What am I doing wrong?

O

OneWithTheShark

0
I know, another plateau story sorry.

I'll make this easy and just tell you what I am doing and you all can fill in the blanks to what I'm not doing.

I use whey protein and creatine. My typical day consists of waking up to cereal. I eat two cliff bars at work. I often make myself a sandwich with turkey on wheat bread before workouts. I drink lots of water during the day. Before I go to the gym I mix creatine with v8 juice and drink that about 1 hour before I work out. I also make a regular creatine drink and a protein shake with a little creatine in it for after my work out. DURING my work out I consume the creatine and then drink water after that until I'm done with my work out. I lift for about 45 minutes focusing on all areas of the upper body. I can bench up to 165lbs 'safely' without a spotter. I could probably go more but don't want to push until I know my body is ready. (I weigh 200lbs) For curling I've recently been curling with 30's and occasionally bump it up to 40's or 45's.

Post work out I drink the shake roughly 10 minutes after. For dinner I drink more V8 juice and I often end up with a sandwich and soup with lower sodium.

I've been on and off training for 3 years but have recently been kicking it back up into gear now that my work schedule has gotten easier to deal with so I've been doing THIS routine for about 3 weeks.

I feel like I'm getting tight during the workout and my muscles are flaming up but they seem to go right back down to the way the were before every time. I'm not seeing the results I feel I should be seeing by now.

What's up?
 
Well part of it could be because your diet consists almost entirely of over-processed food. If you want to build muscle, you actually have to eat some protein and other foods that contain vitamins and minerals that help in the muscle-building process. You also have to be eating enough calories to build mass, which you might be, but it's hard to tell.

Do you know why you're taking creatine? The only real effect that it has is to retain water in your muscle tissue. I'm not sure how long the effects of creatine last, but maybe that's why you look "deflated" shortly after working out? Also, 3 weeks of consistent training isn't enough time to really see results... give yourself 2 or 3 months of dedicated training before you start getting too hard on yourself.

I feel like I'm being pretty harsh, but you really should start eating better quality foods if you can. Living mostly off of cereal, cliff bars, bread, and V8 juice is not a good way to go. Try adding up just the sodium and sugar content in what you listed above, based on the amounts that you would have in a day.

I'm not sure if this will help you, but you might get some good info from it: Nutrition 101 – www.body-improvements.com

There are also some good sticky threads on nutrition as well as training throughout the forum... have you had a chance to read through any of them?
 
No, not harsh. Honesty which is what i need. The creatine has been going on now for a week. I had sever results with it in the past. Yes I know it goes down when you stop taking it but my muscles were doing that before the creatine. If the results of water weight help me keep optimistic though I'm all for it. Sounds like I need to he patient and keep eating more protein.


PLBFitness said:
Well part of it could be because your diet consists almost entirely of over-processed food. If you want to build muscle, you actually have to eat some protein and other foods that contain vitamins and minerals that help in the muscle-building process. You also have to be eating enough calories to build mass, which you might be, but it's hard to tell.

Do you know why you're taking creatine? The only real effect that it has is to retain water in your muscle tissue. I'm not sure how long the effects of creatine last, but maybe that's why you look "deflated" shortly after working out? Also, 3 weeks of consistent training isn't enough time to really see results... give yourself 2 or 3 months of dedicated training before you start getting too hard on yourself.

I feel like I'm being pretty harsh, but you really should start eating better quality foods if you can. Living mostly off of cereal, cliff bars, bread, and V8 juice is not a good way to go. Try adding up just the sodium and sugar content in what you listed above, based on the amounts that you would have in a day.

I'm not sure if this will help you, but you might get some good info from it:

There are also some good sticky threads on nutrition as well as training throughout the forum... have you had a chance to read through any of them?
Click to expand...
 
PLBFitness said:
Do you know why you're taking creatine? The only real effect that it has is to retain water in your muscle tissue. I'm not sure how long the effects of creatine last, but maybe that's why you look "deflated" shortly after working out?
Click to expand...

Well, actually, creatine increases the rate of ATP (energy) turnover within the muscles, allowing your muscles to last longer and potentially lift more during a workout. The effects are long term, so that wouldn't be the cause of the "deflation". My guess is that you're not overloading your muscles enough and need to step up the intensity.

By the way, how much creatine are you taking? Once you've finished the initial loading phase (about 20g per day for 3-5 days), you should only be taking 3-5g per day to maintain the phosphocreatine levels in your muscles. Any more than that is a complete waste. And it doesn't matter when you take it. Again, since it has a long term effect, the time of day you take it makes no difference.
 
HyungJun said:
This....
Click to expand...

Hmm, I thought I had responded, guess this site isn't smart phone friendly yet.

To answer a few questions above, I'm drinking about 2 servings of creatine a day right now. While I'm aware that a portion of the results is water weight, I've used it before in the past and the results I got were significant even though they eventually went away after a decrease in use but if the short term results are enough to keep me motivated I'm all for it.

From a nutritional stand point, I'm also a bit of a budget. Meat is expensive haha hence why I'm eating lots of packaged deli meat from the store. But I was unaware that I may be "under" eating.

As for the intensity of my work out, I feel like I'm going to a safe limit but perhaps I do need to dig a little deeper.
 
OneWithTheShark said:
Hmm, I thought I had responded, guess this site isn't smart phone friendly yet.
Click to expand...

You had responded, but it showed up as an automatically moderated post for some reason. It should show up now.
 
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