Just starting out

ivorygal

Hi there,

I'm trying to start a new fitness regime - thing is I don't really have a clue what I'm doing

My first step was to join a gym and have been going regularly, but I'm not too sure if what I'm doing is doing me any good. The routine so far has been that I've been doing 10 minutes on the exercise bike, 10 minutes on the cross trainer, 5 minutes on the rowing machine and 5 minutes on the stepper. So all in all 30 minutes! I'm quite unfit so am going at a pace which is causing me to work up a sweat!

I'm 23 and have put on quite a bit of weight recently and am eager to get rid of it.....any tips on how regularly I should be going to the gym and what I should be doing when I get there!

Would really appreciate some advice.
Thanks in advance

Gaz

For weightloss you want regular exercise in conjunction with a healthy diet ... basically you want to be using up more calories than your consuming in a day to loose weight.

Whats your diet like ?

Boru.

Hi Ivory Gal,

Congrats on making the decision to enjoy better health and more importantly making consistent regular commitment to training, trust me, that's the hardest part of the whole thing.

There are a couple of things though that would really help speed along your weight loss. Moderate cardio vascular activity as you've been doing while great exercise isn't the best for fat loss. In order to burn 1 lb pf fat you need to use 3500 kcals. If you were to do that using moderate aerobics like a treadmill, bike etc, you'd need to spend about 11 hours a week doing that.

However if you start lifting weights, and not silly light weights either, you can lift pretty heavy, you will develop strong hard and firm (read not huge)lean muscle tissue. This will increase the number of calories you burn by just walking around or lying in bed doing nothing. Not only that it will enhance your physique and define and firm key trouble areas. But here's the really cool part - if over the next year, you added just 10lbs of lean muscle you would burn off on average an extra 1000kcals a day - that's 7,000 kcals for doing nothing. Which would be the equivalent of 2lbs of fat a week - that's not even exercising that's just to keep you the way you are.

So start lifting weights and doing less cardio. Cardio should only be for around 10-15 mins at most and I recommend High Intensity Interval Training - this encourages your body to store sugar as opposed to fat and really speeds up weight loss.

Finally, and most importantly the VERY BEST thing you can do to reduce excess fat is at the kitchen table not the gym. Read the stickies - find out how many calories you should be taking in a day and then cut that number by 15-20%. This creates a calorie deficit, e.g. you are taking in less kcals then you need, so your body starts to burn it's reserve food supply - your fat!

Keep your calories like this for two weeks. If you don't lose between 1 and 2lbs of fat a week, then reduce your kcals by another 100 a day. Repeat this until your are losing 1-2lbs steadily each week. If you lose more than 2lbs increase you kcals by 100 a day.

Obviously make healthy food choices such as veg and lean meats over junk food's and water over any other drinks.

If you need more specific help, feel free to pm me.

Colm_OReilly

Boru's right.

If you're lifting weights, make sure they're multi joing activities like squats, bench press, shoulder press, deadlifts along with dips and pull ups.

These not only work the body as it's evolved to work (as a system, not isolated parts) but also produce the greatest neuroendocrine response - your body releases the hormones which will cause muscle growth and fat reduction.

Gaz

Guys, while i agree with your advise i think it might be a bit complicated for a complete beginner.

O.P. stick with your current exercise plan and clean up your diet, you will see results doing this. Then after a few months look at ways at improving and adding to this.

Good luck.

ivorygal

Thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement - really appreciate it!

My diet hasn't been great in the past - but I've been trying to combine a good diet and exercise. Used to drink lots of fizzy drinks - which I know is terrible. My diet is improved now - no take aways, fizzy drinks - now it's lots of fruit and veg, with lean meat. Have pretty much been following the Weight Watchers diet - although it didn't make much of a difference when I did the diet alone. I felt I had more energy but I wasn't losing weight - so I knew I needed to become more active. My discipline can be bad though, if I slip up once - I tend to give up - but trying not to!

I don't really know how to use the weights machines at the gym - like a lot of girls I tend to stay away from that side of the gym!!! If I had known how beneficial they were Boru, I'd have been down there a lot more - do you know if there's a guide/illustrations online that would show how to use the different machines?

What sort of a breakdown would you recommend - how long should I spend between cardio and weights. And how many days a week should I go and for how long?

Also, was thinking that exercise classes might help.....

Gaz

Check out http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html for all the various exercises with instructional videos. A girl can do anything a guy can, just not quite as heavy.

Have fun !

g'em

Darth Homer wrote: »

A girl can do anything a guy can, just not quite as heavy.

*waves*





Sorry, I just couldn't let that go :rolleyes:

ivorygal

Thanks a mil Darth - I'll give it a go!

Seraphina

Darth Homer wrote: »

A girl can do anything a guy can, just not quite as heavy.

yeah really i just cant let this go either. g'em is super strong and can probably lift more than alot of the guys here, and even ickle weak me can lift more than most of my friends.

why?

i train, they dont :P

Gaz

Sorry girls but you know what i meant ... obviously a girl can lift very heavy if she trains but your *average* girl cant lift what the average guy can... ah crap im just digging a hole now ....

Kid Icarus

Hey Darth, just get the aul JCB out...

*goes back to lurking*

g'em

Darth Homer wrote: »

Sorry girls but you know what i meant ... obviously a girl can lift very heavy if she trains but your *average* girl cant lift what the average guy can... ah crap im just digging a hole now ....

don't worry, I know exactly what you meant. And you're right, generally speaking it's true, guys will outlift girls nine times out of ten.

But that doesn't meant the OP whould wait to implement weights into her training program. In fact lifting will deliver results far faster and far more effectively than cardio will.

OP ideally you'd get someone to show you the lifts to make sure you keep good form and don't risk injuring yourself. Done right, weight lifting is extremely safe and hugely enjoyable (but I *am* biased ). There's lot so fgood information about lifting and diet for women on www.musclewithattitude.com Don't let the figure competitor photos put you off, the vast majority of the women there are regular girls looking to shift a few lbs like anyone else.

Also see this thread for more pointers

Boston

Darth Homer wrote: »

Sorry girls but you know what i meant ... obviously a girl can lift very heavy if she trains but your *average* girl cant lift what the average guy can... ah crap im just digging a hole now ....

The thing is though, no one is the average. I read somewhere that only a minority (something like 33%) of males are even capable of building the type of muscle mass you would attribute to heavy lifting. Beside that I feel women tend to have less of an ego about this business and just do it, which is something that really holds back a lot of guys.

pbug21

If you just want to lose weight, Steady state exercise is the way to go. The longer into a steady state of exercise you go, the higher the level of fat oxidtion becomes. therefore you should run/cycle/whatever at the same pace, same HR level, for 30-60 mins. You will be burning more fat at 60 mins than 30, at 30mins than 10, etc.

However this also has its drawbacks. Its quite repetitive, boring, and can cause repetitive strain on the joints used. I would reccommend a much more varied program, combining cardio and weights as it is much better for general fitness.

Boru.

Hi Ivory Gal,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to this - first off I'm delighted to hear about the diet changes, ditching the junk can be a hard thing to do. As regards the WW diet, it's a good intro program (I even put my mum on it) but because it doesn't address the kcal's (using a point system instead) it can be a little difficult to adjust calorie intake and thus achieve consistent weight loss.

Stick with the WW diet for now but add up the kcals you are eating. If you want to pm me your personal stats (height weight etc) I can work out how many kcals you should be taking in and work out a deficit for you. Incidentally thats' why WW stalled on the weight loss side of things for you - better foods choices leads to much greater energy levels and an overall better feeling, but unless you have a calorie deficit you won't lose weight.

I personally recommend the stickies as great starting place for all of the diet stuff and if you want even more detail and a better understanding of the whole process then I highly recommend Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto.

As regards the weight machines - while okay, I'm personally not a huge fan of them, you get far quicker results using free weights, dumbells and barbells, as this introduces an element of instability which causes you to contract your muscles harder.

I'd start with just three exercises - the Squat, the Deadlift and the Bench Press. I'd also recommend that rather than learning form the net, (don't get me wrong, some great links out there) you get proper hands on instruction. The key to these exercises is less the weight you use, and more the manner or form in which you do them. They are very simple easy to learn exercises but between the three they work nearly every muscle in the body. If you need instruction or a program just pm me.

As for a breakdown, I'd ideally recommend 3 weight training session's a week, say Mon, Wed, Fri with HIIT cardio for 10-15 mins either after the weights on on the day's off.

As for exercises classes, they're a great way to meet new people and have fun, but as a former class instructor myself, I can tell you that rarely are they an ideal way to get in shape. That said - every bit helps and you're sure to have fun doing them.

As for this discussion over girls and lifting - it's ridiculous - we all know a motivated woman can do anything better than an egotistical man. I say this because I've seen G'em's arms and they humble me.

I'd also just like to mention that I disagree with pbug21's suggestion. Steady state exercise - is not the way to go. Precisely for the reasons cited in his post. Long slow steady state cardio burns up to 55% fat out of the all the calories used. Awesome except that sitting on your bum doing nothing burns 60% fat. Furthermore - even considering that long endurance cardio dose burn 55% fat what does that teach the body?

If you train your body to use fat as a fuel you get an adaptive response - the body will store more fat in preparation for doing the same type of training again. And while you're at it reduce the size of the heart and lungs because we don't want to waste precious energy on our Ferrari like human engine if we only stay in first gear - it's inefficient - so your heart and lungs shrink and become compromised.

In my book this is neither healthy, nor is it an optimal way to lose fat. Finally their are many studies to support this published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, by Harvard Medical, the Loughborough University in Leicestershire, England, or Laval University in Quebec to confirm this. (I've cited these studies in previous post's so if you'd like to verify this simply run a search).

Hope that helps,