How can I stay lean, lose fat, and build muscle? Need sample meal/workout plan

[dcraver877]

acetyl l-carnitine.

 

[BetweenTheLines]

you wanna give that noun a proper sentence?

and fwiw, alcar is gonna do jack shit for what him right now.

 

[Wizzle]

You will not get as good of effects as if you focus on a specific part of the body each day.

Working the whole body is great for endurance. However, for building a frame of muscle, a body builder or powerlifter is going to want to hit a muscle group. Your body can recover much more efficiently this way. It takes 2 days to a week for a specific muscle to heal back better than before. So if you continue to work it every day, it won't have time to heal as well. If that makes any sense.

This is simply not true. Powerlifters (especially when beginning) will squat three times a week. Recovery depends on volume and skill level. Especially in the beginning you can easily recover and adapt in 2-3 days. That's why you can make massive strength gains in the first few months of training if you eat right.

Check out Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe, it has al you need for a great strength program.

 

[attempt4]

You will not get as good of effects as if you focus on a specific part of the body each day.

Working the whole body is great for endurance. However, for building a frame of muscle, a body builder or powerlifter is going to want to hit a muscle group. Your body can recover much more efficiently this way. It takes 2 days to a week for a specific muscle to heal back better than before. So if you continue to work it every day, it won't have time to heal as well. If that makes any sense.

Absolutely not.
In my opinion (after solid reading over several years), experience and with many friends attesting to such protocol, FBW's are actually much more advisable to a noob.
Only when one has built a solid frame by exercising FBW-style with the 7 big boys (deads, squats, pushups, pullups, bents, military's, bench's) 3 times a week for 18 months or so, then should someone exercise like a bodybuilder and focus on isolating lifts - adding definition to the solid foundation, increasing MMC and specific focus on developing the various anterior/posterior heads of muscle groups and suchlike.

FBW's are not only more advisable, but simply more practical for a beginner, because after 18 months or so (0-18months is the noob phase) the weight of the 2 "main" heavy compound lifts (squats and deads) are simply too great to consider incorporating them into the same lift day. A beginner can still get away with squatting and deadlifting on the same day, but when you tax the CNS beyond belief in the more intermediate lifting stage and are lifting serious weights then you need to consider recovery and potential form compromise by incorporating too much compound lifting.
Isolation lifts are for an already strong base. You can't build nearly as good a good solid frame on iso's, so why start with it? Compound FBW's invoke a much more powerful response in gains.

The only way FBW's would be good for endurance is if you lift in a set/rep range to accommodate such an end result. Higher rep range on lighter isolation lifts would actually be the better for muscle endurance - 15-50 reps build endurance. Strength and power gains come in the heavy, compound lifts in the 3-12 range, hypertrophy in the latter and strength in the former of said numerical range.

A beginner is better off only using the lifts I mentioned above in a 5-12 rep range for 18 months or so, then incorporate isolation lifts.

As for the "loads of carbs/protein but low fat" (I know it wasn't you Renz Envy who said that! just to whoever says it) - absolute nonsense. High carb/low fat diets are detrimental to GH levels. Fat is absolutely essential (Essential Fatty Acids......geddit? ) to nearly all aspects of our bodily function. Low fat can often equate to low Testosterone levels - it's not unknown that fat is directly linked to the hormone balance. Several studies have demonstrated decline in test levels on low-fat diets compared to moderate to higher fat intakes.

For the OP, I would definitely recommend a FBW every mon/wed/thurs with the 7 listed lifts with 6-8hrs sleep with xCals (calculate yourself based on necessary criteria) and plenty fat/carb/protein from nuts (nuts are incredible little packets of vitamins and nutrients), fish, chicken, veg, fruit, wholegrains, milk, eggs and see how you get on

 

[justwhatever]

All this information is great but if you really want to change you need to post what your current diet and exercise routine is now, i remember when i first started working out i wanted it all I went bought the food worked out felt good but stopped shortly after it was too much for me.

It really is a lifestyle, my personal suggestions post what you are currently eating and what type of exercises your are doing than from there we can do slight modifications slowly to get you up to where you need to be. You can't go from eating 500 calories a day to 3000 you need to adjust slowly so you maintain your gains. Also remember even if your not "gaining weight" or can't see a change keep track of how many push ups an increase in push ups or bench press weight is considered a gain IMO.

Also google BMR and use that calculator to see what your daily calorie intake would be. Like I mentioned there is a lot of information don't overwhelm yourself your not going to be Mr. Olympic overnight this is a marathon not a sprint. Post current diet and exercise routing and will take it from there.

 

[slimvictor]

I won't advise you what to do except for this: listen to your body.

As for me:
I exercise fairly soon after I wake up, giving my body at least 30 minutes to get the blood flowing before I start.
I never eat until after I exercise. If I exercise very hard, I always drink around 0.5 - 1 liter of water - not too fast - after I exercise, and before I eat (to avoid headaches).
I feel much much better if I exercise twice a day, once at night and once in the morning. Sometimes I only stretch at night, but on the many days when I do at least 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes again later, I feel great all day.

(I get 10 hours a week of exercise, because it is very important to me!)

As for types of exercise, I love yoga, running, walking, swimming, biking, jumping rope, and weight lifting.
"the 7 big boys (deads, squats, pushups, pullups, bents, military's, bench's)" sounds like an amazing workout, though I don't know what "bents" are, and I worry that core strength should be emphasized more, so I would add situps, and something for my lower back.
If you do most or all of those regularly, you will probably be really strong.
It would be good to add some cardio, though, to make it more balanced, I would say.

I eat almost only vegan food.
There is no need to eat meat for health reasons, and you can easily get enough protein to build muscle eating just veggies, beans, and grains.
I talked about the quality and quantity of protein in grains in vegetables recently in this thread.
I am slim but muscular, with around 5% body fat but almost average weight for my height due to higher-than-average muscle mass (as measured by some fucking cool machines they have at the gyms here in Japan).
I can squat more than my weight, and I can do 15+ chinups/pullups in one set (60 in a day), and 100+ situps, etc., so I am fairly strong as well as having reasonable muscle mass.
I love high-protein grains like quinoa, eat lots of beans, and snack on nuts and seeds, and I take hemp-seed protein 2-3 times a month after intense weight-lifting sessions, but I am not always vegan - I eat some meat occasionally when I feel that my body craves it.

If you want to avoid eating lots of fat, focusing on non-meat sources of protein is ideal.
Meat and beans and some grains and veggies have enough protein, but meat has lots of fat (and saturated fat, and cholesterol) as well.
Vegan foods have zero cholesterol, and most have little saturated fat.
So, I eat meat in careful moderation.

Finally, I find that it is best not to eat too close to bedtime. I try to stop eating at least 2 hours before bed, though 3-4 hours seems better. When I don't eat before bed, I feel clearer and more energetic the next day.

Good luck!!!

 

[FrankieBonez]

way to jump in prove frankie bonez right..

What are you talking about? I'm merely pointing out that you're not going to get your answers from one post on a message board. It takes time, research, and discipline to achieve those types of goals. So why not just go straight to a source of information that's already been well accepted? It's not like the OP is asking a specific question that can be answered in a sentence or two....