Thursday, July 26, 2007

Food: Love/Hate Relationship

I've recently decided to start working out and eating right with the goal of looking hawt. And by "hawt" I mean not being a gangly 6'4, 200lbs twig with sags. I'm sorry for that image. So for the past month or so I've been lifting - eww, I hate saying that - every other day and been doing high reps and increasing weight and decreasing reps with each set.

I've now started following the advice of a book that I bought quite a while ago. I'm finding it hard to see how its plan is going to work. It tells me that I should only do one set of the heaviest weight for a maximum of 10 reps. If I can do 10 reps, then I should add more weight. I know this is the general theory for putting on muscle mass, as opposed to endurance. I feel like that's not enough work, but I'm going to go with it. It also has me only working out every other day, which I know is common work out protocol per muscle group.

I'm also going to follow its diet plan, because as we all known diet is really 80% of the equation. Since I want to ultimately gain weight - targeting about 20lbs. - I need to eat more than I burn. How many calories does it require me to eat a day?
3700 Calories!!! I don't know if I'm capable of that. I don't think I even eat 2000 Calories a day. We'll see how it goes, but I'm worried that I'm just going to get fat.

From a scientific point of view it all makes sense, as far as I know. Keeping a constantly supply of carbs (which turn to glycogen) available to the body so that metabolism stays high, and the body doesn't go to the muscles for energy. And also just making sure that I get enough protein to repair the muscles after working out.

I guess this will be another thing that I update about. (Whether you like it or not) I swear if you fail me Men's Health I'm going to kill you.

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