Blonde will make thin ....Here we go again !

[RED-DOG]

Take Naproxen, 500mg twice a day, it's an anti inflammatory. It takes about a week to kick in but it will work miracles for you.

As for your nefarious 'other' physical activities, try to find a position that doesn't involve bending over. 

Naproxen is good I am on 2 x 500 mg twice a day for my back pain, but have been trying to cut it out as there is a link to strokes after long term use. 

I use it about twice a year for about 1 month at a time. What is considered to be long term, and to you have a link to the stroke risk?

The doc said it was fine.

[Kmac84]

Take Naproxen, 500mg twice a day, it's an anti inflammatory. It takes about a week to kick in but it will work miracles for you.

As for your nefarious 'other' physical activities, try to find a position that doesn't involve bending over. 

Naproxen is good I am on 2 x 500 mg twice a day for my back pain, but have been trying to cut it out as there is a link to strokes after long term use. 

I use it about twice a year for about 1 month at a time. What is considered to be long term, and to you have a link to the stroke risk?

The doc said it was fine.

It was the doc that told me about it. 

[RED-DOG]

Take Naproxen, 500mg twice a day, it's an anti inflammatory. It takes about a week to kick in but it will work miracles for you.

As for your nefarious 'other' physical activities, try to find a position that doesn't involve bending over. 

Naproxen is good I am on 2 x 500 mg twice a day for my back pain, but have been trying to cut it out as there is a link to strokes after long term use. 

I use it about twice a year for about 1 month at a time. What is considered to be long term, and to you have a link to the stroke risk?

The doc said it was fine.

It was the doc that told me about it. 

This is an interesting article.



http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/05May/Pages/high-dose-nsaid-painkiller-heart-risk-small-significant.aspx

[RED-DOG]

Got off to a decent start.

Brekkie - Porridge and an orange.

Lunch - Roast veg & skinned chicken.

Snack - Apple & banana.

Tea - Chicken stew.

Snack - Cuppa Soup.

Exercise - Mowed half an acre of grass by hand.

Hungryometer reading -

[EvilPie]

7th April: Weight 15st 13lb. Waist 37" to 38.5"

14th April: Weight 15st 11 1/4lb. Waist 36.75" to 38.25"

21st April: Weight 15st 7 3/4lb. Waist 36.5" to 38"

28th April: Weight 15st 4 3/4lb. Waist 36.25" to 37.75"

5th May: Weight 15st 6lb. Waist 36" to 37.25"

Slight increase in weight but the all important waist measurement has dropped again so I'm really happy with the continued progress.

To be honest I really didn't want to lose any more weight so there's no worries there at all. I'm hoping that the slight increase is actually from a slight drop in body fat combined with a little increase in muscle leading to an overall gain.

I've upped my food intake a little bit to account for the extra training I'm now doing as I was starting to feel a bit lethargic at times but it's all good healthy food for the most part.

Couple of slips last week as per usual but that's always going to be the plan. Mostly good stuff but no need for guilt when I have a bit of a treat.

[RED-DOG]

Yesterday's food intake.

Breakfast - porige and an orange.

Lunch - tuna with rice & salad.

Dinner - tuna with rice and salad again. (made too much but no prob cos it was delish)

Sundries - 3 boiled sweets.

Hungreometer reading

[Ant040689]

Love the increased input from different guys on here, read the lot since my last post and gl on your endeavours, also well played to the positive progress also!

On my front, I am having problems with my muscles dancing on the line between sore and strained and always pulling back before getting injured, when training. I suppose that i will progress with my muscles getting stronger so i can do more before that line comes again, but it feels like a dangerous game. Just need to be careful and I need to keep the consistency up so that it won't all be for nothing.

The basic principles i carry in training at the moment are: do a good warm up and warm down
                                                                                       no more than 20 mins cardio a day (any more can affect negatively muscle mass growth, which i am after)
                                                                                       Do alternate days of cardio and weights. So on one day do a upper body weights session and 20 mins of sprints (or as much as i can do), then the next, do upper body cardio and leg weights. Having rest days when i need to.

I just hope that eventually I will start to feel stronger rather than someone in quite a bit of pain. I am assuming though that my muscles are really not used to all the work considering how lazy i was for so many years and this is just a cruddy initiation that i need to keep going through. As long as I am careful and avoid injury i guess i am just looking to plough on through.

[EvilPie]

Gaining muscle requires protein and vegan diets generally aren't high in protein from what I understand.

I know it's possible because many athletes have managed it but I would guess they carefully monitor their vegan sourced protein intake.

Do you assess your macros carefully to see exactly what you consume? I know you've said that it's an unlimited calorie diet so that suggests you don't need to monitor everything accurately and you just eat whatever you want if you're hungry. If that's the case you won't know how much protein you're consuming because with your weight loss goal it didn't matter as long as you lost weight.

Maybe it's time to keep careful watch on exactly what you eat and make sure you're getting enough protein for muscle growth. A decent guide for strength gain is about 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight. I know it's possible from a vegan diet but I'm sure it wouldn't be easy.

I know that meat based high protein sources are typically 25 to 30g of protein per 100g whereas something like quineo (sp) is maybe half that. The nut based protein sources are higher but then wouldn't the fat become an issue?

Your diet is what's made you lose all that excess weight but now you maybe need to adapt it to help you gain muscle. Surely the same diet that you used to lose 108lb in 15 months can't possibly make you gain muscle?

I'm not saying you need to go out and eat a cow just that you probably need to look at making some changes.

[vegaslover]

 4th May 2015:  15st 3lb
11th May 2015:  15st 2lb

Total loss :  1lb

Saw the physio on Thurs. Given the same standard sheet of exercises that everyone for every lower leg injury gets. Usual garb from the physio, takes abso no notice of what you say is wrong.
Still only gotta wait 4 weeks before can go back to the Dr and ask for referral to see specialist.

[Kmac84]

I weigh in tomorrow and not looking forward to it.  I have only managed 2 sessions at gym/swimming in last week due to a number of different things going on and then on Thursday the diet slipped a little and pretty much set the tone for weekend as I was up the whole night for election results.   

My back has been in agony today so never got a chance to hit the gym tonight, I was going to just go for a swim and a sauna but felt right drowsey on the bus due to the painkillers. 

I'll be happy if I have maintained same weight. 

I am booked in with an osteopath for Wednesday, I have done everything the docs/physio have suggested and my back doesn't appear to be much better.  I was prety sore last Tuesday when I went to the gym  but I done a good 20 minute warm up and stretch and felt brilliant, but yesterday evening when out for dinner I was in mortal agony. 

Anyway, wish me luck for tomorrow.  Will update when I am in from work. 

[Kmac84]

Should also add, as I feel it helps me but might not be for everyone keeping a diary of everthing you eat/drink and any activity you do is great because when you look back on it you start to see patterns that develop and you can start making slight adjustments. 

A few things I have noted:

1) When I don't have a healthy snack before  bed I invariable wake up hungry and eat something that's no good.  Due to convenience.
2) I have much less routine to my day both for eating and exercise at weekends. 
3) There are some days when I am clearly not eating enough. 
4) I tend to eat worse when my routine is interrupted. 

So from this weekend I am going to try and get up at a reasonable time but still make sure I feel as if I have had a lie-in.  Also going to go for a good 25 - 30 minute walk after breakfast at the weekend. 

[Ant040689]

Gaining muscle requires protein and vegan diets generally aren't high in protein from what I understand.

I know it's possible because many athletes have managed it but I would guess they carefully monitor their vegan sourced protein intake.

Do you assess your macros carefully to see exactly what you consume? I know you've said that it's an unlimited calorie diet so that suggests you don't need to monitor everything accurately and you just eat whatever you want if you're hungry. If that's the case you won't know how much protein you're consuming because with your weight loss goal it didn't matter as long as you lost weight.

Maybe it's time to keep careful watch on exactly what you eat and make sure you're getting enough protein for muscle growth. A decent guide for strength gain is about 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight. I know it's possible from a vegan diet but I'm sure it wouldn't be easy.

I know that meat based high protein sources are typically 25 to 30g of protein per 100g whereas something like quineo (sp) is maybe half that. The nut based protein sources are higher but then wouldn't the fat become an issue?

Your diet is what's made you lose all that excess weight but now you maybe need to adapt it to help you gain muscle. Surely the same diet that you used to lose 108lb in 15 months can't possibly make you gain muscle?

I'm not saying you need to go out and eat a cow just that you probably need to look at making some changes.

10-15% protein intake from calories is fine for muscle growth. That is what I land into with my diet of mainly lentils, brown rice, potatoes, fruits and vegetables.

I am not complaining about gains, which I have seen signs of, more the feeling of going through the hard physical work, which i have always struggled with maintaining because i am a lazy bugger. As I am lazy i never did go on a continuous run, so i always made tough starts and didn't see it out. I will see this one out and look to maintain it lifetime.

I would break down my diet more as you suggest if i thought it would be of any benefit, but i think it will not. I may be wrong and will reconsider in a month if i don't see progress.

As for my weight, I am 14st 10lbs down from 22st 6lbs at 6'4 (bang around my target healthy weight) and I am suffering from a little remaining podge around my gut and certain areas of my body, which i think will go weeks/months into the workouts as i get leaner, but also think it is quite a bit of loose skin that I don't think I can do much about. To be expected with 100lbs+ weight loss, but I am intrigued to see how it all settles when I know for sure I am around the 10% body fat mark.

[Ant040689]

Kmac/VegasLover - Hope both injuries get better quickly.

[EvilPie]

10-15% protein intake from calories is fine for muscle growth.

This goes against everything I've ever read or understood about body building and I've read a lot. Who told you this because I genuinely would be interested to read the article or research giving these figures as I've never seen anything this low stated by anyone before.

If you're on 10 to 15% protein then what are your fat / carb targets?

Like I said you've done amazingly well with your current diet to get where you are but if your goals change then seriously your diet needs to change as well. I'm not a nutritionist but I don't think you need to be to realise that a diet that loses 8st in 15 months isn't going to be a perfect diet for gaining muscle.

There's plenty of protein filled vegan foods so when you feel you're not gaining as much muscle as you'd hoped just flick a few in. Nuts seem to be the way forward from what I've read.

I know you're not going to believe me by the way but I'm going to stick at it and try to convince you

[EvilPie]

I weigh in tomorrow and not looking forward to it.  I have only managed 2 sessions at gym/swimming in last week due to a number of different things going on and then on Thursday the diet slipped a little and pretty much set the tone for weekend as I was up the whole night for election results.   

My back has been in agony today so never got a chance to hit the gym tonight, I was going to just go for a swim and a sauna but felt right drowsey on the bus due to the painkillers. 

I'll be happy if I have maintained same weight. 

I am booked in with an osteopath for Wednesday, I have done everything the docs/physio have suggested and my back doesn't appear to be much better.  I was prety sore last Tuesday when I went to the gym  but I done a good 20 minute warm up and stretch and felt brilliant, but yesterday evening when out for dinner I was in mortal agony. 

Anyway, wish me luck for tomorrow.  Will update when I am in from work. 

Which part of your back hurts? I'm taking a wild guess here that you're a stubborn f**ker like me and you're trying to train through the pain hoping that it'll just get stronger again.

What did your physio and doctor tell you to do? Did it involve lots of rest by any chance? Did you rest it for a week or so and then decide that it wasn't working so you best try something else? If so this all sounds very familiar and if you're anything like I was you're heading for an almighty pop so please take it easy!!

If you're already on Naproxen then it's obviously bad. If it's lower back then maybe I can offer a little bit of advice to possibly save you from going through the shit I've had for the last year or so.