Bad Routine or Bad Diet? Please Help!!!

[TheRegime]

I am 6 foot 5 and 235lbs and using the waist and neck measurement body fat calc it says Im around 20% fat.. I am sort of skinny fat and have been hitting the gym consistently for about 6 months. My lifts have went up but some have plateaued also my muscle mass has increased but not as much as it should. Is it my routine or my diet causing this? I will list both below, please offer any insight or suggestions to help me bust plateaus especially bench, as well as gain more mass and strength, thanks.

I have a desk job and workout 5times a week and run playing sports 3 times a week.

Routine:
Chest day, leg day, shoulder day, leg day, repeat - rest day every 3 or 4 days.

I do 3 sets of each exercise doing 15/10/5 - I try to push my 5 rep max as much as possible to break my own records.

Chest day:
-flat bench or flat db press
-incline db press
-decline hammer smith machine
-back db row
-back cable row
-lat pulldown
-bicep exercise
-tricep exercise

Leg day:
-squat or dead lift(it alternates)
-calf raise
-quad machine
-hamstring curl machine
-lunges or step ups with db's
-leg press

Shoulder day:
-shoulder press machine
-seated db press or standing military press -sometimes both
-front pulls with barbell (where you lift it straight up to your chin - elbows flare out to the side)
-shrugs
-a back row exercise
-lat pulldown
-bicep exercise
-tricep exercise

I do ab work at the end of each day.

Diet(normal meal plan I eat in a day -Im thinking it isnt enough):

Breakfast:
protein shake
2 cups of skim milk 180cal 0g fat 26g carb 18g prot
2scoop protein-260cals -2g fat -6g carb -60g prot

Lunch:
ham and cheese sandwich and bowl of soup
bread - 130cals 1.5g fat 25g carbs 5g prot
ham 4 slices 200cals 10g fat 4g carb 20g prot
cheese 120cal 8g fat 4g carb 6g prot
mushroom soup 240cal 18g fat 16g carb 4g prot

Dinner:
Chicken breast 280cals 6g fat 0g carb 55g prot
Rice 205cals 0.5g fat 45g carb 4g prot
Asparagus 20cals 0g fat 4g carb 2g prot

Pre workout Musclepharm Assault:
40 cal 10g carb

Post workout shake:
protein shake
2 cups of skim milk 180cal 0g fat 26g carb 18g prot
2scoop protein-260cals -2g fat -6g carb -60g prot

Late Night Snack(usually dinner left over or beef jerky):
half dinner 253cals 3g fat 24g carb 30g prot

Totals for regular day:
2368cals
51g fat -459cals
196g carb - 784cals
282g prot -1128cals

rounded off a few #'s so the total using the fat carb and prot is 2371cals.

Again any help would be appreciated. Any info on how much calories/fat/carbs/prot I should be getting for my body size.

[magician27]

first of all , get rid of those splits where u hit bodyparts once a week and train bodyparts more frequently, i recommend upper lower or push pull legs rest repeat.second i see you are surely on caloric deficit.you have to be on caloric surplus. you dont gain ounce like that . 2300 is like a starvation diet for you.you are eating as much as a little girl. working out 5 times a week , being 6'5 235 lb guy , you need something around 4 k calories if not more . i workout 5 times a week and i consume 3300 at 5'10 160 lbs , think about it.. your fat intake is too low.fats are used in hormone production which builds muscle. increase your fats to 100 grams and your carbs to 400-450 grams. so except protein double what you are eating

[TheRegime]

first of all , get rid of those splits where u hit bodyparts once a week and train bodyparts more frequently, i recommend upper lower or push pull legs rest repeat.second i see you are surely on caloric deficit.you have to be on caloric surplus. you dont gain ounce like that . 2300 is like a starvation diet for you.you are eating as much as a little girl. working out 5 times a week , being 6'5 235 lb guy , you need something around 4 k calories if not more . i workout 5 times a week and i consume 3300 at 5'10 160 lbs , think about it.. your fat intake is too low.fats are used in hormone production which builds muscle. increase your fats to 100 grams and your carbs to 400-450 grams. so except protein double what you are eating

I kind of thought that. I am just eating what my GF makes me for lunch and dinner. Always thought it was a little low but never did the actual math. Seems quite low since normal person is 2500cals and I am a big guy and trying to gain. Any ideas on how to increase my intake without spending lots of money? Also you say increase carbs a ton but leave protein the same? Is282g enough for me to gain muscle mass?

[SkydogGinsberg]

The good news is ... at least you know how much you're eating. That's more knowledge than a lot. It's just not enough food. Realistically, you can do just fine w/ minimum P = .82g/lb BW or 193g/day. Your dietary fat is really low and need to bring that up for proper hormone balance. Figure .45g/lb BW or minimum 106g/day. Going over both those is fine, in any combination of P/F/C that works out for appropriate calorie balance.

You'll have to determine maintenance calorie level by observation, but a ballpark guess of your stats, it's around 3200. It may be even higher, as you're active with other sports, too. Since you're fairly new, you might be able to get away w/ eating at maintenance for awhile and maybe shed some body fat whilst making some muscle gain. Eventually that will diminish, and you'll have to go into a surplus.

Move up to 3200, see what happens in 2-3 weeks regarding your lifts and weight gain/loss. Also, as magician indicated, the split isn't helping -- lack of per part frequency. Do a full body or at least an upper/lower so you can hit everything 2-3x/week.

Determinednoob has a good list of program and nutrition info over here: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=151032123

[magician27]

I kind of thought that. I am just eating what my GF makes me for lunch and dinner. Always thought it was a little low but never did the actual math. Seems quite low since normal person is 2500cals and I am a big guy and trying to gain. Any ideas on how to increase my intake without spending lots of money? Also you say increase carbs a ton but leave protein the same? Is282g enough for me to gain muscle mass?

protein is more than enough. you will just increase your carb intake mainly and fat intake. protein is expensive but carbs are cheap. i think you can afford potatoes, rice, pasta ,oatmeal etc. one of the cheapest sources for both carb and protein is also beans. canned beans are pretty cheap. fats can be a bit more expensive also. get some nuts or peanut butter . you can find cheap ones. to be honest food shopping costs some when you are eating a lot of food to gain weight but you can allways find some cheap options

[SkydogGinsberg]

fats can be a bit more expensive also. get some nuts or peanut butter . you can find cheap ones.

In addition ^^, OP, switch from skim milk - use 2% or whole milk. More cheese, olives, butter ... inexpensive meats like chuck/pot roasts ... olive oil,

[DaniMob]

use olive oil , it's pretty cheap and full of fat . you can use it on everything you eat , if you're hardcore even put a teaspoon of olive oil in your shakes to up your calories and fat intake

[TheRegime]

Thanks everyone I can definately up my carbs and fat. Its weird to hear that. I was a former far kid 6 foot 5 350+ for a while. So I know how to eat haha.

I would like some clarification on what you mean by changing my routine. You want me to do full body every day? I do chest leg shoulder leg rest repeat. So I hit upper every 2nd day and lower every 2nd. Are you saying I should hit every body part every 2nd day so shoulder and chest shouldn't be seperate?

If someone could list a routine that fits most of the exercises I do that would help thanks.

Reps for all!!!!!!!

[TheRegime]

Bump for routine help.

[magician27]

i recommend you hit everything twice a week . upper lower splits are good. your program is not bad , just the way you name it is bad , and needs little structure.

[TheRegime]

i recommend you hit everything twice a week . upper lower splits are good. your program is not bad , just the way you name it is bad , and needs little structure.

So you are saying make sure to have 2 leg days a week. And hit shoulders and chest twice a week. I could always just combine my chest and shoulders into an upper body day. Then just do upper lower twice a week each.

[SkydogGinsberg]

So you are saying make sure to have 2 leg days a week. And hit shoulders and chest twice a week. I could always just combine my chest and shoulders into an upper body day. Then just do upper lower twice a week each.

The link in post #4 has several programs that take much guesswork out of this (as well as other program parameters such as volume, intensity, deload, progression rate, ....)

Particularly since you have an expressed interest of "I try to push my 5 rep max as much as possible to break my own records." That a pretty strong candidate for Starting Strength, StrongLifts, ICF 5x5, Reg Park, Greyskull LP, etc...

[magician27]

So you are saying make sure to have 2 leg days a week. And hit shoulders and chest twice a week. I could always just combine my chest and shoulders into an upper body day. Then just do upper lower twice a week each.

well yea if hitting everything twice a week , why not hitting legs too . i combine chest back and do some shoulders on one of my upper body days. delts are getting good workout from chest and back exercises. if you just shoulder press once a week and add some lateral raises somewhere you will be good.

[TheRegime]

Thanks to everyone. Ill try to rep all who helped. I started added some supplementary legs to my upper days and shoulder and chest to my leg days.

But I think the biggest thing I was missing was eating like a fat kid. Needed tons more carbs and fat. Ive been shoving in the pasta and rice and olive oil. Maybe some fast food haha.

But it all paid off. After a week of eating everything in sight I just crushed 9 personal records in 1 day. I worked out longer than normal almost hour and a half.I dididn't gas out at all. I feel f**king amazing.

Reps to everyone.