Basic Advice

Paddo81

Hey all,

I bought a treadmill about a year ago. I normally get in 2 hour-long workouts a week, 3 if I can fit them in. Im 15st at the moment and 6ft tall.
Around 12 mths ago I did cut out most junk out of my diet. Used to eat a fair bit of chocolate n crisps - have cut them out altogether. Usually stick to 3 square meals - cereal breakfast, soup/sandwiches for lunch, meat n two veg for dinner

The only real benefit i notice from the running is improved stamina, more energetic. Before I used to be out of breath after walkin up a steep hill, now i can power walk up he same hill and not really be strained by it.
But i cant get my weight down. My goal is to get down to 13st and I thought by my change of diet and regular(ish) running routine, id begin to get trim. I wasnt expecting miracles cause Im not massively disiplined with myself, ie Im partial to the odd Chinese and the odd week I wont get in a workout at all, but i thought over the course of a year, the scales would go someway in the right direction, but im still stuck at my starting weight, more or less.
Beyond the obvious, "eat even less and do alot more excerise!" do I need to start looking at more intensive workouts, maybe with weights or something. I heard that basic cardio isnt the best for weight loss.

MagicMarker

Post up your diet, 3 meals a day isn't the ideal approach to fat loss. Read the stickies for more info.

What exactly do you do on the treadmill for an hour? I would imagine you're not getting your heart rate up enough, 2 hours a week is very little for low intensity exercise.

wylo

Id imagine at this stage your body is used to that kind of running. Perhaps you need get off the threadmill and do some varied high intensity and low intensity running.

devereaux17

you really need to mix it up a bit(don't mind the guys on here, they will advise against threadmill and tell you to lift 1,000 kg of weights so you end up looking like a freak(see ronnie coleman) I have added i pic for you to see:



^^^^^^^^^^
FREAK

i think you should run on that threadmill 4 times a week, for between 45-60 minutes, keep changing the speed and run at a steady pace(i run at 15 on the threadmill and then every so often up the pace for a minute or two to 18.

i think your body is to prepared for this exercise by now so results will be minimal.

wylo

I didn't mean to sound like I was saying there was something wrong with threadmill running. But personally I think it would be much easier to organize a training session with various sprints and jogs etc on a field of grass rather than a threadmill.

mloc

devereaux17 wrote: »

don't mind the guys on here, they will advise against threadmill and tell you to lift 1,000 kg of weights so you end up looking like a freak(see ronnie coleman).

I don't know where this guy is getting his info from, but if you want to shift that weight and change your shape, it just won't happen without lifting weights.

You won't end up looking like a freak. Professional bodybuilders are generally taking a plethora of steroids and other drugs to look the way they do; if looking like that was a matter of just lifting weights, you'd see a lot more "freaks" around.

itsallaboutheL

devereaux17 wrote: »

you really need to mix it up a bit(don't mind the guys on here, they will advise against threadmill and tell you to lift 1,000 kg of weights so you end up looking like a freak(see ronnie coleman) I have added i pic for you to see:



^^^^^^^^^^
FREAK

i think you should run on that threadmill 4 times a week, for between 45-60 minutes, keep changing the speed and run at a steady pace(i run at 15 on the threadmill and then every so often up the pace for a minute or two to 18.

i think your body is to prepared for this exercise by now so results will be minimal.

Khannie can you lift the cranky post ban....so i open a can of whoop ass!!

And Dev what you're trying to tell OP to do is HIIT which is a fair point

d'Oracle

devereaux17 wrote: »

you really need to mix it up a bit(don't mind the guys on here, they will advise against threadmill and tell you to lift 1,000 kg of weights so you end up looking like a freak(see ronnie coleman)

Poor post.

BossArky

Paddo81, please post your typical food/drink intake for informed critique.

devereaux17 wrote: »

^^^^^^^^^^

FREAK

devereaux, quit with the drama please.

Do you really believe that running 4 times per week for 45-60 mins will turn someone in to Ronnie Coleman?

devereaux17

I didn't say that, I said people will advice against using a threadmill and tell the poster that the only thing right to do is to lift weights.

BobbyOLeary

I didn't say that, I said people will advice against using a threadmill and tell the poster that the only thing right to do is to lift weights.

Yes, because lifting weights turns everyone into Ronnie Coleman. This is why when I go to my gym and see some girls lifting weights I bring my camera because I know it's only a matter of time before they just turn ginormous and black in the course of a session. Grow up, lifting weights ain't nothing but a peanut.

Usually stick to 3 square meals - cereal breakfast, soup/sandwiches for lunch, meat n two veg for dinner

OP, I know it's frustrating but that isn't really a great diet. You're looking at a lot of carbs in those meals (bread and cereal) which is going to make weight loss harder for you and will make the hunger pains worse. Post up a proper days diet and you'll get some better feedback.

Magic Eight Ball

devereaux17 wrote: »

they will advise against threadmill and tell you to lift 1,000 kg of weights so you end up looking like a freak(see ronnie coleman)

Are you for real mate?? :eek:

Paddo81

Hi all, sorry about the delay gettin back on this, been busy. Sheet, looks like WW3s broken out here over my post!

Anyway, typical days intake

8/9am breakfast: Cereal (sometimes Special K, sometimes crunchy nut feast. Other mornings I might have just a slice of brown bread, or some scrambled egg. Always tea, one sugar, some milk.

1pm Lunch: Sandwich - brown sometimes white bread, chicken or ham or tuna fillings. Lettuce, onion. Somedays Id have a bowl of tomato soup with this. Might have a bottle of coke zero with that or OJ.

5/6pm Dinner - Varies from beef stews with 2 or 3 boiled potatoes, to Spag Bolognese, to Pork chop with boiled 2 veg. I like my pasta. Other eveings I might have penne pasta in tomato sauce with some grilled chicken. Water with this.

Snacks - Im not a big snacker anymore. I can easily go from 7am til 1pm on a bowl of cereal, and have done many times. Im eating the odd breaskfast bar nowadays if i fancy something extra. No crisps or chocolate. Although I might eat one or 2 biscuits or a slice of madeira cake with tea the odd night at 10pm or so.

Thats a typical day anyway. As i said in my first post, depending on circumstances some of these might be substituted for a Chinese takeaway etc once a week maybe.

All in all, i would say most days im well under the 2500 calorie allowance. (If thats anything to go by!)
As someone said, it seems might body may have acclimatised to the exercise im doing and I need to push onto longer harder routines.

Hope the above info helps. Thoughts and suggestions are very wlecome!

Paddo81

Bump

celestial

Paddo81 wrote: »

Hi all, sorry about the delay gettin back on this, been busy. Sheet, looks like WW3s broken out here over my post!

Anyway, typical days intake

8/9am breakfast: Cereal (sometimes Special K, sometimes crunchy nut feast. Other mornings I might have just a slice of brown bread, or some scrambled egg. Always tea, one sugar, some milk.

1pm Lunch: Sandwich - brown sometimes white bread, chicken or ham or tuna fillings. Lettuce, onion. Somedays Id have a bowl of tomato soup with this. Might have a bottle of coke zero with that or OJ.

5/6pm Dinner - Varies from beef stews with 2 or 3 boiled potatoes, to Spag Bolognese, to Pork chop with boiled 2 veg. I like my pasta. Other eveings I might have penne pasta in tomato sauce with some grilled chicken. Water with this.

Snacks - Im not a big snacker anymore. I can easily go from 7am til 1pm on a bowl of cereal, and have done many times. Im eating the odd breaskfast bar nowadays if i fancy something extra. No crisps or chocolate. Although I might eat one or 2 biscuits or a slice of madeira cake with tea the odd night at 10pm or so.

Thats a typical day anyway. As i said in my first post, depending on circumstances some of these might be substituted for a Chinese takeaway etc once a week maybe.

All in all, i would say most days im well under the 2500 calorie allowance. (If thats anything to go by!)
As someone said, it seems might body may have acclimatised to the exercise im doing and I need to push onto longer harder routines.

Hope the above info helps. Thoughts and suggestions are very wlecome!

You actually sound just like me up until a couple of years ago. Poor diet and even poorer training routine. Hit and miss on both. I was never all that much overweight but tt wasn't until I got a proper training programme, stuck to it 3-4 times a week, and cleaned up most of the junk food (that includes Special K and Coke Zero by the way) that I started losing the flab.

Crunch nut feast for breakfast is like eating out of a bag of sugar for breakfast. I'm not joking - I mean that literally. Replace with Weetabix or Porridge or eggs. Cut down on the pasta. Biscuits, madeira cake, breakfast bars - all of these things are the reason you aren't seeing any positive changes.

On the exercise front, 2 workouts a week and sometimes no workouts a week - do you reckon this will get you in shape? You need to work out minimum 3x a week and make it worth your while. I can't recommend weights highly enough for fat loss. Start breaking a real sweat cardio-wise, and start doing some weights/resistance training - combine this with good eating habits and you will definitely start to see results!