Arkk's Weight Lifting / Fitness Thread

It also depends on how you are lifting, honestly. If you are doing low rep high weight sets and sticking with one before moving to the next (ie, rest breaks) then you are giving your body enough rest and the problem might lie elsewhere. But if you are doing medium/low weight work and doing supersets, you need to basically cut cardio out of your day because you are already doing it while lifting.

I would recommend that you cut the cardio basically completely on lifting days and hit the supersets after you do a heavy lift each gym session. Such as start with a manly weight deadlift, finish them up and then go to supersets of non-big three lifts using medium weight. You don't really need to hit 6 different lifts 4 times a week, or three really, as I'm honestly at a loss at what you would be doing for half of those lifts that you couldn't accomplish with less and a higher intensity. If time is a factor (and it seems like it is) you may want to prune off silly shit like doing hammer curls and regular curls and preacher curls. Pick one and hit it -hard- and you'll get the good results, of the three I recommend preachers if you have the equipment available at your gym. Basically, to maximize time you need to minimize rest breaks and repeat actions. Find weight that is doable but requires work, and use those to funnel your efforts into making the most out of each lift/press.

Now, if you were superman prior to that? Then my advice isn't going to help, but if you were just in decent/good shape, the above will basically put you back into that shape if you can keep a reign on your diet and nutrition. No matter how well you work out, if you eat like shit it'll destroy your hard work pretty fast.

I lost four pounds this week, which was not the goal. The goal is to only lose one pound a week. We did reduce my calories this last week, we'll see how it goes next week with a little more calories. Weight loss is not the primary goal here, it's as important as not losing muscle. Between the HIIT cardio and increased fats, my metabolism is running high. I'm at 253.6 now, at 245 I look pretty lean. I'm concerned it's too fast now, but my trainer isn't worried.

Don't worry so much about week to week weight loss. It's more than likely just water weight fluctuations (since I doubt you had a 14,000 calorie deficit in one week).

Elurin_sl said:

Don't worry so much about week to week weight loss. It's more than likely just water weight fluctuations (since I doubt you had a 14,000 calorie deficit in one week).

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My trainer says to not worry about it. I didn't get a whole lot of initial loss from dieting (water weight), but we replaced carbs with fats, and now I'm dropping a bunch of water. I lost another pound since my Saturday AM weigh in. If I drop another three to four pounds too fast, I'm going to be nervous.

Whenever i cut out a lot of carbs I drop 5-6 lbs right away before losing a more sustainable 1-2 lbs a week

Ambiturner_sl said:

Whenever i cut out a lot of carbs I drop 5-6 lbs right away before losing a more sustainable 1-2 lbs a week

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Yeah, but there was no initial 5-6 pound drop, probably because he had me creatine load.

Szeth_sl said:

Is dropping water weight a good thing? It's not from dehydration obviously, unless you're looking to get into competition form which seems counter to what you're going for.

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Dropping water is part of it, just wasn't expecting that to happen one month in. I am not dehydrated, I've never been more hydrated in my life. He has me drinking two gallons a day.

I'm not getting ready for a competition, but all he does is get people ready for competition. So I'm following that program. He's trying to flush out the water and getting my pH levels back in line (don't ask, I don't know anything about that).

Ossoi_sl said:

When you eat carbs this is used to fill your muscles with glycogen. Glycogen holds water. When you don't eat carbs and your glycogen reserves are depleted, then you lose the extra water weight at the same time. It is nothing to be concerned about

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What I was worried about was that the water loss happened one month after being on the program, instead of the first week. I'm sitting there asking myself if I have AIDS or something .

Rezz_sl said:

It also depends on how you are lifting, honestly. If you are doing low rep high weight sets and sticking with one before moving to the next (ie, rest breaks) then you are giving your body enough rest and the problem might lie elsewhere. But if you are doing medium/low weight work and doing supersets, you need to basically cut cardio out of your day because you are already doing it while lifting.

I would recommend that you cut the cardio basically completely on lifting days and hit the supersets after you do a heavy lift each gym session. Such as start with a manly weight deadlift, finish them up and then go to supersets of non-big three lifts using medium weight. You don't really need to hit 6 different lifts 4 times a week, or three really, as I'm honestly at a loss at what you would be doing for half of those lifts that you couldn't accomplish with less and a higher intensity. If time is a factor (and it seems like it is) you may want to prune off silly shit like doing hammer curls and regular curls and preacher curls. Pick one and hit it -hard- and you'll get the good results, of the three I recommend preachers if you have the equipment available at your gym. Basically, to maximize time you need to minimize rest breaks and repeat actions. Find weight that is doable but requires work, and use those to funnel your efforts into making the most out of each lift/press.

Now, if you were superman prior to that? Then my advice isn't going to help, but if you were just in decent/good shape, the above will basically put you back into that shape if you can keep a reign on your diet and nutrition. No matter how well you work out, if you eat like shit it'll destroy your hard work pretty fast.

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Thanks for the info. I have always ran first before doing my workout (since highschool and I am in my 30's) because I thought it had something to do with using up certain sugars or fats or something and thus it was more beneficial in the fat burning area to do cardio first.

If you guys don't mind, I will post my workout sheet when I get home for a little critiquing if that is cool.

Lyrical_sl said:

Dropping water is part of it, just wasn't expecting that to happen one month in. I am not dehydrated, I've never been more hydrated in my life. He has me drinking two gallons a day.

I'm not getting ready for a competition, but all he does is get people ready for competition. So I'm following that program. He's trying to flush out the water and getting my pH levels back in line (don't ask, I don't know anything about that).

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Water with lemon=alkaline after it sits a day or so.

Are you completely no carb? Right now the only carbs i'm eating is some fruit and sweet potatoes. The loss is slow tho:-(

The thing is, how many calories are you eating with things that are not carbs? Because it will still (basically) come down to calories in vs. calories out. For personal weight loss, I cycle for an hour 4 times a week at moderate/high intensity, so I know I'm probably burning somewhere between 1500-2200 calories from that. Which is still only half a lb. You need to cut out or use 3500 more than you are intaking to roughly lose a lb, which depending on your starting size may be barely noticeable.

I lift on the days I'm not cycling, and I get a solid hour of lifting with minimal breaks. So probably another 800-1000 calories from that (I lift pretty heavy at the start of each session and then do the other 40 minutes with supersets). Lowballing that would mean I still need to cut at least 1000 calories out of my diet over the course of a week Which after all the other work isn't terrible at all. But for most people who aren't doing some obscene crash diet, and especially if you are just replacing carbs with fats/protein, you are going to notice slower losses unless you are cutting a rather large chunk out of your diet.

Lyrical is apparently on a tremendous lifestyle change/workout regimen if he is losing 2-4 lbs a week, as it means that he was eating a substantial amount more than he was using on a daily basis (or was matching his workout calories with intake) and was never quite in the negative until he got with this personal trainer. That's actually one of the larger pitfalls of trying to lose weight while working out. When you work out, you -definitely- get hungrier, so for people who were attempting to get larger, you gotta feed the need or you won't grow. When you try and cut weight, the key isn't changing your workout so much as it is changing your intake.

I don't know how often you lift/if you lift/cardio regimen or intensity levels, but I find replacement diets to be a bit misleading in general unless you were -way- overboard on carbs.

I follow body for life style lifting. It's more of an upper body/lower routine. It's 3 days a week lifting and 3 cardio. All interval stuff. I just tossed my numbers in myfitnesspal. I need to eat about 1850 calories a day to drop 2lbs a week.

Hah, that number is borderline dead-on with what I've put together through looking at calories in and calories out. I wasn't questioning your ethics, just that a lot of people think that weight loss is going slow when the reality is that unless you are a behemoth it takes quite a bit of effort to drop a lb that isn't just water weight. Good luck with the plan; stay consistent.

Rezz_sl said:

Hah, that number is borderline dead-on with what I've put together through looking at calories in and calories out. I wasn't questioning your ethics, just that a lot of people think that weight loss is going slow when the reality is that unless you are a behemoth it takes quite a bit of effort to drop a lb that isn't just water weight. Good luck with the plan; stay consistent.

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Thanks Rezzbro. I'm gonna follow it close and see. There are also those weeks where you just drop a shit ton of weight. I think that is coming. I notice when I have a long piss in the middle of the night, I'm losing. It's like your body flushing pounds lol.

It's called the "woosh." You lost 3-4 pounds because your diet rapidly changed. Most people when they plateau, they just lower the calories without accounting for a change in macro percentages or anything else. In fact, one of the easiest ways to break a plateau is to carb refeed. Most people panic once that scale stops moving, or starts rapidly moving... don't.

Rezz_sl said:

I don't know how often you lift/if you lift/cardio regimen or intensity levels, but I find replacement diets to be a bit misleading in general unless you were -way- overboard on carbs.

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Based on what my trainer has said, and my research, I was way too high on carbs. I ate what my BMR should have been, but overate on carbs. He's actually upped my calories by 10% a day, but my macros have changed to be higher in fats (I was eating probably 5% fats a day, it's now 40%). And it's worked. I'm getting slightly stronger every week, while my weight drops.

I love the guy, but he's kind of being a prick about Easter. He won't let me have dessert, I'm OK with that. But as long as my macros are in line, and calorie count is fine, leave me be. He's not wanting me to change the same five meals I've eaten every day for the last month, even on Easter. Sorry, but on Easter, I don't plan on eating those same bland foods.

We hired him to get us in good shape. We are different than his average client. He's got to get people contest ready in 16 weeks. He's acting like I'm trying to step on stage for a bodybuilding show, because that's who he deals with. I just want to be in better shape, I'm not trying to get down to 3% bf like the rest of his clients.

That's stupid. You're not prepping for a contest so there's no reason to be that stringent. That's the kind of bullshit that causes people to quit.

Eat your dessert on Easter. Fuck, eat double the amount you normally would.

The way I look at it is: If you were a fat fuck and you ate like shit everyday, would eating super healthy for one day make any difference? The answer to that is a resounding no. So indulge for one day. In the grand scheme of things it's completely insignificant. It's also the best way to be consistent with making a permanent change in your diet. If you allow yourself small cheats rarely, you won't feel like you're missing anything. It's when you become ridiculous about it and beat yourself up because your carbs were 5% too high one day that you end up eventually saying fuck it and quitting altogether.

Elurin_sl said:

That's stupid. You're not prepping for a contest so there's no reason to be that stringent. That's the kind of bullshit that causes people to quit.

Eat your dessert on Easter. Fuck, eat double the amount you normally would.

The way I look at it is: If you were a fat fuck and you ate like shit everyday, would eating super healthy for one day make any difference? The answer to that is a resounding no. So indulge for one day. In the grand scheme of things it's completely insignificant. It's also the best way to be consistent with making a permanent change in your diet. If you allow yourself small cheats rarely, you won't feel like you're missing anything. It's when you become ridiculous about it and beat yourself up because your carbs were 5% too high one day that you end up eventually saying fuck it and quitting altogether.

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He gets results, we know who he has gotten contest ready, and they are perfectly chiseled. That being said, those same people are the ones that deviated from what he said and lied about it. One person drank alcohol like a fish on weekends. We know, we were drinking there with her. Another took steroids and didn't tell him. I'm going to be a man and not hide it like they did. He adjusts everything every week anyway, why not be honest and upfront? Sometimes, he couldn't figure out what was going on with some people, and it's because they did things not on plan. You have to adjust for that.

I'm tempted to tell him that slavery hasn't been around in the US for hundreds of years, but he's Black, and that would be awkward. I don't agree with his super strict approach, but he does have a brand to maintain. He can't be associated with failure.