One Buff Dad

Nutrition for Bulking up

2009-10-13T17:08:00.000-07:00

So last week we talked a bit about bulking up, let's look now at the specifics of nutrition when you're getting big.

When bulking up, you need an organized eating plan. Also you have to educate yourself about carbs, protein and fats. You need to know how calories work, and how to calculate your meals.
First off you need to form a ratio. 50/30/20 (carbs,protein,fat) works best for gaining quality weight. Now since the body gets used to the amount of food you're giving it, you will have to up the calories by 300 every 2 weeks.
The first week that you start bulking you will go +500 calories and then 300 calories every 2 weeks from then on. The 300 calories will be the same ratio as your diet. You will bulk up for 14-16 weeks, or until you decide to cut down.
Let's say you were eating 2000 calories before you started. That's your maintenance. First you will add 500 for the first 2 weeks, and then 300 for every other week.
Therefore, it will look something like this. This is only a model, so add 500 calories to your maintenance calories.

Starting at 3,000:Weeks 1-2 = 3,500 calWeeks 3-4 = 3,800 calWeeks 5-6 = 4,100 calWeeks 7-8 = 4,400 calWeeks 9-10= 4,700 calWeeks 11-12= 5,000 calWeeks 13-14= 5,300 calWeek 15-16 = 5,500 cal

You can stop at anytime if you feel you reached your goal, or are gaining too much fat. Let the mirror be your judge. Don't follow the scale or a program. It would be foolish if you are happy at week 13 and you continue to week 16 and gain 5 or more lbs of fat. Always look in the mirror.
Having logs and looking at the scale is fine too, it's actually necessary, but always let the mirror be your main source for judging your progress. Next week we'll look at the best foods to eat while bulking.

New Goals for the Winter

2009-10-05T18:39:00.000-07:00

Winter is coming and that means you'll be wearing heavier clothes. This is a great time of year to put on the mass. The problem people usually have is that they do not eat enough, remember that if you eat more calories than your burn you will gain weight. Audit what kind of calories you are taking in and if you are not gaining the mass like you want you'll probably find that you're not taking in as many calories as you think.

One concern you may have is gaining too much body fat...well just get over it! When you are building for mass you will gain fat along with the muscle. The trick is to get on a good cut diet to show everyone what you've been working on over the winter.

That's the overview, we'll look more specifically at the calories you should be taking and what types of food you may want to eat for your winter bulk up.

Buff Dad Busy Dad Workout

2009-06-02T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hey all, check out the latest workout:
I'm working out at night time since work has me in too early...it's been working out OK. I put the kids to bed at about 8:00 pm and hit the road. Here's the latest schedule...the short term goal now is putting on the definition for summer.

Monday: Back and Bi (after warmup 3 sets of 8-10)
barbell curl
seated curl
concentration curl
bar bell bent over row
one arm dumbbell rows
machine row

Wednesday Chest and Triceps (after warmup 3 sets of 8-10)
Flat barbell bench press
Dumbbell Flies
Incline Press
Close Grip BB Press
Cable Push Downs
Overhead DB tri presses

Friday Abs & Legs (after warmup 3 sets of 8-10)

BB Squat
Lunges
Ham Curls
Calf Raises (seated or standing)

Abs weighted crunches 3 sets of 10 w/ 25 lbs.

Cardio 5 minutes to work up before weights and 10-15 post weights.

Supplements: Whey protein during the day / Glutamine X-tend sipped during the workout.

Good News...bad news

2009-02-24T17:54:00.000-08:00

Hey, I have a job! I'm a warehouse supervisor at a lacrosse/hockey goods distributor.
Bad news is I'm working quite a bit longer hours and my workouts have fallen off significantly. I'm now at one time per week, which is OK for maintenance but I'd still like to be making gains. I might be able to get some equipment for home but that's in the works. I'd like to get back posting health & fitness related stuff but I guess we'll see how I get with this schedule, but I hope to see you soon.

5x5 Workout

2009-01-30T06:36:00.001-08:00

Today we'll talk about the 5x5 workout. This falls under the strength gaining type of program. The idea of this program is low reps and higher weight.
Who is this for?

If you want to hit new records on the squat, bench or deadlift this program is for you.
If you want more strength in general--that is for daily life
If you want bigger muscles this will help you lift more weight when you get into a hypertrophic cycle.

How is it done?
The gist of this program is that you do 5 reps of 5 sets with compound exercises--generally the bench press, squat, dead lift or olympic lifts like the power clean. Additionally you will do isolation exercises that target muscules that get left out of this program like barbell or dumbell curls.

Where do I start?
Check out this GREAT site on the 5x5, called the Bill Starr "MadCow" 5x5....this guy is an idol in the strength and conditioning world. The site has lots of detail for questions that you've got and also a great spreadsheet to download and put together a great workout for you!

Update: These links are DEAD, I'll put up a link to another 5x5 that I've been through and really like also.

Long Needed Update

2009-01-26T10:24:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm still here. I hope to get posting more regularly starting this week. I'm still looking for a job but things have been progressing. I've got two options that may turn out to be a job for me but we'll see!
This week and possibly into the future I'll be doing a series on different types of workouts. You can categorize workout programs into three basic groups: 1) Gain strength 2) Gain size and 3) endurance--of course there is a whole lot of overlap in these but I'll be putting programs into these three groups. Keep healthy y'all I'll see you later this week!

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T05:13:00.000-08:00

OK Y'all, I've already seen people talking about good and bad of New Year's resolutions, but I'm gonna post them here. I talk a lot about goals, so it makes sense that I make some new ones for the year. I got way off course with the job loss but we're gonna get that licked soon-I don't know anything but there's too much action for me not to have a job soon.

So here's my fitness goals for 2009:

Bench 245# 8 times
Squat 400# 8 times
Visible 6 pack
Bigger Chest & Arms (I will add specifics to this later)

Make your goals if you don't already have them, write them down or print them out and post them in a place you see everyday so that you don't forget them!

Here's to a great and blessed new year!

Merry Belated (be-loated?) Christmas

2008-12-28T15:36:00.000-08:00

Merry Chistmas a few days late. I was out of town all week.

Let's talk about picking up the pieces from our holiday nosh fest (as I eat Christmas fudge). Hopefully Dec 29th starts a new week for you that will be more normal than last (excepting New Years day). This is a great time to get back to work on your fitness goals. I know it will be the day for me. I'm going to try and keep New Years day as clean eating as possible. Don't wait until next week--start now, your six-pack is waiting.

On the job search front: I've got several first interviews and a few seconds and a NO from a company in Ohio. Regardless of where I get a job, it will not be here in the Motor City. Buh bye mo-town, I just hope it's soon!

A Key to Healthy Living....Be Appropriately Selfish?

2008-12-16T11:44:00.000-08:00

The other day I read a post on the Burn That Fat Blog, Tom Venuto discusses Oprah's struggle with weight loss and quotes her magazine where she says she didn't put her self on her priority list. Me...I'm pretty quick to say "no, no don't be self centered" but upon thinking about this, it rings true to a certain degree.

So let's think this through...it's appropriate to make sure you are healthy so that you can live past your 50's and not die of heart disease or some other weight related illness. It's not appropriate to spend 2 hours a day in the gym while your kids park it in front of the TV or your spouse freaks out with the stress of you being gone to tend to the household chores.

To quote Dr. Suess in O the Places You'll Go"life is a great balancing act." If you've got lots of things on your schedule, try to cut down you're exercise routine...check out this Alwyn Cosgrove post where his colleague discusses how you can get your workouts done in 15-30 minutes 3 times a week. Truly that is all you need. Speaking of priorities, my baby needs me. Until later! BD

Kinda Blah Lately-Let's go!

2008-12-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

I don't feel like much of an authority to be giving out fitness advise lately with the job lay off taking much of my time and the lack of any solid routine messing my eating up quite significantly. The trick is to pull the success out of the termoil. I've just gotten over a flu and so now will be getting back to the gym and working to eat clean(er).

No short term goals right now but one long term goal and this should be your default goal is you have none:
I will work out so that when I get to 80 years old I can still be mobile, agile and strong.

I'm sure a short term goal will pop up quickly but for now I'm sticking to the above.
As for you: consider you health goals, if you don't have any take the one above and make it your own and work your goals back to present day in smaller chunks.

On the job seeking front for me: on-site job interview tomorrow in C-bus, OH. Still waiting to do a few first interviews and waiting on answers from other first interviews.

Crazy DOMS

2008-11-26T04:28:00.000-08:00

I've got 3 day DOMS, I thought they were only supposed to last for 2....wow...my legs still ready to buckle under just a little weight. I did leg press on Sunday, hit a new record of 720#, 8 plates per side (man that takes a long time to load and unload).

This brings us to the basic reason any of us do resistance training--muscle overload. We push more weight than our muscles could previously push. My wife recently told me that I kind of looked like I'm I real life photoshop mishap where my legs don't quite match my upper body...it's funny cos most guys who lift are the opposite. My strong point is my legs, I need to up the weight and hypertrophy on my upper body.

OK so consider this a bonus post, I'll try to post again on Sunday or Monday.

Slow Progress

2008-11-25T12:40:00.000-08:00

Things are progessing slowly, I've got a 3rd interview with a company in Tulsa OK and a 1st with a company near Memphis TN. The bottom line is it seems I'm going to be moving. Here in Michigan there doesn't seem to be much work.

Physically through this period, I've still kept up my workouts and had good progress. I feel like I've got up in strength and body composition is about the same. I've not been super careful about what I eat but I haven't gone crazy in any respect. I'd like to get back to posting about fitness stuff but that may start up again next week after Thanksgiving. Everyone have a nice holiday-see you on Monday.

Job Search Update

2008-11-20T06:19:00.000-08:00

Hey all, I wanted to give a quick update on my job search:
Things are going good! I've got a second interview today and one offer already on the table.
I hope this second interview turns into an offer but then I have to make a decision!

These days though you're not stuck with your job, so if it's not working for me after about 2 years I could move on. The same works for your fitness program, if something is not working for you-you can try something else. That's the beaty of it but it's better than taking a new job since you're a lot more flexible-try something for 12 weeks and if it's not working you can move on. However be careful because there are basics that you need to stick to whether you like them or not-like the squat, the bench press and the dead lift.

Just like my two job possibilities you must weigh the pros and cons of the options and make a decision--remember you can always change! Jobs I've found are harder but you can do it!

Motivation for Movement

2008-11-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

Hey all, good news, I got an interview with a company tomorrow. This makes me feel a lot better about my job search. The job is far away but we're ready to move since the economy is pretty bad around here.

Isn't it like that with our fitness life? Bad things happen but they make us strive to get better. We have a bad doctor visit or heart attack or just are uncomfortable by the way we look--these things push us to get better.

There is however a better way. When I lost my job I said there were a handful of things I could have done to make this transition easier. I shouldn't have waited until now to work on my business network or professional certifications. So, today let's make our fitness life the same--do the right thing because it's the right thing to do not because something bad pushes you to it. Keep you up to date y'all.

Latest update--Patience!

2008-11-07T10:46:00.001-08:00

OK, so the BBing thing is on the backburner. Looking for the job is my priority now. I know the disciplines that I’ve developed through clean eating and training will transfer to finding a job. The big one is patience–we don’t transform our bodies overnight and that seems to be they way it is for finding the right job. I’m not going to take just anything–I need to support my family and I need something that will help me self actualize (I don’t really believe in Kant’s self actualization at its heart but that’s the best word I can think of).

I need to trust that God is in control and that He’s good all the time. So I know that this may not seem good He knows it is. I need to learn what He’s teaching me. So if you’re a pray-er pray for me that I’m content with this situation and that I get a job quick so that I can stop being patient!!

Job searching and refined sugar

2008-11-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been hard at work to find a job and let me tell you that when you're doing it, make sure you have real people to talk with rather than just putting up your resume on job boards.

Well on October 31st I was happy to get lots of free food except that most of it will rot your teeth and cover up my slightly peeking through 6 pack. Really I need to get that candy out of my sight and possibly out of the house. Candy and sweets are my absolute weakness.
Here's some nice tips on what to do with your candy...You can find this at http://blog.bodybuilding.com/shannan

Here are a few tips to help you deal with the sugar cravings:

Wait it out! Sometimes cravings are emotionally driven, and you may be eating sweets in reaction to your emotions. Before you dig into the donut box, stop, recognize your craving, and ask yourself out loud if it is worth the few minutes of pleasure instead of achieving the body you want and can enjoy 24 hours a day.

Eat more often. You might crave sugar if you haven’t eaten a balanced meal or snack because your blood sugar may be low. Your body knows the fastest way to get its blood sugar back up is to get some simple carbs in there, so it tells you to crave sugar-and you do! That’s just another reason we have you eating balanced meals throughout the day!

Break the habit! If you always have dessert with dinner or get a treat every day from the vending machine at 4pm, recognize that pattern, and break it! Do something completely different, such as taking a walk or calling a friend instead of hitting the vending machine.

And, last but not least, give in and have a bite! Before you get too excited, I want it to be loud and clear that I’m not giving you permission to binge! Share a dessert, have a mini size chocolate bar, or a small cookie. Be sure to go out and have it in order to keep the temptation of leftovers out of the house!

Best wishes to you all. See ya tomorrow!

Terminated!

2008-10-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

We'll we've had another short break from onebuffdad.com but I'm back. I was in shock since Monday when I got called into a small conference room by my senior manager only to see a HR guy sitting there. I knew at that time my job was terminated!

I've been taking these few days scouring the internet for new work. So, let's talk about cortisol!! So for my troubles, I've had my exercise--I've kept at it. I've got my health and that's everything as the saying goes.

So as we go forward you may see some tips on keeping healthy on a budget..cos baby I'm living it.
More to come but I'm going back to monster.com God Bless!

Protein Bread, Ezekiel Bread

2008-10-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

We got some new bread yesterday: Ezekiel bread. If you’re looking for a good way to cut carbs or looking for a way to add some protein or both, this is your bread. Here’s the blurb from Food for Life Baking company:

Inspired by the Holy Scripture verse Ezekiel 4:9., "Take also unto thee Wheat, and Barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and Spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it..."
Ezekiel 4:9® Organic Sprouted Whole Grain Products are:
Flourless,
Organic,
Complete Protein,
and Sprouted Whole Grain
We discovered when these six grains and legumes are sprouted and combined, an amazing thing happens. A complete protein is created that closely parallels the protein found in milk and eggs. In fact, the protein quality is so high, that it is 84.3% as efficient as the highest recognized source of protein, containing all 9 essential amino acids. There are 18 amino acids present in this unique bread – from all vegetable sources – naturally balanced in nature.

This is definitely worth looking into so check it out—you probably won’t find this at your local grocery store, so check a health food store near you. The price is about the same as a good whole wheat bread that you’d get from the supermarket (we got it for $3). As for the taste, I’ve heard that some folks don’t like it but I really did. It’s got a strong grainy flavor that I like quite a bit. I’ve got a busy weekend ahead so hopefully you’ll see a post on Sunday, but certainly Monday. Take care y’all.

Insulin sensitivity and your Post Workout Shake

2008-10-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I talked about cortisol, today let’s talk about insulin. While cortisol as a rule breaks down muscle (as it relates to our discussion here), insulin builds it up. You may have read about spiking your insulin levels—that’s what we’re looking at here.

To get the most out of your workouts you need to invoke the power of insulin to help you to build your muscle back up. Post workout you need to have something to repair your muscles quickly so make sure you’re getting a good serving of whey protein. I usually get between 40-50 grams, whey is a quickly absorbed protein and something you should absolutely consider supplementing your diet if you don’t already. So to make sure all this whey gets packed onto your muscle you need to spike your insulin levels. To do this you need some sort of carbohydrate and studies have shown that dextrose has the best effect on your body. Generally you want 2 grams of dextrose for every 1 gram of protein.

Remember you only spend about an hour in the gym but the results you get occur when your body is repairing itself—make sure you give it the right tools to do so.

Reduce your Stress to Increase your Muscle

2008-10-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

Have you been stressed? I have…sorry for the break in the action. Hopefully I can start posting with some more regularity but we’ll see!

Did you know that it’s a bad thing to be stressed? Sure you did, but why? When you get stressed your body releases a hormone called cortisol. This hormone breaks down material in your body to release energy—so as to aid your fight or flight response. Cortisol needs to be controlled so that it doesn’t go crazy releasing energy in your body, because muscle is the source of that energy. If you’re interested in building muscle, you need to keep cortisol in check. To start that you need to reduce your stress level. So here’s some ways to bring down your stress level:

Plan: uncertainty causes stress in most people’s life. The less you have to decide in the heat of the moment the lower your stress levels are.
Eat regularly: eating spikes your insulin which is the opposing hormone to cortisol. So eating regularly keeps your body busy processing food and cortisol is less active.
Relax: Make sure you plan in down time during your day. Having a packed schedule will not do you good in the long run. Do everything you can to keep this time margin in your life.

I mentioned insulin above, we’ll talk about that tomorrow…

5 ways to reduce your junk food intake!

2008-10-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

Getting into a healthy lifestyle is a hard thing to do. Sometimes you just have to ease into it. One of the things you definately need to do to get that awesome body is reduce your intake of junk food. You know what I'm talking about--we're almost to Halowee so you probably have bags of it that of course you haven't broken into yet...just tempting you. So, let's look at a few ways to look into reducing your intake of foods you shouldn't be eating!

Keep it out of the house: Like I said with Haloween almost here you may have some bags of this in your house--if you do keep it out of sight in an inconvienent place. If you have a choice, keep that stuff out of your house or you WILL eat it.
Replace your bad food cravings with good ones: It's OK to snack sometimes but snack on good stuff. Baby carrots or celery with a LITTLE natural peanut butter for taste are great ways to get your snack on.
Be your own event coordinator: sometimes when I fall to the nasty snack monster is when I have nothing better to do. If I'm busy with yard work or stuff around the house or visting friends, I think about food a lot less.
Plan your food: I've talked about this before but when you plan what you'll eat you're less likely to eat a whole meal of junk.
Moderation in moderation: allow yourself some of those sweets once in a while. Try to plan this but if you have something little once in a while it's not going to cause you a coranary. There's good benefits to a cheat meal--If you don't let yourself have something once in a while it'll drive you crazy and you'll end up binging and regretting it.

This is a process to get here, most people can't go just cold turkey, take little steps everyday and you'll be eating great before you know it.

Obese Enjoy Food Less and Less

2008-10-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

I saw this article on WebMD. It basically says that obese folks have been so blunted to the pleasure of eating “high energy foods” (aka things like quadruple chocolate cake) that they no longer have any pleasure from them—though they have higher expectations than leaner people.

This opens a really interesting debate in the clean eating movement…do you eat food for pleasure on one extreme or see it only as fuel on the other? There are more people on the food is fuel only extreme as we all know we need food to live. Where do you need to settle on this continuum?

The food as fuel argument says that we have other things in life to enjoy like friends and activities and because the wrong food in the wrong quantities can be harmful, it’s best to just put your wheat grass and tofu in a blender and man up.

The food for pleasure side thinks any event or happening will be made better by food. They think we all die one day so let’s eat drink and be merry.

Obviously we need to find some middle ground here. We were made to enjoy food, that’s why we have taste buds and why there are so many different kinds of foods (just watch Iron Chef America one night when they do a vegetable and find how many varieties of them there are)—this is no accident again, we were made to enjoy food. Then there is the other side of the argument, we need to take care of our bodies by being careful about what we put into them.

So how do you decide how to eat? This goes to your long term goals. If you want to die of heart disease at 55 or younger, go ahead and eat whatever you want. If you want to be mobile and healthy until you die at a ripe old age you’ll probably eat differently. By the way: I know there are things out of our control but the marathoner who eats right dropping dead truly is the exception.

This is a tough thing to decide on but you really need to sit and consider a comfortable range that helps you balance adding not only years to your life but life to your years.

T-Bar Row Substitute

2008-10-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been working a new set of exercises and the program I’m on called for a T-Bar Row. Some gyms have a T-bar but I’ve never seen one in the gyms I’ve been to—so what’s a meathead to do? Try the incline bench pull. Thanks goes to Phil at my gym for thinking this up for me. So, how do you do it?

Move the bench up to an incline of about 45 degrees.

Lie face DOWN on the bench and place dumbbells or a weighted barbell at the level of your head.

Now grab it and pull it up as if you are doing a reverse bench press.

Remember to look up and keep your back flexed.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is the Devil!??

2008-10-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the sparse posting, I’ve been quite busy lately.

I was going to write a post on the evils of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) but in looking in to this issue I found I need to have a less dogmatic response to this popular sweetener. There’s been a lot of controversy lately regarding HFCS since the Corn Refiners Association is trumpeting an AMA study showing that HFCS contributes no more to obesity than sugar. Further folks have pointed out that show HFCS causes obesity don’t seem to show a clear link, only a correlation between its consumption and obesity. So what do we take from this?

1) Be careful about ingesting this stuff. There are folks smarter than me who are apprehensive about this sweetener, but until there’s something conclusive, we know it will not kill you.

2) Go back to the moderation rule. You don’t want to overdo it with sugar any more than you want to with HFCS. Too much of either WILL make you fat.

3) If you are eating something with HFCS, chances are it’s already processed more than you need it to be. Always try to get most of your diet from foods that you know where they came from and what’s in them.

Full disclosure: I don’t work for the Corn Refiner Association but I do love corn on the cob.

Also: it's also worth noting that HFCS does not interact in the same way with your body as sugar. It does not signal your body in the same way sugar does with regard to satiety, your body will be hungrier after eating HFCS vs. sugar.
It's really best just to avoid both sugar and HFCS as much as possible....there are many better ways to get good carbs into your body that will leave you fuller and in a better state nutritionally. Look at things like fruits and vegatables to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Faith and Fitness Sunday

2008-10-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

Philipians 4:13 says "I can do everything through Christ who strenghtens me"

I went to a different church today since my kids who go to preschool there were singing. The minister alluded to this passage and said you can do anything with Christ's help...this is true to a degree...we can't fly but we can do things that are outlined in the Bible for us--like helping our brother or sister.
The same goes for fitness--I have stretch goals...like someday I want to bench 300 pounds but I know that I probably won't ever bench 400. We're given different body make ups and God intended them all for His good purpose. We need to examine ourselves, then find our limits and our strengths and find how God wants us to use our bodies. At the very minimum we do need to maintain a healthy lifestyle by eating right and exercising. But challenge yourselves today and ask what you can do beyond that? Be healthy this week, God bless!