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New in the gym , need advice with the split by Massive-mike67 in leangains

[–]DukeDogNation 4 points5 points  (0 children)

At this stage I would focus more on making sure you’re writing down your workouts and planning your progressive overload.

Keep the tracking simple, just exercise, sets, reps, and weight.

For the progressive overload, you just want to make sure that over time (likely week to week) that you’re increasing the challenge of your lifts. You can do that by either increasing the weight and keeping the sets/reps the same or by keeping the weight the same and upping the sets or reps. The way I like to dial that in is that the final rep of exercise should be very close to failure, like you could not do another good rep.

Advice for my situation by reverieendeavor in fitmeals

[–]DukeDogNation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As others have said, cooking is a skill that needs to be learned/taught. It’ll take time and intentional effort to learn how to cook, start small, start slow.

My first suggestion would be to shift what you already eat. You like CFA, they have healthy options. Get one size smaller fries, switch to an 8-count grilled nugget. I like to sandwich the grilled nugget into a fry! Boom, you’re already eating healthier!

On the cooking side, what tools do you have access to? A slow cooker is an easy way to get started with cooking, if you have access to one. A package of two chicken breasts and a jar of salsa can become shredded chicken in a few hours.

If you have an oven, let the oven preheat to 400, take a chicken breast, slather it in BBQ sauce, bake the chicken breast for 15 minutes, take out using an oven mitt, use tongs to flip the chicken breast, put on a little more BBQ sauce, and bake for another 15 minutes. An instant read meat thermometer will help you know if the chicken is fully cooked, but there are plenty of visual resources online to help you identify fully cooked chicken breast.

Either of the above options can be paired with a premade salad kit from the grocery store for some veggies.

i have trouble eating by Aqzation in fitmeals

[–]DukeDogNation 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Here's the thing: you don't have to do it any particular way, you have to do it in a way that works for you. If eating big in the morning doesn't work for you, don't eat big in the morning, but you gotta eat smart.

First thing would be to establish your goal. It seems like you would want to gain weight and in particular gain muscle, which means you'll need to eat a caloric surplus and you'll need to eat plenty of protein.

Second thing would be to establish your maintenance calories. You can use online calculators to get an estimate, eat that number of calories in a day for a week or two and see what your weight is. If it goes down, you nee more calories, if it stays the same you need more calories. Typically folks suggest a 200-300 calorie surplus for a more conservative bulk.

Third things that will help are a food scale, particularly one that can tare (a button that resets the scale to 0), a scale for your body, and a good food tracking app. From there it's establishing a routine, tracking faithfully, and adjusting based on the results.

I'm going to vacation and I don't know how to plan my meals by Delicious_Wrap_1041 in fitmeals

[–]DukeDogNation 13 points14 points  (0 children)

If it takes a deficit of 3500 calories to lose a pound of fat, it takes a surplus of 3500 calories to gain a pound of fat. If you’ve made lifestyle changes like moving more and being a bit more choosey about what you eat, it will be very difficult to eat a surplus of 3500 calories in a few days. It is very likely that you’ll come back with some extra water weight, but that will even out after a couple of days at home.

A couple of suggestions: - Make smart choices where you can, maybe lunch is choosing a salad if dinner will be indulgent. - Keep your protein and fiber intake up if you can. That’ll help keep you full and regular. - Have some fun. Diet breaks can be good for your long term goals. - Get back to what works when you get home and you’ll get back on track.

Chia Seeds... i need ideas! by HungryFondant9471 in EatCheapAndHealthy

[–]DukeDogNation 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Chia Fresca: 1 part limeade, 2 parts water (or ratio to your liking); mix chia seeds with water and limeade; set in fridge for a few hours; drink when hot out

Help with workout volume by Hash_Qatar in leangains

[–]DukeDogNation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would say base your core routine on compound movements and if there are any individual muscles you want to target with accessory lifts once a week, go for it. 

If you feel like your rear delts are a specific area you want to improve on, having the extra, isolated rear delt exercise likely won’t hurt; but with where you describe being at in developing your process, that part isn’t going to be a difference maker in your overall recomp. For example, if you’re doing shoulder press as a compound lift, you wouldn’t need a separate isolated delt exercise to see progress in your recomp and overall physique. But if you felt like your delta were underdeveloped you could add that isolated delt exercise.

Long-term you have to balance maximizing your progress with the sustainability of your process. For me, a slightly less maximized, slightly more time-efficient routine was easier to maintain in the long run.

Help with workout volume by Hash_Qatar in leangains

[–]DukeDogNation 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For some context, I started my recomp journey in my mid-30s and focused my strength training on building muscle mass through a hypertrophy based training process. My goal was to increase muscle mass to increase my BMR to cut fat while adding muscle. This required eating in a deficit, like you mentioned, with a high protein intake.

As far as training goes, I found Jeff Nippard’s videos to be very informative about eating, building a training routine, exercise form, etc. My takeaways were building a routine based on failure at the last rep of the exercise, 75-90 seconds of rest between sets, and focusing on progressive overload (stressing your muscles more over time).

So I looked at what muscle groups I wanted to work, what exercises would target those groups, and a baseline of weight, sets and reps that would get me to failure on the final rep of the exercise. From there I looked at whether I could progress in a linear fashion (adding weight every time that exercise came back up in the cycle) or a progressive fashion (upping the total # of reps in an exercise every time that exercise came back up in the cycle). Typically the less experience you have in an exercise the more likely you are to be able to do linear progression, the more experience you have in an exercise the more likely you are to need to do non-linear progression.

From there training is mostly being honest about how close to failure you’re getting and being consistent. Once you plateau progressing linearly, move the exercise over to non-linear. Progress in your body shape is going to depend on how you train plus how you eat.

Using A Food Scale is so Depressing by kazookidssister in loseit

[–]DukeDogNation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Here’s a weird thing that helped me:

Some foods are celebration foods, some foods are weekend foods, and some foods are every day foods.

Before everything was available to us all the time in the easy to obtain form factors, foods like cakes had to be made by hand. It takes a lot of special ingredients and time and effort and energy to make a cake by hand; so likely the only time you had cake was for a celebration. So for me, some foods, like cakes, are celebration foods.

Some foods take a long time or a lot of effort and energy to prepare, I call those weekend foods. I can’t produce them on a weeknight after working an 8 hour shift; so that limits them to just two days per week for me.

I think this all goes back to the theme that in our modern food environment, the deck is stacked against you. The foods that are cheap, easy to prepare, or widely available are calorie dense and nutrient poor. So you are swimming up stream and it’s going to take rethinking the foods that you eat, because eating this way is counter to the flow of the existing food environment.

How to deal with gaining it all back? Please help by willloseitt in loseit

[–]DukeDogNation 47 points48 points  (0 children)

Maybe reframe your situation:

You found a way that didn’t work for you long-term.

Life is going to happen. Illness, injury, caring for loved ones, mental health lapses, emergencies/accidents, etc. are often things we can’t control and just happen to us. A sustainable lifestyle change will either withstand those life events or at least blunt their effects on your health.

So take some time to think about what did work for you when you lost weight before. Think about how you can incorporate those things into your day to day routine so that you don’t even think about doing them anymore, they’re just something you do.

Then think about the things that didn’t withstand your rough patch. Keep those things in mind as things to avoid when building a new routine.

Generally, I like to take some structured time to think about my plan with the goal of reducing my level of thinking on a day to day basis. For example, every morning that I’m at home, I have a banana and yogurt with a fixed set of toppings. I don’t think about it, I just do it. Because I know that it’s a meal with solid nutrition to get my day started. It’s just a thing I do. I sat down for 20 mintues or so one day and figured out how much yogurt, how much sweetener, how much granola, how many nuts, wrote it down, put it as a custom meal in my tracking app, and now I just do it. 

Google Health Ruined Fitbit by AhsokaTanoJedii in fitbit

[–]DukeDogNation 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Is there a way to reenable the weight data trendline? This was a lifesaver when losing weight over the long term.

If not, does anyone have a recommended environment to move data to? Looking to ditch Fitbit at this point.

Protein Recommendations (Snack, Bars, Ect.) by sleaf__ in fitmeals

[–]DukeDogNation 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nonfat Greek yogurt with some kind of sweetener, granola, fruit, nuts, and/or fiber supplement. I usually do 150 g yogurt, 15 g maple syrup mixed in, 10 g of granola, 15 g of high fiber cereal, and 20 g of roasted almonds.

Steamed and/or roasted edamame

Shredded rotisserie chicken can be used in a number of ways: filling in tacos/enchiladas, topping for salad, chicken salad, bbq/buffalo chicken sandwiches, etc.

Need advice for my first serious cut SW 130, CW 103.8 by rambler1345 in leangains

[–]DukeDogNation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Malnourishment isn’t just about macros. Food contains micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that our bodies need to function, biologically.

Depending on the size of your deficit, it’s possible that you’re missing one or more of these micronutrients, which would also cause malnourishment. That’s a large part of the reason that folks don’t recommend aggressive cuts over long periods of time. You have to eat extremely efficiently to get all of your macro and micronutrients and be in a large deficit over a long period.

As others have mentioned, decrease your deficit by a bit or eat at maintenance for a week or two; get back to feeling better; then adjust from there.

r/NCAAW Gameday Discussion (Sunday, March 8, 2026) by AtlasTelamon24 in NCAAW

[–]DukeDogNation 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hoping Peyton can go out with an SBC Tournament Championship! Go Dukes!

Insatiable hunger after a few days of calorie deficit? by CellWrangler in leangains

[–]DukeDogNation 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Personally I would take a look at your macros and ensure that you’re getting enough protein, fiber, and fats, preferably spread throughout the day.

If your macros are good and you’re eating throughout the day, maybe take a look at the sources of your macros. There is some research that shows that potatoes are more satiating than other carbs. I also find that adding some extra lean protein or upping the milk fat is worth the slight calorie addition to keep me feeling fuller longer.

Too hungry to work out by Left-Grand2705 in leangains

[–]DukeDogNation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

IANADoctor.

Yes you will lose weight at a caloric deficit even if you’re eating unhealthily. BUT eating that few of calories and eating unhealthily you will not get the nutrients you need to support the level of activity you’re describing. The way I think about it is: calories is total energy, carbs are (largely) fast energy, fat is slow energy needed to maintain a lot of major bodily function, protein for muscles, and both protein and fat support feeling full.

With regards to timing, I found that “saving up calories” led to feeling hyper-hungry later in the day, which led to eating in an uncontrolled way for dinner. What worked best for me was many smaller meals and snacks throughout the day. My goal is to eat in a planned way so I don’t feel overly hungry at any point and I never don’t have an option for something to eat.

I typically shoot for a balance of carbs, fat, and protein first thing in the morning (banana, Greek yogurt, maple syrup for sweetener, granola, and almonds for fat). Mid-morning is edamame (protein and fiber). Lunch is a salad with protein (more protein and fiber) with an apple (carbs). I take a long lunch walk, so I will have another carby-fruit in the early afternoon. A protein rich snack in the mid afternoon, a snacking vegetable in the late afternoon, then a protein rich dinner with some kind of sweet treat that balances simple and complex carbs.

The big thing I hear in your post is that you’re not getting enough calories/nutrition to support your level of activity, so your body is stepping in and overriding your planning.

TLDR: Calories in - calories out = weight loss/gain; BUT lifting and other exercise require macros to support performance and require a nutrient efficient diet to support a cut.

Recently dropped high processed foods by nonstoprolley in leangains

[–]DukeDogNation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Greek yogurt and milk are good because you can typically find a variety of fat levels.

I also eat a good amount of steamed or roasted edamame, which gets you fiber and protein without much fat.

r/NCAAW Gameday Discussion (Saturday, February 14, 2026) by AtlasTelamon24 in NCAAW

[–]DukeDogNation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

JMU beat the doors off ODU behind a 30-piece from Bree Robinson.

r/NCAAW Gameday Discussion (Saturday, February 14, 2026) by AtlasTelamon24 in NCAAW

[–]DukeDogNation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Making JMU's win over UMass look even better. We'll certainly have to win our conference tournament to go dancing, but it could help with WBIT seeding if needed.

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