Get strong, lose weight, get more out of your kayak fishing

I'm in - need to lose the weight I gained recently from the steroid (dexamethasone) I got with the chemo.

That steroid screwed up my appetite and metabolism - I was hungry all the time and kept eating.

'Roids, Marv?!  Hook me up wichya leftova juize so I can git swole like Bonds! 

Yeah, roids suck!  They  helped put many of my lbs on too.  Wish the anabolics were useful in treating nerve inflammation  but all i ever get is 1g methoprednisone x 7d then crazy hungry, irritable, pissed off and less sick    for the less sick part, I'll take the rest.  Even if i get fatter each time.

Since moving to Texas I have lost 20 pounds, 200 down to 180. Still on the BMI charts I am obese since I am a muscular individual. I am staying about 12 pounds above my old body building competition weight which isn't bad for a guy at 54.

I have it pretty lucky though since I have never been out of shape since I was 12. I became a long distance runner, then in my teens to early 20 my body grew and got real strong for some reason ( no 'roids) and I became a power lifter. I kept up going to the gym over the past 35+ years and have maintained a fairly healthy lifestyle. I hit the gym 3-4 days a week with weights and spin 3 times a week. I have been doing this for almost five years now. My caloric burn when I spin exceeds 1000 calories an hour, but I'm insane and can keep my heart rate close to cardiac arrest mode for a long period of time.

One great piece of advise I ever got was from Frank Zane, Mr Olympia 77-79  back in the early 80's when he told me never to give up. I never did and actually visited him back in 2007 and trained with him. I was also lucky enough to get great advise from other great bodybuilders who I got to know too and still keep in touch with till this day. They too are getting up there in age but still maintain that healthy lifestyle and still look great. That is my motivation to keep on going, plus it makes me feel good.

let me rephrase the fat under 30 and fiber over 30.
I only try to keep fat that low on days that I don't get exercise. the fiber above 30 for me is fairly easy but not every day. oatmeal with flax in the morning and i,m already at 5. I certainly don't stick to it every day or I would have lost much more.
I try to allow for one cheat meal a week. usually it is a few.

324# this AM, what did you want for verification?

Got My fitness Buddy app on the iPad.  Pretty cool how I scanned food from my fridge and cupboard to enter all the food I ate.

Started listening to the Body Fat Solution on Audible.com.

At 6'-4" for a normal BMI I need to be 200#, I've set a goal of 240# for now.

What is a reasonable time frame to reach my 240 goal?
What is a good goal for GS8?

Splashdown-

That's awesome.  Living longer is a hope of mine too, and with a body that I wouldn't mind growing old in.  So many health problems go hand in hand with obesity and inactivity.  You are more experienced than I am at strength training, and I've never even tried body building with <10% body fat levels.  I've only been at it for a couple years.  I hope to be able to say that I've stuck with it when I am 54, and again when I am 84.

324# this AM, what did you want for verification?

Got My fitness Buddy app on the iPad.  Pretty cool how I scanned food from my fridge and cupboard to enter all the food I ate.

Started listening to the Body Fat Solution on Audible.com.

At 6'-4" for a normal BMI I need to be 200#, I've set a goal of 240# for now.

What is a reasonable time frame to reach my 240 goal?
What is a good goal for GS8?

Awesome!

Normal BMI numbers aren't something to worry about just now.  At 324 you have a lot of lean body mass and you want to maintain as much of it as possible while you lose weight.  With 100 lbs+ to lose, we'll just worry about moving the big rocks first.  Once you start hitting your goals we can worry about further cutting.

To set goals, In MFP you can enter 2 lbs/week weight loss goal and it will give you a target daily calorie intake.  My quick and dirty BMR calculation for a guy your size is that to maintain your current weight, you need to consume about 3420 calories a day.  If you cut that to 2400/daay, you will lose about 2 lbs a week for the first 4-6 months before needing to adjust your calorie intake downward to continue losing at that pace.

You will alos likely experience relatively large initial weightloss from less water retention.  It wouldn't be unheard of for you to lose 20 lbs in the first month, but that is mostly going to be from changes in water retention. 

If you achieve a target 2400 calories per day, and experience an additional 12 lbs of water loss by virtue of beginning a calorie restricted regiment, you could realistically be 275 lbs by GS8 and 240 lbs by November 2014.

324# this AM, what did you want for verification?

Got My fitness Buddy app on the iPad.  Pretty cool how I scanned food from my fridge and cupboard to enter all the food I ate.

Started listening to the Body Fat Solution on Audible.com.

At 6'-4" for a normal BMI I need to be 200#, I've set a goal of 240# for now.

What is a reasonable time frame to reach my 240 goal?
What is a good goal for GS8?

Sweet ! This is where I started before the holidays and have been able to get down roughly 20lbs so far. Now I plan to start hitting the gym a lot more often so I hope I can get down to around 260 by GS8. Let's do this and get back to feeling lighter.  CAn't wait to start fitting into a lot of older clothes that have been hanging in the closet for a while now!

 

In!
Will wait for your posts on 6 basic lifts and links to SMR.
Don't know how it will be an issue but I follow the Hallelujah Diet (http://www.hacres.com/hallelujah-diet/typical-day), don't eat meat but do eat sea foods (fish, crabs, shrimps).
Danny

Sweet!

I linked my favorite youtube instructional video on SMR above.  I'll have to go back and provide a concise link list in the top post on page one so this stuff doesn't get buried in here.

As for the hallelujah diet, my only concern is that you would not get sufficient protein to build lean body mass.  Vegan diets like these, increasingly popular since the movie Forks over Knives came out, are really difficult to build strength on although it is certainly possible.  The main examples were prominently placed in the movie.  Supplementing with fish and shellfish is a perfect way to get protein for strength gains.  I think there are plant based protein supplements available too but I'm really not into dietary supplements and don't really know for sure.  Most protein supplements contain whey.  You can get plant proteins from texturized vegetable protein but that is soy and I don't think allowed on the diet.  You can also eat seitan, which is isolated gluten protein from wheat, but again not sure about the diet.  I did a cursory search for the nutritional content of barleymax, the proprietary supplement of the folks behind the halleluiah diet, but was unable to find anything.  I doubt that even the supplement labeled Protein #1 has sufficient amounts of protein for traditional strength training.

Started last night. Created my account in MFP, weighed in at 175#s. Goal of 155 (ave. weight for a BMI of 24.4) by GS8.
Like Kevin/SquidderK, I love cycling and will do the 92 mile Monterey Gran Fondo Sea Otter Classic on April 12, 2014 along with other rides in Lake Tahoe, Napa and Sacramento.

So this program's timing came just perfect.

Thanks.

Greasing the Grove

Every day, three or five or seven times a day, drop and do pushups.  In my house, I start the morning with "Jessi ups", where my 5 year old lays down on my back and I bust out 10 weighted pushups.  I have a chinning bar installed in a hallway where I can (and do) do chinups whenever I pass under the bar.  "Grease the Groove", refers to doing several exercises like this multiple times per day, but not to failure.  Just do a few and stop, even if you can do more.  Do it a few times throughout the day.  You will get really good at doing chinups if you do lots of chinups.  That's the point. 

If you can't do a chinup, don't worry.  Do a Hang instead.  Jump up, and hold yourself up in the high chinup position for as long as you can, then slowly let yourself down.  Try to do a chin before you do your daily hangs, and some day before GS8 I think you will surprise yourself.

Programming

The weightlifting programming is a simple three days per week A/B programming for bench, press, row and clean.  So, if we lift M/W/F then week one is A/B/A, week w is B/A/B, and so on.  Squats are M/F and Deadlifts are once a week on Wednesday.

NOTE:  **When I say bench, I mean bench press. If I say press, I mean overhead press.**

You can alter this to T/TH/Sa if that works for you, the important thing is to have 3 days a week with a day of rest between lifts.

A-  Bench, Clean
B- Row, press

Warm-up is important.  I always start with the bar and do 5 reps.  We are going for 3 sets of 5 repetitions (3x5) each on everything except deadlifts, where we are looking to lift AMRAP (as many reps as possible) for one set at our highest weight after warming up.

It is important to start light if you haven't been lifting before.  We will add 5-10 lbs each day until we fail to hit 3x5, then we will drop 10% of the weight and continue the process.  You will need to keep track of the weight lifted, I use the note feature on my iphone.  I'll also just post them here.

Starting Strength is the gold standard, and Mark Rippetoe is The Man.  Read this page.  Twice.  Or More:

http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ:The_Lifts

That covers cleans, bench press, overhead press, squats and deadlift. 

For the squats, try all three positions over the next couple weeks.  High bar back squats, low bar back squats, and front squats.  Don't wear your regular sneakers - either get weightlifting shoes or, as I do, go with just socks on.  Keep your heels on the floor.  A common beginner erroe is to not keep your feet flat.  I had ankle mobility issues and it took me a long time to be able to keep my feet in the correct position.  If you find you can't keep your heels on the ground throughout the lift, I know how to fix that.  Just let me know.

We are kayakers, and having a strong row is just good sense.  I use the Yates row.  http://www.weighttraining.com/exercises/yates-row

Most of my gym buds like the Pendlay row:
http://www.weighttraining.com/exercises/pendlay-row

At this point, try both and pick one, since we are doing chinups and pushups every day I'm not worried about missing major upper back muscle groups, and you won't be either until you outgrow the basic programming in this thread, which, if you stick with this, will be sometime after GS8 at any rate.

So, Tomorrow is A day for me, my workout will look like this:

Bench
1 x 5 x 45
1 x 5 x 95
1 x 3 x 115
1 x 3 x 135
3 x 5 x 155

Clean
1 x 5 x 45
1 x 5 x 95
3 x 5 x 115

HBB Squat
1 x 5 x 45
1 x 5 x 95
1 x 5 x 135
1 x 5 x 185
3 x 5 x 225

These are not terribly impressive intermediate numbers.  But its a whole lot more than I could do to start, and I feel like a million bucks.  I'll log in my actual numbers here and welcome others to do the same.

Nutrition:

Hopefully if you are interested in losing weight you now have a few days logged into My FItness Pal.  Go to the pie chart icon and see what your macronutrient breakdown is for last week.  I shoot for 35% protein, 35% carbs and 30% fat for a balanced diet.  The typical USA diet has well over 50% carbs and protein around 15%.  This will not help for retaining lean body mass (your muscle) while you lose weight.  If you find yourself in that situation, the easiest thing to do is to skip the bread and add more meat to your plate.

I've linked the various basal metabolic rate (BMR) calculators in a post above.  If you haven't already done so, calculate your BMR, multiply it by 1.2, and keep your daily caloric intake at or under that number.  That number should be viewed as a limit, not a target.

Woke up feeling like crap, took it easy today.

Weight: 218 (!)

60 min elliptical

Neck harness
4 x 25 x 35

Bench
1 x 5 x 45
1 x 5 x 85
1 x 5  115
3 x 5 x 135

Clean
1 x 5 x 65
1 x 5 x 95
3 x 5 x 115

Squat
1 x 5 x 45
1 x 5 x 95
3 x 5 x 155

Weight was high, I knew I put on some holiday weight but 13 lbs surprised me. I'll be < 200 for GS8

Anybody else with weight or progress to report?

Did not weigh, spent the day playing with the little boy.  Tomorrow will be a gym day.  Today was another rough emotional day as the EX has been staying with me for a few days due to her apartment being full of what results from a plugged main sewer...  At least I ate wel most of the day and had a healthy homemade venison and garden veg. pasta for dinner.

Down to 173 from 175 after a week. Aiming at loosing 1 to 2 lbs a week.

Jan 1 = 267lb heavy as I have ever been and scared!!!! 1-14-14 = 257lb Changed Portion size and food types only. Oh, NO MORE SUGAR FOODS, SODAS, DIET OR OTHERWISE... Winning working for the first 10 lbs... Now comes the hard part! The second 10lbs Keep it up guys... Let's get fit and live to fish MORE!!!! (and stop sinking the Kayaks)

I set up mfp. I am a little heavy on carbs 45%. The one thing is it does not break down complex vs simple carbs.
goal is 2400 calories a day.
251 pounds today