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

Missing gym due to work related travel

I will miss my gym all this week as I am on a work related travel. As a matter of fact I am typing this post in the flight (go to love free wifi on virgin america airlines during this holiday season . I feel bad that I have to take another recovery week because I took one just a couple of weeks ago. Actually there is a gym in the hotel I will be staying in, but I don’t think I will have enough energy after coming back from work to go to the gym. These business trips usually mean that I have to put a lot of time at work and get things moving as quickly as possible.

I might do some push-ups and squats with my luggage though . Just to remind my body to keep the muscle during this week. Although this is an unexpected break, it may still be good. Since my left arm has been creating problems for my shoulder press, I hope this time will be put to good use by my body to repair the damage.

My calories intake might also suffer now that I cannot have my protein shake first thing in the morning and I am not sure what I can get to eat and when. It is the end of the month, so time for another update of stats of my lifts, weight and fat percentage. Stats in my next blog. I just have to keep reminding myself to eat a lot and rest well. Had a pizza at the airport just before boarding the flight. So I have to get used to the just food then.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Changes in diet and exercise

For the past couple of weeks I noticed a few things and have decided to change my diet and exercise as a response. First I am not gaining any more weight with my 1800 calorie diet. So I increased that to 2000 calories and now the weight is going up again slowly. I lost a week or more by just eating 1800 calories and not gaining weight. I have to keep this in mind for my next gaining phase. Every day counts for an ectomorph.

The second thing I noticed is that while my weight remained constant I started to see an increase in body fat percentage. Again not good. In addition I was also feeling tired more often too. That is when I decided to give myself a recovery week. After coming back I did perform well in the lifts but still my weight would not increase and the body fat percentage was increasing. Moreover my left arm started to hurt whenever I did any dumb bell shoulder press. I had to skip the dumb bell press for 2 weeks now. This probably is an indication that my body is not recovering enough and I may be over training.

To fix that I am switching over to 4 day workouts instead of 5 days. So my workout days are monday, wednesday, thursday and saturday. Here is my new schedule

• Monday: Chest, Triceps and Back
• Decline bench press
• Deadlifts
• Dips
• Wednesday: Shoulders / Back, Traps, Biceps
• Dumbbell shoulder press / Pull-ups
• Barbell shrugs
• EZ bar bicep curls
• Thursday: Chest, Legs, Triceps
• Bench press
• Squats
• Seated dumbbell tricep press
• Saturday: Shoulders, Traps, Biceps
• Overhead press
• Behind the back barbell shrugs
• Dumbbell bicep curls

So there you have it. Hopefully these changes will let me continue to gain weight and be able to recover properly. Only time will tell.

Filed under: exercise, recovery, rest, weight gain, workout

Protein powder or a meal: Which is better?

I always like to eat a well rounded meal right after I workout instead of drinking protein shakes or eating protein bars. That is the reason I workout right before lunch. It works well. Protein bars and drinks should only be supplements to your diet but should not be the raw material for building muscle. The natural way to build body is to eat the natural food that is available.

I found this interesting video on the same topic. Makes sense doesn’t he?

Eat solid natural food and lots of it right after your workout. At the end of the meal drink a glass of orange juice or grape juice. This will give you the insulin spike that you need and also some vitamin C to prevent muscle loss after the heavy bout of weight lifting. Give it a try and see the difference.

I support eating a protein bar or drinking protein shake during workout session if it lasts a longer than 45 mins. But don’t eat or drink so much that you will not be able to eat the huge amount of food that you will have to eat after the exercise. I used to eat a protein bar during workout although I only workout for 45 mins. So along with the water that I drink I used to feel full after the workout and could not eat as much as I should. But now that has changed. I like it this way.

Filed under: food, protein bars, protein shakes

Is it possible to gain 55 lbs of muscle in 12 months?

Genetics play an important role in how you look and how much muscle you gain. All things remaining same a person with better genetics can gain more muscle than one without the gifted genetics. But what kind of genetics does a guy possess if he can gain 55 lbs of muscle in 12 months? I have no idea! But this guy over at bodybuilding.com claims to have done just that. Unbelievable.

He kind of dwarfs my measly goal of gaining 20 lb of muscle in a year. And even that is a stretch goal for me. I kept it intentionally high in the hopes that I will at least be able to do the minimum of 12 lbs of muscle in a year. He says that he did not use any steroids, and I believe him. I think it is possible to gain so much muscle with proper training, rest and nutrition and most importantly good genetics. I wish he had a blog where he wrote his daily routine and nutrition.

One thing is clear genetics play a huge role. I don’t wish I had that kind of genetics. It is more fun and challenging with my weaker genes. However I do wish he wrote a blog. It would have served both as an inspiration and as a checklist to mark off things that I am doing right. There are some questions that nobody can answer properly for ectomorphs, like is it better to bulk up a lot (example for a year) before leaning or is it better to bulk and lean every couple of months? How much body fat % can you hit before starting to get worried? I have no answers. Just experiences.

Filed under: ectomorph, genetics, inspirational story, muscle gain

Amazing what a recovery week can do to you!

It really is amazing what some rest can do for your mind and body. I am felling more energetic and in good spirit today. When I left my house to go to work, I was not sure if I will go to gym or take more rest. But as the day progressed I felt good about myself. I stretched a bit to see if any of the muscles are sore. No. Not at all. I decided to go ahead and hit the gym .

It was a good thing too. I did not feel tired, just fatigued after the work out. And guess what? I got 9, 7 and 5 reps for my benchpress with 110 lbs. You know what that means? It means its time to up the weight for the next benchpress. I can finally do a benchpress with 35 lbs on either side of the bar for the next time! It is time for the elusive weight to become true for the first time. It is so much fun to set goals and try to reach them. It is like building a house, brick by brick while you have the final completed house firmly imprinted in your mind.

Even the deadlifts felt easy. I was able to do 190 lbs with relative ease. Finally I can do a plate and 25 lbs for my next deadlift. All good. But I still have a long way to go to reach my goal of benchpressing a plate on either side. I know the target. I know the path. It is now just a matter of time.

Filed under: benchpress, deadlifts, energy, recovery, rest