Fiddleman

You don't. Try and eat as much as you can though. One way to do this is a few ounces of protein centric food every 2-3 hours (once you are far enough out, like 6-7 months). Even then, you will only hit around 2000-2400 a day which is just enough to build some decent muscle, but nothing on the scale of a pumped up body builder (I think). If you do end up eating a lot of calories for a WLS person, make sure you have enough activity to balance out those calories. It would be very easy to gain weight (not muscle) if not careful about balance and quality of food. My two cents.

Eating too fast. I know, not very original. I am the worst when it comes to taking my time to eat.

The amino boost looks fairly similar to xtend, but is missing a couple things: L-glutamine Citrulline Both are key for athletic performance, but glutamine is key for better recovery. I am surprised the amino boost product is lacking it.

Here is my list: Creatine monohydrate - 1 tsp (morning) Beta-analine -1 tsp (morning) Fish oil - 1 tsp (morning or.evening) Calcium - 500 mg (3x day) Magnesium 2 tsp (1 tsp morning, 1 tsp evening) Optimen MV - 2 pills (Breakfast / lunch) Whey (premier shake) - 30 g (breakfast) Casein (ON) - 60 g (bed) Xtend (scivation) - 7 g (post workout/evening/breakfast) Amino energy (pre workout) Protein matrix (ON) - 40 g (before workout mixed with 1/2 cup steel oats) Am rap bar - mix protein and carbs paleo style (post workout) I also eat about every 2-3 hours and eat mostly chicken and veggies, some low glycemic carbs from Fiber. Eating clean I think contributes most to building muscles ahead of gym time and supplements. You have to understand eating clean and balanced in terms of macros is 80% (or more) of building muscle. Supplements and working out will only result in gains if the diet is right.

BTB - how is your sprained / broken toe doing? Are you going to manage for the 1/2 coming up next weekend? Hope it is getting solid again.

Added 60 pull-ups today by completing above run, piston and pull-up workout in 16 min. I started using my lats much more today and found pull-ups were much easier and powerful than trying to use traps, delts and biceps.

Found this resource today: http://www.beyondstrengthperformance.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/The-Pull-up-Manifesto6.pdf Any title that has manifesto in it has to be good, right? I've just skimmed it as just found it a few minutes ago and will read it tonight. Off to do my workout now! Pull-ups, here I come.

If you mean the two on pull-up virtuosity, here they are: Part I- http://journal.crossfit.com/2012/01/pullupvirtuosityp1.tpl Part II- http://journal.crossfit.com/2012/02/pullupvirtuosityp2.tpl I learned quite a bit from these. A lot.

Today's workout has sets of 12 pull-ups. I am going to do my best to do 12 in a row. Deadlift 10-10-10-8-6 50%-60%-65%-75%-80% then 5 Rounds for Time: 400m Run 12 Alternating Pistols 12 Pullups I've also considered trying the dead lifts barefoot today. First time. While I am not sure how well this works for me, I have read it works for a lot of others, including the really great lifters of past.

OK, OK - I am getting a consensus here. for me, I just eat 5-6 and am good. This is different behavior then pre surgery where I would be eating the whole package. And yes, raw almonds are definitely healthier for you and still very good. However, these mocha almonds would definitely not be the worst thing you could have for a snack.

http://www.bluediamond.com/index.cfm?navId=704 You ever tried these? They are really good. My wife went on a recent trip and came back with these. 160 calories for 1 oz from a little sugar and good fat. 6 G Protein. A good little snack. They can be addicting if you like mocha flavor.

Yes, that is most likely water being drawn into the muscle to assist the rebuilding of muscle fiber.

Personal conversations after jan 3, 2014 seem to not be recording in my list of conversations or conversations I start are not making it to recipient. Not sure if this is just my account or a general problem and thought it would be best just to post a thread about it here in assistance. Are others having this issue? I see the problem when using both IPad and android BP applications. It happened to me 2x so far.

I revel in the extra sniff time myself!

yes, I see that message. However I still do not know what happened to a message sent earlier today and one to the same member in last 2 weeks. It could be that I mistyped the username (please do not mention publicly). However, if i did,BP just silently ignored my mistake. It would be good to have an error message in this case.

Agree with a lot of CBT remarks. It does not really help with protein synthesis (building muscles), but helps with having an optimal workout and recovery. I have a good set of muscles now, but I cannot directly attribute it to the aminos.

I got the results this afternoon (fast!). Every result is within range except folate and b12. Both are on the high side and out of range. Not too concerned about b12 as I take supplementation on that and always get high results. However, I will need to research what high folate is about.

no, I have not used the BSN Aminox, but am using the ON Amino Energy for pre work out and the xtend for post workout. Both are working out really well for me. I like using amino acids powders a lot more than the typical pre workout powders because my body seems to assimilate them better than the pre workouts, they improve stamina \ endurance and I am never sore the next day no matter if I am performing max PR, a lot of lighter reps or a combination of the two. Never. BSN Aminox might be good as I liked their Syntha 6 Protein in the recent past (since shifted to ON hydro builder powder). It has a lot of good reviews: http://reviews.bodybuilding.com/BSN/AMINOx I like that the BSN Aminox comes in a lot of flavors (I like watermelon), has 10 g BCAA per serving and zero calories. Fairly comparable to the xtend that BTB and I use. The only thing I do not really like about BSN Aminiox based upon reviews is that it has a lot of dyes (xtend has dyes too) and some carbs (from sugar according to label. Xtend has 0 carbs). I know you did not ask, but also consider a good fish oil, beta-analine for less fatigue during workouts (takes about a month to load) and a good monohydrate creatine (takes 1-2 weeks to load) for better protein synthesis. I use the NOW brand for beta-analine and monohydrate creatine, but there are lots of other good brands out there.

I added another good contribution to my personal January fitness challenge of being able to do 50 unassisted pull-ups. The workout I did had 100 chest 2 bar pull-ups in it. I completed them in sets of 10 for 10 rounds and did each set unassisted and fairly quick. Each round had a 250 m sprint, 10 chest 2 bar pull-ups, a set of 4 115# push press, a set of 8 burpees over the bar (we set the push press barbell down and each burpee move was completed as a jump over it), another set of 4 115# push presses and a set of 6 ring dips. Glad that I am getting practice on pull-ups in the context of a workouts!! I want to be able to get past more than 10 in a row though.

Great job Georgia! I know how hard you have worked following the 5:2 program. And it has paid off in spades!!

Hi Curvy - thanks! Yes, I am doing well. Thanks for asking! This is actually my 12 month post op blood work done at 18 months. I got a little busy in the last 6 months so kept putting the blood work off. Can you believe it? 18 months already! Time flies when we are having fun enjoying life!

By "off" day, I really mean rest day. Typically I take 2 rest days a week and follow a 3 days on and 1 day off pattern. Sometimes this is Thursday and Sunday. Sometimes this is Saturday and Sunday. I have done this more out of principle then out of necessity. I typically never feel overly fatigued from my workouts the next day even though they are intense (it's cross fit!!) and most days involve either power or Olympic lifting for either heavy weight or high rep for different muscle groups. Feeling good is probably because I am pretty smart about supplements that help with endurance and recovery as well as long mobility / stretching sessions before and after the daily workouts. My question is that if your body feels good, should one be able to forgo a rest day or is the accumulative effect of losing a rest day no good? What is your philosophy?

I wish fluff! Keep dreaming about a sports massage to take away the aches and pains of working out, but, alas, out of budget for now. I will be sticking to the "poor mans" massage. That is, rolling on my roller, mashing it up with my lacrosse balls and stretching with the rogue bands and yoga poses. And taking my 5g daily fish oil. I am surprised at how much we can therapeutically heal ourselves with the right knowledge and experience. Mobility, mobility, mobility. So important...

Yay globe! Keep up the praise reports.

Seela- are you able to do a little workout at the beginning of the day instead of the end of the day? This will also help you with energy through the day. I used to be the same as you with being exhausted at the end of the day and always finding a reason to not workout (by the way, spending time with kids is a good reason). Eventually I started doing all my workouts after work at the same time, month after month. This is 4 pm for me because I start work at 5:00am. It became habit after a while. Now it is just part of the day, like eating dinner with my wife at 7:30 pm. It took me a while to work up to my current exercise commitment of 1.5-2 hours a day (not continuous - there are 4-5 different sections to the workout). I usually put in another 3-4 hours of work at home later in the evening so 12 hours is average on a given day. I did the 2 hour commute thing for most of my career until about 2 years ago. It probably contributed to my obesity back then. Now that I work from home, I hope this can continue because commuting is such a headache. I think after a while, you will find putting your health first puts everything in your life in perspective.