extra fat

[patblue]

I have been working out for about 2 1/2 years now and i am completely frustrated. I still can't get rid of the extra fat that I have. I work out about 5 to 6 days a week. I lift for about an hour and then i will do about a half an hour of cardio. I m not reaiil sure what my average calorie intake is because some days i will eat two or three meals a day and other days i won't really eat that much because i am not really hungary. I have seen improvement in my weightlifting but i still have the stomach fat Before I started working out i was about 197 pounds now I am down to 175 and i seem to be stuck at 175. so i was woundering if anybody had any advice for me

[powerhouse21]

Im no expert but i know not eating is def. the wrong way to go. It will slow down your metabolism thus burning less calories. I was the same way and i finally realized no matter how much i worked out, my diet was the most important part. Eating 4-6 small meals is what i do and i make sure its clean. I seem to have more energy and have lost a good amount of bf also from that method. Thats just my 2 cents

[patblue]

Im no expert but i know not eating is def. the wrong way to go. It will slow down your metabolism thus burning less calories. I was the same way and i finally realized no matter how much i worked out, my diet was the most important part. Eating 4-6 small meals is what i do and i make sure its clean. I seem to have more energy and have lost a good amount of bf also from that method. Thats just my 2 cents

what kind of foods do you suggets that i should eat

[OCCFan023]

carbs: oats, brown rice, whole grain breads, whole wheat pasta
protein: chicken, tuna, lean ground turkey, egg whites.
fats: flax oil, almonds, natural almond or peanut butter.

Those are just the basics on what to eat. Try searching through the forums theres tons of info that your looking for.

I would suggest heading over to FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal and setting up a plan (after you find your bmr you can plan out a meal plan to fit within your cal needs and goals.)

[karategirl]

Ok, this is a simple math problem, but the fact that you don't know what your calorie intake is seems to be the problem.
Whether you eat 3 times a day or 10 times a day doesn't matter, its how many calories you consume in that day that matter.
Create a fitday account (FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal) and put in everything that you eat in a day, and I mean everything, even the one piece of chocolate you ate on your way out the door. Log your weight and your calories for a couple of weeks.
Now reduce this calorie amount by 500 per day.
Keep doing what you normally do but with this 500 calorie defecit, and you should see the fat come off.
It takes 3500 calories to burn 1lb of fat. By reducing your daily intake by 500 calories you should aim to reduce about 1lb a week.

There is a more scientific way to do this, but I will need your height, weight workout routine etc. This is a pretty good rule of thumb to work on.

[shazoo123]

diet is key....youve been lifting for 2 1/2 years but its been wasted if some days u eat 3 times, or even less.....wow.....u need to be in caloric excess to gain weight, defiicit to lose weight....if your goal is to lose weight but retain muscle u need to first find out your maintenance calories, then slowly decrease cals but continue to lift heavy.....get to work...

[Ol'Dirty]

Try doing interval training instead of 30 min of "static" cardio. Works wonders.

[xjsynx]

Whether you eat 3 times a day or 10 times a day doesn't matter...

Actually it does, in regards to keeping your metabolism reved up, and nutrient partitioning.

As far as calories you need to figure your BMR/RMR: Here is a link to a BMR calculator: BMR Calculator
But here is the formula if you are into this geeky stuff like me
For Men
BMR = 66 + (13.7 x weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) - (6.8 x age)
For Women
BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.7 x height in cm) - (4.7 x age)
Your BMR aka RMR is the rate your body will burn calories if you did absolutely nothing.

Then you need to factor in your caloric expenditure and times your activity level factor*BMR will equal your Daily Energy Expenditure

Activity level factor/Activity level
1.0 - Sedentary (doing nothing all day (sleeping and watching TV)
1.2 - Very light activity (Working a desk job or on a computer and not performing any type of physical activity during your day)
1.4 - Light activity (having a non-physical job (desk, computer, etc.) but performing some sort of physical activity during the day (e.g. above average walking) but no hard training.)
1.6 - Moderate activity (non-physical job, performing some sort of physical activity during the day, and including a daily workout session in your routine)
1.8 - High activity (training plus a physical job or non-physical job and twice-a-day training sessions)
2.0 - Extreme activity (very physical job and daily hard training)

So, your DEE = activity level factor*BMR. This is maintenance
Bulking you want to start at about 120% of your DEE and adjust accordingly
Cutting start at 80%*DEE and adjust accordingly

Types of food as OCCFan023 suggested, except don't forget a 1-2 serving of veggies each meal and mix in some fruit and fish oils.

When I cut, I will not eat any starchy carbs unless I just exercised, otherwise my carb sources are veggies.

And try mixing in some HIIT sessions which is more intense and will burn more calories than regular cardio.

[karategirl]

Ok, I will rephrase.
It does matter how many times you eat, it also matters what types of food you eat at what times.
My point was that if he is not even counting calories, then there is no way he is working out how many complex carbs he needs before and after a workout.
Eventually, if he gets serious about his nutrition, then meal timing and nutritional components will also need to be evaluated, but as of now this is a fat loss thread, and calories count the most in fat loss.
If this was a muscle building thread I would have replied differently.
Nice BMR calculator though, although I find I usually have to tweak it for different people's body responses.

[xjsynx]

karategirl, all your points are valid. I just like to stress meal frequency. The first mistake a lot of people do when dieting is skip meals. This is one of the worst things they can do. This signals the body that it needs to be caloricly efficient and to slow down the metabolism, because it needs to preserve energy.

[patblue]

Ok, this is a simple math problem, but the fact that you don't know what your calorie intake is seems to be the problem.
Whether you eat 3 times a day or 10 times a day doesn't matter, its how many calories you consume in that day that matter.
Create a fitday account (FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal) and put in everything that you eat in a day, and I mean everything, even the one piece of chocolate you ate on your way out the door. Log your weight and your calories for a couple of weeks.
Now reduce this calorie amount by 500 per day.
Keep doing what you normally do but with this 500 calorie defecit, and you should see the fat come off.
It takes 3500 calories to burn 1lb of fat. By reducing your daily intake by 500 calories you should aim to reduce about 1lb a week.

There is a more scientific way to do this, but I will need your height, weight workout routine etc. This is a pretty good rule of thumb to work on.

I am pretty lost when it comes to trying to figure out what my rmr is. if you had time maybe you could help me. I am about 5'10 inches and i am about 178 lps. my work out routine consists of 5 to 6 days a week work every muscle on a different day. on monday i'll work out my chest and the next day would be arms and so on. after every workout i would do cardio for about a half an hour.every day i would do a different machine. I work in construction so my job is pretty physical. hope this is enough info

[xjsynx]

Here is your estimate since you didn't state your age; in addition, to what karategirl said, "although I find I usually have to tweak it for different people's body responses". These numbers ar starting points, and you will need to adjust depending how your body responds.

Your BMR: 1882
With your job and activity level your DEE: 3575

Cutting DEE: 2861
Bulking DEE: 3933

[99sscamaroma]

Try doing interval training instead of 30 min of "static" cardio. Works wonders.

Totally agree. I used to do a ton of cardio and found that I wasnt getting as cut as I wanted to be, however once I started doing interval training and sprints I shed the extra fat that I needed to get rid of around my mid-section. Instead of doing say a half hour of jogging or something for a long duration at the same speed try mixing it up and doing sprints. If you like using the treadmill try streching, then do a 5 minute warm up at a steady speed, then do 30 second-1 minute sprint intervals at a higher rate of speed, then do 30 seconds-1 min at a lower speed, and repeat for 20-25 mins. Same can be done on stationary bike, eliptical machine, etc. In addition, if your looking to become more cut try interval/cycle weight training as well. What I is start with something like dumbell flat bench press, do a quick set of 8-10 reps, then drop and do 20+ pushups, then go do a set of bicep curls, followed by a set of shoulder presses, a set of lat pulldowns, etc. Just keep switching exercises so you hit every part of your body. Do this with minimal rest between sets, then once you do a full curcuit hitting pretty much every body part take a short break, say maybe 3 mins or so, and then do another curcuit except with slightly different exercises hitting the same muscle groups. For example the second curcuit maybe do incline/decline/or flys for chest, and do the same for the other exercises. I have done this with my trainers at my local gym and it has worked wonders for me and it gets you out of the gym quicker. I used to spend hour sin the gym, slowly working through my exercises, and never saw the results I have seen with circuit training. Hope that helps and no matter what keep working rd!