To Broken Parachute:
You're not going to be able to lose any significant amount of weight without improving your diet. And the thing is, a good diet will help you sooooo soooo soooo sooo much in regards to actually building muscle mass too.
I'll try to break these down in sections.
Diet
1. Ok here are the things you need to start limiting yourself from eating:
Butter, Fried foods, Mayonnaise, Sweets, Whole-fat dairy products, and pretty much everything thats high in saturated fat, trans fat, and sugar. Simple carbs are your worst enemy 95% of the day.
2. It would be really helpful if you start breaking your meals down to 6 small meals a day. It helps keep your metabolism moving, helps keep your body anabolic(you're constantly supplying your muscles with nutrients which is beyond helpful), and it helps you from over eating. Spread the meals out every 2 and a half to 3 hours I like to make sure that each meal contains a serving of lean protein, a complex carb, and some fiberous carbs like veggies. A good rule of thumb to start out with as far as serving sizes is to do this. A serving of protein = something as big as the palm of your hand and as thick. Serving of carbs = something as big as a closed fix. Serving of veggies is pretty much up to you.
3. There are a few exceptions for this. If you're trying to lose weight you can cut out your complex carbs the last two meals of the day and just stick with veggies for your carb source. You also want simple carbs post workout rather than complex but i'll explain that later.
4. Start getting in your omega 3's and 6's. They're healthy fats that are beyond benificial towards your health and can help you lose weight. Fresh water fish and nuts are good sources of these. As well as flax seeds. I usually get mine through fish oil pills.
Here is a sample days diet.
Breakfast: (8am)
5 egg whites with one whole egg scrambled up. (Reason being, eggs are fast digesting. You want a protein fast digesting after youve been fasting all night while sleeping)
1/2 cup of old fashioned oat meal(say no to the instant kind in packets)
2 fish oil pills
1 multivitamin
-
Mid Snack.(11am)
Turkey breast w/ a 1/2 cup of brown rice and some carrots.
That's just an example. being that I'm at class at this time I need something on the go and portable. So every morning I blend 2 scoops of protein powder, 1/2 cup of oatmeal, and some water and put it in a shaker. I'll eat this during class.
Lunch(2pm)
Tuna in water on two slices of whole wheat bread with some lettuce
Snack(4:30pm)
Chicken breast and two tbsps of natural peanut butter. You can sub the PB with a complex carb but the reason i'm taking PB right now is because this is my pre-workout snack. The fat in the PB is a better source of energy then the carbs.
Post workout meal:(7:30pm or immediately after im done lifting)MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY)
Right now your body is starting to release cortisol which is a hormone that is catabolic(it eats muscle). In order to curb this you need a fast digest simple carb thats going to cause an insulin spike to curb the cortisol..this is where sugar is helpful. You also need a fast digesting protein to get the nutrients to our muscles asap.
A good natural post workout meal would be osmething like 6 hard boiled egg whites or eggs no matter how theyre cooked with some rice cakes.
The post work out meal I prefer and as do most people... Is protein mixed with water and something high in dextrose and maltodextrin(two sugars). The best source for this is powdered gatorade. If you don't feel like doing that... the candies known as "smarties" are pretty much all dextrose/maltodextrin
Dinner(hour after your post workout meal)
Chicken breast and some veggies.
Pre-bed snack: I want a protein that's slow digesting right now that'll feed my muscles through out the night. Low fat cottage cheese is a perfect example of this. Being that it's caesin protien, it gels with your stomach and digests slowly. Red meat is a nice choice here too. If you must eat something simple now like a protein shake make sure it's either caesin protein or make sure you're taking some healthy fats with it to slow down the absporbtion.
Keep in mind that I eat dinner late because I lift late. When you have your meals is purely up to you. This is just how my schedule looks. However the longer you do it the more you look at food as just fuel..and you really dont have names for your meals hahah..
Here are some examples of good proteins: Chicken breast
Turkey breast, Lean ground turkey, Swordfish, Orange roughy, Haddock, Salmon, Tuna, Shrimp, Top round steak, Top sirloin steak, Lean ground beef, Buffalo, Egg whites or substitutes, Trout, Low-fat cottage cheese, Wild-game meat, Ostrich, etc.. Most of these are pretty low cal/high protein.
Example of some complex carbs:
Baked potato, Sweet potato, Yams, Squash, Pumpkin, Steamed brown rice, Steamed wild rice, Oatmeal, Barley, Beans, Kidney beans, Strawberries, Whole-wheat bread, High-fiber/low sugar cereal, other whole grains.
Example of some healthy fats... you should be getting at least 3-4gs of omega 3's a day:
Avocado, Sunflower seeds, Pumpkin seeds, Cold-water fish, Low-sodium nuts, Olives and olive oil, Safflower oil, Canola oil, Sunflower oil, Flax seed oil.
Walnuts, Flax seed, and Fish are good sources of omega 3's
The rest should cover your omega 6's
Cardio
You said your goals are to lose fat and gain muscle mass. And to be honest they take two seperate approaches because while building muscle you need a caloric surplus and when cutting fat you need a caloric deficit. However, you can still lose fat and gain some muscle. Just don't expect to go from benching 135 to 315 in three months.
With that being said, you want a cardio that is short, sweet, and intense. You want to be doing HIIT training(High Intensity Interval Training). You want something that's going to burn fat while preserving your muscle mass. Just look at XC sprinters.. All skinny twigs right? Now look at an Olmypic Sprinter...10 times out of 10 they're fucking jacked.
Basically instead of running miles and being on a treadmill for 45 minutes... You're going to be doing cardio no longer than 20 minutes. The key here is intensity. The longer you run the more you're putting your body into a catabolic state. Not to mention HIIT triggers your body to burn more calories after the exercise is over. Here is an excellent article on HIIT that explains the purpose, logic, and shows you some good exercises for it.
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do...itan?id=459414
I'd do this 2-3 days a week. And never do cardio on an empty stomach!
Lifting
Before I really get into this I just want to point out a few important things you need to be aware of.
1. Spend 45 minutes to an hour in the gym. No longer. After 45 minutes..Your body starts releasing that cortisol. I get a kick out of the idiots at the gym that spend 2 hours there thinking they're so hardcore and tough when they're actually doing one of the most counterproductive things you could possibly do.
2. Do NOT follow Exercise routines out of a fitness magazine that are marked as like "Ronnie Colemans massive routien for arms!). 10 times out of 10 it's a routine that's loaded with reps, exercises, and is flat out begging your body to overtrain. An overwhelming amount of pro body builders are on steroids. Their workouts are going to be far more intense than a normal person can handle without over training. Even the workouts in Arnolds encyclopedia. And even if they're not on steroids, they've been training a lot longer than you and I. Their workouts are put in there for the sole purpose of sales. And most of the time thats not even their routine.
3. Find a split that works for you. Whether it be 5 days a week, 4 days a week, or 3 days a week. Just make sure you're doing a body part once every 6-7 days. Muscles grow while resting, not while you're at the gym. Doing two-three chest exercises a week is pointless, uneeded, and will lead to overtraining.
4. Focus on doing compound exercises(exercises that focus on more than one joint movmenet.. IE: bench press, squat, weighted dips, deadlift, barbell curl, military press, etc..) rather than isolation exercises(exercises that focus on one joint movement...IE: dumbbell curl, pec dec, leg curls, tricep pushdown, etc..)
Why you ask? Compound exercises incorporate more muscle growth because they allow you to use heavier weight and help strengthing your core and stabilizer muscles. They also burn more calories which makes sense right? I'm not saying isolation exercises are useless but I KNOW that the guy in the gym thats doing a workout 90% compound and 10% isolation is going to be stronger and bigger than the fruit cup using just machines and curling like it's his job. To be honest if you're doing enough compound exercises, you don't NEED to do many bicep exercises... 1 or 2 a week are perfectly fine.
5. If someone tells you to do light weight and high reps to get "toned". Pull down your pants, shit in your hand, and the slap them in the face with it. You get toned through a good diet and having muscle mass. And regardless of what some stringbean tells you. High rep/Low weight is NOT going to build you mass. The only thing that helps with is muscle endurance. But you're not running a marathon any time soon so muscle endurance really isn't that important right now.
6. When you goto the gym you should go in with the intentions of it being short, but sweet. Intensity is the key. 2-3 sets of heavy weight is all you need. I do two sets of eight.
3-6 reps = More for just raw strength gain. Hypertrophy(growth of organ..in this case the organ being muscle) will occur if you're eating a TON
6-10 reps = Rep range more for Hypertrophy. 8 is kinda the best balance between decent strength gains and decent muscle growth
11-15 = pretty much endurance. If you can bang out a weight 15 times the weight is entirely too light to stimulate growth.
7. When creating a split, pair muscle groups with muscles that won't effect the other muscle your doing that day too much. A good example is this:
A common split 3 day split is like this
chest/tri's
back/bi's
legs/shoulders...
what's wrong with the picture?
Say it's chest/tris day. You just did bench press, decline bench, and incline bench for your chest routine. You now did a good amount of fucking to your tricep muscles. So you then move on to your tricep exercises and the amount of weight you are doing is less then what you CAN do because you just got done working your triceps pretty hard. The same thing with back/biceps... most back exercises put significant stress on the biceps...
A more benificial split would be:
Monday
Chest/Bi's
Wednesday
Back/Tri's
Friday
Legs/Shoulders.
Do Abs once or twice a week. They're like any other muscle and need rest. You're already working them pretty hard by doing things like squats and deadlifts..
As far as the amount of exercises you do... Don't go crazy. 3-4 exercises for the larger muscle groups like chest, back, legs, etc.. and 2-3 exercises for the smaller groups like bi's, tri's, and shoulders.
This is my routine right now.
Monday
Chest/Bi's
--
Chest:
Decline Bench 3x8
Flat Bench 2x8
Incline Bench - 2x8
Biceps:
Barbell Curl - 2x8
Preacher Curl 2x8
-
Wednesday
Back/Tri's
--
Triceps:
Weighted Dips 2x8
Close Grip Bench Press 2x8
Decline Barbell Tricep Ext 2x8
Back:
Deadlift 2x8
Weighted Pull Ups 2x8
Seated Rows 2x8
Rack Pulls 2x8
Friday
Legs/Shoulders
Legs:
Squats 2x8
Front Squats 2x8
Stiff Legged Dead Lifts 2x8
Calve Raises 3x10
-
Shoulders:
Military Press 2x8
Cleans 2x8
Upright Row 2x8
Notice I do 2 sets of 8 for mostly everything. If you're going to do this it's important to remember that you need to be intense with your sets. I make sure I use a weight that I can only get 8 reps and nothing more out of.
If you need anymore help with weight loss, you can read this article I wrote:
http://www.musculartrainingdevelopme...ead.php?t=2643
Feel free to msg me on there, or on aim (ImIrish06) if you have any other questions.
If you need help finding exercises and how to do them. This site is key
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html
Hope this helped.
View Profile Picture
Posts: 5,320
Currently Playing
