Abs are also genetic... Before law school I was 6'0" and 175lbs and less than 10% body fat and was working out 4 hrs a day. 2 in the AM and 2 at night and I never got a 6 pack... it sucked. And at 175 I was too skinny.

17 years later at 41 yrs old I have been lifting for the past 2 months - 5 days a week and have dropped 12 lbs. I went from 207 to 195.

In the past week I have restricted caloric intake to about 1000 a day and have lost another 4lbs and have started Muscle Milk protein shakes added 22 grams of protein a day.

I just started cardio this week and am now working out 6 days a week, lifting in the AM and 30 minutes of cardio before bed.

Target weight is 185lbs and body fat of < 15% before I start trying to add 10lbs of muscle by Jaunary. I probably have added 2-3lbs of muscle in the last 3 months.

It is definitely a lot more difficult as you age. The last time I pushed to get in shape I was 34 and it was a lot easier than it is now.

^ drop the muscle milk man, that stuff is overpriced garbage. It does taste good though. Not only does it have too much saturated fat.....

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/ne...healthy-metals

Stick with ON pure isolate or whey. Not only is it cheaper, it's healthier as well.

I agree it gets harder with age, but I think it has more to do with the fact that when you are younger you are a lot more active. I think that is the case more often then not with most people.

I also agree with the genetics, muscle tone came a lot easier for me than other people I knew that worked out a lot harder and more than me. I had a decent 6 pack with very little ab work outs. When I worked out years back I focused mainly on my arms and chest. My stomach and legs just came natural from all the sports activities.

I'm going to shoot to drop 10 - 15 pounds, try a little harder to eat better, not that I am eating terrible now, keep up with my running so I can burn a lot of calories (and I enjoy jogging), and I will mix in some work outs based off of the videos posted here. I don't need this to happen tomorrow, so I will work at it on my own pace and see where I am at in 4-6 months. If I succeed I will share before and after pictures :)

Thanks for the info. I never knew that. I am only using it once a day and the the test results are based on 3 servings per day so while I am not happy I also not scared by it.

I will look for something new though and will check out your recommendation.

True, sex is the best workout for me, it works all of of my muscles. If you are looking for a six pack, get your girl to ride you cowgirl or reverse cowgirl, and have her put her hands on your stomach area as she is bouncing up and down on you. And make sure to rotate and give her a rest by thrusting up and down also. Fast or slow it does not matter, just as long as it's 20-30 minutes at a time during sex. Worked for me :winkwink:

It does not matter how many pounds your weight is.
What matters is that you need to get your body fat percentage to below 8%.
You will have visible abs with the body fat percentage below 8%.
Exercise and diet will help you to achieve your desired goal.

Yeah that article is exaggerated obviously, nowadays everything is unhealthy for you. Nothing to be concerned about, I would just change products. :)

If you don't mind spending the extra $$$ on a quality protein shake I would go with 100% whey isolate. It's the healthiest protein shake for you with no saturated fat, cholesterol, sugar or other processed 'fillers'.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/in...eyprotein.html

Compared to Muscle Milk's profile it's far superior.

Muscle milk has:

16grams carbs, (all from simple carb sources, so that's essentially 16grams of sugar)
15mg of cholesterol
6g saturated fat
12g fat

1500 - 2000 sounds pretty low to me, I don't think you need to go that low, and if you're adding physical activity it's even counterproductive, if your body starves it doesn't recover well and tries to burn a lot of muscle

if you're 6'0 and 200 pounds your basal metabolism will be at least 2 000 calories / day, more likely even more

so let's say your intake would be 2 400 calories / day in five healthy, balanced meals

Now how much you should burn (example for illustration):

- 2 000 is basal
- 200 is common activity (walking etc.)
- say 600 is work out (cardio / etc.)

- that would give you a nice 2400 / 2800 ratio 400 cals are cca 1 600 kJ (I always have to use Euro numbers to recalculate) so that would mean you can be burning as much as cca 80 g fat a day (very rough estimation, someone correct me if I'm wrong)

But that way, say 5 work outs a week would mean approx 400 g (almost a pound) a week

I'd say that's about the zenith there and you shouldn't try harder otherwise you'll be burning too much muscle and feel tired

a couple suggestions

- try to cut eating out completely for a month or two, that's the only way to control what you eat, I can more or less guarantee it's gonna boost the results

- aim for five meals a day, don't starve for breakfast and eat more after the work out

- adding a protein drink before the sleep as the fifth meal shouldn't harm either, even if you'd only be exercising abs

- if you want to do abs specifically do them every second day (I used to do that at high school every morning at 5:30 AM) but it's probably much better if you have every other day for recovery

- I'd go for more than 25 repetitions in a serie and a total of 250 - 300 repetitions per session

- prefer a longer cardio work out (45 - 60 minutes) at cca 70 pct. of your maximum heart rate, they say you start to burn fat effectively after cca 15 minutes of cardio and I can attest that longer workouts indeed brought more notable results for me

- pick exercise that works for you and that you feel well, be careful with your neck, test technique until you properly "feel" the muscles

looks almost too male for me, a woman needs to be soft, not hard as a rock ;)

Maybe i am intaking more than I realize. On days when I eat a subway sandwich for lunch (foot long about 700 cals) and a frozen dinner (350 cals) for dinner, eat a frozen desert (250 cals) and maybe snack on a pudding or couple 100 cal snack packs, I don't think I am getting over 2,000 cals. I might have some OJ that accounts for a couple 100 cals... My biggest help to keeping my calories down is drinking diet drinks and water. With the exception of a glass of OJ I get 0 calories from drinks. Before I switched to diet and water I was drinking about 1200 - 1500 calories a day in soda but I had a 6pack back then not counting all of the beer I was drinking lol :1orglaugh:helpme

When I eat out (lunch or dinner) I have no idea how many cals I am getting but I eat not the best when I eat out so i am guessing I am eating 1000- 1500 or more just from that 1 one meal. So I might be doing a lot more those days and making up for my pathetic frozen dinner eating days.

cals sneak in, you'd be surprised. write down everything you eat for 1 week. diet soda is misleading, the body treats it similar to high fructose corn syrup. it causes weight gain.

Lots of hidden stuff, if you eat anything pre fabricted it always includes hidden calories etc.

But mainly a quality is important - much better if you buy fresh ingredients and mix them yourself.

Also you can eat frequently (every three hours), and more in total, but if it's really quality food you're much better off than eating the "typical" way.

I've also bought me a new saucepan, so I don't need to use any sort of oil if I'm about to do eggs for breakfast or fry spaghetti w. tuna fish, this quite majorly lowers the amount of fat one consumes.

Planning to get me also a George Foreman grill cause I'll need to mix in some red meat time from time, eating almost entirely fish for almost six months now.

As far as I remember a decent dining out the American way is enough to feed a village in Africa for a week,

I seriously would have problems with so much great and cheap food around, if I need to fantasize about food I use to search through the memories how I used to dine in NYC, Vegas or Florida - Japanese restaurants, steaks, ribs, Mexican food, Thai food, lobster, shrimps, breakfast omelettes .. damn.

What's advantage over here is that most of the dining is just not worth the money - bored waiters, service sucks, portions are small, food not overly tasty, ingredients not fresh and they charge you for every non sense like water costs about one fifth of the price of a meal - so it's easier to stick to my own "recipes" :)

No city in the world has better food than New Orleans, so it makes it even harder for people living here to be in shape. Everything is either fried, soaked in oils, made with heavy creams or covered in cheese. But the food is damn good. Ate out tonight but had fajitas (grilled steak, chicken and shrimp) so it wasn't that bad and I ate a pretty small portion, for me at least. How do you even begin to count calories when you are eating out?

Wow, that's better than porn!



I'm in lust!

--

Been doing p90x since Monday ... intense!

Well, I can only use euro metrics now otherwise my brain would jam...

Calories are not all that important, much more important is how and what you consume that accounts for the total intake

Calories are just metrics but what matters is the balance

Each meal should be, say very roughly:

30 g protein

30 - 100 g carbohydrate

5 - 20 g fat


Carbohydrates and proteins have the same energetic value per g

fat has twice as much per g

So all the play with calories is tricky, you need balance

you need fat, without fat your hormones wouldn't work properly, but not more than cca 50 g a day, the rest stores easily, now do a math and it's not all that easy to keep fat at 50 - 70 g a day, cause it's put into everything, like the oil the meat is done with, all kinds of sauces, deserts, apetizers etc.


Then let's try to put together an ideal serving:

100 g of meat is cca 30 g of protein + a couple g of fat depending on the type of meat

100 g of spagheti or rice is cca 70 g carbohydrates + cca 8 - 10 g protein

add vegetables and you have a balanced meal, something that's exactly what you need nutritionally and energywise



Now consider a typical restaurant serving:

330 g of meat - that's way too much unless you're a powerlifter

100 - 200 g carbohydrates - too much

30 - 100 g fat - deserts, sauces, oil etc. etc. - way too much

In most cases, you basically eat two to three times what you can use and burn when eating out, so eating out is the best and easiest way to gain fat.

Robert De Niro used to dine in the best French restaurants in Paris, when he needed to gain weight during the filming of the "Raging Bull" - he put up 20 pounds in one month

She gets naked in videos? Link. Please

this is a kick ass thread! will, that's 2 threads you've started this week that are chock full of info, nice. anyhoo


no doubt, n.o does has awesome food/restaurants, just don't ask what's in the food! lolz
there are restaurant calorie counters on the web and just perusing a couple, those fajitas (just the fajitas, no beans, rice, chips, salsa, nothing else) come in at around 660 calories, with 40-60 grams of fat- ouch, the shrimp faitas being the worst-> soaked in butter. i agree though, it is difficult to count restaurant cals, but once you get the hang of it you can ballpark it pretty good. you can also count on ANY dining out meal to be overloaded with cals, especially fat, unless it's advertised as a healthy meal item.

fucking A! how was your first week, which routine did you like best? worst?


carlos, i value your opinion on these things, as you have figured out for yourself what works. but i do not know what you mean when you state that protein and carbs have the same energy value? is that another way of saying they each = 4 calories? that's true but that's just a measurement, carbs have a much higher energy value re: actual energy required to function. I'm sure you know that, just wanted to clarify. if one were to consume primarily carb cals and not expend the equivalent amount of physical energy, those carbs turn to fat.

also, in my experience, total calories is really what's important for weight loss. i've tried low-carbs diets, all kinds, high protein weight gain diets, etc. for me, calories burned must be less than calories consumed or weight gain results.

next, comes balance, especially as activity levels increase, and then once activity level hits athlete/performance levels, the balance needs to shift to more carbs to fuel the body for the ultra-high level of activity. i've discovered this recently as i took my workouts to a much higher intensity, i was *bonking*, running out of gas prior to finishing my workout, i added ~300 cals of carbs and bam, my energy was sustained through the workouts. (being diabetic complicated this for me, but that's another story).

not trying to be a tard here, just having dialogue about a great topic.

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What I'm trying to say is that you don't need to starve to burn fat, you gotta keep a balance between carbs / fat / protein and a slightly lower total energy intake than the outtake, the difference in my case was probably say - 300 - 400 calories a day with 2 g of proteine per kg of weight (again apologize for the metrics)

So I believe we're actually in agreement.

If you're gonna be starving or your diet will be unbalanced, you're only gonna damage yourself - although you may come to even more shocking results, but you're gonna be most likely also burning your inner protein - muscles, not to mention starving is dangerous for one's health and a follow up usually is to store anything the body can store.

Never starved, kept 5 meals going on every day every 3 hours, didn't even lose that much weight, stronger than before, most likely gained muscle, yet I've also lost 5 inches in waist and burned loads of fat.

Another exercise thread filled with 99% bullshit. Fucking awesome.

Will no offense but your diet sucks, too little calories and really crappy sources of nutrition to be 100% honest

i see, thx for the clarification
i always get a kick out of the drive-by *this thread is bullshit* posts with 0 input. especially when they discount actually experience, as more than a few of us here have gotten great results. says more about the poster than anything.

stop eating fat and carbs, and go for lean meats and tons of veggies and fruits. Then do about 100 situps a day, that's all it takes, no fancy regime...

short & sweet, gotta love a dlxphil post! :thumbsup

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

you know how i do things, no sense in beating around the bush. My best suggestion is to start reading up on macro nutrition fat/protein/carbs, and base a diet around your goals after youve properly educated yourself on it. no single person in this thread can give u the wealth of information there is on bodybuilding/nutrition forums. Ketogenic diets work great but you really need to take into consideration what your intaking. just becuase its chicken and on a subway sandwich doesnt make it good for you. You need unprocessed natural foods, it literally takes me maybe 2 hours tops to cook all my meat for the entire week which isnt bad at all considering there would be no prep or cooking, just grab and go. Not to mention u buy 2 subway sandwiches its minimum 10$, u can buy like 6 pounds of chicken with that


p.s. dyna, is that u on JBM now?

always good advice from you.

this is my exact experience as well, especially with unprocessed natural foods.

yes, that's me over at jbm.

looking good man! keep it up, your cut seemed to be quite sucessful. Keep it up!

i recommend to you just stay with a belly
looks hot 8)

wow, thanks! means a lot coming from you. also, i messed up over the last few weeks, i lost some muscle (so that last pic does not show all the results i achieved) due to some diabetes complications, those are sorted out now and i hope to get that lost muscle packed back on asap.

thx again!

hey no one is perfect man, cutting while retaining mass, not to mention cutting while being a diabetic and retaining mass is extremely difficult. I give you serious props man. the muscle will come back quick dont you worry :) I was out of the gym for about a year, been back since december. I was 172 before the injury started working out at about 147ish december and now im back up hovering right around 165-170. 8 months and im almost back!

It's actually pretty easy...In theory. Lift heavy, go on a deficit, and consume 1 gram of protein per 1 lb of LBM, daily. Also, muscle milk is a scam. I either go with Optimum Nutrition or Myofusion, as those set the standard for protein. Another thing I've recently been using is LG Sciences Lipotropic Protein. It tastes pretty nasty but you get 25 grams per scoop, 69 servings, and only $33. In terms of protein and price, THAT is the best. I love the taste of Myofusion Chocolate Peanut Butter though.

right on! what injury did you have? must of been serious to keep you out of the gym for that long eh

myofusion is my favorite protein as well. taste/quality/value is superior, i like the syntha-6 as well but it's got a few more grams carbs than i like, i prefer picking my carbs myself.

i was going off the fact that he is a diabetic and cut as well. For a cut id highly suggest more than 1g per lb to spare muscle wasting. Optimum nutrition protein is great, but ive not had any luck with myofusion its like sludge to get down to me. But ive honestly never really had to go on an all out cut, i can drop my caloric intake 300 cals a day for a month and see results fairly quickly

buy a swiss ball, then look up ab exercises on youtube

Dyna i had gotten a double hernia pulling 495x3 dead lift, i tried going for that last one and i thought i busted a nut...well i pretty much did lol. Im still young so my dr didnt want to use mesh he just basically sewed the muscle back together. I started working out again about 3 months after recovering and just didnt feel the same. I kept getting small stupid injuries that would keep me out then i got sick. Some sort of parasite or something. The dr;s were baffled and i was losing weight like crazy and couldnt eat. It finally went away all of a sudden on its own and ive been back ever since. Felt like shit getting back into the swing to be honest with you, i worked for a solid 3 years to get where i was and it was all gone because the series of events. Thank god for muscle memory!

shit, man! that's crazy! i bet you are happy that's behind ya eh.

yea the injury still haunts me today, i just love to dead lift, i pulled 395x5 yesterday so im pretty happy about that. I really have eased up on legs alot, im starting to get unproportional. Im not a fat guy by any means my stomach is actually very lean but im in size 34 jeans because of my legs and huge ass. Squat booty!

I didnt even say I was on a diet. :winkwink: I'm figuring now I eat more calories than I realized. I know I don't eat the best, but I also don't eat the worst either.

When it comes to what I eat I make an effort to try to stay away from saturated fat and cholesterol when eating at home. When eating out I know it is hard to still eat healthy in most cases and enjoy the food. I'm more concerned with not clogging my arteries than I am my 6 pack, but if I can accomplish both without starving myself I will give it a shot.

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Congrats on your irreflexive aspiration...

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