Need some pointing in the right direction

S

squirrellywrath

0
I'm a 25 year old male who has always been skinny. Never really had a problem with it but alas my metabolism is now next to zero and now along with my skinny arms and legs I have a belly and am amassing a sizable chest. :eek:

A few dimensions to give you an idea:
Neck: 14 1/2in
Wrist: 6 1/4in
Arm (bicep/tricep region): 13in
Calves: 13 1/4in
Waist: 37in (taken around the actual gut)
Chest: 41 1/2
Weight: 166
etc. etc.

So I've decided for my health and a confidence boost as i'm getting a bit of a complex about it I'm going to start working out. Unfortunately I'm dirt poor (work in retail) and have little equipment. Right now I have a NordicFlexGold (resistance machine from 1992) which was gifted to me and 1 long barbell which isn't striaght (strange w shape). I can invest about a hundred bucks into new equipment if needed but cannot pay for a membership (I wont go).

I've gotten in a routine for the past two weeks simply using the workouts that came with the NFG (see below). The first day (a Monday) I was thrashed (muscles soar as can be) so took Wed. off. Then worked out Friday's routine and was done for the weekend. The next week though (this week) I haven't really been sore.

Every MWF before bed I take a protien shake which has little carbs and 22g of whey protien. Tastes disgusting but I down it nonetheless (also was bought about a year ago so not sure if whey goes bad). The problem is I'm also one of the worst eaters. I eat a ton of junk (not so much candy etc. just empty calories from fast food). So I was considering perhaps an atkins diet but not sure how that would effect my working out.

As of yet I have no cardio exercises and fear running because I don't have money to buy good shoes and figure it's going to do more damage to my joints then good to my heart.

I'm all over tha place I know. Luckily I'm not too bad with accountability...I'll usually stick to a routine.

Any pointers, help, links you can send me I'd appreciate. Basically I'm looking to see if the NordicFlex is worth doing (I have soreness but know nothing about resistance machines), what I could spend the $100 on to improve the situation, and whether atkins is feasible or should I just cut out the fast food and eat normally.

Thanks.
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All exercises are 3 sets of 8 unless otherwise noted.

Monday
Incline Sit-up (which I can't do so supplement regular situps)
Military Press
Leg Extension
Bench Press
Standing Leg Curl
Seated Tricep Press
Bent-over row (which kills me everytime)
Rear Squat
Standing Bicep Curls (using barbells instead of machine)

Wednesday
Roman chair situp (which I cannot do so supplement what I call 'leg pushes' which is sitting at the end of the bench and extending my legsoutward towards the floor and back in)
Butterfly
Leg press
Press behind neck
Concentration curl (which is more shaky then fluid movement)
Dead lift
Shoulder shrugs
Dips (which I cannot yet do a single one!)

Friday
Leg Bend
Incline press
Donkey press
Lat pulldown
Front squat
Upright row
Pullups (usually 3 sets of 4 is all i can pull off)
Tricep pushdown
 
Also forgot, I've heard a bit about specific muscle training on specific days. I knew a guy who did an arm day, a chest/back day, and a leg day doing ab exercises before each rotuine. Is this preferred?
 
Don't bother with Atkins. Unless you're carb-sensitive, staying on a low-carb diet, especially for an extended period of time (and "diets" should be habits that you maintain for your lifetime) can and will take energy from you, leaving you sluggish and with poor workouts. Cut out all fast food, sodas, candies, cakes, pastries, cookies, etc. and replace them with healthier choices. What does your present diet consist of?
 
Sadly, I eat fast food on average once a day and max of 3 times a day. I'm addicted to potatos for some reason as well as bread...so I'm happy that atkins might not be the best idea. What else, I eat maybe 3 times a day and when I do I eat a lot. I know I'm supposed to break those down to 6 meals but never get the portions right.

I do drink a lot of water, too poor to justify buying soda, so that works out well. If it's not water it's usually a watered down juice (usually ocean spray or some cheap knock off).

It will be near impossible for me to cut out bread, though I can substitute tortillas if necessary.

I don't eat vegetables or fruits because it seems every day I read something different about what to stay away from and later a contradiction to that. It's intimidating. I love many fruits, but again, I never know what to get from the store so usually leave that aisle quickly.

I do take one-a-day vitamins about every 3 days. It's hard for me to take those horse pills so the one-a-days I can take daily...it's just a matter of getting in a routine.
 
I think your first step is to cut out fast food. Period. It's filled with nasty fats and artificial stuff that you don't want to be eating - trust me.

Potatoes are a good choice for carbs, as long as you don't load up on sour cream, bacon, and other fatty toppings when you eat 'em. When eating bread, go for the whole wheat stuff. Darker is better.

To help with figuring out how much to eat, you need to know what your caloric intake should be. makes figuring that out easy. Depending on if you're looking for fat loss or gaining mass, you can choose the appropriate value. (Remember that these numbers are just ballpark figures.) Divide that number by six, and that's how many calories you should eat per meal.

Congratulations on drinking water :) Drinking water is one of the easiest and most important steps to good health and fitness.

When choosing foods in general, keep this in mind - natural is good, processed or artificial is bad. An oversimplified rule, I realize, but it's just a rule of thumb. Fruits and veggies, as a whole, are definitely good for you and nutrition-packed. The only thing you might want to keep in mind is, if you're trying to lose fat, you may want to limit your fruits, because they are simple carbs. However, that does not make fruit bad for you. Eat fruits and veggies all the time!
 
Great posts, thanks for the input. A few more musings...

Is there such a thing as gaining lean mass? Sounds strange but try this on...I eat like I said, a ton of fast food which packs on the poundage quick and offeres no real benefit. I've always been like this which is my explanation for being the thin arm/leg person I've always been. But cutting out fast food completely and eating less processed meat etc. could I still gain mass but actually mixed with cardio be loosing fat? If so where on this spectrum should I be?...

Maintenance:
2858 calories/day
Fat Loss:
2287 calories/day
Extreme Fat Loss:
1715 calories/day
Weight Gain:
3430 calories/day
 
Here's the thing - you can gain lots of lean mass and lose some fat, or lose lots of fat and gain some lean mass. Generally speaking, you can't gain a lot of lean mass while losing a lot of fat. Why? Gaining mass requires a surplus in calories (to create the muscle) while losing fat requires a defecit (to burn the fat). Thus, you basically have to pick one or the other - which is a high priority for you?
 
That's what I was thinking. Right now, I think priority number one is to loose the gut while still gaining some lean mass. I figure that way once lean I can watch my diet and add calories until I hit some sort of target lean muscle gain while maintaining a low amount of fat. I'm going to go right now for 2300 and maintian my routine. I'm not trying to get bulky, just to a comfortable level.

Another question, had to work out today as I missed a day and my schedule got thrown off and I noticed something. I drank about 24oz of water during my workout. Is this normal? Is it ok or wise? I worry about cramping up I guess.
 
Unless you get uncomfortable, drink as much water as you feel like drinking. I have drunk about 80 oz of water in three to four hours (I was outside in the morning and did an ab workout, played three hours of tennis, and did a bit of biking and jogging) and later found that I was still a bit dehydrated.

When dieting, zig zagging can be the most effective method - every fourth day, raise your calories to "maintainance" level, which prevents you from going into starvation mode.
 
If you're thirsty, then drink. While there may be contradicting advice about consuming fruits and vegetables, there is one truth-if you eat more of them, you'll be healthier. Cardio is (usually) always good. I seriously doubt you'll do enough running to do much damage to the joints. If there's a field around you, you can do some running there on the soft grass.

Spend your 100 on a chin up bar and then look through the paper to see what people are gettin rid of.

That program looks horrible.
 
Well after doing that 'abs to drool for' and still being sore I'm guessing me not feeling sore the next day after a workout where I'm trying to breakdown muscles is a bad sign.

I had a good look at some routines from the net and custom fit this one from some link I found about skinny guys workout along with rips ab workout.

Monday
Hanging leg raises
Lying leg raises
Hanging side leg raises
Side crunches
Crunches
Bench press 3 sets (8)
Max Effort: Incline bench press (3-5 reps)
Bent-over barbell rows 3 sets (8)
Bent-over lateral raise 3 sets (12)
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Wednesday
Walking lunges 3 sets (8)
Max effort: Deadlifts (3-5 reps)
Romanian deadlifts 3 sets (8)
Dumbell holds
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Friday
Hanging leg raises
Lying leg raises
Hanging side leg raises
Side crunches
Crunches
Barbell bench press 3 sets (10)
Tricep ext. 4 sets (6)
Lat pulldowns 3 sets (8)
Dumbell shoulder press 3 sets (8)
Hammer curls 4 sets (8)
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Doesn't seem like a lot, so I added the ab workouts to Monday and Friday. It was from defranco's training website which I found posted here somewhere. Also haven't figured out where to put the cardio. Any opinions? I wanted to do it the same days as I worried it would somehow hurt my workout if I did it on Tues. Thurs. Sat.
 
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