Fitness And Nutrition General

Yeah I know I should be eating right away,but I've got sleep problems so sometimes it's not that easy for me,even though I want to >_<

I usually only make 1 shake daily for post workout,simply because (I know there is more to them than this,but) with my food intake each day,I only need 1 shake to get to my lean body mass protein count.

Hoping you have some carbs in with that pwo?

What's everyone thoughts on keeping tris/chest, bis/back etc same day? I want to ad some variety to my workout but wondering if pairing diff muscle groups or just doing diff exercises is more effective?

Not sure if you're talking to me or Watusa,but in my case,yes I do. Smaller amount of carbs than my usual "before workout meal" though.


I'm curious to this myself. Some people swear by certain pairings. Some people swear by "push days" "pull days". Obviously I'm not as experienced as some of the others here,but I've seen/felt no major difference having tried both options. One thing I do though,is I ALWAYS include 1 of the 3 primary powerlifting exercises,each day,even if I'm not working out one of those groups that day.

Come to think of it,maybe that'd explain some of the other different pairings people swear by

I just go in there, have fun, and make sure I hit main areas twice a week; and smaller areas at least once or at home/out of the gym.

Like I'll do chest/bi/tri: mon/wed

Back(Lats, traps(and by extension shoulders since I'll do exercises that generally hit both) and legs/lower back (various squat variations; bad lower back though can't rly do dead lifts unfortunately): tues/thurs

Then throw in forearms on one of the days and calves on another.

Fossil Park 3-4 times a week + biking and I'm usually spent.

Picked up a bench and power rack at home; when winter hits, I'll be doing weekend workouts as well outside of the school gym. Possibly a full body at saturday with home equip. Just like a 3 set of 10 type deal for each body part.

Train how you like. But watching for training the smaller muscle groups 2 days in row. It can be counter productive.

I do one hour of upper body days and lower body twice a week
One day of cardio + torso/obliques

+ One hour of cardio to go along with it each day later on.

The circuit I have for upper body does shoulders, arms & back.

You could eat 2 hot dogs and get a bicep workout in.


but yea, i was just speaking in general about the carbs in the shake. Most people don't realize that if there arent any carbs around your w/o, your body will take the protein from the shake and use it for energy - especially if it is fast digesting protein.

I did this when I first started lifting only because the DOMS was too much for me to do something like triceps 2 days after chest. I used to be sore for 4-5 days at a time when I was completely new. Nowadays I really don't like it at all because at the end of hammering 20-25 sets on chest or back, my tris and bis will already be fatigued when I begin training them directly.

After my first 2 months on a basic push/pull/legs routine I switched to what I do now and have days devoted to 1 muscle group rather than clustering. It means more days in the gym per week, but if you love training then you don't mind it. I'll hit chest on Mondays and then triceps would be worked Fridays during arm day, giving me enough time for triceps to rest up and hit them directly when they're at 100%.

Basically your training style really comes into play for this. If you do a general 10-15 sets for chest or back, 8-12 reps, not going to total fatigue each set ect. then push/pull days are great for you. If you train high intensity with drop sets, supersetting, high volume, rest pauses ect. then split your days up because ***'s going to be way too fatigued.

So I'm really proud to say I'm pre-prepping my meals and "in between snacks" for the week now! Been doing it for now 3 weeks, measuring everything to the oz and all. I used to do it when I was younger but I kinda lost the motivation to do it.

It's really been a struggle because I detest veggies and fruits!

I don't have a lot of time to prepare my meals for the week(so they usually end up bland as f*ck) so was wondering if anyone has some quick ideas for making large amounts of good involving chicken breast or ground turkey, that taste good?

Meatloaf and chili are both well-suited to be cooked in enormous quantities and frozen.

For meatloaf, you can use oats instead of bread as the binder and choose whatever meat:vegetable ratio you want. Same thing with chili. If it's bland, add more salt :p

To speed things up, start using a food processor to chop faster or start improving your knife skills (this is my favorite cooking site on the internet). The latter will probably save you more time in the long run than the former.

Edit: One other thing about blandness, check out all the info about blanching on that cooking site I linked. You can blanch a ton of vegetables at once and reward in flavor is totally worth it.

Spaghetti with basil. Basil or an Italian seasoning blend.

Arghh! I didnt think of oats! I was trying to make turkey meatloaf and I couldnt think what to use instead of crackers so my meals for the week are now turkey burger patties(no bun), veggies and brown rice on the side :/

As far as salt. I'm super paranoid about adding salt, and well Mrs. Dash doesn't really cut it much

Paranoid that you'll overdo it? You could add it indirectly by making a huge pot of stock and then just adding some of that to everything you make to add some complexity and flavor.

But making stock is kind of a pain in the *** so my process is more frequently something like this:
- chop veggies
- cook most of the water out
- once they start to caramelize a bit, de-glaze with a cup of water or so with some of this stuff mixed in
- cook the excess moisture off again

Forgot to mention, Shepherd's Pie is another one that's good for the "make a bunch of healthy stuff with my preferred macro-nutrient ratio that I can easily freeze for later" approach to diet. :p

Eating enough food has always been way harder for me than doing my actual lifts, so I keep trying to find The Next Best Thing in order to maintain some caloric excess. But yea, these are three that I've had decent success with.

I made a bunch of prepackaged meals like you twice now-- batches of 14-- but the amount of effort involved to try and make it actually tasty is beyond what I can do regularly.

For chicken it's basically a lot of experimenting with different marinades until you find the best one. Salt and peppered chicken gets *** old real fast. I like Greek souvlaki seasoning, mix it with lemon juice, olive oil, and a splash of water and soak that badboy for a few hours before grilling. Tastes great on its own with a side of rice or couscous, or just make an actual pita souvlaki out of it.

I moved away from ground turkey and just use extra lean ground beef instead. Per 100g it's like only a 30 calorie difference or so, and I can't stomach the taste of extra lean ground turkey to justify saving 60cals per meal. I'm assuming you're on a cut since you eat ground turkey and chicken. Don't completely cut out red meat from your diet especially if you're lifting, it plays an important role in your test and GH levels.

With ground beef I'll usually make a huge batch of meatballs. Mix it with an egg or 2, breadcrumbs, parsley, chopped garlic, and salt & pepper and bake them in the oven for 20mins. Then pop them into a pot of tomato sauce and let it simmer on low for about 45mins. If I'm lazy to roll out a bunch of meatballs I just make a chili instead.

Man I'm starting culinary school next winter, this site is *** awesome and exactly what I was looking for til then. Thanks for this.

I used to do that for my first few months until it became too much. And chicken is my favourite meat and rice is my favourite side/carb source. Heating ***up in the microwave pretty much killed it for the most part for me. Now I cook each meal fresh,so much easier to stomach that way (and because I've way too much time on my hands). I bounce between chicken and turkey lately,with brown rice or 100% wholewheat pasta.

And o/\o for despising veggies!

wooo, and I totally agree! I've seriously never found anything even close to what it offers for those who are really interested in learning how to cook. And it's all free, wtf. Wait until you get into the podcasts and the exercises and stuff. Chef Jacob is really helpful on the forums too.

Figured I'd ask you this question since you brought that up, maybe you can help me on this. I can never get a straight answer with all that broscience on bodybuilding.com

How many grams of sugar would be ideal for an insulin spike pwo? I usually just eat a handful of candy after training, I'd guess it's around 20g worth. Always wanted to know if this was enough or do I need to bring a bottle of honey in my car and chug it lol.

Insulin spikes post workout I've heard mixed things regarding helping the uptake of creatine and whey.

I've heard that whey alone spikes insulin high enough for uptake. I still eat an orange pwo simply for the Vitamin C or a bananna for the potassium.

I've heard that too but I figured it was just broscience. Never found a study to back it up.

Well...



There are healthier options that rank high on the glycemic index if you are adamant about spiking your insulin. Raisins- those have fiber in them too!

Unless I'm going blind, I don't even see whey protein on that list?

I remember reading a study in the past saying Whey Protein or any protein in general does spike insulin but actually decreases blood sugar levels if you're not consuming it with carbs, so it just becomes counter-productive if you're relying on whey only pwo.

I've always eaten something with sugar along with my whey protein pwo, I was just never sure how many grams of sugar to aim for.

The GI index only measures carbohydrate influence on insulin. The tools used to measure insulin response are completely different since they trigger insulin production via different biopathways from what I understand.

Insulin Release I really am not a fan NIH scholarly articles for reference so meh...


Molecular Cell Biology via University of California Berkeley

I dunno when I took nutrition, the main reason they focused carbohydrate intake post strenuous activity was to replace depleted potassium since a significant amount is depleted via sweating.

I like your term :)

broscience is as old as dirt :P

As far as "how many" there really isn't a set number. 20gr should be good though. The is more than one reason to have carbs around your workout; one is for the insulin spike. The insulin shuttles nutrients to your muscles (tl;dr version). Also, if you just consume protein, especially whey pwo, your body is likely to use that fast digesting protein for energy rather than muscle. Ideally, you will want to consume some simple sugars preworkout, have some form on intra-workout nutrition, and then some carbs (probably no more than 20gr) pwo. along with your protein. If your insulin does spike pwo without the presence of carbs you almost certainly will go hypo, in which case you will have to consume some sugar anyway to counterbalance that.

If you want to get a little more knowledge on how insulin works and when you should try to manipulate it for its best effects, look around some forums for logs of guys that inject exogeneous insulin. There are various protocols and various types of insulin to inject. Granted, most if not all of you are going to go that far, you will certainly get an idea of its actions.

My guess as to why people *** about insulin is because their diet is ***and they get fat when they manipulate spikes. It is very easy to *** it up and get fat, but not only is insulin the most anabolic of any hormone - even AAS - it promotes IGF production as well.

I think that's partially why Gaspari Size-On is popular it's one of the few intra-workout supplements that's BCAAs/Whey Isolate/Carbs. Been meaning to try that stuff!

I consume iforce hemavol, EAAs, creatine, with ~15gr carbs prewo, I consume a homemade drink intraworkout with carbs, electrolytes, creatine, small amount of protein, and BCAAs - beats the hell out of paying gaspari an obscene amount of money for something so simple and inexpensive. pwo is a peice of fruit or two, followed a few minutes later by whey+bcaas+creatine. Soon though, I am switching my protein from whey to my own custom blend.

Insulin is a strange thing. To much can make you a diabetic. And the IGF alone from insulin is not enough to create a real anabloic response. But in natural spikes I do believe it helps nutrient and creatine uptake.