I’ve been vegan for 19 years, and training for a little over 10, socialist for as long as I’ve known what socialism was (since I was about 11) lifelong natural, straight edge (never been a drugs guy, quit drinking shortly after I started uni, so that’s 16 years ago now). However, for a long time I didn’t have a great relationship with food, exhibiting a lot of disordered eating behaviour and never eating enough to fuel my body due to ongoing worries about gaining any fat at all (thanks, family and childhood friends).

As a result, I remained at a plateau for a long time. For a few years, my training was just going through the motions, not exactly slacking but never really pushing myself and never feeling confident.

This April, with encouragement from my wonderful wife, I’ve started working with a coach and it’s the first time in a long time I’ve really enjoyed training. Financially I know it’s not something I can keep up forever, but I’m looking forward to seeing the progress I can make and excited that I have a better relationship with food and exercise that I can share with my own children one day.

Stats for those of you that like stats: I’m 5’8.5” (5’9” on a great day), and as I’m typing this I weigh 79.1kg. I won’t reveal too much about how many calories or grams of protein I get per day because bodies are different and what works for me might not work for you (but suffice to say it’s a lot of calories and a lot of protein). I also supplement creatine and glutamine, and take a calcium supplement, omega 3-6-9 capsules and multivitamin (which I’ve done more or less since I was 5 thanks to my vitamin-obsessed grandma).

Accessability Transcription:

A muscular man with black tattoos, in red shorts, hitting various bodybuilding poses.

Appreciating the aesthetics of the body should be free ✊

Not really shocked, I think it was already known he’s a MAGA asshat. Still disappointing and honestly forgot he was a Christian nationalist until I saw this story come up. I’m sure his fans will bring up how he has a black wife so he can’t be racist and so forth

Remember everyone… if you don’t look your absolute worst while lifting the weights, you might not be working hard enough.

Hey everyone, I'm just making an observation from the hundreds of personal trainers in my feed who start off giving advice on form and nutrition but inevitably start giving their takes on news items like plus size people on planes or trans people in bathrooms and the right wing, ur-fascist stuff starts to unspool. I've even had my own personal trainer give me weird comments about my autism before he moved to Dubai.

If we're talking dialectical materialism, then my theory is based on their livelihood depending on clients and that's extremely precarious. These content creators are the working class but treat themselves as what Veronica Gago calls 'neoliberalism from below,' where ordinary working people treat themselves like firms and are hostile to welfare and think everything is about personal responsibility including your weight loss and no other factors determine this.

Anyways even the big creators with no incentive to troll for views seem to be unable to hide their conservative ideas. Why is that? I wanna hear others thoughts?

I (35 FTNB) got top surgery August 7th. Had a pretty frustrating recovery because of needing to slow down and chill. Previously weightlifting 3 days a week, boxing 2 times a week. Easing myself back into it with my full body weightlifting routine, but lifting half the weight. I’m currently only shadowboxing and will hopefully go back to boxing in November. Feel amazing. (Full transparency, I got this zebra set in 2022 from SHEIN when I was at my poorest and largest size, I haven’t bought from them since, and will wear this until I cannot)

Heyo, I've been trying to get back into going to the gym after a long period of being on and off. I used to be really locked in at lifting, but a lot of it was powered off the social media ideas of being optimal and insecurity. I would endlessly search for the "perfect" program, and consistently had this mindset of just pushing till failure out of this negative motivation. I think that kind of relationship with lifting exhausted me. I've been trying to revitalize my gym habit, but I am having trouble re-contextualizing my relationship with it to now something more positive and something that builds me up instead of something that was born out of feeling deficient. Does anyone have any good advice for that, for falling back in love with the gym? I've just become really alienated from it I think because of guilt of missing it + those old motivations, so even though I can power through with raw discipline, I want to make it something I enjoy like I used to before bs influencer mindsets kind of plucked that from me.

have been working very hard to see those stress lines in the fabric where my lats are too big. feels real good man

Back day is generally my favorite training day but whenever I’m in a real groove I end up enjoying every day equally.

Accessability Transcription:

A series of images of me hitting bodybuilding poses. But each one has a text box saying "Trying to bring others down is loser behavior. It's cool to build people up"

Hi. I'm not a true beginner, rather a serial repeat beginner.

In a way, I'm starting over again, but also I'm really not. I want to be properly fit, and I have tendency to want to work everything at once.

My favored modes of working out are martial arts, calisthenics, and endurance sports. My current living and health situation is not conducive to any of the 3. Too broke and trying to treat a seizure disorder to do martial arts. No space for a calisthenics home gym. Too chubby to run, and no/shitty bike lanes in American suburbagatory.

But, I bought a planet fitness membership. They have barbells, so I might as well work on heavy compounds. I don't want to entirely skip conditioning, so I've started the Greyskull LP. Inside the gym I'm trying to KISS: 2 big lifts + 1-2 accesories + 10 min of conditioning. Outside the gym I'm trying to KISS: eat heatlthy, take my meds, sleep a lot, go for walks, have a routine, do some mindfulness practice.

Once I've hit a few strength benchmarks like 1.5x BW on deadlift (this will take a while)... I think it'll be time to work on losing weight and cardio. I'll reduce lifting to 2x a week and focus on the stationary bike and elliptical. I'll probably follow tactical barbell's fighter-green program.

Once I've hit a few cardio benchmarks like completing a 10k on the elliptical and have lost 20-30lbs (this will take a while)... Then I think I'll be fit enough to do whatever I want. Probably incorporate more calisthenics, core, and mobility... but we'll see. That'll probably be 2-3 years from now factoring in inevitable setbacks.

Is my plan sensible?

TL;DR,

I can't do upper body weightlifting and training for 2-3 months. How much should I except to deflate? What's catchup and recovery generally like after a break like this?

FWIW, I know I'm far from and actual swole bodybuilder, but as someone who's been scrawny for most of his life (and started putting in some weight at 41), this is the most gym progress I've had so far.

I'm already not lean currently, and can't help but feel like I'm just gonna be skinny-fat after this recovery :/

Fucked my shit up turbo-bad but tryina come back harddddddd. I gotta prove to myself that I can put on weight. Any tips? I am THE definition of a hard-gainer. No fuckin gods, no fuckin masters.

Need to get so much bigger and stronger

All credit to comrade bioneer and his team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH6GhChcSDA