Hello There,
I’m new here so if this is covered somewhere, apologies.
I’m 54, 226 lbs. 5ft 9, @ 18.5% body fat. I want to get back to around 11%, have ordered Precision Nutrition and will kick into that soon. I’ve done martial arts for around 30 years but the weight built up in the last ten years along with slowing down and old injuries. I weight train 2x a week and do aikido and kenjutsu 3 or 4 x a week. I walk most days 45 min to an hour. I;m thinking of upping my training to 3x but doing the gym and MA in the same day seems too heavy for me. Is this a fact of life or do any of you have other suggestions?
regards, Alec
What do you do in the gym? Are you making progress? How much sleep do you get? You certainly can do a limited, but effective weight training routine in 20-30 minutes, 3 or 4 times a week and still have energy/time to do other activities.
Gaining/Loosing weight is 90% diet and nutrition. at less than maintenenace and you loose, more you gain, maintenance and you can very slowly loose fat and gain muscle, of course, assuming you are eating mostly clean.
I do a split routine, upper and lower, pyramid sets based on charts of 1 rep max, Sets of 12, 10 and 2 x8, and short cardio burst training on stationary bike. Total around 1hr and 15 mins.
I eat fairly clean but really have to watch my carbs. I aim for 50, 25, 25 for protein carbs and fats. i think I need to cut back around 500 cals a day and still have the strength to train.
regards, Alec
Keeping a food log and counting every calorie really helps in the beginning. It’s a pain in the ass, but it is the only way to really find your maintenance level. Charts and formulas are ok as starting points, but your body and lifestyle are individual and you won’t really know where you’re at unless you measure everything.
I’m 55 and I find that as few as 200 calories a day can make a difference. That’s like eight prunes!