Can’t be hungry. Can’t be full.

Before I go into the gym I have to make sure that I am neither hungry nor too full. I am not sure if that is how everyone feels but this requirement of delicate balance between too full and too hungry is causing trouble to me.

There have been times when I went to gym when I am too full and it scares me that I might throw up especially when I do squats or deadlifts. Another problem is cramps for more movement involved exercises. Yet another problem with being too full is that I will not be able to eat much after the workout (the ectomorph problem of getting too full too quickly).

And then there are times when I go to gym feeling hungry like today. Something urgent came up at work and I was 45 minutes late to gym than usual. I started feeling hungry as I stepped into the gym. It is a weird time that I can neither have a snack nor a full lunch. But in retrospect I should have had a snack even if it means I will have to reduce the big lunch after workout. As I started working out I felt weak and dizzy. At one point I felt I will blackout right after a heavy squat.

Lesson for the day: I just have to make sure I do not miss the gym time and if I do I should snack a bit. May be some fruit juice or some other quickly digestible substances and wait 30 to 60 minutes before hitting the gym. Cannot drink coffee and go to the gym. For some reason it makes me more nauseous and I feel more dehydrated.

Some related links

• http://exercise.about.com/od/weightloss/f/emptystomach.htm
• http://www.healthline.com/blogs/diet_nutrition/2007/11/eat-before-exercise.html
• http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KGB/is_1_5/ai_n6097710/
• http://www.truthaboutabs.com/pre-workout-energy-drinks.html

Filed under: dizzy, full, hungry, snack

Calories, Food, Weight

I have been wanting to record what I eat and how much I eat for a while now and I was finally able to do it for 1 day. So this is what I ate on Friday, December 18, 2009.

Early morning snack
I had a glass of 2% milk early in the morning at around 7 am.
Calories: 122
Fat: 4.81 gms
Carb: 11.42 gms
Prot: 8.05 gms

Breakfast

For breakfast I had a bowl of cereals. The cereals is a mix of raisin bran and cheerios. I ate this around 9 am.

Calories: 175
Fat: 2.19 gms
Carb: 34.58 gms
Prot: 4.95 gms

Morning Snack
For my morning snack I had a cup of pineapple and a cup of cottage cheese. This was around 11 am.
Calories: 272
Fat: 4 gms
Carb: 26 gms
Prot: 31 gms

Lunch

Lunch consisted of chicken burger and fries at 1 pm.

Calories: 498
Fat: 20 gms
Carb: 51 gms
Prot: 27 gms

Afternoon Snack

Chicken tandoori with a glass of 2% milk at 4 pm.

Calories: 253
Fat: 11 gms
Carb: 13 gms
Prot: 23 gms

Dinner
Chicken dum biriyani at 7 pm.
Calories: 410
Fat: 11 gms
Carb: 55 gms
Prot: 20 gms

Evening Snack
Peanut butter and wheat bread sandwich
Calories: 175
Fat: 8 gms
Carbs: 22 gms
Prot: 9 gms

The total number of calories comes out to be 1905 for that day with 30% fat, 45% carbs and 25% protein. I ate 125 gms of protein which is about the correct number of grams for my weight of 125 lb. Everyday I eat more or less the same amount of calories. But as you can see I eat a lot of junk food. I should try and change this filthy habit. I will record another day when I eat healthy food. Here is the food chart from daily burn for that day.

Filed under: body fat, calories, food, weight

The Hugh Jackman Workout

Today was really the first day when I attempted to slow down my tempo to allow for more time under tension. When I decided to do it last week, I was just guessing that my body needs more time under stress. But now I have something that reinforces my logic for using slow tempo for 6 weeks (again just random number I picked which happened to be what Hugh Jackman used for his workout!). Here is the link to the whole Hugh Jackman workout: http://www.squidoo.com/hugh-jackman-workout.

Apparently Hugh used a two phase approach. Basically the website explains (I cannot say if it is authentic, but hey that is the case with most body building websites and stories) that he used a slow tempo phase for mass building and then a faster tempo to gain strength. Each phase lasted for 6 weeks.

First he would start with a mass gain phase. This is the phase where he uses slow 3 second eccentric contraction and 1 second of concentric contraction. This tempo is useful for muscles to adapt and grow. It limits the amount of weight one can lift but it helps the central nervous system to cope with the weight and you will learn to control the weight properly. The slow tempo demands a lot more attention and coordination from the brain. It also helps burn more calories and in my view helps in increasing vascularity.

For the second phase he would simply do powerlifts to lift as much weight as possible in short sudden burst of energy. This means he can lift a lot more then the previous phase. He becomes strong but not necessarily gain mass. This I find it hard to understand. I need to do more research to understand how that works. I know powerlifts will use the fast twitch muscles. But what about these muscles that make them strong but not gain a lot of mass? May be they are dense muscles and every fiber can lift a lot while occupying very little space.

The last week of each phase was set aside for interval training with only 1 day of weight training to get rid of the extra fat that he might have gained during the phase. Very interesting. So if I were to follow this plan I would have to do 5 weeks of a phase, followed by 1 week of interval training. Followed by 1 week of rest. My cycle would then be 14 weeks (for the 2 phases). It may just fit right into my currently planned schedule.

Filed under: hugh jackman, mass gain, strength gain, tempo

Time Under Tension Changes

I have made some good progress so far as my strength and weight goals are concerned. Although I did not reach any of my strength goals I am very close to achieving them. Almost a week into December and I already reached my weight goal of 125 lbs. That means I gained a whopping 6 lbs in 3 months (for an ectomorph that is a big deal believe me). However along the road I gained a huge amount of fat too. A full 3.5% to be precise.

In the past 2 months and 1 week I have only concentrated on increasing the strength. Always performed the exercises with quick bursts of energy when lifting and quickly bringing the weight down in the negatives. So the time under tension was very low. Perhaps around 2 to 3 seconds per rep. Total time under tension for a set was around 10 to 30 seconds depending on the reps. As a result I could keep adding weights more often and kept going. Now that I have reached a certain point in my strength I want to concentrate more on form and letting my central nervous system cope up with the increased stress. For this reason and also to help me burn more calories I am planning to switch over to longer time under tension and using lower weights.

That means I will not be getting any stronger, but I am prepping myself for the next bout of strength training. I am planning to do this for a month and a half. But I may go longer or shorter depending on how my body responds. For now that is the plan. The new tempo will be 3 seconds on negative contraction, 1 seconds at the lowest point, 1-2 seconds for the positive contraction and then one more second at the highest point. This will give me around 6 to 7 seconds of time under tension per rep. The total time under tension will be anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds depending on how many reps I can do.

I also believe that more time under stress means that more time for the blood to rush into various parts of the muscles and increases capillarity. Of course like almost all research in body building, no one knows for sure if the capillarity truly improves with increased time under tension, but from my experience it does work for me. I have seen more vascularity with more time under tension when I performed it before. More vascularity means more blood to muscles and more endurance.

So off to my new regiment. I perhaps will not be able to reach my strength goals because of this change, but I may be able to reduce the fat %. Who knows. Only time will tell…

Filed under: capillarity, fat, strength, time under tension, vascularity, weight

The Graphs: November 2009

Here are the weight and fat graphs for November 2009.

Body Weight Chart

For the first few days the weight gain was slow, but after a couple of weeks the weight went down. Clear indication that I was not getting enough calories. That was when I increased my calories from 1800 to 2000. See my previous post for more details about it. As soon as I increased the calories I saw a sudden and quick weight increase for a couple of weeks and then it started dipping. I am not sure of the reason, but it could be because I was over training. I rested for the first week of december so that should give enough time for my body to recover.

Body Fat % Chart

The flip side of gaining weight is the fat. I have been constantly gaining fat. Even during the time when I could not gain any weight I was still getting fat. Perhaps over training, muscle loss and calorie deficiencies could be the reason. I have to take better care of my body. We will see how december goes.

Filed under: body fat, graph, muscle, muscle loss, weight

The numbers: November 2009

It is past end of November and time for some more numbers. Over all this month went well. I did gain a lot of weight, however I far exceeded my fat % limit. I know for sure that I will reach my weight goal but at the same time I will fail miserably in my fat % goal. Anyway here are the numbers for my weight and fat % at the end of November

Body weight and fat gain in 1 month

• Weight: 124.54 lbs
• Fat %: 14.03 %
• Lean mass: 107.07 lbs
• Weight gain: 3.74 lbs
• Fat % gain: 1.83%
• Lean mass gain: 1.01 lb

I was able to put on 4 lbs of weight, but at what cost? I added 2.73 lbs of fat just to gain a mediocre 1 lb of muscle. At least my body does prove that a gain of 1 lb of muscle a month is about the right rate at which I can gain muscle. Not everything is gloomy though, I am very close to reaching my weight goal of 125 lbs by the end of December! I will have to do something about the fat % though.

My weights have also steadily increased, albeit very slowly. Here are the numbers for my lifts

Exercises

• Squats: 175 lbs, 7 reps (+5 lbs)
• Deadlifts: 190 lbs, 10 reps (+5 lbs)
• Bench Press: 115 lbs, 5 reps (+5 lbs)
• Pull ups: body weight + 27.5 lbs, 6 reps (+2.5 lbs)
• Overhead Press: 75 lbs, 9 reps (+0 lbs)

All the lifts have increased by a very slight amount. I was able to add 5 lbs to most of the exercises in 1 month. Actually I took 1 week off for recovery so it is really 3 weeks worth of progress. Not very impressive. I skipped doing pull-ups a couple of times last month because I already reached my goal, but I plan to do them again this month just to keep working those muscles. The overhead press seems to be the one with least amount of progress. All I could do was add a few reps to the same weight. The main reason is the pain in my left hand when I do overhead press. I think I recovered a bit now. We will see how it goes next week onwards.

I want to do better this month but I already lost 1 week in my business trip where I did not do any exercise. One good thing I did however, is to eat a lot of stuff, so at least my weight did not change much. Graphs in my next post.

Filed under: exercise, fat, numbers, stats, weight