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

[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. 

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.

Lower back, I have a pro-lapsed disc and 2 bulging discs. 

I was told to keep moving, rest is bad for back pain these days.  I have quite a rigorous stretch/warm up the physio gave me.  Hence why I have been taking it very light at the gym, just working on speed/technique and keeping weight to a minimum.   

[iRaise]

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

This is the problem with cult thinking. The answer is in front of you to why you are sore. You don't eat enough protien to recover. Let alone build. Yet see, to be adamant that it's not proteins fault.

If you can find me a sport person that eats sub 20% protein I will run a 5k. (That's the equal to hell on earth for me! Or maybe. It deadlifting for a week is, you can choose which).

[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.

Lower back, I have a pro-lapsed disc and 2 bulging discs.  

I was told to keep moving, rest is bad for back pain these days.  I have quite a rigorous stretch/warm up the physio gave me.  Hence why I have been taking it very light at the gym, just working on speed/technique and keeping weight to a minimum.  

I feel for you mate I really do. Hope you get it sorted before it gets any worse.

When mine went I had to keep my lower back as flat as possible but not stay in the same position for more than 10 minutes at a time. I felt like a hog roast continually turning myself through 90 degrees

Have you been told not to sit for extended periods? That was the main one for me and I think the one I ignored that eventually caused the biggest problems.

Sounds like you're at the stage I was when I stupidly ignored the recovery advice. I was in bloody agony but still went to the gym hoping that it would just slip back in to place.

I suppose the best bit of advice I could give is to be patient. Mine was bad for 6 months, really bad for a couple of months, excruciating for another couple of months and then slowly recovered over the course of a year or so. Now it's pretty much spot on but I'm still having to be careful.

Good luck!!

[Ant040689]

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

This is the problem with cult thinking. The answer is in front of you to why you are sore. You don't eat enough protien to recover. Let alone build. Yet see, to be adamant that it's not proteins fault.

If you can find me a sport person that eats sub 20% protein I will run a 5k. (That's the equal to hell on earth for me! Or maybe. It deadlifting for a week is, you can choose which).

I may be mistaken with protein for muscle development, but to call it cult thinking is a little strong and deliberately abusive. Also too early to assume it's anything other than me feeling in aggressive work that I am not used to. I can up my protein intake to plus 20% through legumes if needs be and will if I need to but I guess I want to feel this one in even if I am delusional.

We can disagree, I could even be ultimately in the wrong but no need to pop phrases like that out.

[arbboy]

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

This is the problem with cult thinking. The answer is in front of you to why you are sore. You don't eat enough protien to recover. Let alone build. Yet see, to be adamant that it's not proteins fault.

If you can find me a sport person that eats sub 20% protein I will run a 5k. (That's the equal to hell on earth for me! Or maybe. It deadlifting for a week is, you can choose which).

I may be mistaken with protein for muscle development, but to call it cult thinking is a little strong and deliberately abusive. Also too early to assume it's anything other than me feeling in aggressive work that I am not used to. I can up my protein intake to plus 20% through legumes if needs be and will if I need to but I guess I want to feel this one in even if I am delusional.

We can disagree, I could even be ultimately in the wrong but no need to pop phrases like that out.

Matt is def right with this one Ant.  Worth listening to the guy.  He clearly knows his shit about training and diet.  You can't lose 8 stone on a diet and then use anything like the same diet to then start a muscle building phrase.  Logically it just doesn't make any sense at all.  I would be surprised if you haven't lost a fair bit of muscle within your 8 stone on a diet which is such low protein and non animal protein at the same time. 

When i was training 15 years ago there was a lot of discussion about proteins not all being the same regarding their muscle building qualities.  Not sure if this is true as i don't follow the scene at all now but veggie proteins were right at the bottom in terms of their grade for muscle development.  It is obviously possible to be a vegan body builder etc but it is naturally much harder than including meat/chicken/fish into your diet. 

Good luck moving forward.  amazing effort with the weight loss.

[GreekStein]

Ant since when did you stop eating meat?!

[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"

12th May: Weight 15st 4lb. Waist 35.75" to 36.75"

Nice to see the weight staying reasonably stable but with that all important drop in the waist measurement again.

Still on target for 36" worst case waist by Vegas so I have to say I'm really happy with the last few weeks and I know it's been worth the effort.

The exercise is still going really well. I haven't been to the gym quite as often as I'd hope but I've kept up the Focus T25 workouts and they seem to be getting easier every day which shows my fitness is getting better.

Food intake has been really healthy. Fruit/veg based drink twice per day, tuna on pitta for lunch and then chicken based meal in the evening is the general routine with a couple of slips here and there. I've felt really tired today and I think it's carb/sugar deprivation doing it because I feel fine now after a couple of pitta breads and some rice. I've got to keep close tabs on that and possibly slip in a flapjack or two throughout the day. Whilst the waist is still above 34" I still want to be on a calorie deficit but I don't want to go silly.

3 more weigh ins before Vegas......... Should be there or thereabouts.......

[Kmac84]

12th May - 3.3 kg loss.  Weighed in at 156kg, so that't just simply over a stone in 4 weeks.  I am pretty surprised by that tbh, generally wasn't expecting it and must say it gave me a bit of a boost. 

@Matt, I'm not ignoring the advice at all bud, the last piece of advice I was given my the Orphopaedic Surgeons top physio was keep active go back to the gym do swimming, don't lift heavy weights until you have a sustained period of no pain.  They seemed to think losing weight would help as well, but that's the answer to everything in the NHS.   

[EvilPie]

12th May - 3.3 kg loss.  Weighed in at 156kg, so that't just simply over a stone in 4 weeks.  I am pretty surprised by that tbh, generally wasn't expecting it and must say it gave me a bit of a boost. 

@Matt, I'm not ignoring the advice at all bud, the last piece of advice I was given my the Orphopaedic Surgeons top physio was keep active go back to the gym do swimming, don't lift heavy weights until you have a sustained period of no pain.  They seemed to think losing weight would help as well, but that's the answer to everything in the NHS.   

That's good to hear. Turns out that these guys do actually know what they're on about as I found out to my cost!!!

Good news on the weight loss. Slowly, slowly on that front.......

[zerofive]

When i was training 15 years ago there was a lot of discussion about proteins not all being the same regarding their muscle building qualities.  Not sure if this is true as i don't follow the scene at all now but veggie proteins were right at the bottom in terms of their grade for muscle development.

I'm far from an expert on this myself, but it is true that different sources of protein have different amino acid profiles. Somebody that gets all their protein from chicken is going to be consuming a larger amino acid spectrum than somebody thats gets all their protein from peanuts, for example. Different foods within a specific food group will obviously be more/less complete than others, but on the PDCAAS (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score) scale of 0 - 1, "vegetables" as a food group is rated at 0.73. To put this in perspective, "cereal" is a 0.59, "red meat" scores 0.92, and "eggs" - in a shocking turn of events - hit a home run with a score of 1.00.

Some great sources of protein that are consistent with a vegan diet, for those interested, are: quinoa, edamame beans, tofu, soy milk and soy protein powders, and nuts and nut butters. Cram your shopping cart full of those and get ready to build as much muscle as one can without eggs

[Kmac84]

When i was training 15 years ago there was a lot of discussion about proteins not all being the same regarding their muscle building qualities.  Not sure if this is true as i don't follow the scene at all now but veggie proteins were right at the bottom in terms of their grade for muscle development.

I'm far from an expert on this myself, but it is true that different sources of protein have different amino acid profiles. Somebody that gets all their protein from chicken is going to be consuming a larger amino acid spectrum than somebody thats gets all their protein from peanuts, for example. Different foods within a specific food group will obviously be more/less complete than others, but on the PDCAAS (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score) scale of 0 - 1, "vegetables" as a food group is rated at 0.73. To put this in perspective, "cereal" is a 0.59, "red meat" scores 0.92, and "eggs" - in a shocking turn of events - hit a home run with a score of 1.00.

Some great sources of protein that are consistent with a vegan diet, for those interested, are: quinoa, edamame beans, tofu, soy milk and soy protein powders, and nuts and nut butters. Cram your shopping cart full of those and get ready to build as much muscle as one can without eggs

Pretty sure one of the UK's foremost minds in all things protein and gym posts on here.  Think I spoke to him before, I will try and direct him here if he isn't already, but sure he is. 

[Jon MW]

When i was training 15 years ago there was a lot of discussion about proteins not all being the same regarding their muscle building qualities.  Not sure if this is true as i don't follow the scene at all now but veggie proteins were right at the bottom in terms of their grade for muscle development.

I'm far from an expert on this myself, but it is true that different sources of protein have different amino acid profiles. Somebody that gets all their protein from chicken is going to be consuming a larger amino acid spectrum than somebody thats gets all their protein from peanuts, for example. Different foods within a specific food group will obviously be more/less complete than others, but on the PDCAAS (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score) scale of 0 - 1, "vegetables" as a food group is rated at 0.73. To put this in perspective, "cereal" is a 0.59, "red meat" scores 0.92, and "eggs" - in a shocking turn of events - hit a home run with a score of 1.00.

Some great sources of protein that are consistent with a vegan diet, for those interested, are: quinoa, edamame beans, tofu, soy milk and soy protein powders, and nuts and nut butters. Cram your shopping cart full of those and get ready to build as much muscle as one can without eggs

I think the summary is - if you have a range of vegetarian or vegan sources of protein then it's going to be the same as if  you have it from meat; you only have to avoid relying on too narrow a source.

[iRaise]

When i was training 15 years ago there was a lot of discussion about proteins not all being the same regarding their muscle building qualities.  Not sure if this is true as i don't follow the scene at all now but veggie proteins were right at the bottom in terms of their grade for muscle development.

I'm far from an expert on this myself, but it is true that different sources of protein have different amino acid profiles. Somebody that gets all their protein from chicken is going to be consuming a larger amino acid spectrum than somebody thats gets all their protein from peanuts, for example. Different foods within a specific food group will obviously be more/less complete than others, but on the PDCAAS (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score) scale of 0 - 1, "vegetables" as a food group is rated at 0.73. To put this in perspective, "cereal" is a 0.59, "red meat" scores 0.92, and "eggs" - in a shocking turn of events - hit a home run with a score of 1.00.

Some great sources of protein that are consistent with a vegan diet, for those interested, are: quinoa, edamame beans, tofu, soy milk and soy protein powders, and nuts and nut butters. Cram your shopping cart full of those and get ready to build as much muscle as one can without eggs

I think the summary is - if you have a range of vegetarian or vegan sources of protein then it's going to be the same as if  you have it from meat; you only have to avoid relying on too narrow a source.

A narrow source isn't the problem. Narrow normally equates to low adherence.

The reason why diets fail.


The choice more of an issue. If you just ate chicken. You will be fine from a nutrient viewpoint. (By that I mean as a protein source). The hard bit is just eating chicken. I've eaten chicken and burger for two years everyday. So far, healthiest, strongest, biggest, best recovery, quickest, I've ever been.

As ever I'm being simplistic here. as I do have fish/eggs. But m protein intake is nearer 30/45% of my TDI.

[sovietsong]

After almost a year off I decided to go out on the bike today.  I stupidly went with two quite experienced riders, one who is a bike courier in London & the other who does c100km per week & loves to stitch me up... managed to do 55km but my legs are in bits & although i'm pleased that i did it I'm going to regret it in the morning.

Nevertheless 2k calories burned & although saying i enjoyed it might be a bit strong it was good to be out again.

Going to try to get out more often as getting to the gym has proved difficult since getting the dog back, although its probably just an excuse.

Eating well & down to 99kg.  Not quite the 1kg per week i was hoping for but going in the right direction.

[vegaslover]

 4th May 2015:  15st 3lb
11th May 2015:  15st 2lb
18th May 2015:  15st 2lb

Total loss :  1lb

Had a good week on the exercise front, was expecting a loss.