So as far as exercise programs go, what would you recommend for somebody who is just getting in shape and has 40lbs of fat to lose (or 100 to lose in the case of my wife)? Somebody with so much BF that they're not ready for a typical bulk and cut cycle? I'm assuming the diet portion would start with about a 30% deficit from maintenance, but where to from there?
The limitations in my case is that during the week I work two jobs, so 3 or 4 days of the week I can't do more than 45-50 minutes or so in the gym before heading up to work again.
DIET
As for the diet, I have posted them numerous place, but here they are.
Rosie's Diet Tips For Fat Loss
1.
First, you need to work out what your MAINTENANCE calories are (There are various methods and equations that you can use to calculate this; most take into account current body mass, height, and activity level). Then, to lose fat, you need to make sure that you’re having up to 500 calories LESS than maintenance. Depending on how fast or slow you lose the fat, you can adjust and tweak your calorie intake each week.
2.
Eat every 2-3 hours after waking. This helps keep the metabolism going throughout the day, as well as keeping insulin levels stable (so, you can see that 3 meals is simply NOT enough, even small portions).
3. EVERY meal should have complex carbohydrates [CHO] (i.e. kumara, rice, oats, etc.), QUALITY LEAN protein (chicken breast, fish, tuna, salmon, lean beef, egg whites, etc.), and FIBROUS CHO (i.e. vegetables, green ones in particular).
4. Drink 4.5 litres of water per day. This will help keep the system clean.
5. It has been proven that TWO servings of DAIRY per day helps lose MORE fat than if one avoids it altogether.
6. Do NOT avoid fat (The only fat she should be avoiding is Saturated fat and Trans fats). You NEED fat in your diet, as fat plays major roles in energy metabolism and other parts of your body (Wardlaw & Hampl, 2007).
Make sure to have at least 30 grams of GOOD fats (i.e. flaxseeds or flaxseed oil, fish oils, peanut butter, nuts - especially almonds and walnuts, hempseed oil, olive oil, etc.) per day (i.e. this is ~2 tbsp of flaxseed oil or peanut butter).
7. Don’t drink tea or coffee. Try drinking GREEN tea instead; it helps with thermogenesis, and is especially good if you take it one hour before doing cardio first thing in the morning.
8. Don’t drink alcohol. Alcohol has NO nutritional value and is full of calories.
9. Minimize adding salt to food. Instead, flavour a meal with herbs and spices (i.e. ginger, cumin, cayenne pepper, curry powder, chilli powder, and garlic all help thermogenesis a bit).
10. The only sugar needed on a regular basis is the NATURAL sugars found in food; these are mostly found in fruit. Too much sugar plays havoc with insulin levels and these should be as stable as possible throughout the day. The best time to be having sugar is straight AFTER a RESISTANCE workout, when the body is trying to replenish muscle glycogen stores (Burke, 2006).
11.
Do NOT avoid CHO. You NEED at least 50-100 grams of CHO per day for your body to burn fat effectively. A good guideline is to have at least 1 gram of CHO per kg of body mass per day as a MINIMUM (Burke, 2006).
12. Eat most food as 'natural' as possible. This means fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, grains, etc. Try not to eat too much packaged food, as it is full of extra calories and sugar.
13.
Most importantly, remember that it IS OK TO CHEAT every now and then. Actually the body NEEDS cheat meals and day. By throwing all the guidelines I have just mentioned above out of the way and having a day where you eat what you want it helps, and will also help prevent your body from going into starvation mode (where the body battles you to hold onto the fat as much as it can). If you prefer NOT to ‘cheat’, then adding in 1-2 higher CALORIE days (i.e. go up to Maintenance, or even Bulking, or even slightly higher), with the extra calories coming from quality COMPLEX CHO, you should be ok.
Supplements should NOT be a big deal, as most
fat loss can be done through simply eating the right food at the right time. And unless everything that you’re doing is already done to ensure the maximum results in the timeframe that you want to achieve it in, and then supplementation should not be the focus. However, there ARE a few supplements that I think are important to any regime:
1. A multivitamin. (Although you should be eating as much of a variety of food as possible, in order to meet the RDI/AI of most nutrients from actual food).
2. Creatine monohydrate. Creatine helps the body to recover faster, as well as aiding in increasing strength levels and lean body mass [LBM].
3. Flaxseed/Hempseed/Fish Oil. This is the GOOD fats. Flaxseed or Hempseed oil is great with breakfast or in protein shakes.
4. Protein Powder. This just helps for the in-between meals, or after the gym, and to make sure that you get enough protein in (
You should be having 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body mass per day; this is so that muscle loss is prevented, and can even assist in small gains in LBM).
Calorie cycling is an awesome "'diet" method (and the best, IMO) for fat loss.
EXERCISE
If you're just getting into shape then you don't want to do anything too full-on too fast. You need to build a base and work up from there. The most important thing would be to get resistance sessions in (as I said). And you don't have to do long sessions; 30-45 minutes is enough.
I would suggest circuit sessions, as that way you're working on your cardiovascular fitness (can be almost like a high intensity cardio session), as well as muscular endurance and strength, and metabolism is high. You could do your 'cardio' as a 'warm-up' if you really feel that it is necessary: Select any piece of cardio equipment and do 4 minutes easy, then 8 x 20 sec efforts/10 sec easy (you can start with 10 sec efforts/20 sec easy and build up to 20 sec efforts), and fiinsh with 4 min easy. If you feel like you need to be doing more then you can do a brisk walk (NOT in the gym) for 20-30 minutes every other day (and it'll be easy on your joints).
If you are a beginner (in the case of your wife), you can start off with 2 days per week. Otherwise, I would recommend 3 or 4 days. Each bodypart should be trained ONCE a week; this gives it plenty of time to recover before the next training session. Exercises that you should be doing are multijoint, compound exercises, as they use more than one muscle, and are the most effective for not only building muscle, but also in burning fat, because they are recruiting more of your body to perform the exercise than isolation exercises (these are a waste of time unless you are looking for a pump close to competition, really). The best compound exercises that you can do are the squat and the deadlift, as they use pretty much EVERY muscle in your body. Other compound exercises that are good to include are the power clean, bench press, shoulder press, pull-ups, dips, as well as calf raises (the only isolation exercise that’s really good).You should be doing at least 2 exercises for each muscle group, with 4 sets of 6-10 (even up to 12) reps per exercise, with 1-2 minutes recovery in between (the shorter the recovery, the lighter your weights will possibly be, which will give you a ‘cardio’ workout as well). You should never spend longer than 45-50 minutes in total lifting (i.e. your session should take that long from the time you walk in to the time you walk out, excluding if you do a warm-up (if you do this 10-12 minutes is sufficient)/cool-down (if you do this I would recommend stretching for 5-10 minutes) – and this is strictly your own preference); otherwise you become too catabolic and end up losing muscle. You also need to change your weights programme around slightly every 4-6 weeks, just so that your body does not get used to it and stop adapting. This can be as little as changing the order of exercises in a session or the number of sets and/or reps that you do for an exercise (and it only needs to be one exercise changed at a time, small adjustments over the weeks).
As long as you are eating RIGHT, doing weights 2-4 times per week, doing cardio 3 or more times per week for 12-30 minutes per day (depending on the intensity; the higher the intensity the shorter you do it for!), and allowing your body to RECOVER (this is VERY important; if you do TOO much, then your body won’t be able to recover properly and you won’t get the results you want, since your body only adapts and gets results in the RECOVERY time!), then you will lose fat!
I would recommend getting a personal trainer who knows their stuff and who can be there to get you started annd take you through a few sessions and be hands on and hold you accountable and provide motivation, support, and "push".