Want to reduce BFP...advise please!

Norinoco

Hi Everyone,

Have been rambling around this forum for months now and could do with a bit of advise...

Started back at the gym 4 months ago...
Back then weight: 63kg, BFP: 22.5%, height: 5' 7, age: 26

General routine:
3-4 times a week

40 minutes cardio:
15 minutes run on treadmill (11.5 setting on the treadmill!)
25 minutes on x-trainer at high resistance

20 minutes weights (mainly working on arm muscles)

Excuse my brutal attempt to describe the exercises!

chest press machine - 15 * 3
lat machine - 15 * 3
1 knee on bench, pull up 15kg - 12 * 3 (each arm)
8kg bells shoulder position to straight arms above my head! 10 *3
ab crunch/situps - 70
reverse ab curl with feet up in the air - 50

Diet (very typical and hardly ever changes)

Morning: Porridge
11pm: Pro-biotic yogurt
12:30: Soup and wholemeal bread, or plain chicken wrap, or chicken salad
3pm: Apple or handful of Sultanas
6pm: Fish and veg / Tuna on Rivita / Large plate of Veg / Scrambled Egg and tomato on Wholemeal toast
8pm: Sometimes another yogurt or an apple

No snacking, no issues with hunger.
Once a week have a full meat and 3 veg dinner

Calorie counting - average about 1200 kcals a day

Have to admit, just about drink 1 ltr of water a day!

Alcohol : about 800 kcals worth per week

Current stats: weight 60kg, BFP 26% :eek:

How the heck has my BFP gone up so much!? What am I doing wrong?

Anyway,

Aim...reduce BFP and increase stamina on the treadmill, would be pushing it to run for more than the 15 minutes, and possibly drop another couple of kgs.

Any suggestions would be greatly welcome

ali.c

How are you measuring your bodyfat?

If your bodyfat has gone up and your weight has gone down it indicates that your weightloss has come primarly from muscle.
Your diet and workouts from your descriptions would seem to be the cause of this, your intake if 1200 is accurate (depending on how anal you are about measuring portions etc) is too low IMHO, you should be aiming for about a 20% deficit of your maintenance cals. Your protein intake is quite low and this wouldnt be helping either. Loads of more info in the stickies on this too.

If you drop the 20mins arm weights and added some compound excercises this gives your body a reason to hang on to muscle mass and reduce fat rather than the other way around.

Course if you measured it on with a bodyfat scales then likely the results are inaccurate, the best way to get a consistent output is to measure with a calipers, it may or may not be 100% accurate but its a hell of a lot more repeatable. The above still applies though

On the endurance stamina side of things, you could run slower for longer or do some interval training. I'd imagine a bit of both would work best.

Vegeta

firstly lowering your bodyfat % is very very diet dependant and while yours is better than most (including mine currently) it is not ideal. Portion size and food type is paramount

Very little protein in there

Should start the day with some quality slow releasing carbs and trail the carbs away for the rest of the day until there are very few after 6pm

You seem to be down on good fats also

Morning: Porridge is good but add a protein source, scrambled egg whites, a chicken breast a tin of tuna and so on and so on. Add good fats

11pm- Pro-biotic yoghurt. Generally this is bad as it will have a nice bit of sugar in it. Have some chopped vegetables, protein and good fats (various nuts and seeds are yum and a tiny portion will get the fats in) I have a bag of peanuts at my desk in work.

12.30pm Soup can have a lot of carbs, salt and sugar. You can see where this is going. Needs good fats and protein

All meals if possible should have protein, good fats and some carbs. The more carbs that come from vegetables and fruit the better.

it is very daunting to get the diet right instantly. Clean up one meal a week and in 6 weeks your diet would be over-hauled.

Also do more compund weight lifting (using lots of muscles like squats, benching, deadlifting, military press, bent over barbell rows (google these)) and do the weight lifting first

Then do your cardio.

Overall get the diet spot on, lift heavy weights and then do the cardio.

Norinoco

Thanks for the feed back

ali.c wrote:

How are you measuring your bodyfat?

Ali - I'm using the hand held machine in the gym, to be honest i don't trust it one bit, so going to locate some calipers.

And both of you are right, I hadn't realized how low my protein intake - will get on to that.

Went in to the gym last night Vegeta and gave your suggestions ago:

- noticed that there are no barbells! So had to do what I could with the dumbbells.

dumbbell squats 15kg * 10 * 2 (very tough, maybe reduce the weight?)
dumbbell military press 10kg * 10 * 3
dumbbell bent-over rows 15kg *15 * 3
ab crunch * 60
reverse ab curl * 25

But when I started my cardio I struggled.
My 15 min run turned in to a 10 minute jog!
My 25 min x-trainer barley stretched to 10 mins before I had to get off!

Should I start with the run, then weights, then the x-trainer?
I really like the cardio part and want to keep that up.

Thanks again

rubadub

Norinoco wrote:

Ali - I'm using the hand held machine in the gym, to be honest i don't trust it one bit, so going to locate some calipers.

They are crap, get the calipers. Also take photos & measurements. A weighing scale shows the effect of gravity on your body on a load sensor at a given time, not a great guide for how you look, and can vary hugely depending on when you last ate/drank etc. A electronic fat sensor is measuring the electric resistance of your body, not reliable as it changes with water etc.

If you want to check if you look OK a mirror & eyes is the best device to do it!

Should I start with the run, then weights, then the x-trainer?

Always start with the weights, you could do a short warmup. You want to be full of energy so you can lift as much as you can. This works the muscles more and gets triggers more growth of them. On your off days you use up calories building new muscle so it is better to be building as much as you can.

I would ditch the machines and stick to free weights. Time could be better spent than on ab machines and situps. Stick to the highest weight you can manage for 8-12reps. Squats, benchpress, military press, pull ups, chinups, deadlifts, upright rows.

dumbbell squats 15kg * 10 * 2 (very tough, maybe reduce the weight?)

Should be as much as you can manage without faltering i.e. losing form. You should be steady and in control with no movements to "cheat" and use momentum to shift the weight. And instructor could check your form

Norinoco

OK - weights it is first then!

Going to add upright rows to the current ones.

Any magical solution to the fact that I'm absolutly knackered when it comes to doing the cardio after the weights!!?

Transform

Yes do weights on seperate days to cardio i.e. train 6-7days per week - 3 days weights and 3-4 days cardio only.