Food for thought

What you eat and how much you eat is the MOST important factor in determining what you want to look like. In the most simple form nutrition is this: if you eat more then your body is burning (metabolizing) everyday you will gain weight/tissue; if you eat less then your body is burning everyday you will lose weight/tissue.

For anyone seriously starting a diet, fitness or bodybuilding regiment I highly suggest using one of the many 'nutrition calculators' online. A simple one is this Nutrition Calculator . These calculators are often only good at telling you by your age/weight/height what it will take to 'maintain' your current weight. To build muscle you need to take in more calories than you are burning because your body needs to have the energy and nutrients available to build new tissue that wasn't previously there. Its like trying to build an addition to your house but you run to of bricks, construction stops. When I run this calculator with my weight (150 LB) it tells me that I need about 2100 calories, 180 grams of protein, 230 grams of carbs and 40 grams of fat. I know from personal experience that this is not enough to satisfy my daily needs. In reality I get around 3000 calories , 250 grams of protein, 320 grams of carbs and about 70 grams of fat. A typical meal break down on a day I go to the gym will look like this:

Wake up - 6am

1st meal - 6:30am
90 carbs, 30 protein, 15 fat

2nd meal - 9:30 am
45 carbs, 35 protein, 12 fat

3rd meal - 12:30 pm
45 carbs, 35 protein, 12 fat

4th meal (pre workout meal) 3:30 pm
45 carbs, 35 protein, 5 fat

Gym - 4:30

5th meal (post workout meal) 6- 6:30pm
45 carbs, 50 protein, 4 fat

6th meal - 9 pm
30 carbs, 30 protein, 10 fat

7th meal - 10:30 pm
20 carbs, 35 protein, 8 fat

Sleep

This works for me but may not work for everyone. My current traning goals dont have me exceed 155 pounds because I dont want to get much 'larger' then I already am. For my height and frame I feel exceeding 155 pounds in total weight would start looking funny, even if it was mainly muscle. If I ate more I could potentially achieve 175 pounds but I have no desire to. That's my personal preference, I just don't want to look like johnny bravo. For clarity, the guy on the right I would consider to wide for his height...you start looking like a cartoon character. The guy on the left is what I shoot for, though i'm slightly thicker.

Joint Recovery and Supplements

This whole week I haven't been to the gym once. Its horribly boring. I recently mentioned I have a knee injury and how I have not been working out my legs because of it. I also recently developed a small injury in my left shoulder. I figured with all these things adding up I should give my body/joints/cartilage some time to heal up. If i'm not back to normal by this Sunday I'll be seeing a specialist. 

Working out (for me at least) started as a way to boost my self-confidence, then became a hobby, then a routine, then a habit and now its a part of how I identify with who I am. Not working out has been weird, I have a literal fear that I will look in the mirror one day and all my development will be gone. Obviously this isn't going to just 'happen'. However, knowing that if I don't properly rest my injuries may worsen or become permanent makes these fears a potential reality. So its worth it in the end.

Your cartilage and joints tear and heal kind of like your muscles do when you work out. They CAN get stronger by training them, but obviously wont if you continue to train while they are injured. In all my time training I had never considered or thought to take supplements for your joints other then fish oil. Fish oil, from off the top of my head just helps to lubricate your joints to prevent some of the wear and tear. After some research online, reading forums/articles and youtube videos I found out I should at least be taking  Glucosamine. Glucosamine helps heal your cartilage.

I bought TriFlex Extra Strength and have been taking 3 pills a day for the past 3 days.I probably wont see improvement for 2 weeks at least. Along with Glucosamine, TriFlex has MSM, Collagen and some herbs.

So all-in-all I take two multivitamins daily (morning/night), two fish oil pills (morning/night), three TriFlex pills (morning/afternoon/night) and 5g's of creatine mono hydrate...which I have only been taking for 2 weeks now.