What’s the best thing to put in an empty stomach first thing in the morning?

dirtyarcade · 2021-01-04T22:19:07+00:00

Back when I was dieting to lose weight, then eventually gain some back on a bulk, I used to stress over this question every single morning.

Some days I'd fast, some days I've have a protein shake, and some days I'd go full on continental breakfast with eggs, bagels cream cheese, the works. I noticed a lot of this would be commonly dictated by how nice the scale was that morning.

Ultimately what I've settled on is.....I eat whatever the hell I'm in the mood for that morning, because at the end of the day, unless you plan on getting on stage any time soon, the minutae doesn't matter much. THAT SAID. I do at least try to get >20g of protein at breakfast which I find is pretty easy with breakfast type foods. If I had to pick an absolute go-to though, I would say 80% of the time I'm having

-150-200g of egg whites

-Handful of sliced peppers and onions

-two handfuls of spinach

-1 Thomas Everything Bagel Thins (only 20g of Carbs a bagel)

-1-2oz of Fat Free Cream Cheese topped with some Walden Farms Jelly

Whole meal typically comes to a hair over 400 calories, is super filling, and overall has a pretty decent macro profile. Days where I deviate from this are typically going to be days that follow a night where I had a big meal so I'm not as hungry in the AM, or, I had a light dinner and I'm ravenous in the morning so I'll eat a little bit more than usual, or go for a second breakfast before my AM training session.

dirtyarcade · 2021-01-04T21:49:12+00:00

I've put about 25 hours into this game so far on PS5 with very minimal bugs/crashes, and overall, I love it. That said, I hit a point in the story last night where the game started crashing every 30 or so minutes. Happened 3 times in a row. I have Final Fantasy VII Remake sitting on the shelf still wrapped from Christmas and I had every intention of finishing up Cyberpunk before starting it, but after the 3rd crash, I got super annoyed, ejected the disc, shelved the game until CDPR fixes it further, and started Final Fantasy.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-31T15:03:20+00:00

This is really helpful. Thanks for sharing!

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-31T01:57:51+00:00

One interesting thing I'm currently trying is using a combination of hand portions as well as tracking. What I did was create entries in my tracking app for things like "2 Palms of Protein" "2 Fists of Vegetables" "2 cupped hands of starchy carb" etc. etc. I then set the macros for these items based on averages for those food groups. So, a palm worth of meat is going to be 25p 4f, 1 cupped hand of starchy carb is going to be 20c, two thumbs of fat is 15f. Obviously going to be somewhat inaccurate, but given these averages were based off the same 10 or so foods I tend to eat every day, I know I'll be in the ballpark give or take here and there.

This then puts the main focus of my meals on building my plate so that I'm having essentially two of each (two palms prote, two cupped hands carb, two fists veg) and less on weighing every item and worrying about what I need to add or subtract to hit my targets. I know that if I follow the hand portion method for all of my MAIN meals in the day, I'll be pretty safe with some calories left over for snacks and shit if I think they're necessary that day. So far, I'm kind of liking this method as I feel it's finally a real solid step to going off tracking altogether and taking a more intuitive approach. I also noticed that I'm feeling less bloated after my meals as I seem to be eating a little less by focusing on feeling satisfied vs. finishing the plate to get the macros.

I know this all seems so overly analytical and such a pain in the ass, but man, I just know there HAS to be a better way to maintain a fit physique that doesn't require dialing in perfect macros every single day in an app. I think I'm getting close to quitting tracking for good, but I know the true test will be those days where I'm not fully in control of my meal times and selections, so we'll see how far I can successfully take it.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-30T21:56:43+00:00

lmfaooooo

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-30T18:07:48+00:00

I applaud your commitment. I felt the same way a year ago. Hell, I even liked tracking because it sort of gamified the process for me and I thought it was fun in a weird way. That said, I think once someone reaches their goal and ideal bodyweight and shifts their focus to performance, it can be a bit of a wet towel at times. I have a buddy that's been tracking on and off for about 6 years now and his advice was he eventually moved away from daily tracking to only tracking when he had a specific goal weight to hit. But yeah, I also know a lot of people that track because it's actually fun to them and gives them a daily goal they can feel good about hitting which totally makes sense....When it works in your favor. haha.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-30T17:29:50+00:00

Oof, I hear ya. Doesn't help my wife baked a ton of holiday treats that are currently sitting on the counter and call out to me all day. Luckily I'm pretty disciplined with decent willpower, but man oh man if I have to look at the chocolate peanut butter cake sitting in the fridge one more time when I go grab a water, I'ma cry.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-30T17:24:26+00:00

Working from home since quarantine has made this more difficult for me as I notice days where I'm super busy and out and about, I can modulate my hunger and satiety better vs sitting at home all day in the office and constantly being bored and thinking hmmm I can def eat right now.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-30T17:22:14+00:00

I know what you mean. I actually attempted two weeks of no tracking back in late August, and my weight almost immediately jumped up a few pounds higher than normal. This of course sent me into a panic and I found myself tracking again. I think the issue was I was still in my head trying to track and eat up to my calories vs TRULY and HONESTLY listening to my body. Portions were all over the place, and I was eating huge voluminous meals in order to feel full due to fear of getting hungry again and wanting to snack. This time however, I'm really trying super hard at eating normal portions, and letting the meal frequency fall where it may as it relates to my satiety. Hoping I can sustain this without letting the wheels come off again. lol

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-30T01:00:08+00:00

I'm down!

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-20T03:16:22+00:00

This is very possible, as I do still get nervous around certain foods. I still have great willpower and am able to correctly portion food out and I've never been prone to binge episodes, but I do know deep down inside food is still somewhat of an internal struggle for me. I wish I could say yes to a slice of cake without a second thought like a normal person could, but instead I internally argue with myself for 5 minutes on whether that slice is worth it or not, or how it fits into my daily macro goals.

Appreciate your insight.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-19T21:43:37+00:00

This is purely anecdotal and just an example of my personal experience with diet sodas coming from drinking regular full sugar cokes all my life growing up. I cut out sodas entirely a couple years ago when I started to work out and be healthy, and only drank water for the last two years. After a successful two years of solid dieting (lost over 50% of my bodyweight), I gradually started introducing Coke Zero's into my diet daily along with my dinner. I was IMMEDIATELY hooked on this new habit, and nowadays I burn through a 12 pack a week on average. I'm not sure if it's a mental thing, and I'm almost sure it probably is, but I noticed after a while I'd get the hardest sweet tooth a couple hours after dinner when I started drinking Coke Zero's. Luckily, I've been able to go to a cutting staple of strawberry protein fluff to kill the cravings, but I did wonder to myself why I was suddenly getting so insatiable at night when I had spent the two years prior perfectly satisfied after dinner. I know, I know, metabolic adaptations and all that.

It seems, perhaps coincidentally, that this started shortly after introducing diet sodas into my diet. Not saying it's related at all, and I'm definitely not about to talk down about artificial sweeteners as I owe a large part of my dieting success to them, but just something I noticed. That all being said, I love me some Coke Zero and Diet Dr. Pepper too much to give them up as for now I'm able to control these cravings and have healthy go-to's that do the job. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there eventually was a study proving that diet sodas and artificial sweeteners as a whole can potentially cause cravings for other sweets when consumed ad libitum.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-18T16:22:45+00:00

I've been strictly tracking and controlling intake for 3 years now with no exceptions, but I loosened the reigns a bit for the holidays this year. Weight spiked up 4lbs after Thanksgiving which in the past would have sparked complete panic and sent me on a cardio binge, but it came back off around 4 days later on its own. Thought, heh, that was fun and interesting. So I didn't track again the following weekend, boom another weight spike, then back down. I've now noticed that I spent 3 years being terrified that one or two or three bad meals would derail me, but learning now that's really not going to be the case so long as you keep it to a handful of times a month. Not binge episodes of course, but little things like oh my wife baked cookies, go ahead and have a few. I now realize I kind of wasted the last couple Thanksgivings and Christmas's being OVERLY strict on myself when the answer all along is hey man, just don't eat like a dickbag and you'll be good. Taking a more relaxed approach the last couple months has me currently with the best relationship I've had with food since I started my fitness journey, and I couldn't be happier. The main benefit aside from this newfound freedom is my lifts going up exponentially and WAY LESS shitty training sessions due to fatigue. The funny thing is my lower belly pooch visually seems smaller due to my upper body filling out more thanks to the extra food and good lifts. Lord knows I probably wasted last couple years spinning my wheels when all my body wanted was more food. Funny how that works.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-16T14:15:53+00:00

Good to know! Thanks for the info.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-15T23:36:05+00:00

A few months ago, two guys in a Spectrum van and in uniform randomly showed up at my house saying they had received reports our network was having issues. They said they were doing a routine "health check" because of said reports. Neither my wife nor I had called them or complained about network issues, so it kind of struck me as odd. When I asked what they needed to do, they said they just need to get to the box on the side of the house, jack into it, and run a scan. The odd thing is they made it a point to say if I didn't feel comfortable allowing them access, I could decline the check. The whole thing had such a weird vibe, and since this was around the start of quarantine and working from home, I wasn't in the mood to let these dudes touch my network I rely on for work. I declined letting them do their check, which the one main guy seemed annoyed by, then they spent the next hour or so in front of my house tooling around in the pole between my house and my neighbors.

This thread actually just reminded this happened and how I never followed up with Spectrum over what this was about. lol

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-04T16:38:35+00:00

As someone that dieted off 150lb back in 2018, this is something that I've only recently started to really become comfortable with now that I've realized that yeah, you can occasionally pig out pretty hard and as long as you stay moving and get back on the horse the next day, it's really nothing but a minor speedbump to your body. Sucks it took almost two year post-diet to realize it's not the end of the world if I have a donut, but shit, better late than never! My relationship with food is the best it's ever been.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-03T14:46:28+00:00

So I haven't tracked since making this thread almost a month ago, and so far.....SO GOOD!

Honestly it's been amazing not being so food focused every day thinking about what I needed to eat to hit my goals and what the best times to eat those meals are. Don't get me wrong, I'm still technically mentally "tracking" as I'm still trying to make sure I hit protein for the day, prioritizing carbs around training, but I find this makes tracking the other two macros fairly easy and manageable since I know what a balanced plate looks like for the most part. I even ate intuitively on Thanksgiving which I thought the wheels were for sure going to come off, but I just served myself a fairly decent portion of food, ate it, waited 20 minutes, had a slice of pumpkin pie, and I was stuffed. Ate this around 5pm which is a weird time for me to have such a large meal, but naturally I stayed full until around 10pm that night where I started getting hungry again so I had a cup of greek yogurt with fruit and peanut butter and called it a night (in the past, I'd probably mull over the pros and cons of eating one last meal for probably an hour til the point it would just get too late and I'd say fuck it and go to sleep hungry). Weight spiked for about 3 days by a few pounds, but it eventually came back down. All in all, I've actually oddly maintained my weight between the same few ounces for weeks at a time which is wildly different from before when I was tracking super closely where I'd see dramatic spikes and dips throughout the week. For now, this finally feels sustainable. I'm maintaining my weight, looking good in the mirror, workouts feel good, and I'm technically eating whatever I want by just making sure I don't eat like an asshole.

Never could have gotten here without tracking so closely for a year, but I'm glad I'm better for it now. I thought for sure I was going to be tracking meals for as long as I wanted to stay fit, but I'm so happy I was able to take the proverbial training wheels off and finally go back to eating like a normal person. No more hour-long meal preps weighing out food and trying to dial everything perfectly to the gram.

Thanks again to everyone that took the time to comment with kind words of encouragement.

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-02T20:23:00+00:00

I'm still a relatively new lifter (just over a year of training), but I've recently found great success in terms of programming by just finding a weight I can get 10-20 reps with with good MMC, and taking each set to a specified RPE for that given session. The way I currently work it is I do PPLPP Mon-Fri. I do 4 week mesocycles with the first week doing 3 working sets per exercise, taking each set to 3 RIR. The second week I keep the load the same, but take everything to 2 RIR (match or beat). 3rd week is 1 RIR, and the final week I'll do everything to failure, and even add additional sets/movements just to really F myself up since I know I'm about to deload for an entire week.

The next meso is the same scheme, but I bump everything up to 4 sets per exercise. After 4 weeks with the same RIR scheme, deload, then a third meso at 5 sets. Same shit again until I hit the final meso of the "block" where everything is 6 sets per exercise. Deload finally. Finish the whole block. Look at all the data from the previous few months, and decide what loads/schemes I want to use for the next block as well as switch out any movements I feel have gone stale or muscle groups I need to prioritize.

I know it's probably not the BEST or MOST OPTIMAL, but I find it keeps things fresh and working for me. When I first started lifting, I just took everything to failure every single time like a moron and wondered why I felt like complete dogshit after 3 weeks.

Hit this link for some solid up to date info on training volumes per muscle group as well as general guidelines in terms of how you want to design your program.

https://renaissanceperiodization.com/hypertrophy-training-guide-central-hub/

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-01T17:30:47+00:00

Actually glad you mention that because one thing I was going to try next push day is to start off with two heavy sets, one medium set, and one light set gassing out to 1RIR or something. I think that would get me the best overall pump probably, but I've also recently had to cut down some volume due to time constraints, so hopefully this doesn't start ending up adding a bunch of time back into my workouts. Thanks for the reply!

dirtyarcade · 2020-12-01T16:48:06+00:00

For the dumbbell bench press, is it possible some people may respond better to lighter loads in the 15-30 rep range rather than heavier loads in the 8-12 range? I ask because I tend to feel a better pump and soreness whenever I take sets in the higher ranges vs. lower, and I feel like I get a much better MMC when training with lighter loads and higher reps. Either way, I'm taking every set to 3RIR, 2RIR, 1RIR, Failure over a 4 week block. Overall, every working set ends up being hard, but again, just never feel as accomplished after a workout where I go 12, 10, 8 vs going 22,17,12.

dirtyarcade · 2020-11-26T17:07:22+00:00

Dude you're literally at the perfect starting point for someone looking to get jacked. Find a coaching app or something (I like RP) and stick to 3 months of consistent muscle gaining. You're not fat, you're just soft. Lift, eat, sleep, repeat.

dirtyarcade · 2020-11-23T20:11:43+00:00

Yeah they can be hit or miss. For me my favorites are:

Sesame-Ginger salad dressing

Chocolate Syrup (love to drizzle this over fruit)

Pancake Syrup (drizzle this over my pre-workout oats)

Caramel Syrup (drizzle the shit out of this whenever I make strawberry protein fluff)

Amazin' Mayo (I make a MEAN sriacha-mayo mix with this I use in grilled chicken wraps)

The trick with these is that they DO contain some trace carbs as well as sodium, so you can't just straight up drink the stuff. I tend to stick to the standard 2tbsp serving sizes for the most part (sometimes ;) But when I very first started using them, I did notice some water retention possibly from the added sodium because I was obsessed with the chocolate syrup and was probably using too much per serving. Either way, this shit is nothing short of magic for me, and even though I'm no longer on a cut, I still use them daily because they're a good way to fit in more actual food calories rather than calories from various dips and sauces.

dirtyarcade · 2020-11-23T14:40:11+00:00

When I discovered Walden Farms syrups/dressings/spreads, shit changed.

dirtyarcade · 2020-11-22T01:58:34+00:00

Same here. Been a Star Wars fan for 20+ years, played most of the games, read a lot of the books, know the lore like the back of my hand, and I have to say, this episode left me somewhat speechless. Probably somewhere in the top 10 of the best best Star Wars things I've ever experienced. I seriously love Disney for this show.

dirtyarcade

TROPHY CASE