Reply With QuoteYou might not want to start tweaking things right away if he told you to just track and see where you're at. It is important to get a baseline/starting point so you can start making changes as you're going forward.Originally Posted by Nicholas Rega
✓ Member
Nutrition Check
Male, 26, 5’5”
I started my current linear progression with Coach Racculia. He told me to just track my nutrition to see how I respond.
On July 5, I weighed in at 154.4 lbs with a 31.5” waist circumference.
This morning (July 15), I weighed in at 157.2 lbs with no change in the waist.
My numbers
Squat: 135 -> 165
Press: 75 -> 85
Bench: 125 -> 130
Deadlift 175 -> 205
Average Count/Day
Calories: 2,988
Carbs: 271
Fat: 133
Protein: 172
Should I make any tweaks?
Member
You might not want to start tweaking things right away if he told you to just track and see where you're at. It is important to get a baseline/starting point so you can start making changes as you're going forward.
Member
Don't know why you'd make tweaks if you're gaining weight without gaining waist size... Sounds like you're getting stronger to me - am I missing something?
I would listen to your coach before you listen to me, but your fat looks high and protein looks low, to me. I don't see why you should be consuming more than 60-100g fat in a day, and there are definite benefits to increasing protein consumption.
If you go into MPS every 3 hours and saturate at about 40g protein, and you're awake for 16 hours on average, that's 5 bouts of MPS in a day and 200g of protein you could use. That's not considering the other benefits of generally increasing blood amino acid levels and positive effect of thermogenic diets in general.
✓ Member
It's also worth noting that three pounds gained doesn't really tell you much with only two data. I can easily gain three pounds in 24 hours if I just have some booze that day so I bloat a bit.
✓ Member
Stick with the protein where it is, and add carbs if you find yourself too exhausted to function or to lift. Other than that keep it constant for a while.
And I agree, 3 lbs is probably statistically insignificant. I've gained that after dinner.
Member
Eric, I'm all for diversity of thought, but there's no reason Rega, with his stats, needs to eat more carbs on something that's as low volume as SSLP. This is just bad advice and sounds like thoughtless towing of the "SS party line" or simple contrarianism. His protein is demonstrably low with just the most basic math on MPS, and his fat intake is beyond what's necessary for supplying organs with what they need to do their thing.
Carbs are going to be good primarily for driving recovery of glucose storage in the muscles. At low volume like SSLP, muscles are not going to be getting a lot of hypertrophy work and there is a limited amount of utility in supplying them with extra carbohydrates, because the surplus will be stored as fat. However the intensity demands of the SSLP will definitely require a lot of recovery by way of MPS which needs protein to drive it.
Really, what are you basing this suggestion on? It would be appropriate, perhaps, if he was doing a whole hell of a lot of conditioning or extra volume, but absolutely not for 45 reps total 3 days a week.
✓ Member
Sorry it appears thoughtless. I wouldn't call it contrarianism either because I don't think I'm the only one who would suggest this. I'm not familiar with the MPS math you mentioned, just the recommendation of 1 g p/ lb BW. I think of it as uneconomical to add more protein past that recommendation. If you believe he has room to add more protein that will benefit then sure, he can up that. I just think it's a waste of money if it does nothing, i.e., eat that protein tomorrow not today.
I'm only suggesting increasing carbs if he has low energy levels. I base that on my observation that it helps me when I am generally tired or feel more fatigued when lifting. Yes the excess is stored as fat, but aren't excess fat and protein stored as fat? Carbohydrate is stored in the muscle and is thus more available for replenishing the creatine phosphate system between reps.
Member
Bad phrasing - was asking because I assumed there must've been some broader thought process behind it and wanted to know what it was. I re-read your post after I posted but before your reply here, and I realized "Oh he probably just means as a response to flagging energy." Probably a tad aggressive on my part there.
I'd be curious if you're regularly consuming in excess of 270 carbohydrates over a day, and if so how much if it is buffered around your workout - but that's probably another conversation for another thread.
Protein is generally stripped down into fatty acids and used for energy in absence of better substrate/Fat is stored or converted (gluconeogenesis, gylcogenesis, keto) if all needs are met. Carbs are converted to triglycerides by the liver and stored as fat once all needs are met.
So first, your suggestion with the qualifier "if you're flagging during workouts" is probably accurate, but it's important to make the distinction (in my mind, anyway) that this is only accurate if you're putting your carbs near your workout. If you're consuming 200 carbs in the morning and wondering why your evening workouts are flagging despite your carb intake (extreme example just to make the point) more carbs aren't appropriate - reallocating the carbs around your workout (before and after) is a better strategy.
I'm not going to make an argument for which methodology is better, but the fact of the matter is that the SSLP is very low volume - a grand total of 45 reps isn't getting a lot of hypertrophy training. 5 reps is a good compromise between strength vs. hypertrophy in isolation, but restricting to 3 sets of that isn't getting a whole lot of training done to hypertrophy adaptations (you'll get big legs and a solid 'core' because 6 sets or so are targeting all of that through squats and deadlifts, and cleans to a lesser extent). For "more carbs" to be stored in muscle, you have to train the muscle to increase that storage, and SS simply isn't doing that to a degree that you need a massive amount of carbs in the absence of additional conditioning work. You might make an argument if the trainee is severely underweight and the adaptations are taking place very quickly with the expectation you'll normalize your diet - but I doubt that, since Rega here is 5'5". I eat 270 carbs for my workout days and I'm doing as many as 64 reps without issue, and I have 5" on Rega and quite a bit of lean body mass. Similarly, I eat about 70-100g of fat in a day to his 133g.
Again, your advice isn't necessarily wrong, but it's not a great starting point for this trainee on the current program he's using. His fat is too high, and his protein is a little low. At 133g of fat, if he's doing 3 meals a day that means he's having about 44g of fat a meal; at 5 that's 26g. Above 20g of fat you tend to experience a slower rate of gastric emptying, which when it comes to performance concerns like strength training can become a problem for some people (probably not most novices, but it's an idea worth mentioning).
33g of fat equates to about 66g of carbs or protein (rough, shitty math - 4cal protein/carb, 9cal fat). he could put 30g carbs and 30g protein with some change left over if he wanted to split the difference. I just have a really hard time seeing a guy his size doing LP needing more energy substrate - that's going to get him fat. There's several things to try that you can figure out with about a week of work (read: without losing any real progress) before you resort to increasing carbs/fat. And if that's the decision to be made, it should be done at a rate of like 5-10g carbs a week until the right amount is found.
Re: MPS, I'm referring to the rate of Muscle Protein Synthesis - i.e. turning protein into muscle. Happens roughly every 3 hours with a saturation point of roughly 40g protein (i.e. more protein doesn't increase MPS levels beyond that point). Total blood amino acid content is the "more important" variable here, so people don't need to freak out about eating 5 meals a day, but that rough math breaks down to 40g x 5, or 200g protein throughout the day to get proper amino acid levels. You can read the establishing study here.
✓ Member
Sorry guys. I haven’t kept up with this post. I’ll have to find some time to read through it. Skimming it, I agree that I’d like to get my protein up to at least 180g and I’d like to decrease my fat intake. I gained another 4 lbs last week without adding to my waist circumference. So I’ve gained a total of 7 lbs now weighing at 161 at 5’5”. I’ll step on the scale at the end of the week and give y’all an update. I’ll find sometime to read through these posts too.
Thanks everyone
Posting Permissions