My Qs, Hoping for the As

[MAD-DUKE]

Background.
Im a novice or will be. 30/M/CA @ 278#. My weight lifting experience is limited to mostly bench pressing (I had incorrectly assumed from friends/family/gym, that this was the most valuable weight training excercise), my best was 300 ten years ago. Haven't lifted anything much since. Last November, I weighed 384#, I enjoyed food a bit too much. Learned how to watch calorie intake and have cut weight at a pretty decent speed from that to my current weight. I wanted to start weight lifting again and started reading around.

I have back pain that comes and goes, however it has been hurting for the past month and a half... Its a sharp shooting pain sometimes spasms in my lower back. It's constantly there but mostly it's not a big deal, I plan to exercise through it and pray that a stronger back I develop will cure the problem hopefully never to return... Unless this should be taken into consideration? I don't think it will effect any of the lifts but I guess I won't know till I go at it.

I own the following books: SS:Practical Guide....(20%), SS:BBT edition 2 (20%), Strong Enough (100%), PP:ST 2nd Ed (14%), Mean Ol' Mr. Gravity (26%), and I plan to get SS:BBT 3rd Edition. The % are about how much of the book I have read so far. I came to the forums to find answers and heard Mean... book answers a lot, however I find a lot of it to be redundant information that doesn't yet pertain to me yet. The comedy alone is great and decent in all the books so far. SS:Practical and SS:BBT so far seem to be very very closely the same, I like to read books in order but because SS:BBT arrived first and I wanted to get to learning, I started there. The SS dual books produce a lot of slow time because i'm constantly googling all these crazy names for body parts... hard copies suck... the kindle books are far better! Example wtf is a Nautilus?

I plan to do my program from home... I ordered this power cage should be here next week. I have an olympic bar I got at sears years ago with a ton of weights to go with it, however when I get the money I plan to upgrade to the rogue fitness marky bar. I also plan to get squat shoes and belt. From what I read these are not imminently important.

Other then the first question if they are covered in the books above... just ignore and I plan to have them all knocked out by the end of the week and should have answered myself by then hopefully :-/

Questions:

1. Is there anything essential in terms of equipment that I would need to work from home other then the cage, bar and weights? Or any equipment I should consider? I ask because I would like to get started Monday of this following week and no longer wish to delay anything and want to have everything essential to maintain as safe a program possible :-)

2. I'm assuming that programs are covered in the book PP. However in Mean Ol... book I read a lot about how important it is to maintain a certain calorie level. Since I am already extremely fat is this calorie level still important? Gallon of Milk a day? 3k to 5k calories? I currently keep myself on a strict 1200 to 1400 calorie diet of mostly protein. I plan to also start using all the nutrition recommended on Nutrition Forum Sticky Also in mean ol... I see a lot of stick to the program talk... so Im willing, I just doubt that the consumption portion applies to me.

3. If I can continue my current diet, at what weight should I stop? 210? 220?

4. I plan to bench in the cage, should I still not use collars?

Disclaimer: I did try searching the forums first for many of these... I'm fat and other similar searched forced me to the advanced search and I couldn't get anything to pop up. Or popped up a ton of threads that from the first ten were not relevant. Sorry to take up anyone's time :-( but i'm eager.

[veryhrm]

GAH.

You claim you searched yet you clearly didn't read the "how to search this board" stickies either in the Q&A or here or you'd know to use google.

Read the PP through the end of the Novice chapter and read the Lift descriptions in SS... the rest of the literature you can read at your leisure.

It doesn't matter in the beginning but you should get some chalk.

You absolutely should not do GOMAD. Just stick with your diet for now as you've prob still got a good 80lbs of fat to lose. Lifting on no carbs does suck though so you may have to add some post workout carbs a few weeks into this, but considering that you're someone who comes from the very heavy side i think you should prioritize fat loss above all else even if it interferes with optimum progression on the strength. The 100lbs you lost so far is solid, but you still got a ways to go and it just gets harder as you get closer, so i'd be concerned about derailing that.

Read the "A clarification" article. http://startingstrength.com/index.ph..._clarification

This board in general tends to bias towards people being fatter rather than leaner. So that you don't have your perceptions messed with too much, i suggest that you get yourself a DEXA body composition scan (if there is a provider in your area). Basically, unless you're over 6' tall and/or squatting more than 3 plates you prob. don't need to be over 200lbs. (<- that's not official SS stuff just my opinion). How tall are you?

I still bench without collars though i do it with safeties. Obviously the most important thing is to put the safeties so that the bar doesn't touch your throat but you can still solidly touch your chest with it.

On the lower back thing... hard to say. There's a bunch of threads in the Recovery forum about back issues. Read through them. Draw your own conclusions. It may still be worth it to go to a doctor and get an MRI just to check that there's no major deformities.

Also, chill w/ the font sizes!

Good luck w/ the whole thing. Since you once had a 300lbs bench i suspect you'll be able to get pretty strong pretty fast on the other stuff too. Besides, your legs should already be pretty strong from carrying you around for the past few years (body builders would no doubt kill for your calves). I'll just repeat my warning from above... just because you're likely to be quite strong, don't let that distract you from your fat loss goals. 200lbs @18%bf w/ a 4 plate squat is much more impressive (imo) than 250lbs at 30+% bf with the same lifts. Lifting seems to make it easy to get "trapped" with a 250lbs powerlifter body.

[MAD-DUKE]

Thanks Appreciate the Response and Help !!

I did buy chalk already, forgot to mention that. If I knew how easy losing weight was I would have done it years ago... I simply didn't care enough to look into it before :-(. I do love my calves their the only thing that doesn't look fat.

Im 5'11" @33.4% body fat. I was trying to knock out Mean Ol'... today but due to your recommendation Im switching up to PP and Ill try to knock that out by tomorrow. Im going to read the "A Clarification" article now first.

[veryhrm]

33.5% sounds optimistic for 278 lbs @ 5' 11". Where did that number come from?

As a larger guy you're carrying a bit more muscle mass than a leaner guy... but still... the numbers you quote put you at a lean mass of 178lbs for an FFMI (fat free mass index. BMI calculated with just your lean mass) of 24.8. Since lifetime maximum FFMIs for natural body builders (when they're at say , 15%bf or less) are said to top out ~25, the number you quote is not very likely. This is especially since, if you're doing low carb, your muscles are depleted of glycogen (and the water that goes with it ) which drops your lean mass by another 5-10lbs below what it would otherwise be. My guess would somewhere ~40%. All the measurement methods have their issues, but at this point i think DEXA is probably the best. If there's one in your area and you're willing to drop the cash (Would be ~$100-$150 a pop.) i'd recommend it. Since you're larger and you're losing lots of weight if you have a doctor he may even write you a prescription for one so it may be covered by insurance (don't know. check). Of course if your insurance company doesn't know how much you weigh maybe it's better not to get them involved... never know how they might use the info against you (<-- only mild paranoia ) .

[MAD-DUKE]

I don't really watch carbs or fat... just calories and protein, I do tend to focus more on fat though as I love meat. I im for about 70 to 100g of protein a day. The number is as accurate as the following device: Omron HBF-306C Fat Loss Monitor, Black

So it could be wrong but got high reviews for what thats worth. With a 38.3 BMI.

BTW the clarification article was very helpful, thanks !

[Sean Herbison]

GAH.This board in general tends to bias towards people being fatter rather than leaner. So that you don't have your perceptions messed with too much, i suggest that you get yourself a DEXA body composition scan (if there is a provider in your area). Basically, unless you're over 6' tall and/or squatting more than 3 plates you prob. don't need to be over 200lbs. (<- that's not official SS stuff just my opinion). How tall are you?

Well, to be more precise, this board in general tends towards people being bigger rather than smaller. In effect, this is pretty close, but I think the distinction is worth making. That said, for general, non-competitive purposes, most people will be fine even if they're on the smaller side, so long as they're making progress.

Personally, 1200-1400 seems excessively low for calories, but if you're more concerned with fat loss than keeping muscle, and you can keep it up, just do what works for you. I would also add more protein, but with calories that low, there's not a whole lot you can do.

[Milo's Ghost]

You cannot do SS on 1200-1400 calories. Period. You can't do it on 100g of protein a day. You probably can do it low-carb, but it's far from optimal and not necessary to recomp (i.e. gain muscle and lose fat).

Go talk to Jordan in the nutrition forum. Outside of that, just start getting under the bar. Then post form videos.

And get lifting shoes. That is an infinitely better use of your money than a DEXA scan. Just look in a mirror and notice how your clothes fit - those will tell you that you're getting leaner.

Go.

[MAD-DUKE]

Go.

Yes, I agree... My Cage gets here Friday !!

you're more concerned with fat loss than keeping muscle

Nope, Fat Loss seems easy... Muscle gain does not seem easy. IMO Muscle > Fat Loss. Im sure I could come up with a compromise between the two. Or what i'm aiming for is to reap the benefits of a novice and finish fat loss later if not combined.

Go.

Friday !!

You cannot do SS on 1200-1400 calories. Period. You can't do it on 100g of protein a day. You probably can do it low-carb, but it's far from optimal and not necessary to recomp (i.e. gain muscle and lose fat).

Go talk to Jordan in the nutrition forum. Outside of that, just start getting under the bar. Then post form videos.

And get lifting shoes. That is an infinitely better use of your money than a DEXA scan. Just look in a mirror and notice how your clothes fit - those will tell you that you're getting leaner.

Go.

I definitely plan to get lifting shoes sometime soon. I had no intention of paying for DEXA, accurate FAT% and BMI isn't that important to me. I think I will take your advice and post in the nutrition section.

Go.

yes.... YES!!! I'm eager too !! Im going !! Friday :-(

[DJC416]

You'll want to incorporate chins as soon as possible too, but that would have to wait until you're able to do one.. if you could get the bands that assist you in that regard, and somewhere to chin, that would get you started. Also shoes, belt. They make a huge difference.

[MAD-DUKE]

Yes Shoes and Belt are currently in my Amazon cart. Although I had a tough time on deciding which shoes... I want the best, any recommendations?
Currently what I decided on:
Squat Shoes
and
Belt

btw Thank you everyone for your advice and help !!

@Miley... I made that post... its just not up yet :-/ Thanks though!