For BG fitness fanatics, a question..

[Tyche]

How does one live off of 2000 calories a day =/

[Nystul]

LOL well if you're running marathons and shit thats low. Didn't Phelps put down like 5 or 6k a day when he was in the olympics?

Average person is supposed to be like 2000-2500 or something.



**edit** I'll take that back. 2-3k depending on size. There is a calorie counter here:
http://nutrition.about.com/od/change...a/calguide.htm
that tells you what you should be having.

[Tyche]

6,000 calories....for breakfast

12,000 a day. That's just sick.

[Tyche]

ROFL

He told NBC he begins the day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.
Phelps' washes it down with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.
At lunch, Phelps gobbles up a pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches with lashings of mayo on white bread - and chasing the sammies with 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.
Then dinner is served, Phelps five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week regimen is rewarded with a pound of pasta and an entire pizza.
Followed by 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks, again.

Read more: Olympian Michael Phelps' 12000 calorie a day diet - Monsters and Critics

[sephir]

It's impossible to embarrass yourself at a marathon. No where else are males wearing shorts that are short enough to be mistaken for a wide belt, women take shits on the off-beaten path in the bushes because the line is too long for the potties, and 250lb men jog 26 miles with their shirts off. Finishing it is the easy part, you usually have 6+ hours to do it. Setting a goal and hitting it can be challenging. I'm running one in Indianapolis on Saturday. Hope to finish in around 3 hours.

I'm looking at doing Tri's this next summer. The only thing that worries me would be the swimming part as I can easily jog 8-10miles and have done century bike rides.

Also 2000 calories a day is a rough estimate for people. I seem to live in the 2200-2500 range depending on my activity that day. But then again these last 2 weeks since I've stepped up my workout routine I've been a pig. I think I ate pizza for 2 meals a day in a row....When I was a teen that sounded awesome but now it just makes me feel disgusting.

[Nystul]

thats one of the reasons why a lot of former athletes- especially those that played in college/pro- end up ballooning up when they are done because they have these super high calorie diets to account for their extreme physical demands but they don't always change the eating habits when they retire.

[Tyche]

I'm the worst swimmer you could ever imagine, I'll never do a tri. I'd love to do an ironman, but the fact that I do well to swim a few hundred meters doesn't bode well for the 2.4 miles that is required. Well, that, and good tri bikes are as much as a compact car. This week, in carb-loading for the marathon, I've been throwing back about 6-7,000 calories a day. During typical training, it's a much more reasonable 4,000ish.

[EndgameDrama]

When i was 15 i lost 40 pounds in 2 months and that left me with a shitty looking body, what you need to do is try to fill it in with muscle.

Stick with the cardio, if you're done with everything in your day around 3, try to run for about 45 minutes. After that try to grab a meal, your best bet is chicken. A small ammount would be fine, like one of those individually sealed Tyson chicken meals.(the raw ones, not the pre-cooked ones) when you're done eating rest until about 5 o clock then hit the weights.

Don't work out every day, only about 4 days out of the week. For cardio try to do it every day and if not then at least on the days that you are going to work out.

Your schedule should look something like this:
Day1 Chest, Triceps

Day2 Legs, Abs, Calves

Day3 Shoulders, abs, calves

Day4 Back, Traps/biceps/forearms

I'll PM you a detailed workout if you want.

When you're done with your workout try to drink your protein drink afterwards. i personally drink this http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA229_.jpg

but in vanilla. and instead of water i use Silk(brand) Vanilla Soy milk, the soymilk has protein in it as well and definitely enhances the flavor of the drink so it is tolerable.

about 2 hours after your shake try to prepare another one of those chicken meals you had before your workout.

Try to keep your diet to mainly healthy foods, chicken salad, chicken, tuna; things along those lines.

If you want to eat shitty foods try to keep it down to ONCE A WEEK as a sort of treat for yourself.

Hope this helps.

[Serif]

I'm the worst swimmer you could ever imagine, I'll never do a tri. I'd love to do an ironman, but the fact that I do well to swim a few hundred meters doesn't bode well for the 2.4 miles that is required. Well, that, and good tri bikes are as much as a compact car. This week, in carb-loading for the marathon, I've been throwing back about 6-7,000 calories a day. During typical training, it's a much more reasonable 4,000ish.

Dude swimming is so easy sleezy.

Contemplating on working for triathlons here soon. About to be living 4-5 minutes from the Y and not being tempted by home cooked food anymore.

[Jak]

Jeez, my stomach got nautious reading Phelps daily food. I don't see how someone can eat more than 2000~ calories a day of healthy stuff. I felt sick just eating an estimated 1600~ calories yesterday. That includes two servings of fish, grilled chicken, kashi cereal, tons of dark veggies (which I eat a lot of anyways), six servings of fat free cottage cheese, etc. etc.

I guess it's just a process of building up my body to eat more since I'm so use to eating 1000 - 1200 calories a day (sometimes less).

As for saying it's more of a mental than a physical thing, probably right. Everyone says I'm anorexic, I'm getting sickly looking, etc. (which may explain my newly evolved heart condition). So what I did was I put away every scale in my house and sent them far far away to fatty-land where someone else needs them.. and I'm focusing more on how I look than how much I weigh.

It's actually pretty good talking about it with people who know what they are doing. I live in Arkansas, Land'O'Fatties, and coming from a Family whose average size is 6'5 and 400 pounds.. there's nothing good and healthy coming from these peoples mouths except grease generally.

I'll keep it up and thanks for the tips and shit.. I do actually take into account what everyone says. Oh and Dramafindersomethingoranother I'd love a detailed account of that if you read this. Thanks guys. :>

[Altanass]

google compound v isolation weight exercises, u want to be doing compound stuff, but i dont know how you can emulate those without proper gym equipment. i dont know what would substitute bench pressing or deadlifts, because the only home exercises i can think of are:



at home you could try dips, pull ups (you can buy dip bars and pull up bars easily on the net), press ups; as these rely on your own weight and not gym equipment per se.

for abs, try hula hooping and bycycle crunches. you'l want to add leg raises on a dipping bar if u are safe and able to. just google all these if u never heard of them.


protein wise, i use Optimum Nutrition gold standard, taste great and mixes well, doesnt give me the runs either like other drinks lol



those home exercises should do as a start, but results will be slow. Your better off taking the hour trip to the gym. Results would be faster and your self esteem would shoot through the roof, then you'l be a happy bunny



diet wise, chuck the cereal and eat porridge, eat oily fish where possible e.g salmon, even tuna.

[Serif]

Jeez, my stomach got nautious reading Phelps daily food. I don't see how someone can eat more than 2000~ calories a day of healthy stuff. I felt sick just eating an estimated 1600~ calories yesterday. That includes two servings of fish, grilled chicken, kashi cereal, tons of dark veggies (which I eat a lot of anyways), six servings of fat free cottage cheese, etc. etc.

I guess it's just a process of building up my body to eat more since I'm so use to eating 1000 - 1200 calories a day (sometimes less).

As for saying it's more of a mental than a physical thing, probably right. Everyone says I'm anorexic, I'm getting sickly looking, etc. (which may explain my newly evolved heart condition). So what I did was I put away every scale in my house and sent them far far away to fatty-land where someone else needs them.. and I'm focusing more on how I look than how much I weigh.

It's actually pretty good talking about it with people who know what they are doing. I live in Arkansas, Land'O'Fatties, and coming from a Family whose average size is 6'5 and 400 pounds.. there's nothing good and healthy coming from these peoples mouths except grease generally.

I'll keep it up and thanks for the tips and shit.. I do actually take into account what everyone says. Oh and Dramafindersomethingoranother I'd love a detailed account of that if you read this. Thanks guys. :>

Phelps doesn't eat all healthy food, he just has to eat it for the energy he needs. When I was training for my marathon last October, I was on a steady diet and it changed how I ate this last year. I was 6'6" and 180, I looked like bones but had lean muscle on me. Best I ever felt in my life, was getting plenty of sleep and exercise every day.

If you start working out in the morning and keep on a strict plan your body will naturally become more hungry as time goes on. You will start to notice your body hating you if you don't eat at certain times of the day. It almost feels like you are pregnant, or I would suppose, seeing how you have to eat almost 24/7.

That doesn't mean you are getting fat, well it does if you aren't exercising. It just means your body is needing more energy than you are giving yourself.

[Jak]

google compound v isolation weight exercises, u want to be doing compound stuff, but i dont know how you can emulate those without proper gym equipment. i dont know what would substitute bench pressing or deadlifts, because the only home exercises i can think of are:



at home you could try dips, pull ups (you can buy dip bars and pull up bars easily on the net), press ups; as these rely on your own weight and not gym equipment per se.

for abs, try hula hooping and bycycle crunches. you'l want to add leg raises on a dipping bar if u are safe and able to. just google all these if u never heard of them.


protein wise, i use Optimum Nutrition gold standard, taste great and mixes well, doesnt give me the runs either like other drinks lol



those home exercises should do as a start, but results will be slow. Your better off taking the hour trip to the gym. Results would be faster and your self esteem would shoot through the roof, then you'l be a happy bunny



diet wise, chuck the cereal and eat porridge, eat oily fish where possible e.g salmon, even tuna.

As I stated, I do actually have a lot of execise equipment at my house. A variety of dumbells, newer model bowflex, etc. but yah.. I don't have the wide variety of what I need unfortunetely.

And yah, getting off of work at 6:00PM, getting to gym at 7-7:30, working out an hour until 8:30~, then coming home at 10:00 and going to bed, then waking up at 4 in the morning.. that's just ugh lol. I need my eight hours of sleep.

And to Serif, or anyone else really, a couple more questions..

[1] Would it be wise to do cardio in the morning and weight training or whatever in the afternoons without doing more cardio, or should I do it all at one time instead of splitting it up?

[2] Does it hurt to do 10-15 minutes worth of exercising mid-day and 30~ minutes in the afternoon? Or is it pointless and I shouldn't be splitting up weight exercises?

[Atreides]

Just to echo what people have been saying, at 6', 150lbs is pretty light. Keep in mind that depending on how rapid your weight loss has been, you could still have a fair amount of loose skin. BDD is also a possibility, but regardless of your build you really can't afford to lose any more weight without it being very unhealthy. Your body needs SOME fat to survive, and continuing to lose weight will only hurt your current level of muscle/strength.

To clairfy:

[1] I have a 50-60 minute schedule planned out. Thirty minutes of this is cardio (fairly intensive) with the other 20-30 being various restrictive weight training with dumbells, my bowflex, and other items at home. After I've done my workout, what the hell am I suppose to do? Is it normal for me to just play FF:XI or whatever? It's too dark to go outside and do anything else. What do you guys who work out do after or what SHOULD I be doing?

I would recommend cutting your cardio a bit (see below for a reason why), just using it as a warmup on the days you train. 10-15 minutes max, to get your muscles warmed up, immediately before you lift weights/use your bowflex/etc. You can add in a 30-45 minute cardio day on an off day, so long as it doesn't interfere with your recovery.

[2] I have every intention of putting on muscle and continuing to lose fat at the same time but I'm afraid doing cardio is going to actually hurt gaining muscle. Should I do less cardio and more restrictive exercising? I always feel more pumped up and energized when I do cardio.. but only after 15~ minutes.

This is a really common misconception. Even with a perfect diet, great genetics, and an ideal workout, It is nearly impossible to lose fat and gain muscle simultaneously.

Basically there are two options:
1) Gaining muscle, or "bulking", during which fat gain can be minimized but is almost always unavoidable. Minimizing your fat gain by eating too few calories or doing too much cardio during this time can severely cut into or short circuit your muscle gain entirely.

2) Losing body fat, or "cutting", during which some muscle/strength loss is to be expected, but can be minimized. I would really not recommend this for you, since you can't possibly have a lot of fat OR muscle left to lose

[3] Since I have a 0% chance of ever making it to a gym (the closest is an hours drive if not more).. but I do have access to my bowflex, stair master, treadmills, etc. what is my best bet at aiding muscle growth / toning up this blob I call my body. Like.. maybe exercises I wouldn't normally think of (or maybe putting a twist to an old one like situps, pushups, benchpressing, etc.)

Most bodybuilding forums/sites out there will recommend the following for people looking to add muscle:
1) Eat AT LEAST 500-1000 calories per day more than you burn (so for you, ~3500/day or more), the more the better, ensuring a lot of protein and at least some fat/carbs.
2) Get 8 hours of sleep per night
3) Lift heavy weights, increasing the weight when possible without exceeding your body's ability to recover in time for the next workout. As mentioned earlier you probably shouldn't be lifting weights more than 3-4x per week.

Obviously without a gym #3 is going to be a little different for you than for a lot of people, but it's certainly possible to make some muscle gains at home with bodyweight exercises/bowflex/whatever.

Just a quick note on p90x:
P90x is a cutting routine, designed primarily for fat loss and endurance. However, If you are operating on a caloric surplus, then yes, p90x can help you gain muscle, especially if the alternative is doing nothing/being completely sedentary and especially if you're a relative novice for whom body weight exercises (125-175 lbs) will be considered heavy. That being said, for bulking and adding muscle P90x is far from ideal, and with access to proper equipment (at the gym or at home) there are far more effective routines you can follow.

There is no such thing as a routine that can be used to lose fat while gaining muscle, that's true for all routines, not just p90x.

[4] What, if any, do you guys use for protein shakes? I have a whey protein mix thing that I throw in with skim milk, ice, and a banana.. but that shit gets seriously hard to drink after a week (I'm not a big sweet-tooth person). And if you don't use protein shakes.. where does the majority of your protein come from? I'd guess the same as mine which is grilled chicken, fish, turkey, fat-free cottage cheese, fish, tuna, more fish, and ... fish.

You're on the right track here, the general rule of thumb advocated by most is 1-1.5g of protein per pound of body weight (so 150g-225g per day, for you), then fill out the rest of your calories however you want. Don't be afraid of eating too much fat, some people have the notion that fat is bad and try to get away with bulking with only 30g of fat in their diet.

Good quality protein sources are milk, chicken/fish, fat free cottage cheese, eggs/egg whites, peanut butter, almonds/sunflower seeds, etc. Whey powder is good for quick/easy protein but remember that it's a supplement, not something that's intended to completely replace whole foods. Like a lot of others in this thread I use Optimum Nutrition as well.

btw, GNC tends to be really overpriced. You can order your supplements/protein online for a lot cheaper.

I hope that helps.

[Jak]

Super informative, actually. Be my trainer? =D


But seriously, thanks. I guess I'm just confused about what/how I'm suppose to lose/gain. I just don't know how well it's going to look gaining muscle when I still have a pudgy looking stomach/chest (which has for sure improved in looks in the last year or so). When I say I want to lose fat yet gain muscle at the same time I'm just hoping (maybe wishful thinking) that the muscle would take the place of the fat. I know my stomach isn't excess skin (lower bottom section of my stomach) and I know I don't have gynecomastia (at least from comparing to 100+ other people with it on the interwebs). BUT! I will prevail. Atreides, I may /tell you since you seem to know your shit and your on a server I have access to.. so don't be surprised iffen I do! (If you even play on Fairy still?).


Oh and what the hell.. I went from drinking 0 ounces of water a day to 3 litres of water a day two days ago and I feel fat as fuck and my stomach is bigger too, lol. Is this "water weight" which is suppose to go away after I have rehydrated my body?

[Serif]

Oh and what the hell.. I went from drinking 0 ounces of water a day to 3 litres of water a day two days ago and I feel fat as fuck and my stomach is bigger too, lol. Is this "water weight" which is suppose to go away after I have rehydrated my body?

Water weight, I used to drink 2 gallons of water a day. I drink 1 now and I feel like shit if I don't have enough water during the day. Just get used to this if you are going to be drinking a lot of water here soon. Once you get hooked on it it is kind of hard to stop.

And about the other questions, if you do cardio and such in the morning it just kick starts your metabolism. Plus you have more energy in the morning. I never really split up workouts but if you have to, you have to.

[OzzofAsura]

I guess it's just a process of building up my body to eat more since I'm so use to eating 1000 - 1200 calories a day (sometimes less).

and I'm focusing more on how I look than how much I weigh.

You'll probably need more than 1000-1200 calories a day to put on significant muscle, especially if that is what you normally take in.

Also, the second line = Bingo! Weights fluctuate and are very often misleading, especially considering muscle weight =/= to fat weight. Try taking a before picture, and compare it to what you look like along the way... 1 month, 2 months, 6 months. Remember, inches and looks, fuck pounds. Also, if your heart condition has anything to do with it, monitor your cholesterol and intake of saturated fats.

[Atreides]

I agree with the weight thing, when you wake up in the morning (and are dehydrated with an empty stomach) you can weigh up to 3-5 lbs less than you do at night. It's far more accurate to take a picture or use a cloth tape measure on your waist.

Lots of things can cause bloating though, eating too quickly/not chewing enough, lactose or gluten intolerance, etc. I used to get horrible bloating from soda, which is a horrible thing to drink (well, at least at the quantities I used to consume).

oh and Jak if you want you can send me a PM on the boards, although there are probably far better places you can go for information lol

[Meat]

Super informative, actually. Be my trainer? =D


But seriously, thanks. I guess I'm just confused about what/how I'm suppose to lose/gain. I just don't know how well it's going to look gaining muscle when I still have a pudgy looking stomach/chest (which has for sure improved in looks in the last year or so). When I say I want to lose fat yet gain muscle at the same time I'm just hoping (maybe wishful thinking) that the muscle would take the place of the fat. I know my stomach isn't excess skin (lower bottom section of my stomach) and I know I don't have gynecomastia (at least from comparing to 100+ other people with it on the interwebs). BUT! I will prevail. Atreides, I may /tell you since you seem to know your shit and your on a server I have access to.. so don't be surprised iffen I do! (If you even play on Fairy still?).


Oh and what the hell.. I went from drinking 0 ounces of water a day to 3 litres of water a day two days ago and I feel fat as fuck and my stomach is bigger too, lol. Is this "water weight" which is suppose to go away after I have rehydrated my body?

you're really all over the place here
1) you CANNOT naturally lose fat and build muscle at the same time, don't even try.
2) If you have excessive loose skin, you're sol. nothing short of surgery is going to fix that.

you're best case hope is to rigorously bulk and try to fill out some of the lose skin with muscle, abs are muscles too.

[archibaldcrane]

OP: If you ask me, you just need muscle. Stop worrying about fat at all. Build up some muscle mass, it will increase your metabolism, you'll fill out your saggy skin (at least a bit), and someone with your body will build quickly at first.

Forget this high-rep shit. For each exercise, pick a weight you can do less than 10 times in a row. Do that 8 times or whatever, up the weight, do as many as you can (like 5), up the weight, do as many as you can (2-3), move on. If you want muscle (and you do) you need to lift heavy weight for your strength level. After you finish working out, eat. If you can find suitable protein sources do that, but regardless eat something.

Personally I would just drink a muscle milk shake throughout my workout, and then eat something after I got home and showered. I've stopped lifting almost completely though, training for the LA Marathon in March.

Running fucking sucks. Tyche, you're retarded.