Friends are great to have!

A guy I met from an online forum that I belong to gave me some great information on how I can easily adjust my plan and continue with my progress. I'm not sure of his real name but he goes by the name Stack Diesel and for very good reason... He clearly knows his stuff when it comes to bodybuilding and I'm grateful for his advice. I'm going to paste his reply to me after reading of my struggles.

Greg,

I've always found it difficult to consume more than 140-150g of protein a day from whole food. Aside from rare occasions, I've always had to supplement with shakes to get at or over 200g/day.

That being said, and after years of protein guilt and paranoia, I do think protein needs have been exaggerated, even as to hard-training athletes. The "1g/lb. BW" rule of thumb was cooked up by a supplement company back in the early 90's and has since become gospel. I don't dispute that it's best to err on the side of caution and consume too much rather than too little, but the most credible clinical study (in my opinion) done on the protein requirements of athletes, by Dr. Lemon, suggests an intake of 1.6g/kg of BW maintains positive nitrogen balance and supports recovery and growth in hard-training athletes (assuming an otherwise energy-dense and nutritionally adequate diet). A 220lb man weights 100kg and thus would require an intake of 160g protein/day. 40g doesn't seem like a big difference but, for me, seems to be the difference between being able to meet my protein needs with whole food and having to rely on supplements. Again, I do agree that it's best to consume too much rather than too little protein, but just some food for thought.

Also, you are killing your legs 5 days a week. Although it may seem counterintuitive at first, most strength and conditioning coaches advise that sprints be performed on the same day as squats/heavy leg training, to maximize the recovery period between workouts. Walking can be done for active recovery/general physical activity on the rest days, but not to the point/pace of turning it into a full-blown conditioning session. If you are doing your 5x5 on M/W/F, I'd suggest sprints on M and F. Do the sprints after your squat workout, not before. Will this compromise sprint performance somewhat? Of course, but something's gotta give, and when you really start pushing up the weight on the squats, you are going to stall hard and fast if you are not getting adequate recovery between workouts.

-Stack

Great advice that I plan on incorporating into my routine starting with next week's schedule.

Many thanks, Stack!

Ah... Mondays

I'm not one of those people who dread Mondays... though it was a very long day for me. I had an early rise and had to go to the hospital for a complete set of lab work that my doc had ordered for me. I'm excited to get these results (which I will next Monday at my appointment with him) because it's been 6 months since my last lab work was completed and I'm looking forward to seeing where my levels are at. The longer I eat and treat my body this way, the more positive my results are. Last time, my only real issue was a vitamin D deficiency - I've since been taking 2000 IU's daily but will probably cut that back to 1000 pending my lab work. Now that spring is around the corner I'll be able to get out in the sun a lot over the next 6 or 7 months - which would be my ultimate and first choice for vitamin D supplementation!

I'm re-adjusting my macronutrient ratios to benefit me with my recent switch in my workouts for maximum results. I have upped my carbohydrate intake to about 30g per day and upped my protein way up to 200g per day. For the first time ever, I entered in all the foods I eat in one day into an online program called FitDay. It's a real cool website that you can chose foods from the list (they have every food you can imagine in their database) or add your own custom foods to and it comes up with the exact ratios both numerically and as a pie graph.

After some tweaking, I finally got everything exactly where I wanted it to be. Fat at 60% - Protein at 35% - Carbs at 5%. Perfect! If I cared about calories, I'd further emphasize that this puts me at 2500 calories per day, which according to the "gurus" of body building and weight loss, is exactly 500 calories below my maintenance level and optimum for fat loss and building muscle. But I don't... Just put it out there because it was part of my results once my foods were entered and my macros were figured out.

Also, for the first time ever, because my protein and fat consumption is very important to me, I actually weighed out my all my meats today. I used a digital postal scale that my brother gave me a while back. Did you know a paper plate weighs 0.2 oz? Bet ya didn't! lol

Food for the day:

B: 6 cage free scrambled eggs cooked in 2T of clarified organic butter w/ some green pepper slices mixed in.

L: A big salad w/ lettuce, sliced green and red pepper, fresh mushrooms, cucumber, 8 oz. grilled chicken breast, 3T olive oil, 1T fresh squeezed lemon juice.

Pre-workout: 4 oz. roasted beef and 1T of organic virgin coconut oil - this stuff is so good I can drink it - which I did... right off the spoon :)

Workout

D: 8 oz. of roasted beef, steamed asparagus sauteed in 2T organic clarified butter with some sea salt and pepper.

As always, a ton of water throughout my day.