I need to eat around 3000 calories per day to support my powerlifting training, and if I don't eat something first thing in the morning with a shitload of carbs -- usually something like rolled oats, berries, and a few bananas -- then I'm usually gassed and feeling like crap by 10.
A few friends of mine fast intermittently and train in the morning before eating but it's beyond me how that is not just pure torture.
Can confirm. Did a year long dirty-bulk on a ketogenic diet while lifting heavy weights, got fat (and didn't really put on that much extra muscle either)...
That wasn't my point. My point is your distinction between "man-made" and "not-man-made" food is completely arbitrary and based on your personal preferences.
"When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head straight for the fish and meat counter"
Those pretty packages of meat are just as much "man made" as the foods you demonize. If you want to eat meat, I suggest hunting and only using your teeth and hands (claws?) to kill your prey and to eat the meat raw; gotta eat all of it too, no picking and choosing what parts you want either.
"If you want to eat that cupcake or enjoy that cold glass of beer be sure to exercise it off."
This is HORRIBLE advice. Treating exercise like a punishment for enjoying food is like a one-way ticket to Eating Disorder Town. Diet and exercise are important, but they should be used to compliment each other and not to negate being bad at the other.
Starting Strength is a fanastic resource about learning about the lifts. Personally, I think Mark Rippetoe's training programs are pretty crap but the information about the technical aspects of the lifts in the book are great.
Alan Thrall also has some videos on Youtube on the bench press that are fantastic too.
I got cocky as a novice, and fucked my back pretty bad and was out of comission for a 4 months or so. Got cocky chasing huge (for me, at the time) numbers and ended up losing way more progress than I gained. Minor things here and there in my shoulders and elbows, which I ended up fixing by tearing apart my own bench press form and being meticulous with ever part of the lift. Bench press is, in my opinion, the most technical lift of the big three.
Slow consistent progress wins out in the long run, I'm a huge fan of sub-maximal training and going for rep PRS and not maxing out often. I only compete at most twice per year, and don't bother going for max attempts when I'm not at a meet.
All of my training these days is based around the principles in Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 and I've slowly added my own tweaks and customizations over time to it and it hasn't let me down.
Don't neglect mobility work. It's boring, but it'll save you in the long run.
Been lifting with a focus on powerlifting for about 7 years, my last meet total was 515 squat, 585 deadlift and 336 bench at 185 lbs. Be patient, get on a tried program, put in the work, eat and sleep and it'll come.
That's unfortunate. Type 1 or 2 diabetes? My mother is T1 and she cannot do a low-carb diet because of the possibility of ketoacidosis, which she's already been hospitalized once for.
Eat less than 25g of carbohydrates per day, you will be in ketosis in about 24 hours when your liver glycogen is depleted. Drink lots of water, and suppliment electrolytes (sodium, magnesium, potasium -- drinking a cup of beef broth every day and using a "No-Salt" substitute on nearly all my food is what I do) to avoid the dreaded "keto flu".
A few friends of mine fast intermittently and train in the morning before eating but it's beyond me how that is not just pure torture.