Turning 30

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Nicolasd

0
In less than a month I'm turning 30, and I figured it's time to get back in shape.

I've been working out for over 10 years, but since I started working 6 years ago, I haven't really been following any diet, just trying to eat sort of ok and eating a bit less when I felt I was gaining fat.

But now I'm determined to gain muscle and lose fat. I'm 6' tall and 171 lb atm, I'd like to hit 185lb and drop bodyfat down to where I get some nice definition.

I'm doing resistance training 3 times a week and Krav Maga 2-3 times a week. So far I've done a 5 week bulk and a 2 week cut. Now I've gotten even more serious and bought some professional assistance from BigStew. He's encouraged me to keep a journal here for accountability ;)

Right now my problem is I may have broken my thumb at Krav Maga, at least it doesn't seem to be healing by itself, so I was going to wait a bit with starting on the program, but woke up this morning and just felt like starting up. It went ok, I just had to do presses in the machines.

I got up too late so I missed a meal, and I haven't really gotten all the foods I want yet, but here's what I did today

meal 1: eggs and oatmeal
meal 2: tuna with ezekiel bread and peppers
meal 3: post workout, "The Shake", ready to drink protein shake that just tastes so good, got 48g of carbs, probably where the great taste comes from :)
meal 4: went out with some friends, got a lean steak with potatoes and veggies
meal 5: turkey breast with brown rice and peppers (made a double portion so I got some to bring to work tomorrow)

Exercise was resistance training for the upper body, I went through all the upper muscles with focus on pecs and middle back. Feels strange doing it that way, I've been only doing 2 or 3 muscles per session forever, but let's how BigStew's program develops :) And then 20 minutes of steady state cardio.

I've attached a few pics so you can see where I'm at now, hopefully by the end of the year they'll be looking a lot better :)
 

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Good luck mate, hope it all goes well for you.
 
Hey Nicolas,
Great to have you as a client
Hope the injury heals up quickly and u can get down to business on the weights. Good Luck and remember update us on your daily activities, These guys on this board are great.
 
Im 46.......... Get er......Done!

I beat my age into "fricken" Submission. ROCK ON!

Good luck with the Journal!!!!

Best Wishes


Chillen
 
dougp25 said:
Welcome! 30 is nothing!! You seem to have an awful good base to work from, so good luck man!
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Hehe thx man

I kept myself in ok shape since I worked out regularly 2-3 times a week, and I never let a lot of fat accumulate. I'd just pinch my stomach skin every day, if it was too thick I'd just eat a bit less and no candy or dessert that day.

So I didn't have any problems I needed to fix first.

And I must say that those first 7 weeks really did do a lot, I'm both bulkier and leaner than when I started out. Watching your diet produces results really fast. And I was almost dirty bulking (meal 3 was 4 cups of chocolate milk ;) ), I'm really interesed in how BigStew's clean bulk is going to work out.
 
Nicolasd said:
Hehe thx man

I kept myself in ok shape since I worked out regularly 2-3 times a week, and I never let a lot of fat accumulate. I'd just pinch my stomach skin every day, if it was too thick I'd just eat a bit less and no candy or dessert that day.

So I didn't have any problems I needed to fix first.

And I must say that those first 7 weeks really did do a lot, I'm both bulkier and leaner than when I started out. Watching your diet produces results really fast. And I was almost dirty bulking (meal 3 was 4 cups of chocolate milk ;) ), I'm really interesed in how BigStew's clean bulk is going to work out.
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Stick with the program brotha and you will do just fine
 
I'll stick to it as much as I can. RL is going to interfere, like the next 2 days I probably have meetings with lunch. I'll just down a lowcarb protein shake before the meetings and then work with what they serve, trying to hit the right total calories and avoiding fat and high-GI stuff. On saturday I got an all day course for my hunter's license, that's going to be difficult to get right too.

And I have to convince the gf she needs to cook right too, she's just naturally on single-digit BF% even with eating pizzas and candy and so a bit hard to win over. And she's really annoyed at my dieting after I tried going keto for the first week of my cut and couldn't any normal food (it was an abysmal failure btw, it really doesn't go well with the stamina needed for martial arts).
 
You and I have similar goals - 185, muscular and lean. You're starting lower and bulking and I'm starting higher and cutting. I'd much rather be bulking than cutting! Depending on your build, most 6'0" men can carry anywhere from 180 to 195 and look muscular and lean.

Hey, how'd you not have to work until you were 24????:confused: I started working after school when I was 12, chipping square rocks into wheels and before school I had to milk the mastodons, pluck the dodos, and protect the family from marauding saber-tooth tigers...
 
g8r80 said:
Hey, how'd you not have to work until you were 24????:confused:
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I live in Denmark, it's the Scandinavian welfare model. Not only is education free, the state PAYS students - I think the current rate is around $750 per month. Many students even think it's unfair because unemployed and uninsured people get around twice that. We also get free health care (although studies place the quality around countries like Bulgaria and Colombia). Sounds great, eh? The flipside is 25% VAT, 63% marginal income tax for about 40% of the work force, 180% extra tax on cars (yes, cars cost 3 times as much in Denmark as elsewhere), etc. And all these taxes murder productivity, our neighbor Sweden, which is pretty similar, their average living standard is equal to the average of the poorest 15% of Americans. Start a thread about it if you want to hear more crazy stories about how we do things over here :)

Chillen said:
Yes, its recent and my left arm.
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The new avatar is even more impressive, those abs would be impressive on anyone, at any age! Rock on!
 
Okay, here's today

Meal 1: scrambled eggs, oatmeal and blueberries (damn that was tasty, yummy)
Meal 2: Turkey breast and brown rice (served cold from a tupperware box, hardly yummy) with some peppers
Meal 3: Tuna with ezekiel bread and peppers
Meal 4: Wok dish my gf cooked up, turkey breast with asparagus, cabbage, and peppers, and whole grain noodles.

That's it so far, going to the gym to do legs shortly, and then

Meal 5: PWO "The Shake"
Meal 6: Reheated wok dish from above

Deviating a bit from BigStew's plan, in large part because the meat section was out of anything proper but turkey yesterday, and also because of what the gf decided to cook. But I'm still eating the right type of food imo, lean meat and low-GI foods. BigStew, all the different meats you've added, is there anything nutritionally important about eating exactly those at the specified time, or is it just for my variation?
 
Nicolasd said:
I'll stick to it as much as I can. RL is going to interfere, like the next 2 days I probably have meetings with lunch. I'll just down a lowcarb protein shake before the meetings and then work with what they serve, trying to hit the right total calories and avoiding fat and high-GI stuff. On saturday I got an all day course for my hunter's license, that's going to be difficult to get right too.

And I have to convince the gf she needs to cook right too, she's just naturally on single-digit BF% even with eating pizzas and candy and so a bit hard to win over. And she's really annoyed at my dieting after I tried going keto for the first week of my cut and couldn't any normal food (it was an abysmal failure btw, it really doesn't go well with the stamina needed for martial arts).
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Just do the best that you can with the work day

Also about the girl friend, wouldn't it be nice to come home to a pizza or burga every night and not go to the gym and still have single digit BF. Some people just have it made. The rest of us have to bust our hump to get that six pack, welcome to the club
 
Try to stick with the meats that I laid out for you. Some are leaner than others also some have more healthy fats than others. Also their is a calories difference between different meat that comes into the equation. Dont worry too much if you have to substitute something but try your best to stick with what is laid out for you
 
what do you do? what is your purpose or goal? Are you playing any sports, athletics, or is it vanity?

what is your workout like?

FF
 
I'm a real estate investor.

My goals are a certain look of my body, but in hard numbers it is probably around 185 lb and a BF% of 10-12.

I train Krav Maga, a martial art, but it's very recent I started it and it's not the reason I want to change my body.

I wouldn't call it vanity (look at my pic, vain guys got better tans ;) ), if it's vanity it's of the kind that make people want to run a marathon or something. I guess it's more like a project or a hobby, some people get an ancient car and fix and polish it, I'm doing the same with my body now. I get hooked like that on stuff, like this summer I picked up a Rubik's cube and wanted to master it, so far my fastest solve is 57 secs and I've also solved a 7x7x7 cube (in a computer program, I don't think they make real cubes that big).

I was in the army 10 years ago and got some knee injuries that prevent me from really exerting myself in most sports, but before that I was a lot about further, longer and faster, I was climbing, running and swimming (hated the swimming though, but I wanted to join the Jaegers, our special forces like the british SAS, so I had to get good at it). I was also weight training and bulking up, I was real thin before it, and I didn't really care about the fat that came with it because it was about performance. But these days, my options for physical challenges are unfortunately very limited.

I'm going to post my work out later, probably when my perhaps-broken thumb is ok so I can actually do the correct exercises.
 
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My legs are sore from the workout yesterday, because of my old knee injuries I haven't worked them much in the gym. No pain in my knees today though, so they're holding up so far. I did

4x6 squats on smith machine
4x6 stiff leg deadlifts
2x12 leg press
3x10 seated leg curl
3x10 calf presses on leg press machine
4x15 decline bench situps (ok, I only hit 15 on the first set, I've never been too disciplined with my ab workouts)
7 minutes on the bike, was supposed to do 10 minutes but I cut it short because my knees started hurting. I've had problems with the bike before and so haven't tried it for at least 5 years, if they're still not up for biking I'll find something else. Will test on a non-legs day.


Today was an offday, and I'm not proud of my effort on eating. I'm doing okay on hitting the targets for proteins and calories, but it sure hasn't been a full clean bulk and far from my diet plan.

I also think my digestion is having trouble adjusting to my new diet, it's acting real up and I felt overly full all day. My carb sources used to be white bread, white pasta and such, all refined stuff. Now it's all whole grain, brown rice, real low-GI and hard-to-digest. And I used to do 5 meals, at least one of them shakes or chocolote skim milk or such, where I'm now doing 6 meals and all of them real food except for PWO.

Other than the digestion, I must say that I can easily tell that my energy levels are better and more stable during the day with the low-GI carbs.

Meal 1: protein powder shake and oatmeal
Meal 2: tuna with ezekiel bread
Meal 3: lowcarb protein shake before a business meeting, then about 90 minutes into the meeting they served some different stuff, prawns, salmon roll and bread for starters, followed by a steak with some veggies and some sort of veggie tart (I peeled the bacon off the steak and avoided the sauce). Didn't touch the sweets either.
Meal 4: I had to just do a highcarb protein shake, I didn't even feel like meal 2 was digested yet.
Meal 5: Gf made pizza. As pizzas go, it wasn't a bad one, toppings were ham and veggies.
Meal 6: Turkey with brown rice. Going to make it now, I'm still feeling completely full :(

I also got some olive and flax seed oil with my meals today.

I really hope that my digestion will adapt soon. I'm going to cut back on fibrous veggies the next days to give my stomach an easier time.
 
I am happy that you have already seen the extra energy that you get from eating cleaner. Yes u might have some digestion problems for a few days but once your body gets used to the clean food you will be fine and filled with energy. Keep up the great work.
 
Called the doc today, still no results from the x-ray of my thumb. It's much better today though, so either it was just strained, or the bone's grown together, correctly I hope (or they'll have to crack it and reset it :( )

6 reps hurt.

6 reps are scary.

Amazing difference from how 8 rep loads feel to 6 rep loads.

Today's workout
Lat pulldown (underhand grip) 4x6 200 lb
Standing DB shoulder press 4x6 48 lb
Incline DB press 3x12 48 lb
Seated rowing 3x10 110 lb*
Lying Triceps Press 2x10 82 lb
Barbell Curls 2x10 55 lb

I skipped cardio, my legs are seriously sore from the leg workout 2 days ago, I figured I was better off letting them rest. What are your thoughts on that, sore muscles, work 'em or rest 'em?

Oops, looking at my program I forgot an exercise!

* I'm doing the seated rowing with only 30 sec rest between sets, and if I keep the same load I can't keep the same reps through the sets. Should I lessen the load between sets?
Also, I'm keeping my back straight, not moving it, and letting my shoulders move forward at the start of the movement and back at the end.

Food today was a mess, was on the road and in meetings from 9 to 3.
Meal 1: oatmeal, eggs and blueberries
Meal 2: protein shake and skimmed milk
Meal 3: (half meal) skimmed millk, needed something but would be home soon for a proper meal
Meal 4: Turkey and brown rice
Meal 5: Sushi and protein powder
Meal 6: PWO, high carb shake
Meal 7: Turkey and brown rice (half meal)

I can't do much about the work stuff, that just happens sometimes, and getting the gf to fall in line for dinner is going to be hard, but what I can and should fix is just get my diet typed out, get all the meats bought, fill the freezer with them in properly weighted bags, and then have a plan for thawing it out. Have something I can just print out and know what I need to buy on my way home from work, what I need to prepare for tomorrow. I'm going about it way to haphazardly.
 
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