Weight Loss

Iceman_5000

Hey all,

I'm 19, 86kg and 6 foot. I'm looking to loose some weight after a crazy year at college, as you can see from the stats!. I find i can put on muscle quite easily but i find it extremly difficult to lose any weight. I'm going to the gym 3 times a week now doing cardio and weights. I normaly do 1000m x2 on the rowing machine followed by 20min interval training on the thread mill. (1 min jog 1 min sprint) For weights i normally doing about 15 reps on 25kg to 35 kg on the stack machines. My diet at the start of the year was down right awful, from making pasta at 3am in the moring to drinking nothing but beer! Although now i have sorted my diet out partially eatting lots of chicken with brown rice. Breakfast is normally just ceral with milk lunch would be a chicken sandwidge. The only good thing is that i drink 2ls of water everyday and about 4/5 on work out days.

Also what is the best type of food to have stright after my work out? Finally would creatine or portein shakes be any to me?

I would appreciate some advice on my diet and workout!

Thanks

ali.c

To lose weight you need to eat 5-6 small meals a day. there is loads of info in the stickies but basically you need to calculate your calorific requirements, divide it by 6 and split it up between meals and make sure you get a lean source of complete protein at each meal. Not so sure what you mean by stack machines? Get some compound lifts into your program (deadlifts, squats and bench) and switch the cardio till after you weights.

Post workout, you are looking for an insulin spike, so your looking for carbs and complete protein. I take RAM, as the post workout meal is one of the most important ones to get right and it provides all the stuff needed. Supplements are well to supplement your diet, protein shakes like whey basically provide you with protein, they are handy but getting the rest of your diet sorted out first is more important!

Malteaser!

Intsead of wrting a long winded post and explaining everything I'm just gonna give you some pointers on what you should probably try:

-do your cardio after weights, it'll be better for fat burning. You want to come into the weights as fresh as possible

-mostly do 3 sets of 8-12 reps

-Free weights are better than machines (harder at first but the effort you put in will be rewarded)

-Train HARD. The biggest and strongest guys will often succeed on a less than perfect program because they want it more and are prepared to bleed for it

-Diet is important, but unless youre pushing it in the gym, positive vibes and a good diet will do nothing

Kinetic^

Malteaser! wrote:

-Diet is important, but unless youre pushing it in the gym, positive vibes and a good diet will do nothing

Sorry don't agree with this whatsoever, if you change you're diet after been eating sh1t then of course it will make a big difference.

Malteaser!

Yeah, you might go from being a fat git to a less fat git. But you're still not gonna look in any way "toned" or muscular unless you're working hard in the gym, do you not agree?

juanveron45

I dont agree with doing cardio after weights either, I think you do cardio on separate days to weights so that you do 3 weights workouts and 3 cardio workouts a week and make the cardio intense

Hanley

juanveron45 wrote:

I dont agree with doing cardio after weights either, I think you do cardio on separate days to weights so that you do 3 weights workouts and 3 cardio workouts a week and make the cardio intense

The idea of doing the cardio post workout is that you go into it with your glycogen stores depeleted so you're more likely to use fat as the fuel.

sure you'd be able to do it more intensely on a different day, but by pushing it hard you face the prospect of canabalising muscle tissue for energy. You also cut into recovery times since you're training 6x a week.

And doing cardio on a seperate day means you're burning a whole chunk load of kcals that coulda gone into muscle building instead. Besides, heavy weight training keeps you metabolism spiked for approx 24-48 hours post workout so the additional cardio on the "off" days isn't really neccessary once nutrition is in check.

Of course all the above applies if you're solely using cardio as a means of weightloss. If it's being used for general health and to be a better/faster runner or whatevevr then I would say that my advice isn't very applicable!

g'em

Malteaser! wrote:

-Diet is important, but unless youre pushing it in the gym, positive vibes and a good diet will do nothing

Going to agree with Kenny here, diet is numero uno in the priorities list. You can only push it in the gym if you're giving your body the fuel it needs, you can only lose fat if you're eating the right things in the right amounts, you'll only build the muscle that pushing yourself will earn if you give your body the materials it needs to make them.

OP - good on you for trying to get your diet sorted, but as ali said, it sounds like you need to eat more often. Get lots of protein, veg and good fats in your diet... looooads of info in the stickies... and post-workout some carbs and protein eaten within an hour of owrking out will help. If you want an easy supplement to use, RAM is the way to go, but otherwise any kind of simple sugars and proteins are ok.

And just for further emphasis... free weights over machines

juanveron45

sorry hanley but I have to disagree with you as postworkout is the most critcal time for nutrition for your body to build muscle, this is the bodys most anabolic time and when it can utilise nutrients best for up to 3 hours also its only necessary to train with weights 3 days a week to build muscle, for fitness sake you cant put in the same effort with a hiit cardio after a weightraining session as oposed to doing it on separate days.

Also empty stomach cardio and cardio after weightraining to take advantage of low glyogen levels in an effort to lose more fat really is overblown, with fatloss it really is diet/consistancy and eating less than you burn off, building muscle is much more difficult which is why you should adopt the same approach with pre and post nutrition with high intensity cardio as you do with weightraining, doing cardio after weightraining and you really are shortchanging your recovery precess

here are some articles to back me up ,the guys on this site really do know their stuff

http://www.astss.com/research/cribb/research_reviews/rr_full_text.asp?rrID=314

http://www.astss.com/dev/qa_search/full_text.asp?ID=2174

http://www.astss.com/dev/qa_search/full_text.asp?ID=1774

http://www.astss.com/dev/qa_search/full_text.asp?ID=1932

http://www.astss.com/dev/qa_search/full_text.asp?ID=570

Hanley

juanveron45 wrote:

sorry hanley but I have to disagree with you as postworkout is the most critcal time for nutrition for your body to build muscle,

I know, not debating that.

this is the bodys most anabolic time and when it can utilise nutrients best for up to 3 hours

Surely you could still get the nutrients in if you do 20 mintues of steady state cardio pwo. That's a whole 160 minutes inside the magical nutritional window. I'd be interested to know where you got the absolute value of 3 hours too. Sure it's not 2 hours and 55 mintues? Or maybe it's 3 hours and 7 mins. I know you're quoting off that site, but they provide no references as to where tey got the info. There's rarely absolutes in weight traininig.

also its only necessary to train with weights 3 days a week to build muscle, for fitness sake you cant put in the same effort with a hiit cardio after a weightraining session as oposed to doing it on separate days.

This is TRULY bizarre. So you're saying all the worlds best powerlifters, bodybuilders and weight lifters are wrong? I thought they woulda known a thing or 2 about what's optimal.

Of course you can build muscle on 3 days of training. You could build it on 2. Hell I'm sure if you devoted a full day to lifting and did 3/4 split up sessions you could gain muscle training once a week. Again, no absolutes my friend.

Also empty stomach cardio and cardio after weightraining to take advantage of low glyogen levels in an effort to lose more fat really is overblown,

What are you basing this on?? Again, professional bodybuilders are clearly wrong so? (I'm guessing you know very little about Ronnie's early morning cardio

with fatloss it really is diet/consistancy and eating less than you burn

Agreed.

building muscle is much more difficult which is why you should adopt the same approach with pre and post nutrition with high intensity cardio as you do with weightraining, doing cardio after weightraining and you really are shortchanging your recovery precess

Dude, listen, put forward some real effort with squats. deadlifts and the various assistance exercises and then try running the next day. It just does not happen for a natural trainee.

here are some articles to back me up ,the guys on this site really do know their stuff

Says who? Can you give me testimonials from indepedent observers with relevenat qualifications (or under the bar experience) who agree with this?

1- http://www.astss.com/research/cribb/research_reviews/rr_full_text.asp?rrID=314

2- http://www.astss.com/dev/qa_search/full_text.asp?ID=2174

3- http://www.astss.com/dev/qa_search/full_text.asp?ID=1774

4- http://www.astss.com/dev/qa_search/full_text.asp?ID=1932

5- http://www.astss.com/dev/qa_search/full_text.asp?ID=570

Now, this is fun...

Here's a direct quote from number 1 - "Perform cardio and weight lifting sessions 24-hours apart for best strength gains". Nothing about MUSCLE, just strength. Also they specifically talk about it in the context of their Max-OT programs which from what I can gather are high intensity style workouts so extra recovery would probably be neccessary.

2 - HIIT cardio, not steady state. Try doing HIIT the day after a hard squat or deadlift session. Running the risk of pulling something there.

3 seems to say adding in EXTRA days training is going to some how be bettter for recovery....

4 - Full recovery from an "intense" leg trainnig absolutely does not happen in 24 hours. I'd say it takes 48-72 in my own experience.

Direct quote from number 5 - "So, to answer your question, it really doesn't matter if your stomach is empty or not in the long run if you want to burn body fat. Now, if you want to make sure you preserve as much muscle mass as possible, I suggest that you eat a small meal (like a quick and convenient Ny-Tro PRO-40) within an hour or so of doing your cardiovascular training.

Separate your weight training and cardiovascular training sessions with as much time and as many meals as your schedule allows. If this isn't possible, go ahead and do your cardiovascular training after training with weights and eat a nutritious immediately afterwards."

It doesn't mattter!! But hmmm... seems to agree with me.

Do you know what the real kicker is tho?? NONE of the links you posted are releavant because they're specifically talking about HIT weight training and HIIT cardio.

rubadub

Iceman_5000 wrote:

I'm 19, 86kg and 6 foot. I'm looking to loose some weight after a crazy year at college, as you can see from the stats!. I find i can put on muscle quite easily but i find it extremly difficult to lose any weight.

Weight is only a force you exert on a scales, if all you want to do is exert less force then stop lifting weights! you are building muscle that will add to your weight!

-what I am really saying is take into account your real goal, I presume loosing FAT, take measurements and get your body fat % measured. I have been flucutating between 12-12.5 stone now for almost a year, yet getting thinner slowly all the time, loosing fat & gaining muscle at the same rate.

Dragan

First of all, I hate AST and I hate Skip LeCouer. I hate supplement companies who do those stupid "research study adds". I hate lots of things but right now those three are tops.

Now then, OP. If you want to lose somebody fat then go here

www.crossfit.com and go here www.gymjones.com , take a look at the workout of the week.

I have been dedicating myself to this training style for about 3 weeks now and I'm leaner, stronger and fitter. I'm knocking out new 1RM's on a daily basis. IF you want to get lean, and quick, while maintaining strength and muscle then I will happily recommend these systems as suiting your needs.

However, it will take hardwork, lots of effort and a degree of self education.

Iceman_5000

Hey all, thanks for all the posts. I'm starting the diet for real tomorrow. But i've been thinkin about the below comment,

rubadub wrote:

Weight is only a force you exert on a scales, if all you want to do is exert less force then stop lifting weights! you are building muscle that will add to your weight!

If my main goal is to lose weight will it be easier to just stick to the cv training then bult up later on?