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Originally Posted by mca10
Sumire-
Thank you for taking the tie to answer my long list of questions I'm happy to have had them answered by someone with experience!!! You're too sweet.
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I am actually content with upping my intake to achieve results. I was eating between 1000-1200 for almost a year sometimes 800 if I went to bed a little earlier or if I thought it was too late to eat dinner. I lifted this entire time doing Chalene Extreme and I did gain muscle, well it's very obvious is photos that I now have more muscle than I did, however, I'm not sure if I could have had better results if I had eaten more. Again, I did an entire Year eating at a deficit and gained muscle in my arms, and core, my abs are tight. I feel like I could look better though in my legs and core so that's why I'm hoping that eating more and doing this program will help.
Your "newbie gains" window has probably expired, so this isn't likely to continue. (I know, booooo.) But at your weight now, every little bit of body fat you shed while holding onto the muscle will make you look as though you've gained muscle (you'll see more definition), so there's that comfort.
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I have thought about this and really want to build as much muscle as possible and do this the right way even though I haven't eaten this much in a year and a half. Once I reach the end of the 6 months, could I eat at a deficit (1300-1500) to cut fat?
Sure. I'm probably going to do a cut myself once I've finished NROL4W-- try to lose 5-8 pounds of body fat, get lean, then start working on building more muscle again.
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Did you see better results, increase in muscle, and definition with NROL4W? Did your body composition change much or did you just experience a change in strength? The comments I've read from those who were already lifting prior were a little disappointing. Some made it seem a like this wasn't a very big challenge if you weren't a beginner. It also seems like the ones who have seen a lot of change are those who are beginners. So I'm confused if this is even for me or if I should start a more challenging program. I really want to do this and want results. After doing just 1 day in stage one, I'm not terribly sore and while I did find it challenging I wasn't as beat or sore as I thought I would be after reading some of the comments on here.
As
dietvet said, beginners will always see the best gains. I have seen a slight increase in definition so far (esp abs/arms) and a little bit of loss in measurements, and my jeans are significantly looser. This is pretty good, considering that I'm probably past the "newbie gains" point and I haven't lost any scale weight at all. And I'm relatively small now, too, so taking my waist from 25.5" to 24" makes a pretty big difference.
And I agree with
dietvet again that you should be able to make the workouts difficult enough for yourself, especially once you get past stage 1. In most of the workouts, I'm huffing and puffing during my rest periods! Your weights are great, but if it doesn't feel like enough work, up them! (As long as you're maintaining good form!)
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Squats - 75 total. Did anyone else experience pain on the back of there neck where the bar rests? Mine has been so sore like I bruised it. I'm not sure why either.
If the bar is actually resting at your neck, you might have it too high. Squeezing those shoulder blades back to form that muscle shelf is really essential when you're doing a high bar squat. At 90 pounds, my squats didn't cause me any pain back there. Next time see if you can rest that bar any lower.
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Step ups - 30 lbs in each hand. This was difficult in terms of balance. I'm used to doing something very similar to this with 35lbs however the dumbbells at the gym are harder to grip and hurt my hands, unlike the ones at my house. ANyone else experience this? I feel like if the weights were easier to grip I wouldn't have as many issues. It's also harder to keep my balance as I do it. I focus on doing it right rather than going fast.
Your grip will get better over time. If you want to add a little bit of grip work at the end of your workouts, I do farmer's walks sometimes or just hang from a pull-up bar for as long as I can.
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So you're able to increase every time? I feel like this is going to be harder for me. 5-10lbs on a squat seems heavy to me. Are you increasing by 5 or more pounds with each workout?
Since Stage 1 is structured so that the reps decrease every couple of workouts, that helps in going up. And once you get to a new stage with new exercises, you may find it easy to go up again. I usually feel at the end of each stage like I'm hitting my limits on how much I can up the weight, and then new exercises & rep schemes come along, which seems to help with progress.
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I have a question about the diet part. Are you guys keeping your Carbs low or at a certain number of grams? I hit my Protein with no problem everyday but I'm incredibly confused about the rest. They recommend I eat 1960 a day when I don't lift (I still HITT or do some sort of cardio, but not like before) and the days I do lift I'm supposed to eat 2200.
So far for today (I've already logged everything for each meal)
I'm at 147 g of protein, 116g of carb, 68g of fat, for a total of 1660 calories so far, and leaves me with 300 to go. Now my percentages are 35% P, 28% C, 37% F. I'm confused as how to fill out the rest. Should I decrease Fat and fill the rest in with Carbs? Do you guys think that 116g of carbs is incredibly high? How many grams of carbs are you guys eating?
It's been a while since I tracked my macros. Obviously, you should go with what works for you & your body. But 116g of carbs sounds by no means high to me. Back when I used to do around 1600 calories, my carbs were usually more in the 150-200 range. (I used to aim for somewhere around my body weight in protein, carbs around 125-200--I don't function well on lower-carb--and whatever I had left was fat.) FWIW.
stlrsgrl43 , 04-18-2012 09:45 AM
pnkrckpixikat , 04-23-2012 06:22 PM
