Thread: Looking for a little advice...

Hi Saera!

Here's what I personally do:

I do 3-4 weight training sessions a week.

My goal is not really to build muscle. But through weight training you'll keep your lean body mass, which will keep your metabolism high. Unless you're a beginner, building muscle requires a calorie surplus anyway, so since you'll be creating a calorie deficit you won't be building that much muscle anyway even if it were your goal to do that at the same time as losing fat.

In addition, weight training has a good 'afterburn' effect, especially intense weight training, which means that you'll be burning more calories in general for almost two days after an intense weight lifting session.

My weight training sessions are never longer than 30-45 minutes. I often do 'antagonistic supersets', which basically means that I switch between muscle groups for each set. For example, 1 set of 8 reps dumbbell bench press, and immediately 1 set of 8 reps barbell row... and that sequence 4 times. And I do the same with other muscle groups.

I'll always use that as a basis.

Next, to program my body for losing fat, I create a structural calorie deficit.

I tend to do that through calorie cycling, so my body never adapts to a lower calorie input. Whenever I've had about 5 days of low calorie days, I do 1 or 2 higher calorie days to signal to my body that there's plenty of food available (a.k.a. no 'famine' coming up), and that it's safe to keep burning calories.

Other than that, I focus on whole, unprocessed foods, 5-6 meals spread across the day, and a protein source in each of them.

When I really go all out and want results fast, here's another thing you can do:

- Go low carb on the low calorie days;
- Go high carb on the high calorie days;
- Make sure you do one of your intense weight lifting sessions on a high calorie day;

I use all the above as a foundation.

Next, I add as much other activity as I possibly can to this foundation. That'll all be additional calories that your body will get out of its fat stores.

For example, I add a 30-45 minute cardio session to this 4 or 5 times a week. For example, I use the elliptical machine. And then I go at about 75% of my max heart rate for 4 minutes, and then 30 seconds to 1 minute full-out sprint... until I've finished the 30 minutes (or 45 max). It's gruelling, but extremely effective.

Also, I take my bike to buy groceries and go to friends and things like that. Like I said, I just take every opportunity to add physical activity (walking, cycling, etc.).

Oh yes, and each week I take one day off completely from physical activity.

Hope that helps...

Replace things in your diet that are harder to digest with things that are more easily digestible. For instance, for fruits, apricots and figs are easily digestible. For veggies, almost anything except things in the cabbage family. The key is to rid your body of the "excess" by eating foods that will travel easily through your system.

I eat a lot of beans, but if you're not used to eating that much fiber they will likely cause gas. However, Beano is an excellent way to avoid that. (take one or two before you eat the beans). Also, drink lots and lots of water. Whatever you would normally drink in a day, double it to start out with and then keep adding.

As for workout, I think the other poster gave you great advice. The only thing I do differently is I do two days a week of pretty intense cardio. Push yourself. If you start now, you've got plenty of time to make some changes in your body. Get into an aerobics class a couple days a week, and then weight train the other days. On the day you take "off" from exercise, take a nice walk or something not straining but that will keep your body moving.

Good luck!

You've gotten some great advice ... and I'm going to add my bit!

Not going to go into an entire workout routine but some basic sort of stuff.

IF you do not have time to do a complete workout 3x a week (plus cardio), take a break for 15 minutes a couple times a day and do lunges.

Real lunges now - long steps, knee almost to the floor (don't touch your knee to the floor - it can cause impact stress), back straight. If you have dumbells or other weights (start with soup cans if you're not used to any weight at all - I'm at about 15lbs and can do 13 reps; my reps are approximately 5 lunges each), then hold the weights in your hands as you do the lunges. Doing lunges will tighten your core and your rear and your legs. Make sure you stretch stretch stretch (as with any workout routine).

Typically (before I moved to my temporary address), I would do my lunges after my leg workouts - Monday was Back & Bi's, Tuesday was Chest & Tri's, then Thursday (because you should always have at least 1 day rest between workout days - if you can't, then get your push/pull back to back but most definitely a day between legs) was Legs & ... shoot I forgot, but legs.

If you only have a couple of days a week that you can get in your 30-45 min workout (remember that if you are going longer than an hour it is actually worse on your muscles - you will overwork and overtrain and it's not good for you) and you want to do weights, then do a push/pull on 1 day, rest a day, then do your legs. (Push/Pull is putting back/bi's, chest/tri's together in one day)

Remember your cardio - always do a warm up and a cool down and depending on your age etc, keep track of your heart rate. I'm 25 - my heart rate for Fat Burn is between 117 and 137 and my heart rate for Cardio is between 137 and 157 and my max heart rate is 195. *On Cardio - most people prefer to go by the 'standard' ... a Fat Burn burns 60% of cals, and a Cardio burns 40% of cals (however doing Cardio - or High Intensity, for the same amount of time as Fat Burn - or Low Intensity, burns more calories - you need to decide what you are more comfortable with). The best thing to do, I think, is to not push too hard and do the talk test - if you can talk while doing cardio, then you are in a good area.

*To figure out your numbers, you can use this:
220-age=x
x-resting heart rate=y
y*60%or65% for low end (a) or y*80%or85% for high end (b)
a+resting heart rate = bottom end of your target heart rate
b+resting heart rate = high end of target heart rate

So for fat burn you want to be at the bottom end (even lower), and for cardio you want to be anywhere higher than the bottom end.

You mentioned your food intake - it is extremely important to eat within an hour of getting up. I do my cardio for 30 minutes right after waking, then eat breakfast right after. Doing your cardio first thing uses up your stored energy, and really sets your body in motion for the day. Eating after allows your body to replenish itself. If you don't feel like eating after the cardio, drink a protein shake (you could even make a smoothie and pop in a scoop of protein powder if you don't like the taste). You should be eating about 6 times a day to keep your metabolism steady. Breakfast, snack 2.5 to 3 hours later, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. You should never eat within an hour of going to bed. Unless I'm staying up late (ha, like 10 or 11pm) I never eat past 8pm. My husband has a protein shake 20 minutes before bed - but he has entirely different goals.

You should definitely have 1 day off a week if you are going hard. And do your training in 8 week increments - 8 weeks hard, then take a week off. Your body needs to have a break once in a while and when you go back you will lose some ground but your body will thank you for the break.

Something that always worked for me (of course this is my 'area' - everyone seems to have 1 particular area that just responds amazingly) is hitting a speedbag. Man I love to just go for hours. Last time I used one I timed myself and in 5 minutes I hit it 1500+ times (of course, that was quite a few years ago now). Awesome. And it did amazing things for my back and core muscles. They tightened up and I could cut out any other training and have myself a 6-pack of abs just doing that. So I also suggest finding out what your 'thing' is and have fun with it!!

Lots of people (like the above poster said an aerobics class) enjoy tai-bo and kickboxing etc - those things will also get your entire body moving. That's the key if you have little time - do something that is going to kick your entire body's arse in one session.

join a boxing gym and eat right

boxing is a perfect way to loose weight

Hi

join a swimming and eat right

I think swimming is a perfect way to loose weight, also to keep fit .

Thanks