AHA, society is totally screwed if people actually have to explain the purpose and process of hunger. How unnatural can we get?

10/23/2011 2:14:24 AM

Actually, the hunger response is very complicated...

There is a multitude of hormones that interact between your hypothalamus, thyroid, pituatary gland, liver, stomach and almost every cell in the body. Some of the big players are the hormones leptin, insulin, ghrelin, glucagon, HGH, cortisol, testosterone (nor)epinephrine, glucocorticoids and many many more.

By modifying your activity level and diet to influence those hormones, your metabolic response will differ.

It's actually so damn complicated, it hasn't been completely figured out yet.

I differ in opinion from Eluesis when it comes to cardio. IMO, it isn't as important as most people think. And, it can actually be pretty counterproductive in regards to sparing muscle mass and keeping hunger manageable.

Don't get me wrong, activity is critical to get your metabolic rate up. However putting in 5+ days of high intensity or high volume work is going to put a lot of stress on the body.

Want to know one of the things stress does to you? It hormonally primes you to pack on weight in the mid section very effeciently. It also signals for excess reserves of unused tissue (muscle) to be used for energy. It also triggers a hunger response for carbs.

With all that in mind, focus on creating a moderate calorie deficit, lift heavy weights to signal to your body to spare muscle and keep yourself LOW STRESS!

10/23/2011 9:16:13 AM

Lots of cardio and physical activity usually suppresses my appetite instead of making it worse. I was never hungry after soccer/basketball/baseball games as a kid. Almost had to make myself eat at times.

10/23/2011 11:04:49 AM

there are plenty of other health benefits to doing cardio though, which is why I always recommend it. For a person that works a desk job and spends a lot of sedentary time sitting down or not moving, the circulatory and cardiovascular benefits of cardio are extremely important. After doing cardio, most soreness and tightness in my body goes away and I feel better. I don't get that same total body response from lifting weights because I only directly train one muscle group at a time.

I hold onto muscle a lot better than most people though, so I don't really have to worry about the catabolic side effects to cardio that much. I also really like to eat, so I'd rather cut 500 calories from my diet and add 500 calories of cardio each day for a 1,000 calorie deficit instead of just cutting 1,000 calories and being more sedentary. cutting 1,000 calories out of my diet makes me much more likely to cheat on my diet.

Everyone has to experiment around and figure out what works best for them, because everyone has different hormonal responses to diet and exercise. There are plenty of diet/cardio/weightloss plans that look great on paper, but they're worthless if the hormone responses in your body make it nearly impossible for you to adhere to them.

10/23/2011 11:16:58 AM

^^Individuals vary on how they secrete the hormones in response to stress.

This is why some people are stress eaters and others lose their appetite.

Some people psychologically compartmentalize stress better, causing a psychosomatic difference in how the body responds. Furthermore, genetic make up and pre/postnatal development can affect how you handle stress.

Also, it depends on the frequency, duration and types of stress that hit the body.

(The reason I am so on the stress kick is that I am half way through an amazing book on how the body handles stress. It's titled "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" and gives a very thorough analysis of the endocrine and psychological impact of stress on humans and animals for the layman).

^Eleusis, you are right about the variance between people and the necessity of activity for sedentary individuals.

The issue is that people think the more cardio, the better. Even to the extent where they neglect heavy strength work. That is why I am almost anti-cardio in my recommendations.

[Edited on October 23, 2011 at 11:20 AM. Reason : ']

10/23/2011 11:18:42 AM

Quote :

"I'd also recommend not supplementing a lot with whey protein powders when dieting; they digest so fast that they don't fill your stomach and satiate you like a steak or chicken breast would. fats and proteins take longer to digest and can keep you feeling fuller for longer, so trimming back the carbs and replacing them with more protein/fat may help you with the willpower issues you have."

for me protein shakes are for days i'm lifting and working pretty hard. i def never substitute, only add on to what i already eat.

I have a lot of chicken and seafood with my diet so that helps with my protein intake


But....how are you getting in 350g of protein/day? I've had a couple days of >200g protein intake and I felt like I was scarfing down every piece of chicken and protein shake i could get my hands on.

I like salmon and those little filets are ~23g protein per serving, even if i had 2 for lunch and dinner that's barely 100g. I coudl prob get another 50g out of protein shakes (I use whey tech, 17g protein per scoop, skim milk 8g) and for breakfast I eat egg whites so another 15g.....

idk.

10/23/2011 11:25:30 AM

So Zuzuana Spears is back on the market. Her and her husband announced on their website last night that they've decided to separate. They will still keep a professional relationship so the site can keep running but it's still sad

10/23/2011 6:20:37 PM

She's one fit ex porn star

10/23/2011 6:37:29 PM

I have such a girl crush on her and I love doing the work outs. There's going to be some changes to the site but I think she will continue onto bigger and better things.

10/23/2011 7:27:50 PM

time to make my move! ahhh, she's not doing the videos anymore. No body cares about her site for any reason other than her doing the workouts.

[Edited on October 24, 2011 at 8:55 AM. Reason : .]

10/24/2011 8:50:32 AM

yeah lol a lot of people are really upset that she's not going to be doing the work out videos anymore. i know a couple of months ago they were doing some secret photo shoot so i'm wondering if she's going to start creating work out videos or something along those lines. although it'll be interesting to see how it plays out considering her past - because she has talked before on her site about how she's lost certain sponsorships when they find out she did porn when she was younger.

10/24/2011 9:49:09 AM

"when she was younger" - like it was just some teenage angsty rebellious streak?

once a pornstar, always a pornstar

10/24/2011 10:30:54 AM

squat+deadlift day on saturday, 5 mile hike sunday...

wobble wobble

10/24/2011 10:31:50 AM

^^ true i should have said a few years ago (i don't think she officially got out of porn until she started up the fitness website).

10/24/2011 12:08:16 PM

To be fair, her fitness videos are way more sexy and better fapping material than her porns.

10/24/2011 12:36:08 PM

The only "porn" I ever saw with her in were small solo videos...nothing special.

My mom has been incorporating a lot of her stuff into her training sessions with clients. She's a big fan.

10/24/2011 12:46:41 PM

Quote :

"But....how are you getting in 350g of protein/day?"

here's a typical day of my food consumption:

8:30AM - 2 scoops whey protein in 8-12oz of milk (60g protein, 300 calories)
11:30AM - footlong chicken breast sub from subway, double meat, with cheese (100g protein, ~1,000 calories)
3:00PM - can of tuna (32g protein, 150 calories)
5:30PM - can of tuna (32g protein, 150 calories) sometimes I skip this or replace it with something containing carbs on leg days or when it's hectic in the office
7:00PM - Nitric Oxide booster for pre-workout pump
7:15-8:30PM - workout
8:45PM - 2 scoops of whey protein mixed in gatorade with fiber supplement and multivitamins (50g protein, 300 calories
10:00PM - 2 chicken breasts with either broccoli or black beans (100g protein, 600-800 calories)

so in a typical day, I'm taking in 370g of protein and 2600-2800 calories. I typically burn about 600-750 calories in the gym between lifting and cardio, so this is enough to put me in a caloric deficit. On the weekends, I tend to cut out the PWO shakes and intermediate cans of tuna and eat 2-3 high protein meals with less carbs and more fat content. I also try tu burn between 800-1000 calories in the gym those days, since I do an hour of cardio and either don't lift or do one exercise for a bodypart that wasn't effectively trained during the week.

10/24/2011 12:59:02 PM

Quote :

"2 scoops of whey protein mixed in gatorade"

i just threw up a little

what whey/gatorade mix are you using?

10/24/2011 3:57:38 PM

ON delicious strawberry mixed with fruit punch gatorade. it's actually the best whey mixture I've found, including milk or smoothies.

I used to buy grape juice instead of gatorade, but gatorade is cheaper and has electrolytes to replace what I sweat out.

10/24/2011 4:00:23 PM

ok i guess that doesn't sound as bad as i had initially thought.

i bought a 5lb tub of ON extreme milk chocolate and it's <3.

with milk it's like a cold swiss miss hot cocoa.

i'm pretty sold on their products.

10/24/2011 4:08:22 PM

Quote :

"My mom has been incorporating a lot of her stuff into her training sessions with clients. She's a big fan."

That's awesome! I love the work outs. Best results I've ever seen for my body.

10/24/2011 5:17:49 PM

Quote :

"i bought a 5lb tub of ON extreme milk chocolate and it's <3."

the weird thing is that ON extreme milk chocolate is delicious but their double rich chocolate flavor is disgusting

10/24/2011 5:54:35 PM

Never got why people care so much about how protein drinks taste. You're chugging the motherfuckers, not sipping them slowly like a '93 sauvignon. Mine tastes like someone with a severe vitamin C deficiency jerked off into a glass of tepid bathwater, but its down the hatch before I have time to complain.

10/24/2011 7:35:30 PM

Mix chocolate whey powder with whole milk and you've got yourself a delicious fucking drink. Sometimes I'll drink that on non-workout days.

10/24/2011 7:44:23 PM

the whole milk is good enough you dont need cheese waste

10/24/2011 8:06:34 PM

That must be the hardgainer in you talking.

[Edited on October 24, 2011 at 9:19 PM. Reason : If it's whole I'm only using about half a scoop, though]

10/24/2011 9:14:46 PM

I don't care about flavor all that much, but I can't stand a protein powder that clumps together when you shake it up with water. I also don't like a really thick post-workout drink, because a drink with too much nutrient and not enough water makes digestion feel like a chore. When I add gatorade powder to my whey shake, I add it at about half the water ratio that normal gatorade is mixed at.

10/24/2011 9:32:56 PM

wtf is a nitric oxide booster

10/24/2011 10:47:39 PM

it is injected directly into the testicle to increase nitric levels, resulting in higher levels of testosterone

10/24/2011 10:50:43 PM

lol

10/24/2011 10:51:18 PM

products like jacked, superpump, and NOXplode. they increase nitric oxide levels in the body, which in turn dialates your blood vessels and allows for a better muscle pump and better delivery of glycogen during the workout and better delivery of nutrients post-workout. they also tend to contain a ton of caffeine as well, which is great for getting you through a workout with energy to spare.

10/25/2011 10:49:18 AM

i gave in to drinking whey protein, don't think i could be convinced to bother with that though. Esp since everyone gave me crap about eating grapefruit but somehow nitro boosters are totally cool

10/25/2011 11:01:17 AM

10/25/2011 11:15:53 AM

No one gave you crap about eating grape fruit.

I was giving you crap about calling it a fat burner.

And, from what I've read the NO boosters are purely pyschological and aesthetic, which doesn't mean pointless, but unless you like spending your money on stuff that doesn't really increase performance, I wouldn't recommend it.

10/25/2011 12:48:42 PM

Damn I have new photos to post but since I am on my iPad I can't post them. This is my reminder to do it tomorrow

10/25/2011 4:41:49 PM

I think most of the studies on NO boosters don't take into consider muscle fascia stretching. You can stretch out the muscle fascia and allow more room for growth a lot better with a fully pumped up muscle. That's why I do my heavy compound movements first to get pumped up and have the muscle fully activated before I move on to my isolation movements that really stretch the muscle out and encourage fascia stretching. If you're not training for pure size or aren't already packing a decent amount of muscle, most of this is a non-issue since the constriction of your fascia isn't impeding gains.

NO boosters also have a ton of caffeine in them, which is nice for a caffeine junkie like me. They have way more caffeine in them than an energy drink, so I wouldn't consider them a waste of money or purely aeshetic by any means. I agree that they're not like creatine or whey protein where also anybody can benefit from using them as a supplement, but they fit well into my training style.

10/25/2011 5:48:02 PM

Quote :

"Never got why people care so much about how protein drinks taste. You're chugging the motherfuckers, not sipping them slowly like a '93 sauvignon. Mine tastes like someone with a severe vitamin C deficiency jerked off into a glass of tepid bathwater, but its down the hatch before I have time to complain. "

QFT, i want mine to taste like diamond cut steel

10/25/2011 6:11:10 PM

i enjoy my chocolate whey tech shakes. I don't ever chug them, just drink and enjoy

10/25/2011 7:10:00 PM

IT'S PEANUT BUTTER PICTURE TIME!!!!

still work in progress but i am only 1 pound away from my goal (comfortably sitting at 133 pounds at 5'4). from there i'm going to evaluate if i want to lose anymore weight (mostly trying to see how much more i can lose - this is my high school weight) but primary focus will be on maintaining with continuing to tone and put on more muscle.

my stomach area is still my primary focus - i carry all my weight there but i am very happy with the results so far and i know they're only going to continue to get better.









also - i apologize for being super sweaty in the photos - i had just gotten done working out

[Edited on October 26, 2011 at 8:41 AM. Reason : adding pounds and height]

10/26/2011 8:40:50 AM

Rare to see folks with a clock in their bathroom

Quote :

"LONG DUMP TAKER"

10/26/2011 9:44:05 AM

it's outside the WC though, more likely for showers/baths and getting ready in time.

[Edited on October 26, 2011 at 9:46 AM. Reason : at least that looks like a wc and not a closet]

10/26/2011 9:46:06 AM

Did you really just call it a Water Closet?

10/26/2011 10:45:24 AM

I wish I had a bathtub like that, I want a bubble bath so much now (mine doesn't hold water )


Great pics!!!!!!!!!!!!

10/26/2011 10:46:37 AM

yes

10/26/2011 10:58:31 AM

k just went through the past 16 days to see what i'm taking in during meals

Averages

Fat: 81g
Carbs: 287g
Protein: 141g
Calories: 2420


I'm gonna try and switch things up over the next 15 days, try and keep my carbs under 200 and my protein over 200g/day.

what about the fat? Is that about right for what I should be taking in? I can supplement with almonds/walnuts, etc. if needed.

10/26/2011 12:08:21 PM

It's a water closet. What else do you call it? The bathroom is the room with the bathtub. The tiny room with the toilet is the wc.

Also, great job, Cass! Looking good.

10/26/2011 12:09:45 PM

Quote :

""Never got why people care so much about how protein drinks taste. You're chugging the motherfuckers, not sipping them slowly like a '93 sauvignon. Mine tastes like someone with a severe vitamin C deficiency jerked off into a glass of tepid bathwater, but its down the hatch before I have time to complain.""

There are so many varieties of whey powder to choose from, why would you not choose the one that tastes good over the one that doesnt when all other nutritional factors are the same.

for the most part i agree with you that it shouldnt matter how supplements taste. but i use whey powder so frequently that taste does rank somewhere as a decision factor. on top of that, i will sometimes cook it into homemade protein bars or mix it with other stuff.



[Edited on October 26, 2011 at 12:51 PM. Reason : most of my other supplements do taste like a sandy vagina though.]

10/26/2011 12:51:21 PM

the clock was helpful for knowing what time it was when i was getting ready. but now the clock doesn't work (i even changed out the batteries) so we need to get a new one.

Quote :

"I wish I had a bathtub like that, I want a bubble bath so much now (mine doesn't hold water )"

i LOVE my corner jacuzzi tub. it's seriously the greatest thing ever - especially after a really tough work out.

and thank you MinkaGrl01 and iheartkisses

[Edited on October 26, 2011 at 1:08 PM. Reason : name]

10/26/2011 12:55:36 PM

Today is the first day in months that I could fit into my favorite jeans again

10/27/2011 12:10:45 PM

yay!!!! so the swelling is going down????

10/27/2011 12:11:08 PM