Back to the gym after 20 years

[Island_Moose]

Hey,

 

I hit 44 and decided to return to the gym after 20 years.  6'2", 117kg, probably 17-18% body fat, almost all around the gut.  I've always been big, but the muscle I built years ago slowly slipped away.

 

In any case, for the past 3 months I've been training 5 times/week, breaking up the muscle groups in the way I was shown ages ago.  I workout fairly intuitively, rarely following the same pattern twice.  I'm focused more on proper technique than on pure 1 rep max type stuff.  I've seen huge gains (2" on my arms alone), but my body weight hasn't changed, so I assume I'm converting fat into muscle.

 

Biggest struggle is fuelling the engine, I'm relying heavily on lean protein supplements like Horley's Ripped Factor shakes.  I'm also working through my 2nd cycle of Animal Stak (the one with turkesterone), along with creatine and L-cartinine.

 

I think I'm hitting my daily protein target of 1gram/lb of body weight, but my fat content is likely too low, and I'm eating far too little actual food, as I say relying on shakes (4/day).  I just can't seem to get into the habit of cooking and bagging heaps of chicken and steak to wolf down during the day.

 

My question is this, am I on a hiding to nowhere trying to gain on this artificial diet?  Can you actually be successful on a meal replacement diet?

 

Goal is 120kg, with 10-12% body fat by the end of the 12th month.

 

 

[soundsgood]

120kg at 10% body fat is fucking massive mate.  Will take a shit load of effort, I hope you can get there.

 

Be unlikely to be able to hit numbers like that without sorting your diet out.  Meal replacements will only take you so far.  You need to be eating real food.

 

If you can't sort out your own meal prep have a look at www.musclefuel.co.nz.   They will prep all your meals for you so you just have to focus on eating them.  Real food = real results.   Its really convenient and you get the results.

 

Gymnation members get a discount too.   The coupon code is 'gymnation'

 

Would love to to see a blog with pictures and workout logs, sounds like an epic journey and would love to follow.

[Island_Moose]

Yeah it's a bloody stretch target to be sure, I'm there with the effort at the gym, often working to total exhaustion.

 

Thanks for the link, I guess I have to get my s-together and just make the real food happen.  It's my Achilles heel.

 

I'm in Cambridge BTW

[jbrauch53]

Good on you for making it back to the gym and sticking to it. No looking back now.

So you want to gain 3kg by the end of the year, but also drop body fat significantly from 17-18% to 10-12. Dropping the body fat will be the most obtainable. It might be harder  to gain so much muscle that you gain 3kg (taking into consideration the amount of fat weight you'll be losing). But if you drop to 10-12 percent body fat and weigh less than your goal, you'll still look pretty ripped and be satisfied, I think.

I think  the road to your goals will really be your mastery of your diet/food intake. Shakes are generally a good addition to a daily diet or post workout or to curb some hunger, but you shouldnt be relying on them for your main source of protein or macronutrient intake. I think just too much of it flows through you and lacks a lot of nutrients you get in actual solid food. Taking a couple days a week to cook a bunch of protein (chicken and fish mostly) and good carbs ( brown rice, kumara, wholemeal grains) with lots of vegetables will be the golden key for you. That way food is ready, tupperwared, and you can eat 4-6 meals a day at work or on the go and keep your metabolism going steadily throughout the day. Meal prep!

So I think that answers your question. I also want to add that fat doesnt "convert" into muscle if thats what you're thinking. You have fat that stores and burns off, and muscle mass that you can add and then can shrink down and lose strength. The combination of the state/amount of the two is what gives you your appearance/definition. 
Finally, cardio will be an important factor along with your weight training to burn all that body fat % off that you want to lose. Research High Intensity Invterval Training for your cardio method. I swear by it. Give it a try. Your heart rate should get up to over 160 after the intense bouts. But I'll stop myself there from getting too deep into this.

Enjoy your progress! Hope I helped.

[Island_Moose]

You guys make a good point, better 105kg at 10% then 120kg still carrying a fat roll.  Look I'll have a bloody good crack at proper meal prep, all the thing you mentioned I do eat.  I get my veggies through 2 x green smoothie's/day, going through unreal amounts of the stuff.

 

I wondered about cardio, then I took my heart rate between sets and realized that it was about 145bpm throughout my weight training, I go like a madman, very short resting periods.  I will research the HIIT.

 

As pleased as I am with the muscle gains, the stubborn fat over my gut is disheartening...just have to stay focused.

 

 

[Skeletor]

Congrats on getting back into it mate and sounds like you're doing well. Like the others have said real food over powders any day.  Just use the powders to top up where you need to or as a post train shake.  I can vouch for the muscle fuel meals to. Good quality , taste awesome and you can program in your macros . 

[maccaz]

post before and after photo i reckon mate

[HarryB]

Sounds like you're already well on your way mate. Eating is the hardest part especially trying to eat the same volume of food we did when we were younger. 

 

Welcome back to the gym :)

[Island_Moose]

Today I'm starting a change to my diet.  Added 4 eggs to my protein shake this morning, plus brought two meals to work (chicken and brown rice).  I'll keep up with the green shakes and protein supplements as well.

 

Bench press is improving, though still a bit sad.  I started 3 months ago with a 3 rep max of 70kg, last night did 3 reps at 100kg.  I can't attempt a 1 rep max as I don't have a training partner.

 

 

[maccaz]

dont worry so much about "what" you're eating. more "how much"

do you currently measure roughly the amount food you're eating?

post up a typical days food mate and youll get some good feedback

[Island_Moose]

Ok, here's today's plan:

 

0600 - 4 scrambled eggs

           - Horley's ripped factor protein shake (they are about 40g protein) = 65g

 

0900 - vegetable shake ( I large handful spinach, 1 carrot, 1 celery stick, 1 banana, blueberries, and half a cup of LSA mixture for protein (10g)

 

1000 - 150grams chicken breast 1 cup brown rice (50g protein)

 

1200 - Protein shake (40g)

 

1400 - 150grams chicken breast 1 cup brown rice (50g protein)

 

1700 - Protein shake, 1 cup peanuts (50 g protein)

 

1930 - Gym (legs today)

 

2100 - 300g rump steak with a sweet potato (large) (60g protein, great source of zinc)

 

*Why do I eat after I go the gym?  Because the last time I ate an hour before training I was in the middle of a heavy bicep set and I had to run to the can to chunder.

 

 

Protein: about 285-300g

Fat: not sure, adds up to about 80-120g by my reckoning

Carbs: about 100-150g?

 

 

 

[Pseudonym]

That looks like a pretty good guesstimate for the macros. Personally, I'd probably use MyFitnessPal for a few days to get a bit more accurate. If you know exactly what you're eating now, you're in a much better position when the time comes to adjust things down the track.

 But if you're wanting to lose fat, the critical factor is: how does it compare to your previous "pre-diet" intake?

[Island_Moose]

9 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

That looks like a pretty good guesstimate for the macros. Personally, I'd probably use MyFitnessPal for a few days to get a bit more accurate. If you know exactly what you're eating now, you're in a much better position when the time comes to adjust things down the track.

 But if you're wanting to lose fat, the critical factor is: how does it compare to your previous "pre-diet" intake?

Yeah look, my diet was shite. I used to eat takeaways twice/day after starving myself in the morning. When I started training I went to a very low calorie diet, usually 2 veggie shakes and one reasonable meal in the evening. 

I maintained this deficit somehow with protein shakes, and made some newbie gains. But I can't keep it up. 

I read somewhere that when training you have to actually eat to lose fat, so here I am. 

 

[Pseudonym]

I see. Yeah that's true.

 

I just thought if you already has a consistent baseline, it's best to change your diet relative to that. But it sounds like we're still establishing that baseline here. That's OK... Just expect it to require a bit more tweaking.

[Georg]

Maybe up your chicken a bit? I'm a 59kg female on a cutting diet and my servings of chicken are 150g...

[maccaz]

30 minutes ago, Georg said:

Maybe up your chicken a bit? I'm a 59kg female on a cutting diet and my servings of chicken are 150g...

 

lol

measure it in birds

bird souls

[Island_Moose]

I have to get used to eating when I don't want to...ram it home. 

 

I want to build copious amounts of lean muscle and burn fat simultaneously.  Should be easy aye?

[Island_Moose]

6 hours ago, Georg said:

Maybe up your chicken a bit? I'm a 59kg female on a cutting diet and my servings of chicken are 150g...

OMG...I'm almost double your weight....

 

Maybe I'll look for a chicken with a bit more size. 

 

 

[Pseudonym]

Oh, from the protein amount, I presumed you were talking cooked weight for your chicken?

 

My meals use 300g raw weight of chicken breast, and that's 70g of protein. So if your 150g of chicken isn't cooked weight, then you'll be getting considerably less protein than you think.

 

(BTW, I have fewer and bigger meals than you, so I'm not saying you need 300g of chicken in every serve... Just double-check cooked versus raw weight.)

[Bruce Al]

Since you are getting a ridiculous 300g of protein, you dont really need to up your chicken.

[BeastBuilder]

9 minutes ago, Bruce Al said:

Since you are getting a ridiculous 300g of protein, you dont really need to up your chicken.

 

His guesstimate of 300g was counting the 150g chicken as 50g protein, which it is nowhere near.

 

Although I would probably agree with you, doesn't need to up chicken as there is already legitimately 250g odd of protein in that daily diet which should be more than enough for his goals at this stage.

 

[Island_Moose]

Random question to all. I'm on a 5 day training cycle (Wed and Sat off), is it ever a good idea to just take a few days off?  It seems today that every muscle group is shattered. I'm recovering well, but it feels like I'm getting a bit rundown. 

 

I took a motivational selfie but it's not helping just now.  The sweating seems to have increased with the creatine...odd. 

[soundsgood]

I know you're old but you need to sort out your selfie game Island Moose.  Cant even tell if you are doing Duck lips 

[Island_Moose]

I have no idea how you all do full selfies...my arms are only so long. 

 

Old is relative....yeah nah...I'm old. 

[Pseudonym]

I'm with you, Moose. I tried to take some selfies last week for Flex Friday, and it was just rubbish.

 

The angle I need to hold the phone on to take a photo of me (and not the bathroom wall) is not an angle from which it's easy to press the camera button. Or does everyone do it on the timer?