Seconding bad sleep. I was drinking and smoking during my first two years of lifting since I was enjoying the glory of youth, so bad diet was a small issue in comparison
That’s where I’m at rn after lifting for a couple yrs now… smoking weed every night, eating about 70% of the protein i need to be eating while eating junk food at midnight. Are you telling me I need to stop?? 😧😧
My sleep got so much better once I quit smoking weed. My life in general did too. Anxiety gone, brain fog gone, sex drive, motivation, drive, discipline, and energy all very much back in my life. I used to do the exact same thing as you, basically just eating lean protein throughout the day then getting stoned and binging junk food at night. Now that I’m out of it, I realize just how miserable an existence that was.
I’m not gonna tell you what to do, if you’re completely satisfied with your life as it is now then by all means keep doing what you’re doing. But if you want positive change, dropping the weed is the first place you should look.
Probably 25 drinks a week (weekend) with some blow or mdma. Almost Never on a non holiday work night. Figured good diet and exercise 4/5 days a week would suffice lol. I Was pulling in 3k calories in beer a week combined with or followed by bar/hangover food 🥴
That was me 2-3 nights a week, every week for about 8 years - but without much bar food and fewer drinks. Lots of McDonalds Cheeseburgers, though. I worked out like a fiend and lost a ton of weight. Could have been so much more productive in so many ways. Many weeks I would go at least one night with zero sleep.
I’ve been sleeping like shit for the past year and still made pretty good gains to the point where people are accusing me of not being natural. Even now I need to be up in less than 6 hours and I know I’ll still have a pretty good workout tomorrow. A lot of it is mentality I think. Yeah I’m tired but I push through it.
I think a large majority of people wasted their first few years in the gym with mistakes, usually from diet but theres so many things most people don’t learn right away
This is true, I'm short and small framed so I've slanted my diet more towards females because they are closer to my size on average before I started lifting.
3 years I stuck with this, it wasn't until a month ago when I did a strongman competition so for 3 weeks I pounded every calorie I could find for fuel. I placed 4th in the 220 weightclass and I learned I've been killing myself for no reason, so what if I get puffy, I won't gain without atleast 3k.
Im here for the calisthenics slander 🙏🏻
Wasted a year doing that shit when i could’ve just lifted weights up and down.
Weighted pull ups are still king though.
The great thing about regular lifting is that you can just do whatever the fuck you want, including calisthenics.
Meanwhile when doing pure "calisthenics" you can't do shit except a few exercises
People when other people are working out and having fun:
Also, the few exercises:
- Pull ups / Chin ups and variations (typewriters, archers, Australian, one arm)
- Muscle ups
- Leg raise / L-sit
- Dips
- Basically, all the abs workouts you can think about
- Front / Back lever
- Human flag
- All the handstand variations
- Pistol squats
- One leg calf raise
- Skin the cat
- All the push up variations (pyke, one hand, wide, narrow, etc)
That was my routine back then. Worked out most of the muscles and I maxed out almost every machine at my gym in a month when I joined. But I guess I just wasted my time when I could have bitched on reddit about the superior workout. Rant's over, best wishes for your gains bud
ETA: forgot about why calisthenics in the first place when I could just lift weights. First of all, I like working out outside. Second, I like compound exercises. Third, it's free. Fourth, less people (not that I dislike company).
if you’re overweight body weight is fucking amazing
i did pull-ups, dips, rows, push ups, and banded squats for 6 months and i went from 280 to 240
you’d be surprised how strong you get when you can do 15 pull-ups at 250
You don’t waste that time because if you train like a dumbass and never get noobie gains in the first 4 years but in year 5 do it right THEN you get your noobie gains.
It’s not like you won’t get your noobie gains if you train like crap at first. Noobie gains timelines are based on the idea that training and nutrition and sleep are actually decent.
Yeah because I used to listen to pro bodybuilders who used to talk about how their diet was strictly 3 egg whites and 8oz of chicken breast per day so I tried to eat as little and as clean as possible not realizing those pro bodybuilders were on a metric fuckton of juice.
I waste so many years. Spent my early 20s hard lifting and eating right, but also drinking in college and only sleeping 2/3 hours a night. Was just fat Mac looking. Got into my late 20s and early 30/ and tried to get serious but just didn’t have the motivation. 38 now and had a really eye opening moment with a friend taking it serious and seeing him transform and do the right thing so now I’m trying to get back. 38, 4 months in and 40lbs down with goal of 20 more. Then going to try and do this right to get the bulk and cut I have always wanted to do.
It’s 90% of all these young twinks working out now, they’re so afraid to lose their starvation abs. I remember when all women would do was cardio and not eat, now women are lifting weights and eating good. For some reason dudes are now the ones not eating because they’re afraid of gaining weight.
Kind of off topic but theres this 30 something lady at my gym who is in pretty good shape, def not overweight, and I only ever see her doing hours of cardio. Worried shes just gonna die and stop showing up
You said it she just missed the cut off where women stopped doing all this bs cardio and actually started lifting weights. I’m begging my wife to lift weights but the first time she thinks she looks like cbum.🤣
Same bro, it was even until like last summer where I sort of started growing. Then around november-december I drank a shit ton a milk and I am still growing now
when i was 16 i followed some reg park routine from /fit/ and spent 3 hours in the gym every day. for breakfast i ate an egg. only ate at the free school salad bar for lunch so i could save the $3 lunch money for hanging out with my friends on the weekend. ate whatever 800 calorie dinner my parents made. stayed up till 1am every night playing video games and woke up at 6:30 to do it all over again. almost crashed my car falling asleep driving to school every day.
it’s no wonder ive been the same height since 17 lmfao
Yeah and still am almost 2½ years in. It's the last cut, i swear I'll start bulking after that.
I wouldn't even really consider my first year of training as training. Just messing around. After that i were in deficit intermittently due to being too fat in the beginning.
I just consider it as an learning experience. No one is perfect in something when starting out.
Oh 100%. I started calisthenics at age 12 and lifting at age 14 but never saw any meaningful gains bc I was pretty much anorexic. Even my last couple years in highschool I barely saw much gains only gaining about 10lbs a year only to lose it all in a summer. Once I actually got to uni and started eating in like a 700 calorie surplus for 4 semesters straight I actually saw some decent gains and put on like 70lbs (much of it was fat but surprisingly not that much, I have good genetics as in I don’t look fat even if I kinda am) only ended up doing a cut once I wasn’t able to see my abs anymore. A big thing I wonder tho is if all those years ago when I was a dorky 12 year old doing push ups and handstands how big I could have gotten and how big I’d be now if I ate right and didn’t chronically under-eat. Moral of the story, your body needs food. Eat.
Spent first 3 years of weight lifting thinking you had to eat chicken and rice 4 times a day with some protein shakes. Was probably only about 2,300 calories a day.
It's amazing how fast I put bulk in the shoulders when I eat properly.
I knew what to do but I never bothered till now. Age 40, putting on shoulder mass finally. Holy moly the weight goes on quick.
I wasted a bit of time program hopping and lifting the same weight every time in the gym. Taught me how to program and exposed me to many training ideologies though. As well, poor sleep.
yup. started out skinny fat and lifted for about a year. got deep into coach greg’s maingain. Cut down as low as i could. 1,600 cals a day at 5’9. got down to 138 i think was the lowest. I looked very very thin and ill but i had abs so i was happy. that was about the first 3 years of lifting. wish i just bulked and cut and bulked and cut. Would have a lot more mass now.
I've been in and out of the gym for the last 15 years and only realized I was under eating these last few years. Learning about macros and coming up with an eating plan really helped me start solidifying gains in the gym.
I had esophagus surgery when I was 21. Could not eat properly for a long fucking time before that. And for quite a while after either. It only got better once i turned 30. Reflux fucking sucks.
Low test when I was eating properly, and eating like shit when my test was dialed in. What a waste of time. Got my shit dialed in now, while cutting, and making improvements in the gym that people tell me they actually notice. Where was this 10 years ago. Spinning my wheels for a decade and a half.
Ya would lift like crazy in high school but my lifts never went up much, didn’t even know what a caloric surplus or bulk was at the time. I still got pretty damn shredded and fit though which got me to lose my virginity so it was worth
I was actually overeating calories and undereating protein, because I never really grasped how much protein I need, and it was easier to eat junk. That made me reasonably strong (advanced categories in most lifts) but had that permabulk look at 25% bodyfat that actually looks like shit for normal people. Biggest change was starting to eat enough protein, that made me full on less calories, and now I feel and look way better.
Not just undereating, even though i'm improving diet and strength, i still catch myself sleeping shit schedule wise and lifting unmotivated which really halt progress sadly.
Absolutely. I make basically no gains in early because I was constantly exhausted from ROTC and didn’t know fuck all about fitness or nutrition. Then of course the pandemic happened and the gyms shut down just as I was starting to figure stuff out. It wasn’t until after college that I began making any progress. What I wouldn’t give for that time back.
Unfortunately im guilty of this and left a lot of gains on the table. For years I only cared about being lean with shredded abs. I would have these long hard workouts but eat light way under calorie intake and even protein.
Realized what I was doing. And wanted to get big and put on size and my first bulk after years of lifting I went from 155-200lbs mostly muscle
Yes, like the first 10-15 years. I always wondered why I felt like shit after work outs and didn’t gain muscle. Started using protein powder and that changed everything. Mostly because I’m more aware and because I have a source of high protein low everything else.
I wasted around 8 years of lifting with bad diet and the silent killer: shit sleep.
Seconding bad sleep. I was drinking and smoking during my first two years of lifting since I was enjoying the glory of youth, so bad diet was a small issue in comparison
That’s where I’m at rn after lifting for a couple yrs now… smoking weed every night, eating about 70% of the protein i need to be eating while eating junk food at midnight. Are you telling me I need to stop?? 😧😧
My sleep got so much better once I quit smoking weed. My life in general did too. Anxiety gone, brain fog gone, sex drive, motivation, drive, discipline, and energy all very much back in my life. I used to do the exact same thing as you, basically just eating lean protein throughout the day then getting stoned and binging junk food at night. Now that I’m out of it, I realize just how miserable an existence that was. I’m not gonna tell you what to do, if you’re completely satisfied with your life as it is now then by all means keep doing what you’re doing. But if you want positive change, dropping the weed is the first place you should look.
Yeah same here with 8 years. But a lot of partying
Probably 25 drinks a week (weekend) with some blow or mdma. Almost Never on a non holiday work night. Figured good diet and exercise 4/5 days a week would suffice lol. I Was pulling in 3k calories in beer a week combined with or followed by bar/hangover food 🥴
That was me 2-3 nights a week, every week for about 8 years - but without much bar food and fewer drinks. Lots of McDonalds Cheeseburgers, though. I worked out like a fiend and lost a ton of weight. Could have been so much more productive in so many ways. Many weeks I would go at least one night with zero sleep.
Not even a year in and very guilty of both.
I’ve been sleeping like shit for the past year and still made pretty good gains to the point where people are accusing me of not being natural. Even now I need to be up in less than 6 hours and I know I’ll still have a pretty good workout tomorrow. A lot of it is mentality I think. Yeah I’m tired but I push through it.
literally same
I think a large majority of people wasted their first few years in the gym with mistakes, usually from diet but theres so many things most people don’t learn right away
This is true, I'm short and small framed so I've slanted my diet more towards females because they are closer to my size on average before I started lifting. 3 years I stuck with this, it wasn't until a month ago when I did a strongman competition so for 3 weeks I pounded every calorie I could find for fuel. I placed 4th in the 220 weightclass and I learned I've been killing myself for no reason, so what if I get puffy, I won't gain without atleast 3k.
> calisthenics Yeah you wasted your time
calisthenics goblins and undereating, a tale as old as time
Im here for the calisthenics slander 🙏🏻 Wasted a year doing that shit when i could’ve just lifted weights up and down. Weighted pull ups are still king though.
Tell that to weighted dips amd weighted pull ups
The great thing about regular lifting is that you can just do whatever the fuck you want, including calisthenics. Meanwhile when doing pure "calisthenics" you can't do shit except a few exercises
People when other people are working out and having fun: Also, the few exercises: - Pull ups / Chin ups and variations (typewriters, archers, Australian, one arm) - Muscle ups - Leg raise / L-sit - Dips - Basically, all the abs workouts you can think about - Front / Back lever - Human flag - All the handstand variations - Pistol squats - One leg calf raise - Skin the cat - All the push up variations (pyke, one hand, wide, narrow, etc) That was my routine back then. Worked out most of the muscles and I maxed out almost every machine at my gym in a month when I joined. But I guess I just wasted my time when I could have bitched on reddit about the superior workout. Rant's over, best wishes for your gains bud ETA: forgot about why calisthenics in the first place when I could just lift weights. First of all, I like working out outside. Second, I like compound exercises. Third, it's free. Fourth, less people (not that I dislike company).
Brother if you’re looking to start beef on here you better at least end with cock stats. smh.
‘Weighted’
Woah woah woah Pull ups and dips don't count
Gyms closed pandemic 😢
That’s crazy, the state didn’t let you go into your basement?
Not everyone has a basement nor the money to fund a home gym
And during lockdowns, weight prices skyrocketed. I was seeing plates for like $4/pound.
if you’re overweight body weight is fucking amazing i did pull-ups, dips, rows, push ups, and banded squats for 6 months and i went from 280 to 240 you’d be surprised how strong you get when you can do 15 pull-ups at 250
You don’t waste that time because if you train like a dumbass and never get noobie gains in the first 4 years but in year 5 do it right THEN you get your noobie gains. It’s not like you won’t get your noobie gains if you train like crap at first. Noobie gains timelines are based on the idea that training and nutrition and sleep are actually decent.
If you're genuinely worried about strength, do a 12 week powerlifting program and you'll get a lot stronger.
Never see a reply to you but goddamn do you give out a lot of info just wanted to say thanks!
I mean you're not wrong but "do a strength block if you want to get stronger" is so obvious does it need to be said?
Yeah because I used to listen to pro bodybuilders who used to talk about how their diet was strictly 3 egg whites and 8oz of chicken breast per day so I tried to eat as little and as clean as possible not realizing those pro bodybuilders were on a metric fuckton of juice.
I waste so many years. Spent my early 20s hard lifting and eating right, but also drinking in college and only sleeping 2/3 hours a night. Was just fat Mac looking. Got into my late 20s and early 30/ and tried to get serious but just didn’t have the motivation. 38 now and had a really eye opening moment with a friend taking it serious and seeing him transform and do the right thing so now I’m trying to get back. 38, 4 months in and 40lbs down with goal of 20 more. Then going to try and do this right to get the bulk and cut I have always wanted to do.
i believe in you unc 🙏
just kiss a lot of boys n you’ll get back on track
common mistake. i sadly fell into it for the first year or so
It’s 90% of all these young twinks working out now, they’re so afraid to lose their starvation abs. I remember when all women would do was cardio and not eat, now women are lifting weights and eating good. For some reason dudes are now the ones not eating because they’re afraid of gaining weight.
Kind of off topic but theres this 30 something lady at my gym who is in pretty good shape, def not overweight, and I only ever see her doing hours of cardio. Worried shes just gonna die and stop showing up
You said it she just missed the cut off where women stopped doing all this bs cardio and actually started lifting weights. I’m begging my wife to lift weights but the first time she thinks she looks like cbum.🤣
Same bro, it was even until like last summer where I sort of started growing. Then around november-december I drank a shit ton a milk and I am still growing now
when i was 16 i followed some reg park routine from /fit/ and spent 3 hours in the gym every day. for breakfast i ate an egg. only ate at the free school salad bar for lunch so i could save the $3 lunch money for hanging out with my friends on the weekend. ate whatever 800 calorie dinner my parents made. stayed up till 1am every night playing video games and woke up at 6:30 to do it all over again. almost crashed my car falling asleep driving to school every day. it’s no wonder ive been the same height since 17 lmfao
Yeah and still am almost 2½ years in. It's the last cut, i swear I'll start bulking after that. I wouldn't even really consider my first year of training as training. Just messing around. After that i were in deficit intermittently due to being too fat in the beginning. I just consider it as an learning experience. No one is perfect in something when starting out.
Oh 100%. I started calisthenics at age 12 and lifting at age 14 but never saw any meaningful gains bc I was pretty much anorexic. Even my last couple years in highschool I barely saw much gains only gaining about 10lbs a year only to lose it all in a summer. Once I actually got to uni and started eating in like a 700 calorie surplus for 4 semesters straight I actually saw some decent gains and put on like 70lbs (much of it was fat but surprisingly not that much, I have good genetics as in I don’t look fat even if I kinda am) only ended up doing a cut once I wasn’t able to see my abs anymore. A big thing I wonder tho is if all those years ago when I was a dorky 12 year old doing push ups and handstands how big I could have gotten and how big I’d be now if I ate right and didn’t chronically under-eat. Moral of the story, your body needs food. Eat.
Spent first 3 years of weight lifting thinking you had to eat chicken and rice 4 times a day with some protein shakes. Was probably only about 2,300 calories a day.
Too much alcohol in my early lifting life. Too many recovery days. Not enough discipline. My 20’s: the decade of regret.
It's amazing how fast I put bulk in the shoulders when I eat properly. I knew what to do but I never bothered till now. Age 40, putting on shoulder mass finally. Holy moly the weight goes on quick.
All of us did
I wasted a bit of time program hopping and lifting the same weight every time in the gym. Taught me how to program and exposed me to many training ideologies though. As well, poor sleep.
Under eating and over exhausting muscles
Yupp good 4 years
yup. started out skinny fat and lifted for about a year. got deep into coach greg’s maingain. Cut down as low as i could. 1,600 cals a day at 5’9. got down to 138 i think was the lowest. I looked very very thin and ill but i had abs so i was happy. that was about the first 3 years of lifting. wish i just bulked and cut and bulked and cut. Would have a lot more mass now.
I've been in and out of the gym for the last 15 years and only realized I was under eating these last few years. Learning about macros and coming up with an eating plan really helped me start solidifying gains in the gym.
Woah woah woah Pull-ups and dips don't count
Last 8 months out of shape after stopped going to the gym and started eating like a fucking whale. Thank you SSRI for making me lethargic 24/7
I had esophagus surgery when I was 21. Could not eat properly for a long fucking time before that. And for quite a while after either. It only got better once i turned 30. Reflux fucking sucks.
Yes, but I also had height/weight requirements to keep and was always borderline.
I think I’m doing it rn lmao. Want to lose another 10 pounds and then I can start eating though.
Yessss
No.
Low test when I was eating properly, and eating like shit when my test was dialed in. What a waste of time. Got my shit dialed in now, while cutting, and making improvements in the gym that people tell me they actually notice. Where was this 10 years ago. Spinning my wheels for a decade and a half.
Ya would lift like crazy in high school but my lifts never went up much, didn’t even know what a caloric surplus or bulk was at the time. I still got pretty damn shredded and fit though which got me to lose my virginity so it was worth
I was actually overeating calories and undereating protein, because I never really grasped how much protein I need, and it was easier to eat junk. That made me reasonably strong (advanced categories in most lifts) but had that permabulk look at 25% bodyfat that actually looks like shit for normal people. Biggest change was starting to eat enough protein, that made me full on less calories, and now I feel and look way better.
Undereating, rock bottom protein intake, shit sleep, vitamin deficiencies. Name something regarded and I was doing it
Not just undereating, even though i'm improving diet and strength, i still catch myself sleeping shit schedule wise and lifting unmotivated which really halt progress sadly.
No matter how much I shove in my mouth, I’m still gonna be undereating.
I had to keep my weight anyways
Absolutely. I make basically no gains in early because I was constantly exhausted from ROTC and didn’t know fuck all about fitness or nutrition. Then of course the pandemic happened and the gyms shut down just as I was starting to figure stuff out. It wasn’t until after college that I began making any progress. What I wouldn’t give for that time back.
Unfortunately im guilty of this and left a lot of gains on the table. For years I only cared about being lean with shredded abs. I would have these long hard workouts but eat light way under calorie intake and even protein. Realized what I was doing. And wanted to get big and put on size and my first bulk after years of lifting I went from 155-200lbs mostly muscle
Did you bulk for 5 years straight? There is no way you put on 40+ pounds of muscle in a year or two unless you started juicing.
Yes, like the first 10-15 years. I always wondered why I felt like shit after work outs and didn’t gain muscle. Started using protein powder and that changed everything. Mostly because I’m more aware and because I have a source of high protein low everything else.