Posts by niikolai

You used to get 5 hours of sleep on average weekdays, now you get 10. Five waking hours burns about 500 calories. This makes sense because you're gaining a pound a week, and 500kcal*7= 3500kcal, the exact amount of calories in a pound of fat. You're sleeping more now (keep doing it, it's healthier), but in turn your body needs less fuel to keep itself running because you're not awake as long as you used to be.

Also, since it's summer, you're probably not "working out" your brain as much. It's scientifically proven that sitting at a desk and studying/stressing about homework or a test burns more calories than simply relaxing in a desk chair.

Just cut your daily intake until you start to maintain, and then cut 20% under whatever that is if you want to lose those extra pounds you gained.

Hope it works out for you. :]

Haha, hello again! Since you seemed to like the scientific part of this whole nutrition thing, I think you're worthy of an extra detailed post (it's pretty long, but informative!).

I've lost a lot of muscle when I lost weight earlier in my life, and I've done some research in body building books and all of them say, even when "cutting" (the body builder's lingo for losing fat and maintaining muscle to get more of a ripped look), you should do weight training, and hard weight training to tear muscle fibers (which promotes growth/maintenance) to keep your muscle. If you don't use your muscles, and work them regularly, they will shrink (just look how much muscle mass Ahhnold has lost over the years from not doing weights).

Scientifically, when you're in a caloric deficit for too long, your body doesn't like it. Your body is incredibly intelligent at getting what it wants, so it will try to find a way to make it so your fat stores won't deplete because is thinks you're semi-starving (this is called the starvation response). How does it do this? It decreases muscle mass. The more muscle you have, the higher the amount of calories you burn doing nothing, so if you start eating a whole lot less, your body will compensate by getting rid of "excess" muscle to bring you back down to maintence level (hence why many experience plateaus in weight loss).

To prevent muscle loss and promote fat loss, making sure you're getting enough protein (with enough carbs and fats too) along with a moderate amount of good cardio and weight training is ideal. I'm not sure what your macro nutrient ratio is, but let's take a popular one called Zone: 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat.

If you eat 4000 calories a day like me, then 30% of 4000 is 1,200, and since there are 4 calories per gram of protein, I should be eating a whopping 300 grams of protein daily (six times the recommended daily value!). A lot of resources will give you general guidelines to eat a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, multiply your weight by 1.2, etc. to see how much you should get. Basing protein intake on calorie intake instead is a much better method for calculating actual nutritional needs.

Secondly, you don't want to have all the protein you need all at one sitting (I noticed you said you want it all at once), but rather, you need to spread it out evenly throughout your day (and maybe add a little extra after weights to have a faster recovery, but that's another topic).

Unlike carbohydrates and fats, your body is unable to store protein. Once you ingest protein, it exists in your bloodstream as amino acids anywhere from 2.5-3.5 hours (depending on the dose). After that, your body will not have regular access to tissue-building amino acids, and will start eating its own muscle to break it down into amino acids it can use.

On another note, your liver can produce 11 of the 21 amino acids, so there are 10 essential amino acids that you can only get from food. Ideally, you want to have a balanced combination of all 21 amino acids in your blood at all times, so it's important to not only eat protein, but have complete proteins containing all the amino acids at least every three hours to prevent your body from going catabolic (eating itself), so it stays anabolic instead (muscle-building, hence the name "anabolic steriods").

The most common complete proteins include eggs, milk, soy and meat, and can also be found in most protein shake supplements. For fat loss purposes, you want to consume proteins from whole foods if at all possible because whole foods make your digestive system work harder to break them down (this breakdown calorie burn is called the thermic effect of food). Protein has the highest thermic effect of food at 30%, while fat is 3%, and carbs are in the middle. Therefore, eating 100 calories of lean chicken breast actually only gives you a net calorie gain of 70! However, if you drink 100 calories of Muscle Milk, you get around 100 calories.

Another cool note about complete proteins, if you don't want to have eggs, milk, or meat, but still want whole food, you can combine foods to make complete proteins. For example, beans have a lot of protein (15g per cup), but they lack the essential amino acid methionine. However, brown rice (which has a few grams of protein too) contains methionine but lacks lysine. By combining the two (a classic combination, it's weird how the human body tends to make us eat what it needs), you get a complete protein. Beans and corn also works.

That's a lot of info, but on another note, if you really want to buy a protein powder I would recommend Muscle Milk Protein + in chocolate shake flavor (available at Costco for 19$ I think). I've tried Met-RX, Nutiva, EAS-Premium, Hammer Whey, and Trader Joe's Soy Protein in vanilla and chocolate flavors, and from my personal experience Muscle Milk tastes SO MUCH BETTER. Get chocolate, because vanilla tastes like curdled milk. Muscle Milk tastes so good, I can even just mix it up with water and drink it straight (try this with another powder and you're guarenteed to gag). Sometimes I mix it up with milk and it tastes almost exactly like chocolate Ovaltine, but it has 26g of protein, and almost zero carbs, sugar, or fat!

age: 17

height: 5'7"

weight: 135.6 lbs, 9.8% body fat

goal: 130.0 <6% body fat

I want to get ripped and have an 8-pack and boost my maximum oxygen capacity through losing fat mass so I can get some personal records for long course swim season and have a chance at winning the 400m freestyle at California LA-Section Junior Olympics.

You should be consuming fats every day, and it sounds like you're on the right track. Fats are the most calorie dense food, so if you're trying to stay under your burn meter, and you have 500 calories left and you're hungry for a snack, grab an apple instead.

Having good sources of Omege-3, -6, -7 and -9 fatty acids (7 and 9 are non-essential because your body can make them, so focus on 3 and 6) and medium chain triglycerides can improve joint health, hair health, skin health as well as some vital organs like your liver. As long as the fats you are getting are from healthy sources, even if you do go over your burn meter and end up gaining weight or just maintaining, your health will definitely be improving.

lol, I'm really, really small. I'm 5'7" and 136 pounds and I'm seventeen. Most seventeen-year-olds are 150+. I'm not surprised that my BMR is pretty low amongst my peers.

I haven't read anything on super light weights and high reps to avoid getting big, but I do know that you won't get big if you don't rip your muscle tissue, and for me that means when I go to the gym with the mindset of bulking up, I put on heavy weights that I can only do 6-8 reps with.

Common sense wise, it seems like it makes sense. Usually people who do a lot of pushups and calisthenics/plyometrics don't get big but they get toned (because they're just using they're own bodyweight for weight training). If you want to look like Ahhnold, then you have to lift like him, which means heavy weights.

So for me, if I was a woman who didn't want to get super buff, I'd shy away from heavy lifting. But again, I haven't read any scientific evidence to back this up, so go do some research! :P

It varies from 3000 on off-training days to 5000+ on intense days. If I didn't work out at all, I'd say my maintenence level would be around 2,500.

There is a window right after you work out wherein your muscle glycogen (muscle energy stores) are depleted, and your muscle fibers are torn. Within the first 30 minutes to hour after exercise, your body sends most of the calories you ingest to replenish glycogen stores, and it also will send most of the amino acids gained from the protein you eat to repair damaged muscle tissue. Not only does this give your body more time to recover so you feel better (you start recovering from your workout thirty minutes afterwards, not 3 hours later, which is a big difference), if you're trying to lose weight, by eating right after working out you run a better chance that the calories you ingest are going towards replenishing energy and muscle tissue instead of being converted into fat.

I usually run around 6 miles a day for morning cardio (such is the life of a distance swimmer who's coach is obsessed with aerobic capacity). Usually what characterizes a good run for me, where I feel energized and pumped includes:

1. 6-8 hours of sleep the night before

2. Having done thorough stretching the night before or after I woke up before my run (believe me, having loose muscles really helps, especially if it's Thursday and you've been running 6 miles a day since Sunday).

3. Having had a good, balanced diet for the past 2-3 days (you just generally feel better). Even though I have one cheat day every two weeks, I definitely don't feel as peppy after I've eaten two slices of pizza for dinner the previous night.

4. Having had a small, but nutrient packed meal before my run. I weigh my food out on a scale to measure all the calories I take in, but if you don't, just make sure that your meal is on the smaller side.

A pre-run meal for me consists of something like 30g toasted whole wheat bread (1 slice) with 12-15g peanut butter smeared on top (a teaspoon-ish), a small glass of milk (300ml) and some kind of fruit like a nectarine (usually 125-150g). That's about 300-400 calories to get rid of the deficit I built while I slept, and it has protein, carbs, and lots of vitamins/minerals. I always feel horrible if I run on an empty stomach.

5. A good pair of shoes and enough clothing (especially important if it's winter or cold and rainy).

6. Optional, but a buddy to run with or some nice music on an iPod usually makes my run more enjoyable.

If you do this, and you stay within your limits of course (you're not completely exhausted after every run), you'll be able to maintain your mileage, and if you keep at it I'm sure you'll make gradual progress and your 10 mile race will be a piece of cake by October. :]

I'm a swimmer and toning the forearms is a big part of my training. The forearm is the "catch" of the freestyle stroke when your arm first enters, and the "backsweep" when it just leaves. Here are some of the things I do with my team:

I'm 138lbs, 5'6'', 11% bodyfat:

1. Get ten pound dumbbells and hold them out in front of you like you're riding a motorcyle. Then, pretend like you're going to rev your engine and add some gas by twisting the handlebars.

2. Get into a pushup position but put your hands underneath your navel and have your forefingers and thumbs form a diamond. Make sure your elbows are touching your chest, and do some pushups.

3. Grab a weight belt (around 40 lbs for me) with palms facing downward, your fists touching. Start with your arms extended and pull up the belt to just below your chin.

4. Get on the lat pulldown machine but put your hands palms down, touching each other. I usually but on about 30lbs of weight and instead of doing lat pulldowns, pull down with your triceps.

5. Get a hand grip strengthener and squeeze it (it helps forearms too).

6. Find a partner, grab a 10lb medicine ball, and do fast chest passes back and forth making sure your elbows are facing outward (no T-rex arms!)

Hope these tips help you get ripped forearms!