About nine months ago I noticed an increasing trend in my Google Analytics and decided to make my post, Starting Strength Results. Since publishing that article, the keyword has become my second top generator of site traffic (”parkour training” being first). Also, I have been getting numerous emails from people all over the world asking advice on Starting Strength.
I must repeat, I am no expert when it comes to lifting or SS and if you can ever get in touch with Mark Rippetoe, do. You will benefit so much more. However, since people are finding me, I will do my best to answer questions. Because of the recent influx of emails, I have decided to start making public posts with my responses. Please do continue sending me feedback, though, so I can make my site more informative and better suited to your needs.
This email comes from an anonymous poster:
Hey Dude!
I am about to embark upon the the Starting Strength (SS) program and managed to stumble across your blog when looking for results.
It made for a very interesting read. Congratulations on the result man! It can be pretty difficult to find solid info when it comes to weight training
on the internet. So much BS floating around. Anyway, I though I would drop you
an email to show my appreciation and ask a couple of questions. Hope that’s okay.
I noticed your stats at the start of the SS programme were pretty similar to my current stats.
You were:
Age – 21
Height – 5′ 9.5″
Weight – 152 lbs
%BF – 6.3
I am:
Sex – Male
Age – 24
Height – 5′ 9″
Weight – 140 lbs
%BF – pretty low – can see my abs.
I saw that you were on ~4000 kcal/day. Would it be correct to assume that you were getting roughly 2000 kcal from the gallon of milk added to your regular (2000 kcal) diet? Was that semi-skimmed milk or whole milk by the way?(1)
Could you breakdown your starting strength diet a bit for me – food sources & grams of fat/carbs/protein?(2)
I have been experimenting with my diet over the past year. I would say that I maintain at ~2500 kcal/day and when on a cut I lose about 1-1.5 lbs/week on 2000 kcal. I am trying to finalise my diet before I begin the starting strength program. I was ready to go with 2800 kcal/day without the gallon of milk for building mass. If I were to add a gallon milk (8 pints = 8 x 255 kcal = 2040 kcal, assuming semi-skimmed milk) to my regular 2500 kcal diet (as recommended by Ripptoe) my caloric intake would be > 4500 kcal/day! This seems like an unnecessarily large surplus to me. The milk alone would be like 80 grams of fat! Sorry, I should probably just try it rather than ask questions. Ripptoe must be right after all!(3)
Anyway, as 4000 kcal worked so well for you, and I think we are quite similar, I was wondering what you would advocate in my case? Can I ask what your calorie maintenance level is? The fact that you only went from 7 to 8% body fat when getting 4000 kcal is amazing. You most likely have better than average genetics.(4)
I see you put on 18 lbs of lean muscle to satisfy your goal – I have a similar goal. I don’t want to get huge. I just want to get a bit stronger and bigger – regardless of whether this means following the SS programme to its conclusion or not. I reckon 20 lbs of lean muscle would do it for me.
Some additional info about me: I would say that I am a naturally athletic person. I have a pretty active background – I used to run and play badminton at competitive level. I run 8 k every other day at the moment (this will stop when I begin SS).(5)
Thanks again for posting all your progress. It’s really appreciated.
Cheers,
A
Ok, here we go:
First off, the log on this website started when I was 152 lbs however I was ~145-147 lbs when I initially began.
1. I never actually tracked my diet. When I did SS I was also a full-time student with two part-time time jobs. Calorie counting was NOT one of my top priorities, gaining weight was. I usually only tracked weight once a week to find fluctuations.
The milk was whole and I only recommend whole. I grew up on skim-milk and my mother is a product of the lipid hypothesis hysteria. However, whole milk is one of the cheapest ways to get calories, adding about 3200 kcals a day to a power lifter’s diet.
To anyone considering doing SS: drink the milk. It is easily the best tool available to a novice to put on weight.
2. I can only give a rough estimate at best of my calorie partitions. I did SS relatively “clean” and was probably around 40f/20c/40p. Near the end, I actually started losing weight (weird…) and bumped my fat up to around 60% to get enough calories.
3. Fallacy number one: you will NOT be able to maintain your same eating habits while on SS + milk. It will not happen. You are going to feel full the entire day from milk and you are also going to feel rather fat. It happens. Get over it. I could barely pound out one full meal a day because of the milk.
Your best bet is to start increasing your milk to near gallon/day levels, then go full swing into SS and track how you feel. Your meals must be re-evaluated after this period.
4500 kcals a day is hard to maintain. Realistically you will be around 4000. Forget about the fat grams. The lipid hypothesis is wrong and to this day I remain in an amazingly healthy shape and get ~50-60% of my daily calories from fat.
4. My caloric maintenance is currently around 2200 kcals/day at roughly 157 lbs. My recent loss in weight is due to personal dietary reasons, coupled with the fact that I enjoy being a smaller framed person. Now I’m smaller, but stronger. I have never been over 10% bodyfat (near the end of SS I was around 9.5%). Once you are at a desired weight, cutting the milk easily takes care of excess fat pounds.
5. I went from 145 lbs to 167-170 extremely fast. I have always been a physically adept person and it probably helped that I was able to start squatting body-weight right off the bat. I also rarely, if ever, stayed at one exercise weight. I was increasing my squat 5#’s every workout fairly consistently from 225# to 300#. For most people, I would say expect to stay on SS for about 3-4 months.
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I hope this new approach to answering questions is effective and if there are any questions not answered through this method please email me.
I wish everyone luck in their fitness endeavors!
Charles