Protein time!

Marmot here, writing again after a long hiatus.

Today I'm going talk a bit more about the changes to our diet and how it has effected our workout, then I'm going to write out our most recent workout.

The picture to the left is what 25 grams of chicken looks like.  To function well, we need about .5 grams of protein for each pound of lean body weight.  Looking at a woman with 18% body fat (roughly the average for women in this country) at 140lbs, that means she needs 57.4g of protein a day, which more than two times the chicken to the left  For people who are completely sedentary they could probably do with less--I've read various places, something like 30g a day if you really don't move.  But, lets say you want to be healthy, or even stronger...that's a different story.  


I've worked out for years, running, squating, deadlifting, jerking, with some consistency.  But I would always stall out, I would think to myself that I simply would never lift like I did in highschool.  It was just the way it was.  I might get faster, but I would cap out at certain strength levels.  It is funny, coming from me, a person to talked to his friends about protein all the damn time, that as a vegetarian I would underconsume protein.  I thought that the whey I took everday somehow counterbalanced the fact that I probably got half what I needed.  Then Pancho found out she was gluten intolerant, and I realized that milk products are hard on my system.  That's when it all changed.

We started slowly, incorporating meat into our diets and then gradually included more.  When it became readily apparent that we had massively more energy and were doing well in the weightroom, it dawned on us how undernurished we were for the physical expenditures we were expecting from ourselves.  Looking today at what we've accomplish in this short period of time in terms of strength gains and some aesthetic benefits, a new workout and a new diet have done a lot for us.  But it isn't necessarily easy.

Depending on your sources, to gain strength fast (and that means muscle--not necessarily bulk, as Pancho discussed so smartly in this post), you need 1 to 1.5g of protein per day for every pound of lean body weight.  Pancho calculated this out at the 1.5g level not including lean body weight to be something like 200g a day which is 8 of the chicken breasts.  Using the same metric for myself means eating 240g a day!  Luckily, we've found a metric that seems more reasonable that uses lean body mass, which makes sense because we're feeding the muscle.  So, for me, I assume based on visual guides that I have roughly 9% body fat so I need anywhere between 150g to 225g of protein per day.  Unfortunately, this is kind of disgusting, I mean, really, that's just...too much chicken.  I've worked hard though, and while I'm not eating enough for these models of protein consumption I'm getting results that are kind of surprising given how long I've been lifting.

I wake up and have leftovers from dinners, usually some kind of chicken curry, hamburgers, or I might make eggs (roughly 30 g). Then for lunch I usually eat a whole chicken breast, which is way larger than the picture above. If I had to guess, I would say that it is 40-45g of protein.  I usually have a snack of about 12g of protein worth of raw almonds before the gym. After the gym, I have the ever delicious "chocobeef" that's been mentioned before (25g).  Finally, there is dinner, which typically consists of some chicken dish which ranges anywhere from 20-30g of protein.  Altogether I typically get anywhere from 102-142g of protein.  This is an enormous increase for me, and it works.  I've added roughly 90lb to my deadlift, 50lb to my squat, and lots to everything else.  I'm stronger than I've ever been, even in highschool and I attribute that to eating and a good workout.  I feel great.  Let's just hope I don't get (more) sick of chicken.  Also, this is just a profile of the protein I eat, every meal I eat has vegetables, and I include berries or whole fruit into my nut snack. 

 Next week: A True Beginner's Workout, with video!

The work out for 10/18/2011:

Warm up (both): toe-touch squats, spider man, leg swing, weighted arm swing (reg for Pancho), scapular pushups (just Marmot), arm-raises

Squat
Marmot:
Warm up 45x5, 90x4, 135x3
250x3
250x2
250x5

Pancho:
Warm up 45x5x2, 90x3
135x5x3

Bench
Marmot:
Warm up 45x5, 90x5x2
200x5x3

Pancho:
85x4
85x3
85x2

Deadlift
Marmot
Warm up: 135x5
350x1x5

Pancho:
Warm up: 45x5
180x1x3 (tired back)

Dip
Marmot 70x5x3
Pancho (machine--free weight hurts wrist) 60x8x3

Back raise
Marmot 40x10x3
Pancho 40x8x3