Slowly strarting again, some questions

[BD-]

Hi !

Some might remember me from a year or two back. I used to be quite addicted to working out / body building and in retrospect, I made some amazing gains in the year or two I trained. Well actually I only began to realise that when I saw my body get thinner every day when I watched in the mirror. It started with my (already small) pecs, shoulders, legs... and I've lost about an inch around my arms too...

The reason why I quit was mainly because I got discouraged because I had probably achieved my 'genetic maximum'. I'm extremely ectomorph, I got from 60 kg to 65, but more than 65 seemed impossible. I couldn't gain more muscle tissue - all protein I ate seemed to turn into fat around my waist and butt... not really motivating.

So instead of slowly reducing my proteine intake and workouts, I kinda neglected it all (falling from one cold into the other didn't help either - when I was just cured from one the next one was already coming up - and I generally feel to weak to train then, plus I doubt training during disease is effective anyway - will the body spend its energy on building muscles instead of fighting the disease ?) and trained only once every few weeks for about a year. I also quit taking protein shakes and refrained from the extra 5th or 6th meal (consisting out of some protein-rich food like my daily can of tuna).


Now... even though I won't ever get the body I want (because of my bad genes) I would like to have that body from a year ago again. I won't be training 3 times a week and eat as much... but here's the question: would one workout per week be enough, and do I need protein shakes ? I know the 'stereotype answers', I've been in this whole body building community long enough. But realise that my body is NOT that of a normal person - for instance, I surely don't need 120+ g of protein a day - I'd just get fat instead of build muscle. Whereas a regular person will aim for e.g. 25-35g of protein / meal, 10-15 will probably do for me. Also, I'm not sure whether it is effective to train a muscle group more than once per week.

The main problem however is probably time. And motivation to fully dedicate myself again. The only days that I have spare time are tuesday morning, thursday afternoon and sunday, but I prefer to rest on sunday (and there's no decent food in the house then anyway). What would be the best 'routine' spread over those two days ? Or is one day enough ? And would it really help to take two doses of protein shake every day again ?


Thanks for ur time / advice.


Vincent


ps: I could take pictures but that seems a bit gayish and I'm nowhere near the average poster, not anymore at least :/ so if you really need to see my situation, I could perhaps send them in pm.

 

[newf]

BD, how many cals were you eating to put on bodyfat? If you can gain weight i would harly call you an extreme ecto.

You don't need protein shakes of course there really good for immediate post workout but even some say the window is much larger then 60min.

I would try 2 fullbody workouts a week and see how that goes. 90min total.

 

[BD-]

Yea i was thinking along the same lines.

How many calories ? I never really counted them. But I do know about 120-150g protein per day, which is most important of course. I did try to limit the amount of carbs & fats (although I often sinned by eating tons of nuts and stuff) because I was very aware of the fact I was getting more body fat (in the wrong places) instead of muscle. But appearently even that was too much.
Believe me. I've only met _one_ other person in my entire life who is as ectomorph (extremely thin waists/hands/fingers, almost female skeleton (slim shoulders), difficulties gaining weight,...) as me. There are tons of people claiming they're ectomorph 'because they don't see the results they expect'. Of course not, they do tons of things wrong, don't have patience or expect miracles. But when you compare those people with a _real_ ectomorph like myself you clearly see the difference -_-
Those 5-7 kg that I gained (of which a lot must have been fat too) were the result of _very_ hard work and strict eating and training programs. But I loved doing it... until I realised I wouldn't make any more progress... working that hard just to 'maintain' the current just isn't motivating, I'm sure you'll all agree - we all want more, better, larger, heavier, right ?