200-ish? I can't remember exactly though cause the odometer reset switch has been busted on my bike for ages.
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Working out! Fitness! Nutrition!
- Thread starter Taleb
- Start date
200-ish? I can't remember exactly though cause the odometer reset switch has been busted on my bike for ages.
Ok guys, I'm here because I need help getting into shape, I don't know where to start.
I'm just under 6 feet and around 205 lbs, I want to be around 180.
I don't care about building muscle mass, I just want to maintain a healthy diet/weight.
I want to start my exercise early in the day (6 am), I plan to start walking/jogging and take it from there.
I know I can google most of my questions, but I'd like to get real people's opinions/input.
Other than jogging, what other exercises should I consider? (I don't have a gym membership/equipment)
Should I have breakfast before or after my jog?
What food do you guys recommend? (breakfast/lunch/dinner)
Snacks?
What kind of food should I avoid?
Any additional information is appreciated.
Thanks!
I'm just under 6 feet and around 205 lbs, I want to be around 180.
I don't care about building muscle mass, I just want to maintain a healthy diet/weight.
I want to start my exercise early in the day (6 am), I plan to start walking/jogging and take it from there.
I know I can google most of my questions, but I'd like to get real people's opinions/input.
Other than jogging, what other exercises should I consider? (I don't have a gym membership/equipment)
Should I have breakfast before or after my jog?
What food do you guys recommend? (breakfast/lunch/dinner)
Snacks?
What kind of food should I avoid?
Any additional information is appreciated.
Thanks!
I'm far from an expert but you sound just like me a number of years ago. Same height and when I saw 207 on the scale I said enough's enough.
I just cut out or reduced the obvious junk food, ate smaller portions, drink lots of water throughout the day and got a dog. I walk with her 5 times a day (self-employed so can do what I want when I want) - I'm now consistently in the low 170s.
Roomie
Banned
While I'm no expert either, I've been in a gym consistently for 13 years. My advice would be look at a membership (if there's somewhere convenient near you and costs aren't outrageous) and perhaps consult a personal trainer. My friend was the same but started at 224 lbs @ 5'11" and he spent the time with a trainer for I think it was a six session package he paid for. Now we just work on his routines and slowly upping his weights and it's working for him and we're only there usually for about an hour and a half 4 days a week.
Home equipment is ok too but most people I've ever known lose interest or drive when trying to do it alone after a while. If you must have something for home I would suggest a tread mill, some free weights and a bench.
Honestly Mina, given your questions if I was you I'd just do a little research and answer your own questions. What works for me will NOT work for you, maybe consider joining the BB.com forums? What I can answer:
Jogging+Calisthenics would work pretty well, if you don't want to bulk you still should do bodyweight excercises to keep muscle on you.
Protein shake, maybe cottage cheese or yogurt 15-30 before, and your full breakfast 30 after. (MY OPINION ONLY)
Way too broad a question, and you need to look at your own diet and metabolism to answer it.
Snacks should be low or no fat, with some protein and good carbs. If you were bulking I would say greek yogurt or cottage cheese for snacks. Your snack should be an appetite supressant and macro (getting in your daily calories and carbs/protein), nothing more.
Avoid food with Trans Fats, Carbs from sugar, Saturated fat, high caloric food with no nutritional value etc. ESPECIALLY AVOID SODA AND SUGARY DRINKS. I can NOT stress that enough. Drink water, tea, organic juice in moderation, etc. but NO soda, no frutopia, no nothin like that.
Jogging+Calisthenics would work pretty well, if you don't want to bulk you still should do bodyweight excercises to keep muscle on you.
Protein shake, maybe cottage cheese or yogurt 15-30 before, and your full breakfast 30 after. (MY OPINION ONLY)
Way too broad a question, and you need to look at your own diet and metabolism to answer it.
Snacks should be low or no fat, with some protein and good carbs. If you were bulking I would say greek yogurt or cottage cheese for snacks. Your snack should be an appetite supressant and macro (getting in your daily calories and carbs/protein), nothing more.
Avoid food with Trans Fats, Carbs from sugar, Saturated fat, high caloric food with no nutritional value etc. ESPECIALLY AVOID SODA AND SUGARY DRINKS. I can NOT stress that enough. Drink water, tea, organic juice in moderation, etc. but NO soda, no frutopia, no nothin like that.
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Mina - I think it'd be helpful for you to let us know what your current diet looks like. It will probably be far easier to give tips on tweaking your current lifestyle rather than creating an entire regime for you. There may be some very obvious things you can do to shed some weight i.e. cutting out empty calories from drinks.
Start with a diet. Cut out sugars & stimulants (coke, pop, coffee etc...). Eat a lot of veggies and meats with low amounts of carbs and fats. There are good fats/carbs that you want and there are bad ones. Avoid fried foods. Stay with from McDonalds or any place with a drive-thru.
If you can't cook or can't learn etc... start to eat subway or one of those extreme pita places that have a healthy menu. I eat subway for breakfast lunch and dinner and lost 20lbs with jogging every day for 30min to 1hr. Read the nutrition guide for everything before consuming. If you like jogging and find it hard to do because of lack of regular routine get an active dog (life style permitting). Go hiking and doing other activities with the dog will help you get an active lifestyle that you can't ignore.
Try to do a good workout atleast once a week where you work up a good sweat. You will notice you have lots of energy. Starting with 20 push-ups, sit-ups and chin-ups can be good.
It's all about routine and it takes time and patience to build one.
If you can't cook or can't learn etc... start to eat subway or one of those extreme pita places that have a healthy menu. I eat subway for breakfast lunch and dinner and lost 20lbs with jogging every day for 30min to 1hr. Read the nutrition guide for everything before consuming. If you like jogging and find it hard to do because of lack of regular routine get an active dog (life style permitting). Go hiking and doing other activities with the dog will help you get an active lifestyle that you can't ignore.
Try to do a good workout atleast once a week where you work up a good sweat. You will notice you have lots of energy. Starting with 20 push-ups, sit-ups and chin-ups can be good.
It's all about routine and it takes time and patience to build one.
I was in a similar position, 6'2 and I weighed myself on January 15th, and I could not believe what the scale said....275. I knew something had to be done. Like you I didn't want to bulk up or put on muscle, I just wanted to cut weight and tone. I started off pretty slow. First I drastically changed my regular diet; I used to drink pop daily and always had sweets or candy as snacks, and because I'm not a very good cook usually bought fast food for dinner. I try to limit myself to 1 pop a week if any (usually at work if the vending machine is out of bottled water), and have fast food maybe twice a month, and always small stuff (just a burger or chicken, no fries). I started eating more meats as veggies as well, I found for almost the same price that I would pay for a fast food meal I could grab a nice steak from the butcher and a veggie for a side (usually mushrooms because I love them), or grab some chicken and try a new recipe. Right now I'm looking into starting a keto diet, but cutting carbs that low I think I will find a challenge so I'm a bit hesitant.
I also started exercising; again starting off slow with doing 50 sit ups a day, and 3 reps of 10 bicep curls (25lbs) for each arm. I did that for two weeks, then I upped it a little bit, doing 75 situps and the 4 sets of curls. I did that for 2 weeks, then upped it to 4 sets of curls, 2 sets of 50 sit ups (5 min break between the two sets), then another 4 sets of curls. Found out my work has a small exercise room for its employees at the beginning of march. Now before I go to work Ill do 4 sets of curls, 15 min break, another 4 sets of curls then shower and head to work. After work I do at least 2 miles (secondhand american machines) in 20 mins on the elliptical, then 3 sets of 50 crunches on this little ab chair they have that works my abs way harder than just bracing my feet and doing them on the floor. I try to do that every day, although there are busy days that I've missed either one or both.
It takes time, and the results will slowly start to show, but they will be there. I went from 275 lbs dead on in January 15th, to 245.2 lbs as of March 21st. It is possible to bring your numbers down, but just like racing it is all about the consistency, start by making small changes like cutting some things from your normal diet and light exercise, and just build from there but make sure you stick to it! Trust me the changes will be noticeable http://imgur.com/a/E6JmN
Sabex
Well-known member
Don't be afraid to do other weight lifting exercises. You're not going to put on 50lbs of lean muscle just by doing a few squats. The people you see at competitions have been working out for years to obtain the body they have.
Once you do reach a low bodyfat% you're going to need to have some muscle to show, or you'll just look very skinny. You can't get "toned" without any muscle definition. You'll just become skinnyfat or look like a skeleton.
Weight lifting is also a good way to burn calories. You aren't going to be gaining very much muscle if you're not eating big. You need to take in more calories than you exert to gain weight (muscle/fat.)
Weight is really not a measure of fitness/healthyness. You can be 150lbs and bordering on death, you can be 225lbs and extremely fit.
With all that said: congratulations on your progress and keep it up. You've already got the hardest (and most important) part complete: diet. Diet is 95% of weight loss/gain. A poor diet will ruin everything, an amazing diet will make things fly faster. Just consider a bit of muscle in the future, and remember you won't become arnold in a week just from lifting.
And might I ask what you're trying to achieve by doing the crunches?
When I need to shred up for summer pretty much only one diet works for me and it works all the way to the end. There is only a few rules.
- No bread, pasta, rice or potatoes
- 1 piece of fruit per day if you must, and I usually make it an orange or grape fruit to keep up the vit. C, but berries are pretty good as well (usually with breakfast after my cardio)
- Green veggies only with the occasional carrot or squash here and there
- Protein, all the time, every meal 1-2 servings (a serving is what would fit into your palm)
- Don't be afraid of fat, nuts, butter etc it's all good just be reasonable
- If you are really serious about results then cut alcohol out completely until you accomplish your goal
Cardio on a daily basis before the first meal of the day, weight training in the evenings (you could probably substitute this for bodyweight exercises, pushups, pull ups etc.)
The main thing is stop eating when you are no longer hungry, no ******** coffees or whatever during the day, you want coffee drink it black. Don’t skip meals, and don’t skip workouts, consistency over a period of time will yield the results you are looking for. I usually go down from 205ish to 175ish in the summer. Expect it to take a few months. 5lbs per month is reasonable. You will probably lose more if you never really worked out before and had terrible eating habits.
You gain 30 pounds every winter and lose 5 pounds a month for 6 months to get to 175? So your whole. Year is spent 6 months gaining weight 6 months losing, that makes no sense
Usually takes about 4-5 months to cut that. I am not sure what you find unreasonable about bulking to gain muscle and then cutting to look good in the summer.
Swinging up and down 30 pounds a year isn't necessary or smart. If you don't think so that's fine. On another note did you ever end up taking jiu jitsu ? I'm in Mexico now training at Carlson Gracie .
For freestyle: http://jasonferruggia.com/bulking-cutting-revisited/
Roomie
Banned
That's why my advice was go to a gym and consult a professional trainer. Everyone is different and some things will or won't work for you.
Most trainers at MOST gyms don't know anything.....go see a good properly trained and educated trainer.
Gaining massive fat every year and losing it works for no one. Period. The real way to see if what you are doing is really working is stop being deluded and get in a bod pod. Everyone will be surprised at how much fat they are carrying vs how much you think you have!! Then do your training and go back in the bod pod again to see what happened. Pinch test or the scales you stand on to test fat are useless.
www.torontobodpod.com
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Meh I don't think 20-30lbs is too radical. Besides I personally find I get injrued way less and my lifts are way stronger when I eat the way I do and gain a little bit of weight. So for me it's worth it. I don't know what else to tell you, I am not really going to argue about what works for me.
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