ISO Routine

cormie

I know everyone is different, but is there a diet and fitness routine that can be agreed upon by all professionals as a good guide that everyone can follow regardless of their weight/fitness level?

So taking that you get 8 hours sleep a night, that leaves 16 hours of awake time and say have your last meal 2 hours before you go to bed, so that's 14 hours to divide your daily intake of food into.

Something along the lines of eat 8 small meals a day so one every 2 hours and then fit in some exercise too. You would need a routine that would work your whole body both in cardio and toning too if desired.

So basically, what would be recommended in terms of what meals to have, to fit in enough protein, fibre, carbs and everything else, and then what would be recommended in terms of exercise.

So if you could write an ISO guide that could suit everyone, what would you put in it? Super Foods like Spirulina are of course ok to add, but not any supplements that some people may not be able to take.

Boru.

Hi Cormie,

The quick answer is no. I'm afraid your asking for the impossible - there is no diet or exercise program that could be agreed upon by every professional :rolleyes: - or at any rate if there were, it would be so generic as to be worthless for most people.

There is however one principal that the BEST professionals all agree on - SPECIFICITY. What works for someone else may not work for you. Furthermore what you define as healthy eating and exercise habits may be overkill or equally completely inadequate for the person standing beside you.

In an answer to your first paragraph and request I'm afraid any answer (e.g. full body weight lifting routine of 10-12 reps, 3 times a week plus cardio sessions for 45 - 60 minutes every other day combined with an approximately 2000 kcal diet) would be totally useless to you.

The BEST ADVICE - I can offer you, as a fitness professional, is to establish clear defined goals.

By this I mean write down you top 10 goals for the next year - then the next 6 months, then for every month till of those 6 months, then for every week, finally for every day.

Create extremely precise and defined goals - with REALISTIC deadlines and this, more than anything, will dictate your diet and your workout program.

Two examples to illustrate -

1.) I want to lose 12 lbs of FAT (notice I didn't, just 12 lbs, that could be anything, water / muscle or fat - be specific). Okay to lose 12 lbs of fat at roughly 2 lbs a week, it will take me 6 weeks.

Mark that date in a calendar - then for each of those 6 weeks, write in your weekly target - e.g. Week 1 200 lbs. Week 2 180lbs. Week 3 160lbs.

Alternatively this could be with very specific information like your body fat %. E.g. Goal is to drop from 14% Bodyfat to 9% bodyfat – this will take 5 weeks.

In order to achieve this goal of losing 12 lbs you need to go on a calorie restricted diet, to create a negative calorie balance and perform lots of low intensity cardio every morning before breakfast. It would also be necessary to lift weights at least 3 times a week. (For the non existent average person). So now you need to find out how many calories you need, how many to cut, break that down into which macro-nutrients you need, then break that down per meal etc.

2.) I want to gain 12lbs of lean muscle – at ½ - 1 lbs of muscle a week this will take up to 24 weeks. Again break it down, year, months, and weeks. Okay different goal, different method. In this case you need a calorie surplus, reduced cardio and increased weight lifting with different reps.

There is no one generic piece of advice anyone can give you, or anyone else, save this – read, learn and do what works for you for your specific goals – THEN DO IT!

An excellent place to start is the sticky posts in this forum.

Best of luck.