Bodybuilding Forums

Hey there,

Some brief details about me:

im 27 years old, male, around 5,10 tall, weigh in at around 11.5 stone. I have had a lot of stomach problems over the years and had a hiatus hiernia and barratts osphegus which eventually led to me having an operation (nissan fundoplication) ever since then i have had issues with eating and my stomach in general still (swapped old problems for new ones) i seem to get very very bloated i start off flat in the morning then by the end of the day i bloat like a balloon. I suffer from real low energy as well somedays i can spend a few days doing nothing but sleeping i feel like i have been drained. I have all sorts of tests done and have had so many tubes in me i dont think they could do much more. They have said that i dont have celliacs disease or anything similar my bowls and everything they say are fine but still i have this incessant bloating and i tend to have to go to the toilet (embarrasingly often and can vary in how solid #2's) a lot. I have been put down now by the doctor as suffering from IBS however i have tried cutting out certain foods and groups and cant pin point it down to anything in particular. I have tried a low carb (100g per day or less) high fat and high protein diet. This seemed to do wonders for a little while but then all of a sudden i seemed to suffer a huge slump of energy and got quite ill. I have tried high protein, moderate carbs and fats and again i still seem to not quite get where i want to be. I seem to find it incredibly difficult to build muscle and for how well i eat and the excercise i do you would not look at me and think that guy works out. I for some reason seem to stay as a skinny fat person barely change and i am getting so fed up with it. I have just yesterday bought some digestive enzymes to try as reading up it says that sometimes issues can be caused when you dont have enough of them and i suppose if im not digesting my food properly then i wont be getting the nutrients and grams of things i think i am. If any one has had any similar problems or knows of something that might help i would be eternally grateful i just dont know where to turn i really want to get going with Marks THT training which i plan to do this week when i pull myself out of this slump i am in. If anyone out there has any ideas, suggestions or previous knowledge of a condition like this and can shed any light for me id love to hear from you. I am 27 but feel at times like im 87 with the lack of energy i have and i hate it i have so much drive in me to do so much and i want more than anything to be able to do it and also to get in shape finally.

Thank you for reading and im sorry if it sounds a little sombre but im feeling a bit down today as i write this.

Thank you in advance to any that have any ideas

Nickysoprano

Oh and by the way i forgot to mention,

Currently i have been eating 6 - 7 times a day, making sure i was getting around 200g of protein a day and decent levels of carbs and healthy fats, I supplement my diet with PHD Pharma gain and PHD Pharma Whey, creatine capsules and as of today i have started taking 1 x deigestive enzyme tablet with each meal of the day to see if this gives me any benefit.

Work out wise (as i say i am going to be switching over to THT shortly)

I train twice a week monday and thursday normally as i have a very active job as well and find that i need the extra days for recovery.

My first workout looks like this:
3 sets squat 8 reps
3 sets bench press 8 reps
3 sets flyes 12 reps
3 sets bench dips 12 reps

second is:
3 sets deadlift 8 reps
3 sets shoulder press 8 reps
3 sets dumbell curls 12 reps
3 sets shrugs 12 reps

i keep a log of the weight i lift and each session make a small increase in weight per excercise. I was following this from reading the beyond brawn books and thought it seemed like a good way to train at the time however from reading the THT 3.0 book from Mark it seems like i have been doing a lot of work in comparisson to what the THT workout employs, could i be overtraining myself on this workout?

meals during the day are spaced around 3 hours apart and i try to do it from as much whole food as possible on a bad day my three snacks between meals will be my protein shakes however i try to keep these to two a day rather than make a habbit of three a day.

anyway just thought i should give you some more details in order to make a judgement.

Nicky,
I can't comment on your stomach problems as I'm not a doctor.
I can recommend a good book though-it helped me a lot with my IBS
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Gut-Healing- ... 293&sr=8-1

As for the weight training, I'm skinny too, but have made real gains with TA2, and am thinking of switching to TA3. Stick with it!

Oh yeah, you mention your tummy problems, have you tried cutting out the whey protein and using powdered egg protein instead? The reason I ask is that I'm lactose intolerant after a nasty bout of food poisoning, and it was whey protein shakes and bars that were the worst for me as they're high in dairy.
I don't take creatine either as my tummy is delicate, and if yours is then just keep it simple. With a good diet and the right exercise (thanks to Mark) you'll make it through.

bootsyjam wrote:Oh yeah, you mention your tummy problems, have you tried cutting out the whey protein and using powdered egg protein instead? The reason I ask is that I'm lactose intolerant after a nasty bout of food poisoning, and it was whey protein shakes and bars that were the worst for me as they're high in dairy.

It's the poor-quality whey protein you were buying that was the problem. If you go to the zero-carbohydrate or low-carbohydrate stuff, you won't suffer from your lactose intolerance. Lactose is a sugar, and if all sugars are removed from the protein, there's nothing to be intolerant of!

I've been lactose-intolerant for 7 years now. Both IsoPure (0 carb) and EAS Pure Premium (~2g carb per serving) treat my tummy just fine!