Need advice on Diet and Starting weights before beginning the program

[SSP]

Hello Mark, I am about to start your program. I have the Kindle 3rd editions of Starting Strength and Practical Programming and have read all of Starting Strength and the Novice section of Practical Programming.

I am a 43yrs old male, 5ft 8.5in and weigh 12st 3.5lb with 25% body fat.
Body fat was measured using scales.

I have weight trained before but didnt follow any program and my 5rms are as folows:
Deadlifting 90kg
Squat 80kg
Bench 70kg
Press 50kg

Question 1
Should I start the program at my 5rms or should I start at around half
my 5rms and reach those in a few weeks?

Question 2
I am not sure how to approach my diet as I don't know if I'm considered
skinny or fat. 25% body fat says I'm fat but my Lbm is very light going by the high body fat percentage. Going by 25% bodyfat my Lbm is 128lbs and body fat is 43lb. Should I increase or decrease calories?

My current diet is:
Breakfast * oatmeal,blueberry's,flaxseed, walnuts, with full milk + 3 eggs.
Post Training 12am* Chocolate milk
Lunch 1pm * Tuna sandwich with full milk or rice and chicken with veg
4pm * Apple+almonds
Dinner 6*7pm * potatoes,chicken/steak+ veg
Before bed * 8oz full milk or some cheddar cheese

Thanks for helping and also for providing the program and the videos on youtube.

[Keith]

Quest #2: you are right.. you are skinny and fat or "skinny-fat." Which is to say that you dont have much muscle. You can only gain substantial muscle mass in a caloric surplus.

I dont think that you need to halve your 5RM. If your 5RM squat is 175 x 5 I would bet you could do that for 3 sets if you took a 5 minute rest between sets.

[DsubZ]

Starting weights, I would follow what it states in the book, you have it on kindle, so I believe if you search the book for "first workout" you should find it, the book goes over each lift and how to determine. This could equate to your current 5RM, I'm not sure as I didn't know my 5RM when I started.

What you are eating really doesn't mean much, it's basically about the calories and macro-nutrients. Read through the nutrition forum and read Jordan's blog post: To Be a Beast

[SSP]

I am going through Jordans post and logged my food intake into MyFitnessPal.

Going by MyFitnessPal, I am consuming 3,442 cals. Is this a surplus or am I eating too little given my Body Fat level

[manveer]

To Be a Beast

Yup, start here. Establish a baseline for your macros and make small changes to gain or lose faster or slower.

[SSP]

Thanks for the reply manveer, do you mean by Yup that i am in a surplus. Ive read through the whole article by Jordan but he doesnt say what percentage of your diet the macros should be. He gives numbers for how many grams the macros should be in each case study but everybodys weight is different. How do I calc the ideal macros for my situation.

[manveer]

Well, are you gaining weight? Then you're in a surplus. 3442 kCal seems like a lot for someone weighing 171.5 lbs and 25% bf. How you get to 3442 kCal - the macronutrient breakdown - tells you more.

The first table in the article lists multipliers per pound of bodyweight. At 171.5#, the breakdown works out to:

Recomposition: 197g protein, 214g carbs, 60g fat (2187 kCal)
Fat Loss: 214g protein, 172g carbs, 46g fat (1960 kCal)
Muscle Gain: 189g protein, 343g carbs, 86g fat (2898 kCal)

Jordan lists this disclaimer after the table: "These numbers do not take into effect past dietary history, age, height, training volume/status, dietary restrictions/preferences, etc. In sum, I do not use the multipliers exclusively in my own practice. They are a starting point, nothing more and nothing less."

You might start there and make adjustments from week to week.

[SSP]

Thanks, the info about the table is very helpful.

My weight has been steady for months on this diet. I re-calcd my food intake on MyFitnessPal as I made mistakes converting some of the cup measurements which I am not used to using as we use grammes and ounces. My cals going by MyFtinessPal are 2858 and macros are protein 166g,Carbs 265g and fat 123g.

I think ill drop or reduce walnuts + almonds as they are high in fat. They are a convenient source of protein and calories though. I might replace those with xtra milk.

[CJ Gotcher]

Thanks, the info about the table is very helpful.

My weight has been steady for months on this diet. I re-calcd my food intake on MyFitnessPal as I made mistakes converting some of the cup measurements which I am not used to using as we use grammes and ounces. My cals going by MyFtinessPal are 2858 and macros are protein 166g,Carbs 265g and fat 123g.

I think ill drop or reduce walnuts + almonds as they are high in fat. They are a convenient source of protein and calories though. I might replace those with xtra milk.

Jordan's Nutrition Seminar video is excellent- I'd highly recommend it.

I mention that because in it he reiterates what he says in the To Be a Beast article: the initial calorie/macro counts are a guideline. They put you in the ballpark, that's it. If you've been holding steady on your numbers at your calorie-count, then up it by about 100 calories and hold onto that for a week or two to see whether it 'takes' and you start gaining weight. If it doesn't quite kick in after 2 weeks, do it again.

I think you're on the right track- you already noticed your protein intake is low for your goals and your fat intake's a little high for your goals. Good luck!

[manveer]

Jordan's Nutrition Seminar video is excellent- I'd highly recommend it.

Yeah, that too. It tied a lot of stuff together for me. http://startingstrength.com/resource...er-2014-a.html