Advice

Hi Folks,

I’ve been reading through here quite a bit taking bits of advice and trying it myself but I’m looking for more specific advice now.

I’m a 25 year old male, 5.11 in height and 13 stone (82.5 kg) in weight and would consider myself chubby in areas (face, chest and stomach)

My basic day to day diet would be as follows:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs (2 lrg eggs, butter, milk, salt, pepper) on wholegrain toast
Lunch: whole grain sambo with turkey/ham, spinach, spring onion, cheese, tomato, mayo
Dinner: Varies:
Spag bol (brown pasta, lean mince, sauce, cheese)
tacos (lean mince, sauce, salad, wholegrain wraps)
steak/chicken/turkey with brown rice and veg
Snacks: Fruit, Nuts, choco bar (80% cocoa) and wholegrain toast

Weekends I would normally have a night of drinking followed by a takeaway of some kind.

My current gym plan is currently 3 times a week doing:
Cardio (sprints on treadmill and rowing)
Chest and arms one day (usually 40kg on the various weight machines)
Back and legs another (again 40 kg for back weight machines and 60+ on leg machines)
Also do one spinning class a week

I have yet to move onto free weights as basically I’m not sure on the correct workouts/form and I feel a bit silly trying them and I haven’t been doing the famous squats yet either.

So…. After all that I am just wondering if I am on the right track to losing body fat and toning up as well. I would love your input/suggestions/changes to anything and everything.
Basically my goal is to lose the body fat and tone up, particular on chest and stomach area.

Pat_custard

Diet seems pretty solid, I'm not an expert so I'll leave that to other posters with better knowledge. One thing I'll say about the weekend is personally I see no problem with a night of drinks and takeaway but I'd try opt for a little change. Like try get a takeaway with out sauces. One thing I defiantly do know is sauces are a killer.

regarding training, I'd try incorporate cardio at least 5 times a week. I'd also recommend interval cardio, which you seem to be doing on the treadmill. I'd give the cross trainer a go as well, I find it a great fat burner.

I'd setup a day with one of the personal trainers and have him show you basic compound exercises. Dead lifts, Squats, Bench Press etc. Along with cardio these compound lifts should be your bread and butter.

After that I'd just slowly educate myself about different free weight lifts that I could try, buy a log book and start planing my sessions not just doing whatever I feel like when I get in there.

Last but not least, find a short term goal, whether it be an old pic of when you were fitter, or a holiday in a couple weeks or something that you can work towards and just keep using that as your motivation to keep going. Starting is the hardest part.

Zillah

I think you should do your cardio running around/cycling outside and save your gym time for weights. Two lifting sessions per week is not going to see very fast progress. Four weights sessions per week with some cardio fit in around your evenings and weekends would be much better in my opinion.

I'm sure others will disagree but I think you should focus on getting strong, the rest will follow naturally. Keep up the pace while doing weights and your cardiovascular system will get going too, anyway.

Mellor

Deleted User wrote: »

Breakfast: scrambled eggs (2 lrg eggs, butter, milk, salt, pepper) on wholegrain toast
Lunch: whole grain sambo with turkey/ham, spinach, spring onion, cheese, tomato, mayo
Dinner: Varies:
Spag bol (brown pasta, lean mince, sauce, cheese)
tacos (lean mince, sauce, salad, wholegrain wraps)
steak/chicken/turkey with brown rice and veg
Snacks: Fruit, Nuts, choco bar (80% cocoa) and wholegrain toast

This diet could be completely fine, or it could be pretty poor. Without quantities its impossible to know.

But, its worth pointing out that you are having bread, pasta or rice at EVERY meal. And the given the typical Irish tendency to oversize carbs on the side, chances are it could be too much.

How many wraps would you have with the tacos/wraps.
What is a typical size portion of rice or pasta (uncooked weight).

Choosing wholegrain bread, and brown rice/pasta is going to make no difference to weight loss. It will provide a few extra calories and a little extra fibre. But you can get that from extra veg too. There's nothing wrong with meat and veg without rice/pasta/etc

Weekends I would normally have a night of drinking followed by a takeaway of some kind.

That's fine, if you are smart about in and are using the calories.

My current gym plan is currently 3 times a week doing:
Cardio (sprints on treadmill and rowing)
Chest and arms one day (usually 40kg on the various weight machines)
Back and legs another (again 40 kg for back weight machines and 60+ on leg machines)
Also do one spinning class a week

You could probably be working a lot harder in the gym.
You are sort of cruising on the weights machines, and cardio could be planned better.

Pat_custard

Mellor wrote: »

This diet could be completely fine, or it could be pretty poor. Without quantities its impossible to know.

But, its worth pointing out that you are having bread, pasta or rice at EVERY meal. And the given the typical Irish tendency to oversize carbs on the side, chances are it could be too much.

How many wraps would you have with the tacos/wraps.
What is a typical size portion of rice or pasta (uncooked weight).

Choosing wholegrain bread, and brown rice/pasta is going to make no difference to weight loss. It will provide a few extra calories and a little extra fibre. But you can get that from extra veg too. There's nothing wrong with meat and veg without rice/pasta/etc

Yea that's one thing I noticed but I wasn't gonna say anything in case I got slaughtered. There seems to be way too many carbs in your daily diet. I myself play a lot of sport so the day before a match and on match days and training days I'll eat carbs.

On training days I'll have one, maybe two carb portions depending on what I'm doing, the day of a match I'll load up on them. I'm not sure how most people would agree with this but since it's summer and holidays and all I'd normally be cutting carbs out completely on days I don't train. Prob not 100% the best for ya and I couldn't see many nutritionists recommending it but it's worked for me in the past so I try continue it coming into the summer time.

Alf Veedersane

Pat_custard wrote: »

On training days I'll have one, maybe two carb portions depending on what I'm doing, the day of a match I'll load up on them. I'm not sure how most people would agree with this but since it's summer and holidays and all I'd normally be cutting carbs out completely on days I don't train. Prob not 100% the best for ya and I couldn't see many nutritionists recommending it but it's worked for me in the past so I try continue it coming into the summer time.

It's just carb cycling.

The problem a lot of people have with it is that they overdo the carbs on training days with mountainous plates of pasta etc etc and have no idea what they're eating re quantities etc.

Mellor

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

The problem a lot of people have with it is that they overdo the carbs on training days ALL THE TIME with mountainous plates of pasta etc etc and have no idea what they're eating re quantities etc.

FYP

Transform

Pat_custard wrote: »

Yea that's one thing I noticed but I wasn't gonna say anything in case I got slaughtered. There seems to be way too many carbs in your daily diet. I myself play a lot of sport so the day before a match and on match days and training days I'll eat carbs.

On training days I'll have one, maybe two carb portions depending on what I'm doing, the day of a match I'll load up on them. I'm not sure how most people would agree with this but since it's summer and holidays and all I'd normally be cutting carbs out completely on days I don't train. Prob not 100% the best for ya and I couldn't see many nutritionists recommending it but it's worked for me in the past so I try continue it coming into the summer time.

can you do press ups, pull ups, and an air squat, lunges, step ups?(squat with no weight)
If not get working on those

Pat_custard

Transform wrote: »

can you do press ups, pull ups, and an air squat, lunges, step ups?(squat with no weight)
If not get working on those

Yea, I agree with optimus prime

Thanks for all the info/advice and input lads, really appreciated.

I took everything on board and didn't realize until I seen it on my screen how much carbs I was having with each meal (Irish mentally as Mellor said)

So regarding my diet, I've cut carbs out of 2/3 meals a day. Leaving some bread/toast or rice/pasta to be had with one meal.

Also Mellor I think you hit the nail on the head with the cruising through to weight machines, it even felt that way to me. I have since upped the reps/sets on the machines and began adding free weights to workouts (chest/arm workouts)

I've also added some body-weight workouts including knee raises followed by 30 second planks (3 sets, and it kills me)
Added sit-ups with weights/kettlebells also.

With all these changes my plan feels better and it feels like I'm getting in a real workout and achieving something after a gym session.