Strength Training - Question for the lifters

Before and after surgery I was focused on loosing weight, and now that I have lost about 100 pounds I have changed that focus.  I have been strength training for a month now while working with my personal trainer.  The trainer is perfect because he is passionate about strength training more than any other training. Anyway...  One down fall to my trainer is he doesn't know what supplements to recommend to me with all the restrictions we have on our diet.  I mean he can refer me to some products but the comment "I cant say anything about the taste" always follows. Can some of you builders give me an idea on what I should be taking?  I am serious about bulking up and am looking for some good products to get me there.  Creatine, Glutamine, change in my multi-vitamin, NO Explode?  I am lost when it comes to the supplements because everything up until now has been focused on loosing weight...  The Dr's didn't prepare me for wanting to build it back as muscle!

I've literally taken it all during my lifetime, legal and illegal.   First let me say that I ABSOLUTELY don't recommend steroids because they will give you great short term results but the long term consequences you deal with are not worth it.   They seriously screw your metabolism up, cause massive weight gain, screw with your hormones and add a load of other undesireable side effects.

Currently I take an amino acid supplement (probably snake oil), glucosamine and chondroitin, fish oil, GNCs Active men's multivitamin, glutamine, B-12 (pill and liquid) and a vitamin C tablet.   I've also been taking an Ephedra / Caffiene tablet a few times a week to give me a boost in the morning when I drag ass.   I got off it a couple weeks ago before I ran my marathon and haven't taken it prior to the race.   I do cycle the Ephedra because my body quickly gets used to it.  I will take it in the future again though because it doesn't affect me like it does others.   

I've also taken Creatine in the past and while it does work it makes you retain a ****load of water.   The NOXplode just made me feel freaky so I quit taking it after I finished my jug. 

With all that said the best weight lifting supplement that you can take over the counter is good ole' PROTEIN.  A common statement that you will hear in many weight lifting / bodybuidling circles is that "Each pound of muscle (lean body mass) needs approximately 1.5 - 2 grams of protein to support it."  Sometimes that will be distorted to say that said person should consume 1.5 - 2 pounds of protein per pound of body weight.   Personally I think that's a little excessive so I stick to the 1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass.   Actually, to be quite honest I really stick to a little over 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass.  I usually consume around 200g of protein a day.

First you will need to figure out what your lean body mass is.   To do that you need to calculate your body fat percentage.   Now keep in mind that this is a rough estimate because the lean body mass is not taking into account the weight of your organs, skeletal tissue and skin but it's close enough.  

There are a few ways to get your body fat percentage:

1) The easiest and least accurate is an electrical resistance test that some scales perform.   It sends and low electrical pulse from head to toe and calculates body fat based on the resistance of the fat to return an electrical signal or something.   Tanita is one of the companies that makes the scales.  Most weight loss surgeons have one of them.  

2) There's also the tape measure test that the military uses.   I was ALWAYS taped when I was in the Army even though I wasn't obese.  The formula they use for males is:

% body fat = 86.010 x log10(abdomen - neck) - 70.041 x log10(height) + 36.76

Abdomen - Measure abdominal circumference against the skin at the navel (belly button), level and parallel to the floor. Arms are at the sides. Record the measurement at the end of member's normal, relaxed exhalation. Round abdominal measurement down to the nearest ½ inch.

Neck - Measure the neck circumference at a point just below the larynx (Adam's Apple) and perpendicular to the long axis of the neck. Do not place the tape measure over the Adam's Apple. Service member should look straight ahead during measurement, with shoulders down (not hunched). The tape will be as close to horizontal as anatomically feasible (the tape line in the front of the neck should be at the same height as the tape line in the back of the neck). Care should be taken so as not to involve the shoulder/neck muscles (trapezius) in the measurement. Round neck measurement up to the nearest ½ inch.

There's plenty of freeware calculators online as well as some webpages that calculate the formulas.

3) The most accurate body fat percentage test is a hydrostatic water test where you are dunked in a vat or water and weighed.  I don't know much about this one but it's supposed to be the most accurate of all the tests available. 

Ok...   Still with me?  :)    Now that you have your body fat percentage you can get your lean body mass.   For me my total weight is 215 pounds.  My body fat percentage is 12%.    12% of 215 pounds is 25.8 pounds.   So my lean body mass is 189.2 pounds.    Using the protein consumption formula above I would need to 283.8g of protein a day to support my lean body mass.    Like I mentioned earlier I very rarely reach that quota.   I'm lucky to get in 200g a day using my 4oz water blended with 30g of protein powder shots.

Sorry for the long post and I hope this helps.

Chad.

 

I am still a bit confused because isn't strength training all about getting in more calories, and that is the oppisite of what I want to do....   I just want to build muscle on less calories, but will I see the results I want? Can you recommend any good low sugar protein bars that wont make me dump?

Well...  It's about getting in calories but it's about the RIGHT calories.   Make the majority of your calories protein and you'll be good to go. 

There are plenty out there but to be honest they all taste really bad... Almost like cardboard.   EAS makes some.  I think they are called Carb Sense or something.  Atkins makes a load of them too.  

The best bang for your buck and your wallet is protein powder blended in water.  

Yea, I was using Cyto Gainer but it had too many calories for me.  I then switched to EAS powder and always mix with water; it is cheap and doesn't taste too bad.  Thanks for all the info!

Someone can correct me if i'm wrong...but here is how I understand it. Weight lifting burns a LOT of calories....more then aerobic work outs.  Because it burns so many calories, the risk a NORMAL size person takes is that when they work out, they're bodies will turn to breaking down muscle in order to get enough calories to survive.  So what a NORMAL person will do is cycle carbs (eat more carbs on certain days ...esp weight lifting days)...so that their bodies don't start canablizing it's muscles for fuel to run it.  As an OBESE person...you have a built in stoarge shed for fuel..it's called fat.  You want y our body to burn this off....so that you can lose weight.  So when you work out, you don't want to add too many carbs, because you want to force yoru body to start burning off the fat supplies.   In order to make sure you have enough raw material to build muscles...you need extra protein...hence the whole protein shake thing.  I'd highly recommend finding a protein shake that you like (low carb, and whey if you can tollerate it)......whey is cheap and is the best absorbed protein...it gets into your system within a few minutes of taking it.  I'm highly lactose intollerant and cannot tollerate whey proien shakes...so I'm left with egg protein.  It's not as good...but it's better then nothing.    You can get samples of different low carb shakes......vitalady.com , bariatric eating....and some comapnies will send you samples....for a very low cost.  It's best to buy a lot of samples and find a shake you like, rather then buy a big 5 lb tub of crap that you end up throwing out.  GNC and Vitamin shoppee and I think vitamin world all have money back guarantees if you don't like the flavors on the big tubs. Scott

i don't even know why i'm writing! chad hit it to perfection. keep it simple. protein is the name of the game. way down the line you can try creatine (yes, you will gain weight on it). creatine will give you water volume not retention but tha****er weighs. i use glutamine too. helps recovery. don't use the creatine until at least six months into lifting. that way you can guage results. you can lift more or do more reps but won't know that until you have been lifting for a while. so buy small samples of stuff and see if it works. i have a problem with protein but it's a must if you're looking to gain mass.

keep up with your trainer. that's always a good thing to have to get you started. keep good form and use full range of motion on your reps and you should see results. take care........carbonblob

I think I will take a step back and focus on my work outs and my protein for now.  I can always revisit the supplements later