Yeah, cottage cheese is particularly high in glutamine as "real" foods go. One reason I'm using it after workouts. But I still take some glutamine before bed on workout days.

I'm trying to devise a cocktail which incorporates glutamine attractively.

Emily

Margaritas - instead of salt on the rim, use glutamine!

<whine>But it's not SALTY!</whine>

Come to think of it, I had a horribly expensive Strawberry Mojito last night which would not have been harmed by a few grams of glutamine.

Emily

Yeah, might as well get something GOOD out of the nasty ones.

Well, besides the buzz, of course...

What else besides cottage cheese and whey protein is a fast protein for post WO? I'm also trying to find ways to up my protein without too much of an increase in calories during the normal day. Any suggestions?

Cottage cheese is a SLOW protein.

Whey is FAST.

And I avoid the fast ones post WO.

How about cycling your calories a bit? Higher on lifting days, lower on non-lifting days. Then you don't have to worry so much about them going up with your protein.

I have a question? Im gonna have to move my lifts to the morning, say 9-10ish due to the extreme 96 degree heat here (115 yesterday heat index) in the afternoon when I usually workout and the A/C in my workout area being out until dh has time to fix it. Yes it friggin HOT in there even with the big garage door open and trees shading it! So being up around 6am, what would be my best bet for breakfast around 7am on lifting days? I dont want to lift empty, but I also dont want to have a ton of heavy food on my stomach either. Any suggestions? (hmmmm, I wonder how family would feel about my weight bench in the middle of the living room, lol :0)

Sounds right.

I'd have a little something sweet again just before lifting too - maybe eggs at 6, and a pancake at 8:30?

What a wonderful link! I'm 1.67 Endo/Meso. That's me to a T. Easy to gain weight, hard to lose, but I build muscle pretty quick. Huge calves. Progress is very hard to track when you're building muscle before the fat comes off. But the thread has been a good reminder for me not to be impatient. I do this everytime and I should know better.

Anyway, I have a question. I take L-glutamine with my post WO shake, then on its own before bed. With my protein it's fine, but I find that I get an adrenaline-like rush when I take it on its own before bed. Anyone else have this problem?

Wanda

Not me.

???

Hey Built...thanks for posting in my journal. I want to lay out for you everything that I've been doing but I am out of town on business right now and haven't had the time. Not to mention, it will probably take less time for you to just give me some suggestions, rather spending your time completely tearing apart what I have been doing...not to say that you would do it in a mean way, just that I don't have a specific plan so my workouts and diet are very sporadic. But thanks for all your help nonetheless! I've found that as I'm building muscle, I'm getting bigger, clothes are tighter, etc. I am an endo/meso, so same situation as the girl above. Do you think I should wait to see results, and I'm wondering if I'm gaining fat on top of everything else? Frustrated as always, Starkat

starkat: I hope you don't mind if I answer this. I am a short endo/meso myself, and on top of that my body has an annoying tendency to retain pounds and pounds of water at the slightest provocation. So I do understand the need for patience.

I have had the same experience as you, with clothes getting tighter before they get looser. In addition, for me the scale absolutely does not behave so I can't rely on that. What I have noticed is that every time I go on a new training cycle, which for me has to include a fair amount of cardio if I want to take fat off, the following happens....

Week 1: I drop five pounds. No change in clothes.

Weeks 2-3: The five lbs come back with friends. (This cycle they came back with about seven friends.) Clothes seem about the same but the water retention is obvious in my face and skin.

Weeks 4-8: Scale does whatever it does. Clothes get looser in waist, but tighter in thighs and bust. I attribute this to growth in thigh and back muscle but the fat has not yet come off.

Weeks 9-12: If I stick with it, fat starts to come off. At the end of the cycle, clothing can be anywhere from a little to a LOT looser, but it is always looser. Again, scale does whatever it does. Usually by the end of a cycle I see a difference of at least 5 pounds, but I would imagine that more than 5lbs of fat is lost.

FWIW,

Emily

I guess we all need to be patient with our fat loss/muscle gains and not worry about the dang scale so much. It will be so cool to see where we all are by next summer. My original goal was to be able tuck a shirt in to a pair of jeans and not look like a link of sausage (I do not tuck in anything right now as my fat is mostly in my ab area). But now I want more, I WANT MUSCLE!

Ya know what I want? I want ENERGY! I'm working out religiously, upping my weights. I don't have trouble getting through my workouts---they're hard, I sweat like crazy, and I feel good when I'm done. But I'm dragging most of the time now and I'm not getting anything done. Having a very hard time keeping up with my little family of 8!

Honestly, I'm sick to death of analyzing everything I eat! What on earth do I need to do to lose weight, and have energy???? I can't afford a zillion supplements. Carbs would be so handy here but I'm such an addict that I'm scared to try the TKD.

Sorry to rant, but I'm just about to give up!

If you want to try TKD, you can start with only a LITTLE pre-workout carb...as little as 10 grams. Then go IMMEDIATELY to your workout and do it as hard as you can. Don't count the TKD carbs in your total for the day. Then you can keep raising the carbs by a few each time until you get to your most effective level, or to about 35g, whichever comes first. Men can go all the way up to 50g pre-WO carb, but because of our smaller muscle mass I don't think that's a good idea for us girls.

I also do 15-20 minutes of relatively easy cardio after the weight workout, to burn out the rest of the carbs and re-establish ketosis. And NO carbs in the post workout meal beyond what is naturally in cottage cheese.

Now, I'm not a carb addict, but my gf (who works out with me) is, and she's had no problems with pre-WO carbs. She doesn't even really do the post-WO cardio I do.

Emily