Getting the Most Out of Resistance Training

Many clients come to me with the goal of getting a stronger, better-toned, better-muscled body. These are all outcomes you can see from regular strength training — it can build muscle strength and bone density, and even improve your metabolism. But, strength training shouldn’t be limited to just increasing the amount of weight. If you want a well-rounded routine — that enables you to see full benefits — I recommend additional resistance training progression techniques, too. 

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Follow up from my previous 418 lbs. to 178 lbs. post.

I never expected the previous post to blow up the way it did so I wanted to create a separate post on some of the ways I track and what I eat in a typical day as my detailed comment on this often asked question will probably get lost in the flood of comments that are on the previous post.

I use CICO for my diet plan and currently aim for 1500-1600 calories a day of food with about 3500-4000 calories a week burned via exercise.

I did not have any weight loss surgery and have lost around 240 lbs in under two years time (I was 418 lbs. in April of 2017). Yes I have a ton of loose skin.

I use quite a few IOS apps for tracking purposes

1. MyFitnessPal for calorie, nutrition, and exercise tracking.
2. C25K, to learn to run over an eight week period.
3. Map My Run, to track my running calories burned and distance.
4. Map My Ride, to track my biking distance and calorie burn.
5. Happy Scale, to track scale movement trends.

I also made myself a spread sheet in Excel where once a week on weigh in day (which is typically Monday or Tuesday) I enter data from my apps to track trends including:

Starting weight, current weight, amount of weight lost or gained for the week, daily calorie average for the week, weekly calorie total, weekly total of calories burned via exercise, starting BMI, current BMI, current weight BMR, weekly calorie deficit.

With formulas in place it is a snap to enter data and see trends so that I can make adjustments to CICO (calorie in and calories out), to ensure I am on the right path.

Since I do a lot of VR cardio on the Oculus Rift, I use data from the VR institute of Health to calculate calorie burn when playing certain exercise based games such as: Thrill of the Fight, Holopoint, Audio Shield, Gorn, Fruit Ninja VR, Space Pirate Trainer.

My current favorite Oculus game for cardio is Sound Boxing (I use Audio Shields calorie burn rate data to determine calories burned per minute), I typically do 60-90 minute straight sessions on Sound Boxing a few days a week.

Last I use a website called WebMD which has calculators to determine calorie burn for other activities, such as doing squats, swimming, playing an instrument while standing etc.

With all of this data available to me I was able to start making smarter choices ever week and it shows in my overall trends.

Final bits of advice is learn what an actual serving size is by utilizing a digital scale to record the food you eat down to the gram, so that you have accurate data on CICO, you will be shocked at how small a serving size really is once you start weighing food out.

Another thing you can do is learn to read labels. Look for things like serving size, calories per serving, servings per container. If you have certain nutrition goals read the labels for that info, I like to limit salt intake as it makes my weight spike due to water retention and I previously had high blood pressure (which is now cured via weight loss).

I do all of my own meal prep and will typically go to a restaurant supply store and buy disposable microwave food trays that have three sections (protein, veggie, and veggie is what I put into them), and will normally make two meals for myself and my girl at a time so that we can just come home and reheat the trays while I prepare our evening salads.

A typical dinner for me is:

150 grams of spring mix salad (30 calories), with Greek yogurt blue cheese dressing (60 calories), a diced plum tomato (11 calories), and 3 oz. of radish coins (12 calories)

8 oz of Shadybrook farms boneless turkey breast cutlets baked in a 375 degree oven for 12-15 minutes (220 calories and 50 grams of protein)

2 cups of steamed shoprite brand broccoli florets (40 calories).

1 3/4 serving of steamed shoprite brand baby carrots 61 calories.

After dinner I peel and dice up a Fuji Apple (63 calories), and combine it with 15 red seedless grapes (34 calories) a light and fit Greek yogurt (80 calories 12 grams of protein) and a serving of pumpkin spice Cheerios dry cereal for crunch (110 calories).

For desert I ll have a pint of Bryers Delight chocolate ice cream (270 calories 21 grams of protein)

Later after dinner I will have a toasted Best Pita 80 calories with 16 grams of Smucker’s natural peanut butter (95 calories4 grams of protein).

That’s a total of 1116 calories for a pretty substantial meal and leaves me with around 400 calories to play around with for the rest of the day (I still typically only eat dinner, and my evening snack).

I might use those calories to have oat meal or eggs before work 100-143 calories or broil up an entire sliced and peeled egg plant for lunch (454 grams 115 calories) drizzled with wasabi sauce (15-30 calories).

I hope a lot of people who got inspired by my previous post see this information and utilize it to help them reach their own goals.

https://imgur.com/gallery/t4mCBGT

https://imgur.com/gallery/8zQuwQG

https://imgur.com/gallery/eEoLiRM

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[Ouch] A learning experience

So, yesterday I was in a pretty bad place mentally; I had got a few pieces of personal bad news and I got pretty depressed... so what did I do, I bought a 5th of Grey Goose vodka and a 2ltr of Diet Pepsi, and my intentions were pretty obvious. I was actually pretty cognizant of what I was doing at least, and I counted all of the shots I was going to do in MFP before I even started drinking... and that number was 12 :/

Now, the morning after I am regretting that decision highly... I'm sat here at work on break, just absolutely miserable, I keep trying to get sick but there is nothing in me so it doesn't help. I have definitely learned my lesson, that the bottle just doesn't help me, but the whole point of this post was to let you guys know that I also learned that I literally can not drink as much as I used to be able to. Newyears 2013 I drank two times as much, and was nowhere near this screwed up... weight loss effects some funny things, and this is one of them. Last night was a important night for me, because of how much I learned, and so far... today has sucked XD

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I’m trying a new (to me) approach to progress. For now, instead of worrying about actual weight loss, I simply count up the days I eat at/under maintenance calories VS. when I eat over. In the past 5 days I have 4 good days and 1 bad. It used to be 7+ bad days in a row. This is progress.

Perhaps I haven’t lost weight yet because of my binge, but I’m pretty happy with this approach. Instead of going crazy over my one failure, I can feel and see that my actual habits ARE slowly changing, and ultimately that is the goal anyways. This method kind of inherently admits I might mess up, but it also encourages racking up a high ‘good day’ streak.

I’ve been overweight for a few years now so I’ve tried various methods including overexercising like crazy, fasting, and regular old CICO. And maybe this isn’t all that different ¯\(ツ)/¯ but I’m a bit excited and wanted to share, maybe it will help one person

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I'm stuck and need opinions or guidance cw:305 gw:240

Alright here we go, so I am a former college football player with 4 solid year of lifting experience I was about 240 when I was told to put on weight to play the position my coaches wanted me to play I put on about 10-15 solid pounds of muscle and the rest was fat. Now that i am done with football I am struggling to get rid of the weight. As of a week and a half ago I started a new lifting routine, with weights and cardio at the end more details will be at the bottom of the post. I also have been changing up my diet. I even started intermittent fasting and my hunger is going down as I eat my calories between 5:30-8:00. My recommended TDEE was about 2450 and i lowered my daily intake to 1500-1800 never going over the 1800. After about 12 days so far my weight has gone no where and is really discouraging even going up and now I'm sitting at my starting weight again. My bloating has gone down, but my goal is weight loss and muscle retention if possible I have a trip to Cancun coming up and the activities have weight limits and I would feel awful if I missed out because of my weight. Any advice, comments, or general encouragement is welcomed and thank you for your time

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My work out routine is 2 heavy lifting days with lower reps and sets of 2 or 3 with 20 minutes of highest incline treadmill at the end. Then a rest day, followed by 3 days of lower weight high rep days with short rest periods to keep the heart rate up and a HIIT session at the end.

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Body Fat Percentage vs. Weight?

Hello, I've lost around 60 lbs since the middle of May. In October I shifted my priorities from weight loss to muscle gain to try and look good at the weight I'm at. While I did up my calories slightly (still below my daily expenditure) the scale seems to have stopped moving completely. I was wondering if any of you had experience with accurately calculating your body fat percentage. I would like to use this as another tool to check my progress and make sure I am still moving in a healthy direction and not becoming stagnant. I have a scale that has the electric sensors/calculations but I have a hard time believing that it is an accurate measurement of body fat as well as water weight.

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Thanks for your help!

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How to Stop Stress Eating

For some, it happens after an argument with your spouse or testy text from a friend. Maybe a looming deadline or money concerns triggers it for others. Whatever the stressful event, many of us turn to food for comfort and distraction. And not a bag of baby carrots or stalks of celery, but food in the form of cookies, ice cream or chocolate. That kind of junk is convenient, and our bodies are built to seek it in high-stress situations. Eating carbohydrates that are packed with fat or sugar releases brain chemicals that leave us feeling good. But here’s the kicker: After you work your way through that sleeve of cookies or tub of ice cream, the guilt of doing so may end up leave you feeling worse. (I know it does for me.)

Emotional eating can get in the way of your weight loss. It’s not easy to break the cycle, but try some of these tips to help you take better control.

Keep notes. Awareness is key: In a journal, write down what you eat, when, how much, and how you’re feeling. Over time, you may see patterns developing that reveal the connection between mood and food.

Learn replacement techniques. You often know when you’re using food as consolation for a bigger issue. Refocus your attention on what’s really bothering you and, in those moments, try some methods to manage the stress―like deep breathing or meditation.

Think future. When on you’re on the brink of stress eating, take a second to focus on your long term goals―whether it’s to lose those last 10 pounds, or to be able to run more with the grandkids. Some research suggests that might help you get out of the moment and make healthier choices.

Give yourself a break. If you overdo the junk food in a moment of anger, forgive yourself and start fresh. Just try to learn from the setback so you can make a plan for how to deal better in the future.

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