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Looking for some advice/ideas for weight loss

SkunkApe

New member
Hey everyone,

I'm trying to get back in a routine to lose some weight.

Back in high school I peaked at about 290lbs. I eventually lost a lot of it and got down to 225lbs by eating right and a lot of cardio. Did a lot of working out, gained some back...gained a bit of muscle over the years, and as of now im 6 feet and weigh about 250.

the past few months I have gotten really horrible with my workout and dont go as much as i used to. I really want to get in the habit of working out again. I usually did a lot of cardio, but as of now, the only thing i do is play hockey once a week.

basically i just wanted to get ideas of what i can do to lose some weight again. my long term goal is to get under 200lbs, but for now i'd like to try and lose 25-30lbs.

what would be the best to lose weight in a somewhat quick way. im not saying i want to lose all of it in a month. im saying i'd like to try to see what i can lose within 3-6 months and go from there, just dont know what the best way is to do it. what kind of diet should i have? should i continue cardio? i try and go to the gym in the morning before work.

also is there any supplements that anybody could recommend that would help?


any info or help would be greatly appreciated. :)
 
First key and I am learning the hardway is diet. I have popped every weight loss pill that I could find and had OK results, but it wasn't until I dieted correctly that I started seeing changes. Another piece of advice from a former fat ass is to lift weights + cardio. Cardio will burn some fat, but building muscle will burn fat from here on out. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn.

For your diet I recommend a version of the Ketogenic diet. I have had good luck with TKD and I am doing CKD right now. Google those terms and you should find some decent plans. I feel Ketogenic is the quickest way to lose fat and if done correctly you can maintain muscle.

For your workout, I recommend a 4 day split with at least 20+ minutes of cardio following your weight lifting. I prefer HIIT cardio over steady state for fat loss.
 
awesome thanks!

as far as lifting weights...not sure how much weight i can get away with. i have a bad shoulder. had a torn labrum last year, had surgery but never fixed it. shoulder likes to pop out of socket sometimes...(hasnt happened in a while though..knock on wood)
 
can anybody give me a run down or any sites that have good info on TKD? Tried to search, found a little too much info and couldnt really pin point what i should do..how i should eat...etc.
 
SkunkApe said:
can anybody give me a run down or any sites that have good info on TKD? Tried to search, found a little too much info and couldnt really pin point what i should do.
Click to expand...

http://anabolicminds.com/forum/weight-loss/46389-targeted-ketogenic-diet.html


The main points on TKD is consume your carbs only around workouts. At your weight you should be at 250g (1g/lb of bodyweight) of protein daily and 83g (0.33 grams of carbs per pound of body weight) of carbs max per day pre and post workout.
 
hope this helps.

6 months ago I weighed around 225 after a few months sedintary from a broken ankle, having a puerto rican wife with lots of friend foods and years of heavy gaming. About 5 months ago, I said enough was enough. Today, I"m a much fitter 195. though that's only 30lbs, it's also in only 5 months, with no bull**** diet schemes or any unhealthy drugs to do it. I used no pills.

First off, can't ignore diet bro. I recommend an extremely low carb diet. Carbs get burned before fat, but with a lack of them, the body burns fat.

Sugar: Absolutely positively NO steady, heavy, or consistent amount of sugar. In fact get rid of it all together, even if you have to slowly wheen yourself off of it. Sugar, especially Corn syrup, is the devil. The glucose in fruits is perfectly good for you, but the stuff in Nutri-grain bars and cokes and juices will nail you. I saw a great ad of a guy with a soda bottle and in the soda bottle it was pure fat. It conveyed a powerful message and it's true.

Fat loss:
You MUST run a negative caloric daily intake to expenditure. 3500 calories is one pound. Look up a Basal Metabolic Rate calculator, it's not perfect, but it'll give you a general estimate and idea of what you're burning every day doing NOTHING. Mine for exe. is like 2050. So if I reduce my caloric intake say 300 calories a day down to 1750, I should drop a pound every 12 days doing NOTHING but diet. Now the real kicker is burning a lot more in a day with excercise. Like the man above, I strongly urge you to engage in some good muscle training. I disagree with those who take muscle only approach to weight loss, but it's very important for many reasons. One of those primary ones is that it's flat out fun to see the results and get more definition.

Using the example above, let's say you go to the gym and you burn say 2700 calories one day, which is modest and you can easily do more, you have a negative caloric intake of 1k calories that day based off the above measurement. So by that math, every three and a half days you're losing a pound. You CAN burn more than 2700 a day and you CAN eat less than 1700. However this example is very safe. From my experience, the more extreme the change, the more likely you are to fall off that wagon.

Negative Caloric Foods: What this means is that your body expends more calories digesting it, than it does from it's intake. Meaning your literally going backwards while still consuming substance. (do not try and live off these alone, you need calories)

Negative Calorie Vegetables
Asparagus
Beet Root
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrot
Cauliflower
Celery
Chicory
Hot Chili
Cucumber
Garden cress
Garlic
Green Beans
Lettuce
Onion
Radish
Spinach
Turnip
Zucchini

Negative Calorie Fruits
Apple
Blueberries
Cantaloupe
Cranberry
Grapefruit
Honeydew
Lemon/Lime
Mango
Orange
Papaya
Peach
Pineapple
Raspberry
Strawberry
Tomato
Tangerine
Turnip
Watermelon

Caffeine: Simply put, caffeine is where it's at my friend. You're 26, meaning you have a job, maybe a woman, and school. Either way the biggest challenge you'll face is simply driving your ass to gym and going every day. Caffeine gets me there. It also has many positive health benefits. I'm not saying it's a vitamin, but every SINGLE thing I've ever read negative on it always, whether they coped to it or not, was related to the sugar that TENDS to go with it.

My caffeine usually comes from NO Xplode. I'm a fan of the stuff. It helps keep me motivated and once you take it pre-workout, you WILL go the gym. You'll be fired up and ready to go, even on my occasional 3-4 hours of sleep. There are many Nitric Oxide supplements, most come with caffeine and most come with Creatine. I love me some creatine as well, but to keep this from going into full blown thesis, just try it.

Sleep: Almost all of your recovery is during sleep, you need to get enough rest. You need enough water, and you need enough protein. I'm not going to over in excessive detail about PH and recovery, but simply put, your body needs the sleep. Ohh and unfortunately some people don't understand the basic principle of NOT over training torn muscles. Do a 3 or 4 day split and you won't be touching the same muscle group for a week. You can adjust this of course and once you get a great recovery rate, then this changes based off your goals.

Cardio: Cardio after weight lifting IF you are weight lifting that day in the gym.

Protein: Find you a low or no carb protein. I use Isopure's. Low caloric stuff as well.

Work out buddy: If at all possible, it's got me in the gym some days I wouldn't otherwise have been. Lots of benefits, no negatives, a clear no brainer.

Vitamins: You can't go wrong taking a vitamin. Period. You're going to piss some or even most of it out sometimes, but your diet isn't going to be perfectly balanced to get everything you need every day. This is a debated topic, but I've drawn my line in the sand on this topic. Better to piss it out than not have when you need it.
 
thanks so much for the help guys...i really appreciate it!

hopefully i can get into the habit of doing all this, but like i did it before...as long as i do it it will just become normal.

ill hopefully start up on this monday and see what happens in the next few months. im sure i will be updating in the future
 
can you guys suggest what kind of weight lifting i should do? im not really a fan of free weights at all...especially due to my shoulder.

also any suggestions on how i should do my workout? should i do arms and cardio one day....legs and cardio the next...chest and cardio the next and so on?

when i originally lost my weight i did nothing but cardio. I know where is a right way to do this, but i was really never sure on how to go about doing that.
 
SkunkApe said:
can you guys suggest what kind of weight lifting i should do?
Click to expand...

whatever kind you will do consistently. If you want to lose the weight and get into some sort of shape other than round, then doing it is what is important, not so much what you do. Even if you do no weightlifting and just do cardio, its better than sitting on your ass. Some lifting is nice to maintain muscle mass, but in the end if getting lean is what you care about work on that first.
 
captgarrett:

Excellent advice...thanks for taking the time to write all of this down. I appreciate it.
 
EasyEJL said:
whatever kind you will do consistently. If you want to lose the weight and get into some sort of shape other than round, then doing it is what is important, not so much what you do. Even if you do no weightlifting and just do cardio, its better than sitting on your ass. Some lifting is nice to maintain muscle mass, but in the end if getting lean is what you care about work on that first.
Click to expand...

thanks bud! thats mainly what i have been doing. i do a lot of cardio, i play hockey. i stay active...im not a lazy ass who sits around. i try not to eat crap and stay healthy....basically i just need to motivate myself to go to the gym like i used to. ive really been slacking the past 2 months
 
sort of the same thing goes for diet as well. What works best is what you can stick with long term. So take the time to slowly change things, figure out healthier options that you enjoy as much as the less healthy options. Figure out which vegetables you enjoy cooked what way, which fish you like, etc. Look at what fast food items or what you can eat lunchtime for work are the least bad that you still enjoy. And take it slow, don't try and change everything thinking you'll hit where you want to be and you'll be finished. Its a lifelong process.
 
I can tell you what worked for me so far.

1. get diet in check--eat at a caloric deficit for me thats about 2000 calories per day
This is critical and the real key. In my case I needed to log each meal real time. If you have an iPhone get the app LoseIt

2. lift often--for me 3 on 1 off
3. eat 1g protein per lean body mass lb
4. cycle from cut to bulk when fat loss slows too much--It's a process and it's going to take time. This keeps me sane and keeps me motivated.

My progress pics are on my profile page.

HP
 
heavypieces said:
I can tell you what worked for me so far.

1. get diet in check--eat at a caloric deficit for me thats about 2000 calories per day
This is critical and the real key. In my case I needed to log each meal real time. If you have an iPhone get the app LoseIt

2. lift often--for me 3 on 1 off
3. eat 1g protein per lean body mass lb
4. cycle from cut to bulk when fat loss slows too much--It's a process and it's going to take time. This keeps me sane and keeps me motivated.

My progress pics are on my profile page.

HP
Click to expand...


Oh a couple more things I've done. I purchased clothes that I want to fit in and I periodically check to see if I fit in my new clothes or some of my old clothes that I haven't fit in for years. I also take pictures of my body every other week and line them up to observe changes. Besides the encouragement from all the good people on Anabolic Minds these two things have been very good for my motivation.
 
now if you find that you feel low on energy and motivation after a few weeks of starting it, there are some good thermogenic stims out that may help with fat loss a little but will definitely help with the energy
 
so long as it is one of the fruits with a fair bit of fiber, and/or you are eating it with proteins + fats, I don't see an issue. Thats assuming you aren't in contest prep :)
 
usually end up having either strawberry, pineapple, cherries, and/or grapes, as a late night snack. Before I go to bed I drink a casein shake.
 
so long as its fairly small quantity not too bad, 1/4 cup - half cup. I'd have to look on nutritiondata to be sure. 10-20g of carbs isn't going to make or break anything
 
to put it in perspective, a half cup of grapes is 8g of carbs. not totally horrifying. If you aren't doing contest prep, its better to enjoy your life a little :) there is no strong scientific evidence that carb timing has any significant effect on fat loss/gain. Yes, huge glycemic loads of high amounts of high glycemic index foods taken at once can spike insulin but insulin weight gain also affects muscles, not just fat. and its not like if you take in excess calories through fat + proteins that you won't gain fat as well
 
From what I understand, the carbs that are in fruits and veggies damn cancel themselves out with what I takes to digest them. Especially those with fiber in them. I destroy apples. Later at night, I have a tendency to snack on those boiled eggs or maybe some carrots.
 
I am thinking that total calories and the right amount of protein is the key. No refined sugar to keep insulin in check. You just need to find your caloric sweet spot for fat loss while keeping muscle. I had to experiment with macros, diet and workout.
 
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