The hard part is organising this!  Making meals that are tasty and good for you and avoiding eating junk.  Buy lots of little boxes to put your food in and take to work for your food.  Yeah, people will think you are a weirdo for a while but it won’t be long before you can twist their arms off like a silver-back Gorilla will it?

ALCOHOL

In a nutshell, don’t binge drink! Drink as little as you can.  One glass of wine a few times a week is opimal for health really.  Also, too much booze will make you end up in the kebab shop or curry house.  And that will very quicky wreck all your hard work, trust me!

WHAT ELSE?

Organise your diet in advance.

Write down everything you eat.

Study the backs of food packets for nutritional information.

As a general rule, the less processed a food is, the better.

People starting at the gym seriously often eat chicken breasts, chicken breasts, chicken breasts and chicken breasts.  This is not a good idea.  Eat them by all means but eat other stuff too.  Mix it up or you will become intolerant to it.

Eat Breakfast.  That is so important I will say it again - EAT BREAKFAST.

Try not to become a food bore - this is actually really hard!  You will find yourself going on about fat and carbs to people.

And don’t beat yourself up for eating something naughty once in a while.  That’s ONCE IN A WHILE ok?!

Finally, remember that you will need a diet for putting on weight when muscle building and for losing it when you want to get ripped.  These will be different.  There is plenty of info out there on it.
THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING FOR INFO FROM THEIR ARTICLES,  I COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN IT WITHOUT THEM:

James Collier BSc (Hons) RNutr, Nutrition Consultant and MuscleTalk.co.uk Co-Owner

Christian Thibaudeau at tmuscle.com

Weight-loss-for-busy-people.com

The US Navy Seal Fitness Handbook

Men’s Health magazine

Men’s Fitness

……who all take steroids to hide their inadequacies. There will not be any useful information from them on the internet other than how much weight they can all lift…

At least that’s what I thought before taking the time to actually read the forums. Had I ever spoken to the bodybuilders in the gym? No, of course not - didn’t need to, right?

Well it seems I need to give a very large apology to the bodybuilding community as a whole, because what I have found are kind, honest, dedicated people who are prepared to give up their time and experience to people like me.

I have been preparing to return to the gym for the first time in about 8 years recently. Of course, I knew exactly what to do and needed no advice, but thought I would look anyway.

Thank God that I did and that there are so many helpful people out there. My original idea of ‘using steroids to kick start my training’ went straight out the window as did the 45 minute CV workout before weight training.

I read Cashman and Toxictoffees guides at MuscleTalk (www.muscletalk.co.uk) which I found infinitely helpful and made me realise that I wasn’t just about to start at the gym at all - I was fundamentally altering the whole way in which I live my life. Weight training, when done correctly, seems not to be just about looking big but also ‘putting your house in order’; by which I mean having the right attitude mentally. A healthy body and mind run together. I can now see that by embracing the advice on these forums I am not only pumping weights but I am quitting the junk food diet, I am junking the Friday and Saturday night binge drinking and I am not only looking at myself with new respect but other people too.

Toxictoffee talks about saving up and buying his sofa once he had sorted his living room out. His point is ‘don’t bother with supplements of negligable effectiveness until you have sorted out the important things’. But it also said something else to me - he SAVED to buy the sofa. No ‘take it now and pay next year’ deal and no credit card. This seems to tie in with the whole bodybuiilding paradigm as it requires a well ordered mind, dedication and patience. I haven’t saved up for anything in years but I have sworn from here on in if I want anything (that Red and White ‘06 Yamaha R1 I dream of for instance) I will save for it.

So, to sum up (if anyone is still reading) - my thanks go out to Cashman, Toxictoffee and all the other forum members whose entries I have read who have taught me a few basic life lessons. For the last 8 years my partner and I have been, to all intents and purposes, living in a rather unpleasant place after my company went under and I got into massive personal debt, but now we are fully paid up members of the Human Race again.

I turned 39 last week and I am now champing at the bit to get to, and beyond, the level of fitness I had 8 years ago. My head is still spinning trying to keep up with all the information on here about diet and training and I am hoping that you guys can help me put together a workout plan to give me what I want. So this is me:

As I said, I am 39, 5′10″ tall and currently weigh ~72 Kilos, and haven’t done a great deal of excercise in years. I can’t jog for more than 5 minutes without stopping at the moment so I am totally unfit really. My diet has been getting better and better over the last 8 months and now I dont eat junk food, dont drink more than 2 pints of cider at a time (And only do that once a week) never eat ready meals, eat plenty of fresh fruit and veg. I have quit smoking. My body fat has been slowly creeping up due to sedentary lifestyle (mainly sitting in a car for many hours driving and doing little which involves activity).

My goals are to get rid of the gut and to put on muscle bulk. Specifically targeting (in order of importance) thighs, chest, buttocks, arms as these need the most work. I have quite nice calves but have always suffered from weedy thighs and a small ass. My chest is quite weak too.

I suppose the only other thing that may be relevant is that in my job as a surveyor I have to leave for work at 7am each day mon-fri and get home anywhere between 3pm and 7pm.

I am starting back at the gym in about 10 days and was hoping that you guys could come up with some advice on a good workout for me. I guess 3 or 4 days a week is the optimum.
I am raring to go and guess with a good diet and weight routine should be able to make some major changes in the next 10 weeks or so.