Help...want to loost weight/shape fast...

[lemon]

ok, first off...im 174 now, but i just hit this mark today, i was 260 at my peak, that was at 0 working out, and 0 diet.... so i was FAT, no muscle or anything... after working out/dieting/ working out/dieting on and off, i managed to wiggle down to 174......great!, i look thinner, people notice, my face shape has gotten better, i put on some muscle. all around a plus, but for the last 4 months, ive been working very hard at shaping my body due to the man boobs/love handles/baby fat/ gut i have from being very over weight, not as bad as they were, but still unpleasant....no matter how hard i try i can't shape it...

what do you think guys? what kind of work outs should i be doing? im going low weight high reps now, figuring it would shape it up, i was doing high weight low reps ( 3 sets of 5 reps ect ect.. ) but stopped with change of work out, should i have kept it hight weight low reps to build muscle to fill in the loss skin?

would a more strict diet be a good idea also? im at about 1200 calories a day...if that, with lots of protein

i don't care about muscle/strength loss, i just want to be thin, and cut, size of muscle isn't so much important to me.

i do 30 mins of cardio a day, with abs everyday, mon-fri is singular body part work outs ( chest, tri, bi, back, shoulders, forarms, legs ) and saturday i do a full body work out with sunday off..

I NEED TO BE THIN!!!!! ive been fat my whole life, and now that im finally at a alright weight, i need to fix the things that being fat gave me....

 

[ItsHectic]

You wont notice a shape improvement until you get to lower bodyfat % I think its <20% you start to notice shape improvement.

Measure your waist, it should shrink along with surrounding areas thats why you wont notice a shape improvement straight away, in your midsection you will just be a smaller version of yourself until a certain point. Keep track of your weight also, you should be losing about 1kg per week.

Train in the normal rep range of 6-12, prefebly around 8-10 I would say. Do jogging at a good pace, you should be puffed out.
After 2 months of dieting have a 1-2 week break.
Take a day or 2 off from cardio each week and have a cheat meal once or twice a week also.

 

[lemon]

thanks
imma alter my work out plan, and diet

i need to get thin\shaped...finally losed the weight number wise, but still looking fat,..it sucks........

 

[EasyEJL]

would a more strict diet be a good idea also? im at about 1200 calories a day...if that, with lots of protein
....
I NEED TO BE THIN!!!!! ive been fat my whole life, and now that im finally at a alright weight, i need to fix the things that being fat gave me....

For starters, I'm not sure how much more strict a diet you can get than 1200 cals a day. second it can't be "lots of protein" at that caloric level as if you had 0 fat and 0 carbs that would only be 300g (which would qualify as alot yes). So you need to fix that to begin with. You probably are still looking fat because your body is in a starvation mode and burning muscle while adding fat.

174 is still at the top or just over the high end of "normal" weight for 5'10" if I recall. So not exactly sure thats an alright weight. If you want to look thin you have 2 choices - add more muscle for a while so that the loose skin is more filled and then diet back down to get to the bodyfat level you want or to raise your intake of food a little and expect to have to get down to the 150s to look thin.

Would help if you posted pics too. Even when I was a bit lighter, in the 190s I would lose weight at a pound every other day at your diet level. For a while (like 6-10 lbs) then it would slowly grind to a halt as I slowed my metabolism and my body started to feel it was in starvation. A slow lightly reduced intake is way better.

I was a former fat boy too, hit a peak of just shy of 250 with 0 muscle not having been in a gym since high school about 3 years ago and decided I was tired of that I bulked up a bit over the winter and I started getting antsy when I weighed in over 225, even though it looked good.

 

[lemon]

so i need to up the cals, what range do you think 2,000? or more?
do you agree with the 10 rep range ??? or should i go straight to bulking? pack in as much muscle as possible into the loose skin?
i did cardio every day, 6/7 days a week...but imma switch to the 5/7 with a 2 day break
and yes, i grinded to a hault...ive been at the weight for months174 being the lightest but between 174 and 178 for the last 4 months or so...

my goal...main goal, is to get body fat down to 8-10%.....thats my goal/look i want with my body, complelty toned and cut, muscle size is not so much a goal for me, just being over all shaped and cut.

 

[gamer2be08]

Eat about 2500 and balance it with healthy complex carbs and healthy fats and of course protein in 5-6 meals throughout the day.. Start off your day with a protein shake; that speeds up your metabolism. Drink a glass of 1 percent or skim milk after you lift weights and that will also help with fat loss.. When you do cardio, make sure you push yourself through a run, don't half ass it; not saying you do, just saying... And lets get a pic up so we can help you out more mate!

 

[EasyEJL]

list a days worth of your current eating here, so we can look at it. I'd make sure that you slowly raise calories from where you are, by just 200/day each week to avoid rebound fat. And I wouldn't go for a true bulk, more just a little over what should be maintenance, so for you the 2500 cals a day should be good. but remember, reach that over the next 6 weeks or so, don't just jump there.

As far as rep range, it barely matters. Intensity matters more for gaining muscle. But layout your workout in detail too, maybe there is something we can work on there

 

[snyper2k2]

Remember, its not about bearly eating, its about eating enough, just eating the right things.

 

[lemon]

meals
meal 1: oatmeal w/ a slice of bread folded in half with penut butter and a tall glass of sunny d , and some times a Clementine
meal 2: eggs ( either 2 whole, or 1 normal and 2 egg whites ) with a bottle of water, a clementine if i did not have one with meal 1
meal 3: bread with penut butter again, with sunny d
meal 4: dinner ( chicken of some sort usually, or spaghetti ), and most times patato's, or corn
meal 5: eggs or penut butter after a work out

work out:
monday :20-30 min eliptical, chest ( dumbell press, incline dumbell press, decline dumbell press, dumbell flies, and forward press chest machine )
tuesday: 20-30 min eliptical, bi's and tri's ( hammer curls, isolation curls, and 21's for bi's, over head tri extenstion, pushdowns, and isolations for tri's )
wensday: 20-30 min eliptical, shoulders and forearms ( forward and side raises, and what ever its called when you pull up the bar close grip for your shoulders, and occationaly i'll throw in shrugs )
thursday: 20-30 min eliptical, back ( row, bent rows, and back extenstions )
friday: 40 min cardio
sat: full body no cardio
sun: off

i want to pick up a jug of whey, and casien(sp), so i don't need to eat so much eggs oatmeal and penut butter...and maybe drive from AN

 

[EasyEJL]

Ok for starters a few quick things. Sunny D has a lot of sugar in it relative to other things. Bread in general isn't a great nutrition source, even whole wheat. The Ezekiel sprouted grain breads are pretty decent nutritionally though. Peanut butter is only really good if its all natural and made from non-roasted peanuts.

As far as workout goes I'd like to also know # of sets, # reps, any warmups or stretches? Do you go for a fixed # of reps or to failure? Also i'd move the cardio to after the workout.

Beyond whey + casein don't forget also the potential for cottage cheese, and fish of some sort. Walmart has tilapia + swai frozen pretty cheap, plus there is always canned tuna. Also a nice choice for drinking is Calorie Countdown milks. http://www.hood.com/Products/prodListColl.aspx?id=851

 

[lemon]

so my diet blows haha
im alergic to lactose, so the cottage cheese isn't a go, i can only have small amounts of cheese
i'll pick up the good penut butter, since i have the jiffy crunchy...witch im guessing is bad for you also

sets 3 of each reps of 15, i don't go to failure, but i go till its hard to get out the last 2-3, and i go up each time in weight
warmup i do lightweight dumbell press, or w/e my first work out would be, real light, and im usually warmed up from the cardio

i'll move the cardio to the end of the work out

once these things are fixed, do i have a good plan? will it be effective?

 

[EasyEJL]

should definitely be better and make it easier to add some muscle. then it may end up being a bit of a back and forth on the scale, going up for a while then spending a few weeks losing some more fat, then going back to gaining for a little.

 

[lemon]

is the amount of food im eating sound good tho? once i replace some meals like a before bed, and after lunch snake, with the whey, would i be set?

 

[EasyEJL]

I wouldn't even replace meals with the shakes, just add them in.

 

[lemon]

alright, thanks for your help!

 

[lemon]

day 7 since my post, and help..
well, its actually very difficult to eat 2000-2500 calories a day haha
i eat alot and still barely reach like 1700-1800, but its alot more then i usualy eat
my weight hasn't gone up from all the eating, which was what i was worried about/ made me not eat alot in the first place
ive been adding cardio to the end of my workouts which also seems to be helping
i have a whey shake at the end of lunch, and before and after workouts, with those i do reach 2000 cals a day.
with the added food, i have more energy in the gym, and my matabolism feels like its actually working

so you guys were right thanks for the help

 

[ItsHectic]

You probably are still looking fat because your body is in a starvation mode and burning muscle while adding fat.

I would like an article on this, cause I believe starvation mode is a myth from a study that found people who dropped there calorie intake to very low calories I think it was 800 or 1000, had a 40% decrease in metabolism by the 4th day.

I have found people have thrown this starvation mode thing around so much twisting the truth and deciding that once you get below certain calories then your metabolism suddenly drops.

Another thing based on that study is that you should have maintenance calories every 4th day to keep metabolism up.
Well I am in a very good position to test this theory as I have been dieting for 2 months now closely charting my progress, I am gona try now with only 1 cheat day per week to compare it to one cheat day every 4th day. I will keep my average calories the same and I am finishing up a 1 week intermision so hopefully my metabolism has been reset as I found by the 7th week of my diet my waist slowed down so maybe starvation mode does exist but it doesn't set in for a while.
I can see how the body would take a % of calories from muscle but cant see why the body would just suddenly increase this %, unless someone isnt eating enough then I suppose the body can only get so much energy from its fat stores and tries to get some from muscle too as it would need a lot of calories.

 

[snyper2k2]

I would like an article on this, cause I believe starvation mode is a myth from a study that found people who dropped there calorie intake to very low calories I think it was 800 or 1000, had a 40% decrease in metabolism by the 4th day.

I have found people have thrown this starvation mode thing around so much twisting the truth and deciding that once you get below certain calories then your metabolism suddenly drops.

Another thing based on that study is that you should have maintenance calories every 4th day to keep metabolism up.
Well I am in a very good position to test this theory as I have been dieting for 2 months now closely charting my progress, I am gona try now with only 1 cheat day per week to compare it to one cheat day every 4th day. I will keep my average calories the same and I am finishing up a 1 week intermision so hopefully my metabolism has been reset as I found by the 7th week of my diet my waist slowed down so maybe starvation mode does exist but it doesn't set in for a while.
I can see how the body would take a % of calories from muscle but cant see why the body would just suddenly increase this %, unless someone isnt eating enough then I suppose the body can only get so much energy from its fat stores and tries to get some from muscle too as it would need a lot of calories.

So are you saying that dropping cals by half or more for 3 or so days would be beneficial without dropping metabolism so much?

 

[EasyEJL]

definitely. now there is still the question of how much fat you burn vs how much muscle even in that time frame, as only so much in fatty acids is released in a given span of time. So when your body does burn all that, it will burn muscle after.

 

[lemon]

i believe in the starvation mode theory, since ive been eating more, ive been better off then before when i was limiting my calories and barely eating

 

[billy1969]

lemon all the advise is right on i was in your same boat.i have not. reached my goals yet but i am getting close my bf% now is around 12%and shooting for about 9%.the couple things that helped me alot is make sure you have your health fats in your diet.this made night and day diffence for me.and if u can bumb your cardio to 45min a day and try intreval training low to very high intensity/ low for a couple min then bring it as hard as u can for one min.this was also huge in tranforming my body.and remember it took you along time to gain the wieght and it takes time to lose the wieght.i am about 2years into this and i am now final getting pretty close to my goal.and keep lifting wieghts as much as you can 6-8 reps.good luck god bless

 

[ItsHectic]

So are you saying that dropping cals by half or more for 3 or so days would be beneficial without dropping metabolism so much?

Its just another interpretation from the old starvation mode study that I came across, there are supposedly 2 (possible) benefits, 1 being keeping metabolism up and the 2nd being to help control hunger.
Not saying anything as fact just putting it out there.

One thing that is definite for me is that over the 2 months of my strict diet my weight loss did not slow down at all but towards the end my fat loss did in comparison to the weight loss, in the next couple of weeks I will find out if a break really makes a difference, and then after that finding out if 2 cheat days per week over 1 cheat day per week provides any benefit.

This has been pointed out in another thread but one things thats certain that has been proven in studies is that fat but not carbs before physical activity significantly lowers the post workout growth hormone spike, and although I havent seen the study myself carbs after physical activity is supposedly bad for fat loss.

 

[sampson27]

Hi lemon, I have been in your posistion and to a degree still am. The advice that everyone is listing is right on, don't starve yourself as your body will begin to protect itself and let the muscle get burned up.
I have been up and down over the years with weight, as low as 160 and as high as 265 and the 265 was a fat 265. what I have found to work for me is as has been said is about 2000 calories a day. I would try to keep fat grams to about 50, carbs in the 200 range and the protien 250 range to help keep the muscle from being lost with lower carbs. At this point, as people have said, you can add more muscle to take up the slack in the skin, though that is harder then said, or you will just have to go slow at this point. Eating correctly and every 2-3 hours will help keep the metabolism up as well.
On food, stay away from sugary items or atleast limit them, stay away from things that are white as they have a higher sugar content and have been more processed like white potatoes, white rice, and pasta in general. I found that staying away from these items can help a great deal. stay away from filler items as well, corn is a good example as well as cereal. get your carbs first thing in the am as you can burn them throughout the day and gradually reduce towards the end of the day. get rid of the bread as has been said, but if you need something for say a sandwich, try Pita bread, they have low calories and fairly low carbs and are whole grain if you can find them.
Supplements - fish oil for good fats and CLA and sesimen oil as well are good sources of fats and obvioulsy things like tuna/fish in general. Make sure you have a good Multi as well. Also get a BCAA for help to keep your muscles, something like xtend works well and can be mixed with water and no calories, fat etc. try drinking this on an empty stomach first thing in the am before cardio. the BCAA will help preserve the muslce and the only fuel in the body will be the fat at that point.
remember. the first place the fat goes on is the last place it comes off, and it will take some time to get it off, shoot for 1 or 2lbs a week drop, but you also may not see any drop in weight as your muscles hang on better, you want to exchange muscle for fat, but it is very difficult and depends a lot on the diet. One thing that help me was to track everything and I made up a spread sheet to track my progress with my diet. Calories, fat,carbs and protien each day. everything I ate gets entered and then I can adjust. So, if I screwed up early in the day and ate something, I was able to compensate throughout the day as long as I did not sacrifice meals. ie. skipping meals because I ate too much earlier, if I did that, i made sure I still ate the neccessary times to keep the metabolism up. Good luck, I think I covered some ideas for you that worked for me. keep me posted

 

[EasyEJL]

This has been pointed out in another thread but one things thats certain that has been proven in studies is that fat but not carbs before physical activity significantly lowers the post workout growth hormone spike, and although I havent seen the study myself carbs after physical activity is supposedly bad for fat loss.

yep. particularly rapid digesting carbs post workout. because after a general strength workout, your body temp is raised, and you have higher than normal fatty acids in bloodstream. but your body prefers using glucose directly. so if you give it a ready source of superfast carbs, what does it do? starts burning those, and ends up redepositing the fatty acids as fat.

 

[sampson27]

yep. particularly rapid digesting carbs post workout. because after a general strength workout, your body temp is raised, and you have higher than normal fatty acids in bloodstream. but your body prefers using glucose directly. so if you give it a ready source of superfast carbs, what does it do? starts burning those, and ends up redepositing the fatty acids as fat.

thats very interesting, have not heard the actual explanation on that other then eat complex carbs afterwards. But, for muscle growth, you would want simple carbs for the insulin spike to help get the nutrients into the muscle, correct? So, for fat loss, you want simple carbs before work out for intial energy push and complex afterwards due to slower digestion, correct? But for growth, you would want both afterwards? Thanks forfeeback in advance

 

[babywifey]

meals
meal 1: oatmeal w/ a slice of bread folded in half with penut butter and a tall glass of sunny d , and some times a Clementine
meal 2: eggs ( either 2 whole, or 1 normal and 2 egg whites ) with a bottle of water, a clementine if i did not have one with meal 1
meal 3: bread with penut butter again, with sunny d
meal 4: dinner ( chicken of some sort usually, or spaghetti ), and most times patato's, or corn
meal 5: eggs or penut butter after a work out

You definitely need to ditch the Sunny D. There is no real nutritional value and it is jam packed full of sugar. More whole Lean protein would be beneficial.

Where are your veggies? White potatoes and corn do NOT count. They are high in empty starch and definitely a poor food choice, particularly for one attempting to drop fat. Cale, Spinach, Carrots, Zucchini, Broccoli are all great choices. They are full of vitamins, minerals and fiber that you need and will also help you with fat loss. There are a lot of other veggies out there with much better nutrition than the ones you eat!

Lastly 1200 Calories is WAY to low. At your weight I would shoot for 2000, like everyone else said. It would be better if you actually calculated your BMR and figured out what your maintainence calories are so that you are sure to be right on.

work out:
monday :20-30 min eliptical, chest ( dumbell press, incline dumbell press, decline dumbell press, dumbell flies, and forward press chest machine )
tuesday: 20-30 min eliptical, bi's and tri's ( hammer curls, isolation curls, and 21's for bi's, over head tri extenstion, pushdowns, and isolations for tri's )
wensday: 20-30 min eliptical, shoulders and forearms ( forward and side raises, and what ever its called when you pull up the bar close grip for your shoulders, and occationaly i'll throw in shrugs )
thursday: 20-30 min eliptical, back ( row, bent rows, and back extenstions )
friday: 40 min cardio
sat: full body no cardio
sun: off

i want to pick up a jug of whey, and casien(sp), so i don't need to eat so much eggs oatmeal and penut butter...and maybe drive from AN

I'd definitely suggest doing more compound movements. Movements that work more muscles are the best for burning fat and gaining muscle. Deadlifts, Squats, Dips, Pull Ups, Step Ups, Split Squats, Military Press, etc, etc. should really be added into your routine. Weight assistance is okay to use for Dips a Pull Ups if you need it, as they are a hard movement to do body weight and it may take you a while to gain that strength. Full body workouts are what I would be doing if I were you.

 

[babywifey]

Adding HIIT to the your routine would be quite beneficial as well.

 

[EasyEJL]

thats very interesting, have not heard the actual explanation on that other then eat complex carbs afterwards. But, for muscle growth, you would want simple carbs for the insulin spike to help get the nutrients into the muscle, correct? So, for fat loss, you want simple carbs before work out for intial energy push and complex afterwards due to slower digestion, correct? But for growth, you would want both afterwards? Thanks forfeeback in advance

Well, although the insulin spike is handy for muscle growth, there isn't much evidence that the level of spike you get from simple carbs makes that much difference. maybe from 20g of dextrose + 5g of leucine, but even then its iffy as to how much of a difference that makes. For fat loss I tend to think a mix of moderately simple to complex carbs preworkout, and no carbs for the first couple of hours postworkout works best. For growth it simpler carbs pre + post i'd say

 

[heavypieces]

I think it's important to keep it simple

1. find total calories that allows your body to lose 2 lbs per week for me that's 1950 per day
2. eat 1 g of protein per lean body mass pound
3. lift weights at least 3 times a week, try and go heavy.