thread of getting sw0le

Lol all I will reiterate is by any standard 245 x 5 bench is impressive

https://imgur.com/a/azc9R

i'm done with my work thing and i actually slept last night so i'm ready to be back in the gymm and eating real foods. my knee is still kinda iffy. i'm just gonna work on chin-ups and butt stuff and benching for a while.

Just signed back up at the gym yesterday and did my first workout in like 8 months? It felt so good! I'm starting REALLY light (and i'm still fairly sore) but I'm really excited to be back. Also have a ton of protein powder and an unopened thingy of creatine that map told me to get. I just kinda dicked around with a few diff things yesterday but I also wanna develop a new workout routine and I'm excited abt that too, the gym is cool

i'm going much lighter on weights and trying to do more flexibility / leg stuff good for running, because i'm moving to MOAB in two weeks!

is protein powder etc worth it if you're not exactly going in with the big weights? I'm pretty much machines and dumbells and cardio for now but it would be nice to improve and get better

protein powder is good for helping you hit your daily protein target, especially if you are a moron like me and aim for the scientifically unsupported meathead standard 1g/lb. i have stockholm syndromed myself into enjoying a few flavors as well as the gritty undissolving creatine texture but i recommend assessing your goals and nutritional needs to see if it's necessary.

(fwiw i am 6'3" and 200 lbs and getting down 200g of protein a day is kind of a chore so putting a bunch of it in a shake and chugging it down really helps)

moab!

fair enough. i eat fairly healthily and have eggs every morning etc so probably don't need much more protein than I already get for now

protein powder is also really good if you want to shit a lot

oh yeah def wanna do that

then get some asap!

guys i know this is the sw0le thread but... creatine? really?

A lot of people swear by it. Science on it is... inconclusive but it’s not obviously harmful either.

protein powder is nice for hitting your target, esp when cutting calories

I consume a silly amount of whey protein products now. I really like the kirkland protein bars -- they are tasty and also have a lot of fiber. I also really like the premier protein drinks (available at costco). They come to a little over $1 per serving, which is pricier than protein powder, but they are good on the go. For a while I was using muscle milk brand protein powder, but it's gross on its own and adding it to "shakes" was packing on too many calories. Plus I'm pretty sure it made me smell bad. I just started using this super-organic Vega brand plant protein powder. Doesn't taste as weird and artificial and doesn't make me stink, but it's a little bit grainy and doesn't blend as well.

this is what i used when i did shakes
https://www.pinksun.co.uk/whey-protein-grass-fed-hormone-free

it was oddly hard to find one that was actually organic, hormone-free etc

I eat an RX bar post workout because they seem to not be filled with garbage and drink 16oz of whole milk cuz milk is great. Admittedly I’m not exactly going to appear on cover of Men’s Health but I make small but significant gains.

which Kirkland flavor is your favorite?

xp

i bought some of those kirkland bars, got sick of them, let them sit for a couple months. i tried to eat one last week and it was completely petrified.

creatine is cheap and may have some benefit so why not.

i do two scoops of myprotein brand "strawberry cream" in some unsweetened almond milk when i get home from the gym, along with a bowl of oatmeal. it's fine.

the real secret to any lifting success i have is boar's head brand turkey pepperoni and axelrod nonfat cottage cheese. together. alternating bites. it is my favorite meal of the day.

whenever i hear "creatine" i think of mark mcgwire and his bulging neck, it's like pavlovian for me

i mean from what i can tell it helps, doesn't hurt, and is affordable alongside (or in!) protein powder so why not.

Re the Kirkland bars -- they've introduced new softer versions.

Cookies and Cream > Chocolate Peanut Butter > Chocolate > Cinnamon Roll imo. Those are the ones I've had, don't know if there are others.

just fwiw the vast majority of ppl don't need more than 1g/kg/day of protein, and definitely no more than 1.5g/kg/day for sw0leitude

yr just gonna pee out most of it

do ppl do shakes etc even on days they don't work out?

too true jeeb my man

the thing to look out for in all these whey powders/bars is sugar intake

look for the ones with the least amount of sugar because they add up if you are consuming them twice a day and could prevent from getting rid of excess fat

whey powder works in my experience but with caveats, i stopped using it about 3 years ago -- i was using a cheap one, eas vanilla flavoured for the most part

everyone's body is different but it was always by the fourth month of consecutive use, i would get crazy side effects

i tried the 6 eggs a day thing and got bad side effects as well

both are good for gains but i found as soon as i stopped the powder i would lose some gains quickly, with eggs not so much loss

anyway i know it's pricey and time consuming but after that i decided the best way to consume protein is naturally especially with natural meats with animal fats -- it helps your body absorb the protein better, because as gbx said, the body doesn't absorb synthetic protein very well

there are highly quality isolates like the one tracer hand mentioned, but those were too expensive for what i was going after or just not worth it

i'd rather enjoy a good piece of meat

I can't seem to find definitive science on the whole how much protein you can digest in a sitting/day thing. It sort of *seems* logical that you might retain protein better from a steak than from a powder dissolved in liquid, but then with steak you are getting a lot of fat too.

xp to tracer

depends how much you're working out

if you've done a hard work out muscles can take more than a day to recover, so theoretically if you're resting the day after you work out, your muscles still need protein to regenerate protein tissue, so depending on how much recovery you need, you probably still need at least body percent amount of protein -- thing is lots of people overestimate how much protein they need to recover, so ya, maybe a little more protein than your muscle mass is needed, but not as much as a normal work out day, because on work out days you have to account for low sugar levels that lifting depletes rather quickly

xp

fat is does not make you fat, right?

also you're googling the wrong terms

there is a growing amount of cases where the small intestine is observed absorbing hydrolyzed protein at a lower rate

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2211428

the concept is not specific to protein but any hydrolyzed material or isolates

too lazy to search for a better source but that'll get you started

it should be said though that food science is really at its infancy so a lot of this is recent research based on smaller studies

over the last 6 weeks or so i went up 7 pounds and then 7 back down but i feel/look noticeably leaner/more defined, and i think counting macros, eating what sometimes feels like too much (lol), plus the protein powder/creatine deserve the credit. i'm p small framed so i'm happy with how this plan played out for me.

fat is does not make you fat, right?

well only to the extent that it's dense with calories. I mean eating a huge steak is going to give you a lot more overall calories for the same amount of protein as a protein powder.

so counting calories is a very primitive way of looking at how body works though

the more muscle mass you have the more calories you will burn just by sitting

this is why it's case by case because it depends what type of body and lifestyle you already have

the more muscle mass you have the more calories you will burn just by sitting

But I remember reading that it's not all that much more, like having significantly more muscle mass still only gives you like a high 2-digit or low 3-digit amount of extra calories burned at rest in a day.

muscle mass is just part of it, you also have to account for metabolism

you can maintain a fast metabolism by doing cardio

ime:

my metabolism has gone up and down throughout my life and i have been able to predict how much weight i'll lose/gain based on supplementary cardio, where if i start doing cardio when i'm lifting, i will need to eat more and different types of foods otherwise my body will shrink/lose weight in other parts of my body that are not my stomach

the way i picture metabolism is like a wheel, when you do it, you are spinning the wheel faster, and when you stop doing cardio, the wheel slowly slows down -- faster metabolism burns calories faster

not based on science obviously, but i felt cardio used energy differently because i felt a different type of tired after it as opposed to lifting

i should say i lost weight with the cardio/lifting combo at a faster rate and in other parts of my body than when i was only doing cardio every day

obviously if you exercise more, you will lose more weight if you eat below what your're supposed to

i found that eating what i'm supposed to and how much of it i could eat was based on my weight and metabolism

anyway, i'll stop after this. i kept a journal of what i ate, what exercises i did, and how much weight i lost/gained, and body fat levels based on different exercise routines (only lifting, more lifting/less cardio, only cardio, less lifting/more cardio), and they did make a difference, and i also cut out things that would make my stomach fat no matter how much exercise i did, so i avoid those foods on weekdays. i think everyone has a set of foods that makes them fat, just from observing some of my exes, who were also into exercising, and they could get away from eating other stuff and not getting a fat stomach. so i stopped eating everything except basic foods. and slowly added and removed stuff that i noticed was making me fat or feel unhealthy. it took me about one year to know how my body reacted to all the foods i ate, but it was worth it

this is totally bro sciencey, but it's kinda based on this pseudo korean type of diet where they think there are 7 different body types, each with different types of foods that they can/can't eat, but i don't adhere to those body types, just what i sense what foods are making me feel "bad" and i eat them for like a couple weeks

i swear i'm not crazy

well maybe just a little bit

this is what a day of no work does to me, sorry everyone

215 x 2 bench tonight, new best. Woot.

map made a really kick ass gym routine for me and I’m very stoked about it. Today was the first day I’ve ever bench pressed w a barbell (65lbs lmao). I think I was intimidated bcz I was afraid of looking dumb and also I just didn’t know what it felt like. It feels good and it’s real easy and I feel a lot more confident abt it!! It feels like it’s working my body more effectively than dumbbell benches.

I also got a blender bottle which is cool, it turns out making a protein shake w water instead of milk is really insipid but way easier to chug after a workout.

i am glad for you but i am warning you don't insult my beloved dumbbell bench press

I DBP’d for like a year so I am not one to judge!! I’m just happy I got over my hurdle of scared-of-barbells

waddup? stevie d is up that's what

Since becoming single I've been going to the gym a lot more - even on the weekends which is a deep cut for me!
Noticed a few pains in places like my elbows, which is a bit annoying as I know I need to build up my tricep/arm strength a bit.
I also kind of want to work out a good way to lose weight around my chest. I've always had quite a broad chest which looks mooby if I don't exercise. I do the resistance machines, but I'm worried this is only going to make things more pronounced.

Really I'd like to move away from resistance machines and start learning how to do free-weights / full body exercises but I basically don't know where to begin and find the free weights area irrationally intimidating

this is the thread for you! scroll up and see if anything strikes your fancy or if you would like a quick recap of free weight basics

waddup? stevie d is up that's what

― you bet, nancy (map), Monday, April 30, 2018 11:05 PM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

awwww 💪👍

i can't recommend this site enough: https://exrx.net/ get lost in there

it hit me recently that in my pursuit of GAINS I have gotten slightly fat, so I decided to freeze my GAINS, focus on maintaining strength, and use a calorie app to cut a bit.

this is hard. I think I need to reduce my calories a bit more to give myself room for error. I actually somehow gained a couple pounds since I started this.

give it a couple weeks before you start taking the scale seriously imo. tho honestly unless you have a specific number you are trying to hit like you are weighing in for a fight or something i suggest just trying to hit a rough caloric ballpark and judging by the mirror, which is what will drive satisfaction ultimately.

i spent like a year obsessively tracking and weighing and that level of microfocus just distracted me from the very real progress i was making both aesthetically and in strength.

I mean it was definitely prompted by aesthetics and not just the scale -- otherwise I'd attribute it all to muscle weight gains. My trunk is noticeably a lot thicker and sort of boxy looking now, and I'm not really liking it, and there's a good sized layer of fat on my belly -- always a problem for me but the lifting has sort of pushed it out more. I don't look terrible and I definitely look fitter and stronger than I did, but I don't want to get any bigger until I get leaner.

are you still keeping up with reducing starchy carbs