Nashtide is gonna lean bulk...

[DragonBits]

How do you guys feel about fasting? I’m not talking about intermittent fasting, I’m wondering about long fasts. Like 24hrs or more. What about the detox programs? Anyone have experience? Thanks

I am not a fan of detox, it seems more like a fad to me.

Once i didn't eat for 5 days, it was a little weird, not hard to do after 3 days. The first two days I was hungry all the time. I think I would take something like HMB to prevent muscle wasting.

 

[Nashtide]

I tend to agree regarding the detox stuff. Seems like a gimmick. However, occasional fasting seems to have real health benefits and would obviously have some fat loss benefits. The closest I’ve come to a long fast was prepping for a colonoscopy. But even that wasn’t a true fast as I ate jello all day.

 

[DragonBits]

I tend to agree regarding the detox stuff. Seems like a gimmick. However, occasional fasting seems to have real health benefits and would obviously have some fat loss benefits. The closest I’ve come to a long fast was prepping for a colonoscopy. But even that wasn’t a true fast as I ate jello all day.

The intermittent fasting trend, I guess I have done that often just not planned. Though now days I drink coffee with protein, so not a fast.

One odd thing about not eating, I thought my first meal would be delirious. It wasn't as tasty as I expected, it seemed to take a few meals to really establish my appetite.

Logistically it would be difficult to do now. My mother lives with us, she expects to eat 3 times a day, my wife likes to go out to eat often, there is food around all the time. I or my wife usually fix lunch and dinner, for me to not eat would be difficult to avoid.

We wouldn't trust my mother to make dinner, she has vascular dementia. Chicken tends to be bloody and pork chops over cooked. Assuming she didn't just forget about something on the stove.

 

[Nashtide]

My wife is out of town frequently visiting her dad who is battling cancer. So I have the opportunity to fast if I choose. I bring this up because I am stuck at 13% bf and on the verge of seeing abs. It’s obvious that I need to reduce calories a little more and thought rather than trying to reduce calories daily, that I would fast once per week then continue to eat as I have been.

 

[DragonBits]

My wife is out of town frequently visiting her dad who is battling cancer. So I have the opportunity to fast if I choose. I bring this up because I am stuck at 13% bf and on the verge of seeing abs. It’s obvious that I need to reduce calories a little more and thought rather than trying to reduce calories daily, that I would fast once per week then continue to eat as I have been.

My sympathies to your wife and her father.

I don't know how much time you devote to exercise, and if you do much cardio. It seems like you have a tight handle on how much you eat.

It would be my preference to increase either cardio, weight training, or both.

If you keep your calories the same, increasing exercise would burn more calories, maybe put on more muscle or increase your cardio heart health.

Your BF% would go down that way also, and you increase your general health.

I think changing up what you do is key. Muscle confusion.

I recall recently reading about Paul Ryan and P90X. (for me, it seems too intense)

"In a 2010 Politico interview he said that he weighed 163 pounds and maintained his body fat percentage between 6 and 8%. Tony Horton, creator of P90X, who has personally trained Ryan many times, reiterated the claim saying, "He is very, very, very lean. I know what 6 to 8 percent body fat looks like, and there's no fat anywhere on the man. I'm around 9 percent and he's much leaner than I am. He’s easily 6 to 8 percent body fat. You just have to eat right and exercise every day, and that’s what he does"

Paul Ryan - Wikipedia

 

[Nashtide]

My sympathies to your wife and her father.

I don't know how much time you devote to exercise, and if you do much cardio. It seems like you have a tight handle on how much you eat.

It would be my preference to increase either cardio, weight training, or both.

If you keep your calories the same, increasing exercise would burn more calories, maybe put on more muscle or increase your cardio heart health.

Your BF% would go down that way also, and you increase your general health.

I think changing up what you do is key. Muscle confusion.

I recall recently reading about Paul Ryan and P90X. (for me, it seems too intense)

"In a 2010 Politico interview he said that he weighed 163 pounds and maintained his body fat percentage between 6 and 8%. Tony Horton, creator of P90X, who has personally trained Ryan many times, reiterated the claim saying, "He is very, very, very lean. I know what 6 to 8 percent body fat looks like, and there's no fat anywhere on the man. I'm around 9 percent and he's much leaner than I am. He’s easily 6 to 8 percent body fat. You just have to eat right and exercise every day, and that’s what he does"

Paul Ryan - Wikipedia

I lift weights 3x/week. I keep the training sessions short, but intense. I work hard when I’m there. I generally switch things up every month. For instance, this month I’ve been using the 40-30-5 method. So that’s where the particular exercise lasts 40 seconds (which is way harder than it sounds) then you rest for 30 seconds and do 5 sets. It’s been a real challenge, but I’m getting results. Next month I’ll switch to the 10-6-10 method. This is where you do a ten second isometric hold followed by 6 full reps exaggerating the eccentric portion followed by 10 partial reps. I’ll usually do 4 sets. Again, done properly, it’s very intense.

As for cardio, I do a HIIT heavy bag routine after lifting. I really can’t see myself adding any more exercise to my week. I’m old and don’t want to hurt myself! I suppose I could add some non exercise things like walking.

 

[Nashtide]

I just got my most recent labs back. I only tested TT, FT and E2 this time.
My protocol is 50mg Tcyp E3D. 250iu hcg every M and F. No AI.

TT 899 upper range 1100
FT 116 upper range 155
E2 41 upper range 29

I’m pretty happy with those numbers and I feel great so all is good.

 

[DragonBits]

I lift weights 3x/week. I keep the training sessions short, but intense. I work hard when I’m there. I generally switch things up every month. For instance, this month I’ve been using the 40-30-5 method. So that’s where the particular exercise lasts 40 seconds (which is way harder than it sounds) then you rest for 30 seconds and do 5 sets. It’s been a real challenge, but I’m getting results. Next month I’ll switch to the 10-6-10 method. This is where you do a ten second isometric hold followed by 6 full reps exaggerating the eccentric portion followed by 10 partial reps. I’ll usually do 4 sets. Again, done properly, it’s very intense.

As for cardio, I do a HIIT heavy bag routine after lifting. I really can’t see myself adding any more exercise to my week. I’m old and don’t want to hurt myself! I suppose I could add some non exercise things like walking.

You do a lot, so perhaps you are right that you shouldn't add more. But you could change your routine instead of adding to it.

I have tried one 10 rep set at 50-70% of my max with weight machines with no rest between machines, moving from one to the other as fast as I can get to them. That turns out to raise my heart rate up to as much as it would be running. I try and move to different muscle groups, like incline press to lat pull down to back machine, etc. It's not a long time work out, you can repeat the whole cycle as many times as you want but I only do that cycle as much as two times.

You could try giving the heavy bag a break for a month and do treadmill or elliptical, depending on how you feel about your knee strength when running.

We have a set 5 heavy bags in my gym, I have seldom used them. I know it can be demanding. maybe I should take my own advice and use them for a month. Do you use some sort of boxing glove?

One "problem" I have, when I get good as some exercise I hate to move to something different, it's more satisfying to be able to do more of something then to go to something where I am not as conditioned to do it and I feel weaker at it.

 

[Nashtide]

You do a lot, so perhaps you are right that you shouldn't add more. But you could change your routine instead of adding to it.

I have tried one 10 rep set at 50-70% of my max with weight machines with no rest between machines, moving from one to the other as fast as I can get to them. That turns out to raise my heart rate up to as much as it would be running. I try and move to different muscle groups, like incline press to lat pull down to back machine, etc. It's not a long time work out, you can repeat the whole cycle as many times as you want but I only do that cycle as much as two times.

You could try giving the heavy bag a break for a month and do treadmill or elliptical, depending on how you feel about your knee strength when running.

We have a set 5 heavy bags in my gym, I have seldom used them. I know it can be demanding. maybe I should take my own advice and use them for a month. Do you use some sort of boxing glove?

One "problem" I have, when I get good as some exercise I hate to move to something different, it's more satisfying to be able to do more of something then to go to something where I am not as conditioned to do it and I feel weaker at it.

I like the idea of doing the exercises in a rapid circuit. I’m going to give that a try when I switch routines next month.

I use MMA type gloves. This way I can do things like kettlebell swings or band exercises between sets. I don’t just pound away at the bag. I have a plan and I use a round timer. It’s honestly a great workout. I damaged my spinal cord almost 30 years ago in a skiing accident. The result is a significant weakness in my legs. This prevents me from running or even walking any meaningful distances. I hate the stationary bikes. I have taken short breaks from the heavy bag and done either the rowing machine, the airdyne bike (only the arm part) and the hand cycle.

 

[DragonBits]

I like the idea of doing the exercises in a rapid circuit. I’m going to give that a try when I switch routines next month.

I use MMA type gloves. This way I can do things like kettlebell swings or band exercises between sets. I don’t just pound away at the bag. I have a plan and I use a round timer. It’s honestly a great workout. I damaged my spinal cord almost 30 years ago in a skiing accident. The result is a significant weakness in my legs. This prevents me from running or even walking any meaningful distances. I hate the stationary bikes. I have taken short breaks from the heavy bag and done either the rowing machine, the airdyne bike (only the arm part) and the hand cycle.

You do well to keep in shape with a spinal cord injury, I am sure you are glad it wasn't even more serious.

Would swimming be a problem? I have a hard time doing more than 2 laps in a pool before having to rest. But I have never tried to increase my swimming distance.

 

[Nashtide]

You do well to keep in shape with a spinal cord injury, I am sure you are glad it wasn't even more serious.

Would swimming be a problem? I have a hard time doing more than 2 laps in a pool before having to rest. But I have never tried to increase my swimming distance.

Yeah, when I arrived at the ER and was being prepped for surgery I was told I had a 10% chance to walk again. I had several surgeries and spent 6 months as an inpatient in a rehab facility. So I do consider myself lucky. I have a few issues, but it could have been far worse.

I joined a masters swim team about 20 years ago. It was fun and I love swimming. I’m a natural backstroker. I still swim from time to time, but it’s not something I would do consistently.

 

[DragonBits]

What do you all think about my routine / goals?

I go to the gym on average every other day during the month. Days I don’t go to the gym I might bike, mow the lawn, recover from the previous day, run outside, shovel a lot of snow, whatever.

In the gym I either focus on increasing strength or cardio and always do stretching afterward.

1) My cardio goal is to be able to run for 5 miles, I would like to be able to bike a 100 miles. Right now I am up to 2.3 miles running.

2) My informal strength goal is to be able to lift the full set of weight plates on wherever machine I am using. A few machines I can do that now, like seated dip, calf, leg press. Informal goal because I don’t really have to get to the full weight set, some of the machines I am up to 50%, some 60%. Lat pull down is hard to do because I am pulling more weight than I weigh, at 140 lbs. if I try and pull down more than 160 lbs., I do a chin up instead of a pull down. That machine has independent arms, so I could only do left and right arm separately. I have gotten up to 210 lbs. on the fly machine, it tops out at 300 lbs., but I need to be careful of straining my rotator cuff and surrounding tendons, so I don’t really try and push it on that machine. Likely I will never make it to the full weight stack on the fly machine.

Sometimes I use free weights, but mostly dumbbells or bench presses, and not that often.

The last few months I do the same sort of routine when using weights. Say my one rep max is 80 lbs., I start 5-6 reps at 40 lbs., then 50 lbs., then 70 lbs., then 80 lbs., resting for at least 1 min between reps. But the last heaviest set, after I am done with however many I can do, I rest 5-10 seconds and do 50% of the max, in that example I would do 40 lbs. with 15-20 reps, however many I can do, It’s hard to do the last set with light weights.

Abs I usually do last, most of the time I do ab crunches on a bench similar to the Signature Series Ab Crunch Bench. I do say 70 crunches, go drink some water, do another 70. Maybe I get up to 90 on one set. Sometimes I do a captain’s chair with weights, using the same routine I use for weights. Sometimes I use the ab torso twist machine,

As far as age impact, it seems that most affects me in regards to recovery time. If I spent an hour on the treadmill, 1% incline running 2.3 miles and walking 3.5 mph between 1 mile runs, then go home and mow the lawn, I can get wiped out for the rest of the day, and can’t really repeat it the next day. I used to be able to do treadmill work every day, now it’s every other day.

For me, the warm up with lighter weights is important, like with an incline press, at first my muscles hurt a little, so starting out light gets them warmed up and warns them to be ready for something heavier.

Any thoughts on goals and what I am doing?

 

[Nashtide]

What do you all think about my routine / goals?

I go to the gym on average every other day during the month. Days I don’t go to the gym I might bike, mow the lawn, recover from the previous day, run outside, shovel a lot of snow, whatever.

In the gym I either focus on increasing strength or cardio and always do stretching afterward.

1) My cardio goal is to be able to run for 5 miles, I would like to be able to bike a 100 miles. Right now I am up to 2.3 miles running.

2) My informal strength goal is to be able to lift the full set of weight plates on wherever machine I am using. A few machines I can do that now, like seated dip, calf, leg press. Informal goal because I don’t really have to get to the full weight set, some of the machines I am up to 50%, some 60%. Lat pull down is hard to do because I am pulling more weight than I weigh, at 140 lbs. if I try and pull down more than 160 lbs., I do a chin up instead of a pull down. That machine has independent arms, so I could only do left and right arm separately. I have gotten up to 210 lbs. on the fly machine, it tops out at 300 lbs., but I need to be careful of straining my rotator cuff and surrounding tendons, so I don’t really try and push it on that machine. Likely I will never make it to the full weight stack on the fly machine.

Sometimes I use free weights, but mostly dumbbells or bench presses, and not that often.

The last few months I do the same sort of routine when using weights. Say my one rep max is 80 lbs., I start 5-6 reps at 40 lbs., then 50 lbs., then 70 lbs., then 80 lbs., resting for at least 1 min between reps. But the last heaviest set, after I am done with however many I can do, I rest 5-10 seconds and do 50% of the max, in that example I would do 40 lbs. with 15-20 reps, however many I can do, It’s hard to do the last set with light weights.

Abs I usually do last, most of the time I do ab crunches on a bench similar to the Signature Series Ab Crunch Bench. I do say 70 crunches, go drink some water, do another 70. Maybe I get up to 90 on one set. Sometimes I do a captain’s chair with weights, using the same routine I use for weights. Sometimes I use the ab torso twist machine,

As far as age impact, it seems that most affects me in regards to recovery time. If I spent an hour on the treadmill, 1% incline running 2.3 miles and walking 3.5 mph between 1 mile runs, then go home and mow the lawn, I can get wiped out for the rest of the day, and can’t really repeat it the next day. I used to be able to do treadmill work every day, now it’s every other day.

For me, the warm up with lighter weights is important, like with an incline press, at first my muscles hurt a little, so starting out light gets them warmed up and warns them to be ready for something heavier.

Any thoughts on goals and what I am doing?

I have totally abandoned the notion of strength. The few times I’ve been injured lifting weights has always been when I was going heavy. I’m plenty strong enough for an old guy. Now I focus on physique goals. I want to be lean and muscular. So I am not a fan of your thought process.
I do think it’s important to have goals. For me, intensity and mixing up my routines have been the difference. I am also not a huge fan of steady state cardio like running because our bodies adapt pretty quickly to those activities and running is just too harsh on knees and hips. Having said that, my wife loves to run. Rather than increasing her distance, she focuses on increasing her pace. She runs about 10-15 5k’s a year and uses those as motivation.

I have also come to believe that recovery is very important. Especially as we age. Sleep, recovery and nutrition are critical to keeping us healthy and keeping us exercising for the long run. My biggest deficit is flexibility. I’ve never been flexible so I’ve always had a mental block to stretching.

 

[DragonBits]

I have totally abandoned the notion of strength. The few times I’ve been injured lifting weights has always been when I was going heavy. I’m plenty strong enough for an old guy. Now I focus on physique goals. I want to be lean and muscular. So I am not a fan of your thought process.
I do think it’s important to have goals. For me, intensity and mixing up my routines have been the difference. I am also not a huge fan of steady state cardio like running because our bodies adapt pretty quickly to those activities and running is just too harsh on knees and hips. Having said that, my wife loves to run. Rather than increasing her distance, she focuses on increasing her pace. She runs about 10-15 5k’s a year and uses those as motivation.

I have also come to believe that recovery is very important. Especially as we age. Sleep, recovery and nutrition are critical to keeping us healthy and keeping us exercising for the long run. My biggest deficit is flexibility. I’ve never been flexible so I’ve always had a mental block to stretching.

What constitutes an injury for you when lifting heavy? Did you need a doctor, surgery?

I am not trying to be facetious here. I get injured, but I believe it’s nearly always some sort of tendinitis caused from overuse. It doesn’t require a doctor to treat, for me to think it’s an injury it must last more than 10 days, and it typically has taken from 1-6 months to get resolved.

I have never gotten injured from lifting too heavy a weight, maybe I am just too cautious about certain exercises. Dead lifts, fly machines, squats I could probably injure myself if I tried too heave a weight too soon. Bench pressing, I usually don’t have a spotter, so I never try and lift anything where I don’t know for sure I can lift it. And I seldom use free weights in any case. Most of the time I use nautilus machines, I have been lifting / exercising since about 16, in those days I did use free weights.

When you did get hurt lifting heavy, how heavy and what type of exercise? And in retrospect, did you think that maybe you didn’t have enough recovery time, had bad form or tried to increase weight too soon?

When I have gotten what I believe is tendinitis, in retrospect I could see what I was doing to have caused it. Most of the time it was some sort of cardio. My right shoulder tends to be “sensitive” to too much weight, not sure why. Meaning if I try to use a fly machine with the max weight I can move, my shoulder joints will feel annoyed for a couple of days. For a while a few years ago, it got bad enough where I had to alter how far back I could move the arms on the pec deck. Now I only move the arms one position back from neutral. A similar machine I am careful with is the Side Lateral Raise machine, for the same sort of reason, my shoulders can object.

Running is no doubt hard on feet, hips, knees and back. But too hard? I think it’s fairly easy to run too long or too often without proper recovery and to injure yourself. My brother when he was young started running and ignored pain, keep it up for a week, his knees had permanent damage. He was convinced the no pain to gain mantra was true. While for me, after I am warmed up, if I start getting pain I stop quickly. Try and figure out why I might be getting the pain.

I have read that running strengthen cartilage over time, granted, you can over do it. And in your case with a spinal injury, of course you wouldn’t even want to try it at all.

I have a friend I the health club, she is 77, she used to be an avid runner. She started to have a lot of knee pain. But she is compulsive, when I asked her questions, she was running 2-3 times a day. Now she bikes the same way, rides a bike to the health club, keeps a bike in her truck in case she gets an opportunity to bike, puts on 2000 miles a year on the bike. She is in pretty good shape, more flexible than I am, she can do splits, I can probably bike a longer distance, but I am 10 years younger. We exchanged phone numbers, I will likely go on a couple of rides with her this summer.

I am 66, I think that is older than you, personally I don’t think much about age holding me back. The biggest thing I have noticed is the whole recovery thing is longer. Yesterday I did 4.3 miles on the treadmill (2.3 miles running, the rest walking), walked around the dog park with my dog, then went back to mow the lawn. My Fitbit watch said I did 8.5 miles running / walking. When I do that sort of thing, my whole body aches all night long, but I am fine in the morning. Some ibuprofen and a hot epson salt bath really help, otherwise it’s hard to sleep. When I was younger, I didn't get that sort of reaction.

 

[Nashtide]

That’s a lot of info! Lol
Anyway, I absolutely consider tendinitis an injury. I recently had tendinitis of my distal biceps and couldn’t curl or do pull-ups for three months! I didn’t seek medical help, but in my book that’s still an injury. I hurt it doing seated incline dumbbell curls. I was going heavier than usual and I felt a twinge but continued anyway.

About two years ago I injured my shoulder and couldn’t do shoulder presses or any type of shoulder raises without pain for about a month. Again, I was going heavy. To this day, I sometimes feel that shoulder during certain activities.

As a rule, I’m not injury prone. I played college baseball and never missed a game in four years. I played in an adult hockey league until my accident and never missed a game due to injury. I also played lots of pick up hurling in the Bronx when I was in graduate school and never got hurt. That game is nuts. Guys were carted off the field in every game.

 

[DragonBits]

That’s a lot of info! Lol
Anyway, I absolutely consider tendinitis an injury. I recently had tendinitis of my distal biceps and couldn’t curl or do pull-ups for three months! I didn’t seek medical help, but in my book that’s still an injury. I hurt it doing seated incline dumbbell curls. I was going heavier than usual and I felt a twinge but continued anyway.

About two years ago I injured my shoulder and couldn’t do shoulder presses or any type of shoulder raises without pain for about a month. Again, I was going heavy. To this day, I sometimes feel that shoulder during certain activities.

As a rule, I’m not injury prone. I played college baseball and never missed a game in four years. I played in an adult hockey league until my accident and never missed a game due to injury. I also played lots of pick up hurling in the Bronx when I was in graduate school and never got hurt. That game is nuts. Guys were carted off the field in every game.

I have seldom played sports outside of when I was younger than 14, your spinal injury must have really cramped your lifestyle.

Never been overnight in a hospital, did have retinal surgery which was day surgery and I was awake during the surgery.

Haven't had any problem with heavy weights, tendonosis was from repetitively stressing the same joint for months, like an hour a day 20 times a month. It comes up gradually, stair master caused my knees to hurt for 6 months. Now I mix up any sort of repetitive cardio with different types.

Strength focus for me is also about physique, being lean and muscular. The main difference is I usually only do 4 sets of 6 reps. But right now I am focused 65% cardio and 35% weight lifting, 70% of the weight training is upper body.

Metformin reduced my appetite, you might try that even if you don't really need it. From our discussion, I think reducing calories is likely your best bet to get more reduction in body fat.

take care, I should head for the gym

 

[Nashtide]

I have seldom played sports outside of when I was younger than 14, your spinal injury must have really cramped your lifestyle.

Never been overnight in a hospital, did have retinal surgery which was day surgery and I was awake during the surgery.

Haven't had any problem with heavy weights, tendonosis was from repetitively stressing the same joint for months, like an hour a day 20 times a month. It comes up gradually, stair master caused my knees to hurt for 6 months. Now I mix up any sort of repetitive cardio with different types.

Strength focus for me is also about physique, being lean and muscular. The main difference is I usually only do 4 sets of 6 reps. But right now I am focused 65% cardio and 35% weight lifting, 70% of the weight training is upper body.

Metformin reduced my appetite, you might try that even if you don't really need it. From our discussion, I think reducing calories is likely your best bet to get more reduction in body fat.

take care, I should head for the gym

I’m a pretty competitive person so sports were always a good outlet for me. I also love the camaraderie of being on a team. That’s why I joined the masters swim team after my accident. Swimming was the only thing I could think of that I could do semi-well with my disability. I just didn’t love swimming enough to stay with it for very long. If I was 100%, I would still play the Gaelic sports. We have a pretty active league here in Nashville.

Thanks for bouncing ideas around. I enjoy our conversations.

 

[Nashtide]

Okay, so this is going to be a little tough to explain but here goes...I can now see the lateral outlines of my abs along with a distinct midline. Still no horizontal lines. So my obliques are the first things to show and I really don’t target them when I do abs?! Anyway, I weigh myself on Thursday and I’ll post the results. Thanks for playing along.

BTW, I now have some loose skin around my very lower abs. Pretty amazing since I wasn’t fat before starting this little experiment. I was probably 16-17% bf at the beginning of my quest. I suppose the loose skin is an age thing.

 

[Nashtide]

Down to 12.7% bf. Feeling really good to finally break the 13% barrier. I really didn’t change anything, so not sure how I dropped a little fat.

I decided that I’m going to stay the course with one big change. On a non-workout day, I’m going to drink only smoothies. My morning smoothie won’t change and I’ll make the others mostly protein shakes.

 

[Renman23]

Down to 12.7% bf. Feeling really good to finally break the 13% barrier. I really didn’t change anything, so not sure how I dropped a little fat.

I decided that I’m going to stay the course with one big change. On a non-workout day, I’m going to drink only smoothies. My morning smoothie won’t change and I’ll make the others mostly protein shakes.

Outstanding progress! What is the final "goal" weight/ BF??