PLEASE HELP - RUNNING OUT OF TIME AND NEED FEEDBACK :)

[milochka]

Dear vegan bodybuilders:

 

Hi, my name is Mila and the title says it all ...

Thus, without further explanations, voila ...

I am currently a 20 year old female, standing at 157 cm and around 52 kilos (21.5%) body fat. Ideally, would love to have around 14-16% body fat (maybe 47 kilos? Although weight is not as important for me as overall body composition and maintaining excellent health i.e. normal menstrual cycle, etc.) as a final fitness goal; however, right now would like to achieve around 17%.

 

Current weight training regimen:

2 day split, primary focus on compound exercises with around 15 minutes of interval training afterwards.

Current eating:

Vegan (99.9% of the time), 7 meals a day

Also, I do the following: since our bodies replenish calories after a workout only 48 hours afterwards, I eat around 1200 calories on the rest day:

i.e. Monday – hard lifting + interval cardio, hard core sprints with minimal recovery for around 15 min, max 20 can’t do much longer J if I’m training right (normal eating i.e. 1800-2300 kcal), Tuesday – lifting + interval cardio (normal eating), Wednesday – rest with 1200 kcal.

Ideally would like to be under 20% BMI by the middle of September, since that is when I go back to school and would have to eat well in order to be able to perform to the best of my academic ability, so that’s when I would like to start the maintenance aspect of it, until the next “lean-out” phase.

In summary, major calorie deficit occurs primarily twice a week. I find it extremely difficult to not eat enough, both mentally and physically *i.e. constant hunger*.

A typical day of "normal" calories would be something like this:

1) 2 small apples (120)

5 almond and less than 1 tbsp of almond butter (around 150)

1.5 servings manna fruit and nut bread (530)

 

2) 4 dried apricots (80)

2/3 cup red, unprocessed rice with a bit of grapeseed oil (200)

about 1/2 cup cooked broccoli (20)

150 kcal worth of tofu plus soy sauce

 

3) 1 large banana (100)

Larabar (190)

0.5 serving fruit and nut bread (70)

 

4) 175 kcal worth of Kornukoff (best Russian chocolate on the market ... EVER)

1 serving manna bread (150)

5 dried apricots (100)

 

5) 160 kcal fruit and veggie raw bar

 

6) 1/2 apple (40)

 

7) the other half of an apple (40)

1/2 potato (60)

asparagus cooked with some oil (50?)

5 dried apricots (100)

 

total : 2215

 

 

Any corrections/suggestions to my program would be greatly appreciated.

p.s. on better days, i try to throw a huge all-raw salad somewhere in there instead of say tofu or manna bread

 

peace and love !<3

[markc7]

Hi Mila. The only thing I would suggest is that doing your cardio right after your weights is not a great idea. You said that you can only do about 15 minutes of intense intervals. If you did the cardio on a different day, or a couple hours after your weights, you could probably put in alot more minutes on the bike or eliptical or whatever cardio you're doing. I know people generally like to get all of their exercise done in one trip to the gym, but if you're serious about getting the bodyfat down a bit than you're going to need to do more than 15 minutes of cardio at a time.

 

Also, you might want to look at spliting up your lifting routine if you don't do that already. In other words, don't do a whole body routine every time you're at the gym. With more rest between each workout of a given body part, you'll be able to lift more and build more muscle.

[milochka]

markc7,

thanks for replying! i thought i've mentioned that i do a split routine already, but maybe i didn't hehe oops in any case, i do a split of chest/quads and back/hams with the third day being a rest day, and then the fun starts all over again

i'm also concerned with the amount of calories i'm consuming. the only problem is that if i train hard and eat less, i always feel hungry, which is not good

thanks for your post

[Daywalker]

Hi Mila,

 

when did you start the program and what were your results so far?

A two split twice a week sounds ok. More detailed info on your training would be helpful

[milochka]

Hi Mila,

 

when did you start the program and what were your results so far?

A two split twice a week sounds ok. More detailed info on your training would be helpful

 

Hi, Daywalker and thanks for your reply!

Let's see .... I've started getting serious about weights and nutrition in the beginning of may. Got my base built up *i.e. got to the point where I was consistently progressing with weights and doing really nice form-wise compound movements* by the end of july;

to give you a better idea of where i've got so far, i can tell you this: in mid june, i had my 1 rep max done for chest press - it was 55 lbs. i started out from doing three sets of chest press (just the bar, which i believe is 45 lbs?) at 7,8,6 reps and now i am consistently doing 11, 9, 8 with PROPER FORM.

my leg press (1RM) was 295 lbs, and just two days ago i did 240 - one set of 25, and two sets of 30.

 

the program that i put up for your approval i designed just recently, before it was five days a week of lifting - monday: legs, tuesday: chest and tricep, wednesday: shoulders and abs, thursday: legs again, friday: back.

the problem with it was that since i was isolating muscle groups, i felt that i couldn't do too many compound exercises and when i did, i felt burned out (because i could do a deadlift on thursday to work my legs, but its also a stabilizing muscle, and since i was doing my back on friday, i felt that my lower back didn't get enough rest).

so here's what i started:

monday: chest and quads (regular/incline chest press, deep squats with own body weight, regular squats with a bar, military press or shoulder press or lunges ... depending on a day and what my lower back feels like or if i'm on my period, i'll do things like leg press instead of squats with a bar, i do three sets at moderate weight and aim for 10-14 reps upper body and 20-30 for lower body since i really don't want to increase the size of my thighs)

tuesday: lats, lower back as a stabilizer only *it gets sore really easily whenever i'm doing extensions*, and hams (dumbbell deadlift, barbell row, seated row or lat pulldown or both , leg raises for abs, ... right now i'm at a different gym in a different city which doesn't have much equipment, but when i'm home, i definetly do my assisted pull ups like there's no tomorrow

wednesday: low calorie rest

thursday: see monday

friday: same as tuesday

saturday: low calorie rest

sunday: unsure for now, probably HIT in the morning and afternoon

the problems that i'm having:

am i lifting enough or should i add an extra day?

how much cardio? (since the only cardio i'm willing to do is HIT ... not because i like it but a) because i'm a distance runner by nature's design so its beneficial for my overall development and b) it really does wonders for one's metabolism and i want to "reprogram" my body as much as i can to go to into the "lets use glycogen as our primary source" mode i.e. "let's not store fat because glycogen shall be our primary fuel from now on") and more importantly, how often? *don't want to risk overtraining because i've done it before and its not pretty*

should i do cardio as a separate session later on in the evening on the days i train or do it right after my training session? *feel that the former will be more effective but would like to know other people's opinions as well*

should i not do cardio on training day and instead, do it once or even twice a day on non weight days?

and last, but not least, WHAT SHOULD BE MY CALORIE INTAKE/REGIMEN?

i normally eat a lot of fruit and don't do well on low calorie diets i.e. i can feel my body switching into a starvation mode - lower heart rate, no energy, etc. and there's no way in hell i can work out EFFECTIVELY on 1200 kcal a day ; i like my raw treats ... like Larabar but am willing to eat pretty clean, as long as it does not involve consuming 100 grams of protein a day because i've tried that before and my body really didnt like that ... even though it was vegan

in other words, i'm more than willing to work hard in the gym and eat really well, as long as i know what to do and why/how it works and more importantly,can feel/see results/progress

p.s. this past monday, i did 10 minutes HIT after my work out on the elliptical, tuesday - 10 minutes HIT on a rower (boy, did that one hurt!), and today - 10 minutes HIT as a warm up because the gym was FREEZING

anyhow, this message is probably already too long so i'm just going to end it by thanking everyone who has replied so far and hoping that many other vegan bodybuilders will let me know their opinions in the near future too!

love and peace!

[Daywalker]

Hi Milochka,

 

got to the point where I was consistently progressing with weights and doing really nice form-wise compound movements* by the end of july;

That is good

I think you're program is okay and you should stick to it as long as you can see progress!

 

the program that i put up for your approval i designed just recently,

It's a good program.

How many sets do you do, how much rest between sets, what rep range, do you lift every set to muscle failure, how long is your workout in total? Those are factors you can start to alter if the progress slows.

 

the problems that i'm having:

am i lifting enough or should i add an extra day?

how much cardio?

Again, that depends on your goals. I'd not add cardio to the lifting sessions, but you can always do cardio on the other days if you like it and if fat loss and health and more important to you than muscle and strength gains. A moderate cardio session will be beneficient for most people, though, even for gains, as it helps recovery.

 

should i do cardio as a separate session later on in the evening on the days i train or do it right after my training session? *feel that the former will be more effective but would like to know other people's opinions as well*

should i not do cardio on training day and instead, do it once or even twice a day on non weight days?

I agree with you. The best is to seperate cardio and weights, but if that's not possible, do cardio after weights.

 

and last, but not least, WHAT SHOULD BE MY CALORIE INTAKE/REGIMEN?

Hehe

Gain or shed?

I think you should focus on the quality of the food more than the quantity. Write a food log if you like for a couple of weeks and check your calories and your weight change in that time. Also look in the mirror, it might be that you're gaining muscles, and the scales won't tell you that!

If you want to shed fat, subtract 15% from your average daily calory intake and have that as your new AVERAGE daily intake. Don't eat the same amount every day.

 

as long as it does not involve consuming 100 grams of protein a day because i've tried that before and my body really didnt like that ... even though it was vegan

I suspect that depends on the type of protein. My body doesn't like large amounts of processed protein like soy products, but i can handle protein in it's whole form pretty well (lentils!!).

[milochka]

lovely, thank you all <3

[MarginWalker]

Like mark said, don't do cardio and weights on the same day. But if you don't have time or whatnot, try to wait at least 4-5 hours between the two. 15 minutes of HIIT is more than enough, if you can do anymore than that you're not really doing it right. Good luck