The thread for people who just wanna lose weight!

Fear Uladh

OK I have been reading frantically through all the threads, stickies etc. I just want to lose some weight! All the threads seem to point to bodybuilding which I have no interest in, I just want to get lean and mean, im overweight but by no means really fat, Im 5'11 15 stone, I usually have no problem in losing weight once I set my mind to it. Ok Ive started today, I get up at 6 go to the gym and do the following

20 mins treadmill
20 mins crosstrainer
20 mins bike
20 mins on weights.


I go to work, eat a breakfast of 2 weetibix with low fat milk and some fruit.


For lunch I have either beef, salmon or chicken with broccili onions mushrooms and lettuce.


I can stay off the snacks!
I have two cups of coffee a day


For dinner at 6 its the same as lunch(different meat and vegatables obviously!)


I will be doing Thai Boxing twice a week and quitting alcohol for 3 months.


Is there anything wrong with this? If so how can I improve?

Hanley

Aren't the majority of threads posted here one a day to day basis about weightloss?

Fear Uladh

Hanley wrote: »

Aren't the majority of threads posted here one a day to day basis about weightloss?

No, have you any advice, if not please refrain from posting pointless questions.;)

Sangre

The majority of posts are probably about resistance training. The poster may not be fully aware how useful this is to weight loss and that many posters do it to lose weight and not 'bodybuild'.

ilovelamp2000

I'll let others comment on how you can improve, but for the sake of comparison here's what I started doing this evening. My goal is the same as yours, I'm looking to lose weight.

A1. Split Squats 10-12 reps each leg, 3 sets
A2. Chin Ups - Aim for 8 reps a set, doing negatives after failure to complete the 8. 3 sets.

B1. Hamstring Curl 8-10 reps, 3 sets
B2. DB Overhead Press 10 -12 reps, 3 sets

C1. Upright Row 12-15 reps, 3 sets
C2. Walking Lunge, 10 -12 reps each side, 3 sets

D1. Incline DB curl 8-10, 3 sets
D2. Weighted Dips 10 -12, 3 sets


Followed by 14 minutes of intervals on the rowing machine.

The entire session took just over an hour to complete.

ToniTuddle

Rosco1982 wrote: »

A1. Split Squats 10-12 reps each leg, 3 sets
A2. Chin Ups - Aim for 8 reps a set, doing negatives after failure to complete the 8. 3 sets.

B1. Hamstring Curl 8-10 reps, 3 sets
B2. DB Overhead Press 10 -12 reps, 3 sets

C1. Upright Row 12-15 reps, 3 sets
C2. Walking Lunge, 10 -12 reps each side, 3 sets

D1. Incline DB curl 8-10, 3 sets
D2. Weighted Dips 10 -12, 3 sets


Followed by 14 minutes of intervals on the rowing machine.

The entire session took just over an hour to complete.

See all the lingo there....haven't a clue what you are saying.

I'm moving to a location now where I will be able to have daily+free access to the gym.

I do kickboxing twice a week and am trying to continue those exercises at home.
I've read on other threads here about how regular gym folks hate newbies who don't know how to use machines right...
They sure as hell gonna hate meeeee!

I also have to change my diet pretty radically as it turns out I'm pretty allergic to alot of foods, which is causing health problems.

I've no problem with doing exercise at any time of the day or night.
It's just getting use to the machines which hopefully won't take too long!

All the best in your weight loss and future health OP!!:D

Hanley

Chillaxe wrote: »

No, have you any advice, if not please refrain from posting pointless questions.;)

Nice. That's a great way to get constructive responses. If you were to actually read the threads, you'd see that most people are looking to lose weight and shape up. There's a small subgroup here who want to get bigger and stronger.

Sangre wrote: »

The majority of posts are probably about resistance training. The poster may not be fully aware how useful this is to weight loss and that many posters do it to lose weight and not 'bodybuild'.

This.

Anyway, since you demanded some advice;

1) use a mixture of resistance training (3-4x per week for an hour) and cardio (15-20 minutes after the weights, or 20-30 minutes on an non weights day, but not immediately before lifting weights.)

2) log everything you eat for the next 2 weeks on fitday.com

3) during that period, if you want to go really hardcore and dedicated at it;
-eat 12kcals per lb of bodyweight (2,550 kcals)
-40% of that in protein (250g protein)
-30% of that in carbs (190g carbs)
-30% of that in fat (85g fat)

4) Spread the above evenly over 5-6 meals, with 3ish hours between meals, if you do it properly, your body will adapt quite quickly and start to get VERY hungry if you miss meals. This is good - it shows your metabolism's picking up

5) Try to get the above from natural, non-processed sources if possible (meat, fish, veg, fruit, nuts - 100% organic peanut butter's my fave, wholegrain pasta/bread/rice, but don't go over board on em).


6) Avoid all sugar.


The above is overkill, you don't need to do it initially, cleaning up your diet in general will work wonders, but if you're serious and dedicate yourself to doing it for a month you should see some serious improvements very quickly.

G86

Right, here's my two cents. If you want to get 'lean' you need to drop bodyfat, if you want to drop bodyfat you need to sort out your diet - and do weights; if you want to look good with low bodyfat and not like an ironing board then you need to do weights.

Post up your 20 min weights routine and I'm sure you'll get some sound advice, but just quit it with the 'bodybuilder' assumptions. Yes, some cardio is necessary but I worked out for years and got nowhere fast until I got some professional advice and started a decent weights routine. You said you're 15 stone, you need to find out how much of that is is bodyfat and set yourself some goals. Your best bet would be to have a session with a personal trainer to get you on track and then take it from there yourself.

If you're going to do it then you might aswell do it right.

Good luck

Fear Uladh

Hanley wrote: »

Nice. That's a great way to get constructive responses. If you were to actually read the threads, you'd see that most people are looking to lose weight and shape up. There's a small subgroup here who want to get bigger and stronger.




This.

Anyway, since you demanded some advice;

1) use a mixture of resistance training (3-4x per week for an hour) and cardio (15-20 minutes after the weights, or 20-30 minutes on an non weights day, but not immediately before lifting weights.)

2) log everything you eat for the next 2 weeks on fitday.com

3) during that period, if you want to go really hardcore and dedicated at it;
-eat 12kcals per lb of bodyweight (2,550 kcals)
-40% of that in protein (250g protein)
-30% of that in carbs (190g carbs)
-30% of that in fat (85g fat)

4) Spread the above evenly over 5-6 meals, with 3ish hours between meals, if you do it properly, your body will adapt quite quickly and start to get VERY hungry if you miss meals. This is good - it shows your metabolism's picking up

5) Try to get the above from natural, non-processed sources if possible (meat, fish, veg, fruit, nuts - 100% organic peanut butter's my fave, wholegrain pasta/bread/rice, but don't go over board on em).


6) Avoid all sugar.


The above is overkill, you don't need to do it initially, cleaning up your diet in general will work wonders, but if you're serious and dedicate yourself to doing it for a month you should see some serious improvements very quickly.

Thanks for the advice! What about the diet im on, no good?

xmcp

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=113693871

Read these 3 rules, that's all there is to it.

You need to calorie count.

Hanley

Chillaxe wrote: »

Thanks for the advice! What about the diet im on, no good?

It's a grand starting point like, but you'd probably be better halving each portion size and eating more frequently (6 instead of 3). It may not be practical, but you can make these things happen if you really want to push it.

And it's hard to tell without knowing portion sizes and stuff too, that's why I find fitday.com to be such an invaluable tool.

But again, you don't neccessarily need to worry about counting kcals yet, but it will help.

joepenguin

Hanley wrote: »

The above is overkill, you don't need to do it initially, cleaning up your diet in general will work wonders, but if you're serious and dedicate yourself to doing it for a month you should see some serious improvements very quickly.

Good advice. Most people start off too gung ho and give up fairly quickly. Start adding some healthy meals, educate yourself a bit, reduce unhealthy foods and then when you have built up some healthy habits in a months time or so start on a specific plan.
At this time you will know more about fat loss and that you will stick to your plan.

Training wise kickboxing twice a week with 2-3 gym sessions (40 mins weights, 20 mins cardio give or take) would be perfect.

Like Hanely says if you havent been training that much and your diet hasnt been up to scratch then these general changes will give you initial results.

And as for gym members being p*$$ed off with newbs... I dont think anyone minds seeing newbs in the gym. in fact its a good thing... but its those f3cker$ that join in january and give up in a few weeks:mad:... so stick with it

Fear Uladh

Hanley wrote: »

It's a grand starting point like, but you'd probably be better halving each portion size and eating more frequently (6 instead of 3). It may not be practical, but you can make these things happen if you really want to push it.

And it's hard to tell without knowing portion sizes and stuff too, that's why I find fitday.com to be such an invaluable tool.

But again, you don't neccessarily need to worry about counting kcals yet, but it will help.

Right so, I can make the same meals, just halve them over the day to make eating 6 times a day? Say for example a salmon salad, eat half at one and half at four?

Fear Uladh

xmcp wrote: »

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=113693871

Read these 3 rules, that's all there is to it.

You need to calorie count.

Yes I do that, but by your basis all I have to do is run for an hour and a half a day to counter my food intake! I have people telling me to do weights and people telling me to calorie count. Highly frustrating.

unreggd

Chillaxe wrote: »

Yes I do that, but by your basis all I have to do is run for an hour and a half a day to counter my food intake! I have people telling me to do weights and people telling me to calorie count. Highly frustrating.

You do both

You need to do exercise [cardio / weights], and take in less calories than you need

You said it yourself, you don't understand it, so try not being so narrow-minded towards peoples advice

Fear Uladh

unreggd wrote: »

You do both

You need to do exercise [cardio / weights], and take in less calories than you need

You said it yourself, you don't understand it, so try not being so narrow-minded towards peoples advice

How am I being narrowminded? By asking questions? Im just trying to understand exactly what I can do.

xmcp

Read that bodybuilding.com thread. Disregard most info here. Like eating healthy. Just eat 500 less calories than your maintenance and 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass. Doesn't matter what kind of food it is, steak, pizza, chocolate, just make sure it's 500 calories less per day. Though you'll feel like **** if you just eat chocolate all day! And meal frequency and amount doesn't matter. And lift. Cardio is unnecessary.

Take it from a guy who's so far lost over 60lbs and put on a small bit of muscle. It's so simple. Just eat less calories than your maintenace per day and you will slowly lose mostly fat. Everything else is secondary.

martinr5232

OP im in the same boat as you trying to lose a bit of weight and get fit have been trying now for a while and have been looking on here for advice and these lads know what they are on about.

But to break down what some are saying if your body needs 2500 cals to stand up for the day then you need to only take in 2000 cals so your body will use body fat to make up the other 500 cals.

From what i can make out when you are resting or just going about your daily buisness muscle will burn more fat so that is the idea of doing weights you dont have to go around like Hulk Hogan but just tone your muscles up a bit so even when you are not working out your body is burning more fat than you would be if you were a scrawney little fella.

And eating small meals five or six times a day will speed up your metabolism so again it will burn more fat because it knows that it is going to get fed so it doesnt need to store fat just in case it doesnt get fed regulary.

And also drink plenty of water at least two litres a day.

If I got anything wrong here I would appreciate being corrected as I said im only starting but that is what I have taken from this forum.

And best of luck with it.

xmcp

martinr5232 wrote: »

From what i can make out when you are resting or just going about your daily buisness muscle will burn more fat so that is the idea of doing weights you dont have to go around like Hulk Hogan but just tone your muscles up a bit so even when you are not working out your body is burning more fat than you would be if you were a scrawney little fella.

No, the purpose of the weights is to make sure the body keeps as much muscle as possible. When you lift weights and eat enough protein, your body will cut the least amount of muscle and hopefully mostly fat. Of course, a weights workout will use a good few calories and increase your daily maintenance.

And eating small meals five or six times a day will speed up your metabolism so again it will burn more fat because it knows that it is going to get fed so it doesnt need to store fat just in case it doesnt get fed regulary.

This is technically true but it makes SUCH a small difference to fat loss, it's not worth worrying about.

And also drink plenty of water at least two litres a day.

Always good to suppress appetite but not required of course.

Today I had an O'briens tripledecker (800 calories), a feed of Irish stew after weights in gym (1000 calories), a small protein shake (probably 100 calories) and probably 3 lites of Coke Zero (5 calories?) so I'm in a (small) deficit for the day, job done. Probably didn't get enough protein in but I'm just starting back after Xmas, havn't got into my proper routine yet.

DamienH

All the good info here and more is given in the sticky at the top of the forum. Read that, read it again and then ask questions. For January it's name should be changed to "LOOK AT ME!!!!"

Transform

Chillaxe wrote: »

No, have you any advice, if not please refrain from posting pointless questions.;)

yes thats the way to get advice from one of the most respected contributors on the forum!!!

You need to chillax

Transform

Chillaxe wrote: »

How am I being narrowminded? By asking questions? Im just trying to understand exactly what I can do.

you are not trying to understand you are trying to drum up support for methods that give inferior results and will NEVER get you into the shape you want.

ragg

Hanley wrote: »

Nice. That's a great way to get constructive responses. If you were to actually read the threads, you'd see that most people are looking to lose weight and shape up. There's a small subgroup here who want to get bigger and stronger.




This.

Anyway, since you demanded some advice;

1) use a mixture of resistance training (3-4x per week for an hour) and cardio (15-20 minutes after the weights, or 20-30 minutes on an non weights day, but not immediately before lifting weights.)

2) log everything you eat for the next 2 weeks on fitday.com

3) during that period, if you want to go really hardcore and dedicated at it;
-eat 12kcals per lb of bodyweight (2,550 kcals)
-40% of that in protein (250g protein)
-30% of that in carbs (190g carbs)
-30% of that in fat (85g fat)

4) Spread the above evenly over 5-6 meals, with 3ish hours between meals, if you do it properly, your body will adapt quite quickly and start to get VERY hungry if you miss meals. This is good - it shows your metabolism's picking up

5) Try to get the above from natural, non-processed sources if possible (meat, fish, veg, fruit, nuts - 100% organic peanut butter's my fave, wholegrain pasta/bread/rice, but don't go over board on em).


6) Avoid all sugar.


The above is overkill, you don't need to do it initially, cleaning up your diet in general will work wonders, but if you're serious and dedicate yourself to doing it for a month you should see some serious improvements very quickly.

Back of the net

jonnyfingers

xmcp wrote: »

Read that bodybuilding.com thread. Disregard most info here. Like eating healthy. Just eat 500 less calories than your maintenance and 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass. Doesn't matter what kind of food it is, steak, pizza, chocolate, just make sure it's 500 calories less per day. Though you'll feel like **** if you just eat chocolate all day! And meal frequency and amount doesn't matter. And lift. Cardio is unnecessary.

I hate this. Cardio should always be included in an exercise regime to keep your heart and lungs healthy. Even if it's only 15 minutes every other day.

But I do agree the easiest way to lose weight is to cut calories slightly and lift some weights regularly.

dubsgirl

Hi

Sorry for the thread hijack...

If lifting weights is great for weightloss but gym not easily accessible does anyone have any at home versions?

Any cheap alternatives to lifting weights in a gym?

thanks

TommyKnocker

dubsgirl wrote: »

Hi

Sorry for the thread hijack...

If lifting weights is great for weightloss but gym not easily accessible does anyone have any at home versions?

Any cheap alternatives to lifting weights in a gym?

thanks

Hey Dubsgirl

There are lots of exercises you can do at home without any equipment or with minimal equipment to help with weight loss and getting fit.

There is another forum member (forum name "Transform") who has posted up some good videos of the type of circits you can do at home.

Here is one below. (Also search for "transform1234" on youtube or see his blog at http://www.thetransformationcatalyst.com/index.php )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkhwmRUD3iI

Here is a list of exercises (not exhaustive by any means) which you could do at home without any equipment

• Lunges
• Reverse Lunges
• push-ups
• bodyweight squats
• single leg squats
• jumping jacks
• burpees
• sit-ups
• crunches
• Plank
• Side Plank
• dips (using chairs)

Also something that I think is very versatile is a kettle bell. There is a place is Dublin that regulary runs kettle bell workshops, which will go through how to get the best from your kettle bell and correct technique etc and if you do the workshop, the price includes a free kettle bell to take away with you. 8kg for women and 16kg for guys.

If this is something that you might be interested in, then check out http://www.buykettlebelldublin.com/

Finally Youtube has lost of interesting ideas for home training, and it's worth trawling through some of the videos to get ideas.

Here is a video of a girl getting a pretty decent workout without any equipment

Finally, weight/resistance training is only one part of losing/maintaining your weight and getting/staying fit. Don't forget the importance of diet and don't neglect cardio training either.


Hope some of this helps,

Best Regards,

M

dubsgirl

B-Builder your a star. Thanks so much for a great post.

Transform

jonnyfingers wrote: »

I hate this. Cardio should always be included in an exercise regime to keep your heart and lungs healthy. Even if it's only 15 minutes every other day.

But I do agree the easiest way to lose weight is to cut calories slightly and lift some weights regularly.

depends on what you define as cardio - doing some press ups and lunges/squats back to back with little rest will get the heart rate up in a big way and no need to run/walk or cycle.

Idioteque

martinr5232 wrote: »

But to break down what some are saying if your body needs 2500 cals to stand up for the day then you need to only take in 2000 cals so your body will use body fat to make up the other 500 cals.

Don't really agree with this bit. If the min amount of Kcal you body needs per day just to get by works out at 2500Kcal then you need to increase your exercise amount to burn the fat off. Your min amount of Kcal you body needs is known as your MMR/BMR/RMR (Maintainece,Basal,Resting Metabolic rate) Your body needs this to keep immune system healthy among other important things.
If you were someone eating 3500Kcal per day and you MMR was 2500Kcal you could afford to cut food intake while doing exercise to loose weight.
If you Google MMR/RMR/BMR you'll get info on how to work out what yours is.

Hope that helps,

celestial

Idioteque wrote: »

Don't really agree with this bit. If the min amount of Kcal you body needs per day just to get by works out at 2500Kcal then you need to increase your exercise amount to burn the fat off. Your min amount of Kcal you body needs is known as your MMR/BMR/RMR (Maintainece,Basal,Resting Metabolic rate) Your body needs this to keep immune system healthy among other important things.
If you were someone eating 3500Kcal per day and you MMR was 2500Kcal you could afford to cut food intake while doing exercise to loose weight.
If you Google MMR/RMR/BMR you'll get info on how to work out what yours is.

Hope that helps,

Or to make it a tad simpler, take your bodyweight in lbs and multiply it by 12, and keblamo - you've got your max number of calories to lose weight.

InKonspikuou2

xmcp wrote: »

Read that bodybuilding.com thread. Disregard most info here. Like eating healthy. Just eat 500 less calories than your maintenance and 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass. Doesn't matter what kind of food it is, steak, pizza, chocolate, just make sure it's 500 calories less per day. Though you'll feel like **** if you just eat chocolate all day! And meal frequency and amount doesn't matter. And lift. Cardio is unnecessary.

Take it from a guy who's so far lost over 60lbs and put on a small bit of muscle. It's so simple. Just eat less calories than your maintenace per day and you will slowly lose mostly fat. Everything else is secondary.

How you lost 60 lbls from eating pizza and chocolate on an unbalanced diet is beyond me. Sure an average pizza must have around 1500 calories alone. And 100 grams of chocolate is over 500 calories. Of course it matters what you eat. And cardio is necessary. It's necessary for the most important muscle of all. Your heart.