Preferences to tracking (apps, devices, etc.)?


(Bob M) #21

Muscle growth is difficult. (a) to attain; (b) to track. And, unless you happen to be male and young and have the proper genetics, it’s going to be slow.

Take the bench press. You bench 135 pounds right now (for olympic weights, that’s a 45 pound plate on each side, where the bar is 45 pounds. When do you think you’ll bench 185 (added 25 pounds per side)? If you’re young, male, and have the genetics, it might not take long, say a month. If you’re not young, male, and/or don’t have the genetics, it could easily take a year.


(Joey) #22

It doesn’t take that long for many young males in the USA to go from weighing 135 to 185 pounds. :roll_eyes:


(Denise) #23

Yes, I thought about that, may take that long, but I’ve already seen some in just 7 months but I realize I didn’t up my food intake. I know we get depleted as we age so I always want to find out all I can on what I want to do to improve my health/strength :wink:


(Aggie ) #24

I’m using BPF 12.0 from bpdoctormed. It has a pattern on the outer ring of the dial, love it very much!


(Denise) #25

Hi Aggie, glad you are here! I appreciate the recommend and will look it up this a.m. Denise :slight_smile:


(Bob M) #26

Of muscle or fat? There may be people (typically young men) who can do that, but it’s a vanishingly small number (I’m talking without drugs). Here’s one article:

These are more reasonable than 50 pounds in one year. For the last several YEARS, I’ve gone from a few pushups on flat ground, to too many so that I had to start lifting my legs up (more body weight on the front), to doing one arm pushups on steps 2 and 3 from the ground.

Even with that, I still can’t do a one-arm pushup on flat ground. And it’s been YEARS of training 2-3 times a week.

I went from only doing negative pull ups (start high, go low) to doing 7 pull ups now (not great form, though). YEARS this took me.

If you think you – or anyone – can gain 50 pounds of muscle in a year, feel free to run a study with DEXA scans. I’ll await those results.


(Denise) #27

I’m serious about a smart-watch and saw your post again Ifod so I’ll look into these today :slight_smile: Thanks much, guess I wasn’t ready for a watch when you originally replied to me here :wink: Denise


(Mark Rhodes) #28

Even if kcals were a valid form of data, This is almost impossible to calculate. WHY? well, take the standard 100 Kcal per mile. This doesn’t calaculate how many Kcals you could be using sitting on the couch. Most of the formulas ae like this. They do not capture your energy expenditure if you had been doing nothing rather than the activity. Ssecond, they never account for efficiency. That is, when I ran marathons my body was an expert at conserving fuel so as to continue to run mile after mile. Same with resistance work. In this way, your body will prove this to you. Do your lifting routine in reverse. Same weight and reps. It will be infinitely more difficult because the sequence changed and the muscle memory has not adapted yet.


(Denise) #29

I do understand that, and TDEE is something I am still interested in as I don’t think “possibly” I am eating enough to build muscle. When I use Total Daily Energy Expenditure then I can check the food intake with that to see if I’m in the ball-park. I don’t track calories but once in a great while but lately I’ve wanted to only because a lot of people my age (usually a bit older) almost literally eat like birds and they are just skin and bone. I’m not careful with my fats at all. I’m over the whole “don’t eat fat and you won’t be fat”. What a horrible thing to brain-wash people with:grimacing: while being nothing but drug pushers, pushing carbs instead, and being wealthier than actual drug-pushers!

Whoops, guess I got over the top with that. I don’t have a lot of energy some days, and tracking energy intake is helpful for me to know if I am eating too little, and of what macros as well :wink:


(Mark Rhodes) #30

It is more about amino acid profile than protein. Protien is just a crude measure of nitrogen not actual protein. AMino acids required for muscle growth? You will hear alot of yak about BCAA but this is bunkum. Leucine, maybe, Lysine? WIth Vit C, yes ( good for fascia and tendons). SO how much protein?

Normally 1.5G per KG of weight to add lean. Or divide your weight by 2.2 and eat that many GOOD animal sourced proteins in grams daily.


(Mark Rhodes) #31

Check out friend of the program Peter Ballerstedt from 2019. Around 14 minutes if you are short of time. https://youtu.be/4u-jvxEA0p0?si=FLv675a7RvF26Mro


(Denise) #32

I agree with that on the macros, especially protein :wink: So mine is at about 1100 usually, but I did a graph one day this month at mfp and I’ll plug it in here. My weight is 110 so divided by 2.2 I get 50 but this doesn’t look right? All my protein is animal-sourced from eggs, yogurt, meats, fish?? Looks like I’m getting well over what I need unless I calculated wrong??

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(Denise) #33

I’ll watch him now :wink:


(Mark Rhodes) #34

I would say well done. You are not undereating. Of course you might want to understand some reasons as to why: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4924200/


(Denise) #35

Wow, I like this guy Peter Ballerstedt!! “We’ve been enjoying the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought for far too long”!! Best quote I’ve heard for some time, thank you Mark, going back to listen to more of him :slight_smile:

I’ll check your other link when I’m done :wink: Denise


(Mark Rhodes) #36

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #37

Remember that protein is only a part of any food. Take steak, for instance, it is 25% protein, so to get 50 g of protein, you need to eat 400 g/14 oz. of steak. Fish contains about 22% protein, so you’d need to eat proportionately more. Eggs are pretty close to beef in their amino acid profile, so they are a good food, but you’d need to eat eight or nine of them to get 50 g of protein.


(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #38

He’s got a number of them. He’s a very thoughtful man, yet passionate about his beliefs.

You might like to check out his channel on YouTube. It contains both lectures and what he calls “sodcasts” (you’ll get used to his sense of humour after a while), especially a series called “Meet your Herdmates,” who are fellow members of the Ruminati (you will, I promise!).


(Denise) #39

Where the heck is the multi-quote option?? I’m certain I’ve used that here before, well semi-certain?


(Denise) #40

Oh oh, more brain-exercise, ok, I get that’s good for me :wink: I just always use the mfp site to calculate my macros. There’s an option in it’s settings to set my protein to a %, then fats, then carbs. So that’s not very accurate according to your in-depth figures :grimacing: I’ve always just figured the whole steak, or piece of fish for example, are 7 oz of protein or 4 oz like I sometimes have left-over and will eat that as my dinner. It’s enough, but I can eat more so I go for the bigger chunks. I’m not doing OMAD either, still 2 main and on more of a snack with yogurt, berries and walnuts.