Sport questions about my diet and increasing strength.

[ThomasJ]

Hello, I am new here and I am going to be starting a new workout routine on monday.

About three years ago I weighed 245lbs (5'10-1/2" tall) and got a membership at the local health club and lost 55lbs over the period of about five months. I did this with a combination of weight training and cardio. (Mostly weight training) I was also doing the atkins diet. I was feeling and looking really good at 190. I cant remember what my body fat % was but they said it was pretty good. Shortly afterwards I had to move against my will and quit working out untill now.

I have since got back to my old weight of 245 and im not liking it. Over the past 2-1/2 years it has slowly creeped its way back on. So I am looking for advise on if what I did last time was "healthy"? I had alot of people tell me the atkins diet is bad for your heart in the long run. Is this true? I am not looking to get any bigger really. I dont want to be a body builder. I just want to get as strong and healthy as I can at around 190lbs and stay there.

I did not really gain that much strength through my workouts. I did get stronger but not as much as I think I should have. Is this because I was on the atkins diet and did not have enough carbs in my system.
Any suggestions on what I should do differently this time would really help.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Thomas

 

[Squall]

Hi Thomas whats up.

Sounds like you know what you were doing as far as when you were at the gym. I would just do what you did before and really make sure you do your cardio. Make sure you change your routine up every now and then so you don't plateau. Maybe thats why you did not increase your strenght very much.

As far as diet goes, the Atkins diet is BULL____. There will probably be some people you talk to that say it worked for them and all that, but obviously it did not work for you because your back to your old self. You simply cannot get all the nutrition you need by cutting out carbs. By cutting out carbs your probably cutting out massive amounts of fiber also. In my opinion theres no such thing as a "DIET" that works because its something you "go on." This implys that you go off of it at some point, which will just send you back to square one.

I suggest your diet consist of around 30-40% protein, 30-40% carbs, and around 20% healthy fats. The only way to lose weight is to burn fat is to burn off more calories than you take in, while making sure you are getting all your vitamins and minerals. If you don't get all your vitamins and minerals your body will burn muscle instead of fat which is bad bad bad. And since theres no way you can get all your nutrition by cutting out carbs, you will only have limited success for a limited time with Atkins. Not only that but most people on Atkins report feeling like hammered dog crap.

You should probably talk to a trainer or nutritionist about your daily needs for calories. I'm about 170 lbs with somewhere around 8-10% body fat and I am trying to get really lean, so I eat around 2600 calories a day. Unless I am at the gym I am not super active and don't have a hard labor type job. For you though I am guessing around maybe 3000 calories a day? That way you can put on some muscle which will also help your body burn more calories by just existing and rev up your metabolism.

Hope that helps