Fitness/Weight Loss Tips?

                                Hi All:)

For a Male 6’2" weighing 268 Pounds:

-What are some exercises, etc. to lose weight
-What are some exercises, etc. to tone up

Thank you All:)

Complexes can be good for fat loss, and performing high repetitions can help tone up…

Eat less, move more.

I had good luck cutting down doing whole body training 3x week, cardio 5-6 days a week (i did long duration on a treadmill walking on an incline), weights 1-2 exercise per bodypart, 3-4sets per total of 4-6 sets total per bodypart, otherwise it gets to be too much.

It really is all about diet. and tell him he didnt get that way overnight and it will take an appropriate time to lose the weight as well. be patient. I went from 265 to 189 in over a year.

take measurements and pictures now, and remember it comes off all over like layers of an onion, not all in one spot at once, the pictures and measurements will show that over time.

Good luck.

Is cardio essential? I HATE cardio, and want to lean up.

Nutritionally, meat and vegetables only until pre-workout where carbs can be consumed? Then back to just meat and vegetables? Or will just decreasing calories to sub-maintenance levels be good enough?

[quote]kardon wrote:
Is cardio essential? I HATE cardio, and want to lean up.

Nutritionally, meat and vegetables only until pre-workout where carbs can be consumed? Then back to just meat and vegetables? Or will just decreasing calories to sub-maintenance levels be good enough?[/quote]
If you absolutely hate cardio start doing short interval training or sprints. Secondly, if you are weight training carbs are not essential if your primary goal is weight loss. Even in a caloric deficit you will want to increase fat intake in place of carbs to avoid hunger. Less hunger means a more succesful cut.

[quote]elih8er wrote:

[quote]kardon wrote:
Is cardio essential? I HATE cardio, and want to lean up.

Nutritionally, meat and vegetables only until pre-workout where carbs can be consumed? Then back to just meat and vegetables? Or will just decreasing calories to sub-maintenance levels be good enough?[/quote]
If you absolutely hate cardio start doing short interval training or sprints. Secondly, if you are weight training carbs are not essential if your primary goal is weight loss. Even in a caloric deficit you will want to increase fat intake in place of carbs to avoid hunger. Less hunger means a more succesful cut.[/quote]
Intervals/sprints would still be some form of cardio, so I take that as meaning cardio is absolutely essential.

My concern is being able to function during the day on low carb. I’ve gone as low as 20 g of carbs a day, and I kept wanting to go to sleep. Currently I get ~45g carbs in the morning in the form of beans and tomatoes from chili, and ~50g carbs in the form of ramen from my preworkout meal of ramen + 1 chicken breast + vegetables. All other meals are mostly protein and have little to no carbs.

Lift massive amounts of weight in the form of explosive movements. Cleans, deadlifts, full squats and sprint. Sprint hills jumprope.

There’s really no such thing as “training for weight loss.” Training can help facilitate weight loss, but the difference in metabolic expenditure is minimal. The biggest thing is to move more (regular training can certainly help with this, but move more OVERALL) and eat less, as was stated. Make sure your diet is AIR TIGHT. That will make the biggest difference.

You have a number of options…

Click on the V-Diet link at the top of the main page… It’s a decent program that will drop your weight…

Another option is to eat CLEAN every 3 hours, consuming 6-7 meals a day. Eat smaller portions, focusing on lean meats - chicken, turkey, extra-lean beef, lean cuts of beef, etc. LOTS of green veggies (and I mean lots)…

Stop eating junk food, fast food, booze, soda pop - focus on water, green tea, black coffee (in moderation)…

You need to do weights, so check out any of the training programs on the site (main page, top links on training archives. At the end of every weight workout, do some light cardio - walk on the treadmill at a 3mph pace on an 5-9 degree incline for 30 minutes. If you don’t know how to do an exercise, google it and find a video. Watch about 5 different videos as not everyone is doing it correctly, but you can pretty much figure it out after watching about 5 different ones…

I’d also suggest 1 day a week for high intensity cardio - sprints or hit the exercise bike and do a relaxing pace for 1 minute, then go all out and increase the level by 4 for 1 minute. Rinse and repeat 15 - 20 times… HOWEVER, if you’re out of shape, etc. I wouldn’t introduce this till the 3rd month, instead just focus on the above weights followed by low intensity cardio.

Drink a boatload of water… Seriously… Minimum of 4L a day for you…

Have 1 (yes ONE) cheat meal a week where you can have whatever (but try to be reasonable here)…

Take a good quality multi-vitamin…

Get 8-9 hours of sleep, with ideally, 2-3 hours of sleep before midnight…

Follow this, be strict on the diet and rest, do the weights and cardio and you should be dropping 8-10lbs a month…

I’m not the OP, but thanks for the replies so far.

I don’t know how “air tight” my diet is, but here’s what I’ve been eating the past couple of days for you guys to critique:

Breakfast:

Chili
-1/2 pound ground beef (fat drained after browned)
-1 can tomatoes w/chili seasoning included
-1 can “chili hot beans”

Protein/carbs/fat/cal of precooked food: 55.98 / 49 / 48.88 / 854.52
The actual fat content is lower, since I drain the fat after browning the beef but I don’t know how much calories were lost so I can only have the precooked numbers to give you

Lunch:

1 chicken breast (~.59 lb)+ veggies/salad

  • 52.68 / 0 / 7.18 / 287.34
    I didn’t include the stats for the veggies/salad since I have no proper way of estimating the serving size I consumed, but they’re just frozen vegetables that are cooked with the chicken or lettuce/tomatoes/cucumber/onion type of salad which may or may not contain cheese or other lean meat.

Pre-workout:
4 jumbo eggs, + 3 sausages, + 1 slice cheese, + 2 slices bacon

  • 50 / 8 / 42.5 / 680
    Precooked numbers again, but I drain the fat of the bacon and I boil the sausages, so its fat content should’ve been decreased as well.

PWO:
Whey shake

  • 40 / 10 / 4 / 220

Dinner:
1 chicken breast

  • 52.68 / 0 / 7.18 / 287.34

Daily total (pre cooked numbers):

  • 251.33 / 67 / 109.75 / 2329.19
    Do these numbers look good?

To give you an idea of where I’m at, my stats are:

Age: mid 20s
Gender: male
BW: 200 - 205 lbs
Height: 5’10
BF%: Don’t know, but I’ve lost my abs and ended up with a larger waist measurement than I would like (bulking gone wrong: too much sugar/high fructose corn syrup).

Main lifts, including warmups:
Bench: 115x10, 135x10, 155x8, 165x4, 175x3
Squat: 95x10, 135x10, 185x8, 225x2
DL: 135x10, 185x10, 225x10, 275x4, 315x1
DB shoulder press: 25x10, 35x10, 45x10, 55x6, 60x3
DB rows: 55x10, 65x10, 75x10, 85x8, 90x5

My routine so far is:

Shoulders
-DB shoulder press
-lateral raises
-BB shrugs

Deadlift day
-DL
-single legged leg-curls
-seated calf raises

Chest + triceps
-Flat or incline bench
-BW dips
-Pec deck if not tired
-Tricep extensions if not tired

Upper back + biceps
-DB rows
-Pull-ups/chin-ups
-DB curls

Squat day
-Back squat
-single legged leg curls
-standing calf raises

For “cardio”, so far I’ve been doing bodyweight circuit training on the weekends:

  • 1 set push ups to failure
  • 1 set pull ups to failure
  • 1 set pistols NOT to failure, b/c heart rate dictates when I stop. HR too high and I can’t catch my breath + ringing in ears. Usually 5-10 reps.

All of that is “one repetition”, then I rest 60 seconds and repeat until it takes me 1/2 hour to complete. Does this look like a good alternative to traditional cardio?

To the poster who said 4 liters of water a day, damn. Does that really help that much? I knew water intake was important, but I didn’t think of going as high as 4 L.

I’ve taken a look at the VDiet exercise videos, and maybe I’ve missed it but there doesn’t seem to be any warmup listed. So I assume it’s just straight sets with no pyrimiding up in weight?

What are your goals Kardon?

I’d add in a mid-morning meal and mid-afternoon meal…

I’d stick to ultra lean meats like a chicken breast, turkey breast, extra-lean beef, etc. with a pile of veggies (I bring my stuff to work in tubs, so I use tubs of celery and cuccumber).

I think your lunch is a bit small unless you’re really trying to reduce your calories, and even then it’s a bit small… At 200lbs I’d suggest 1.5-2 chicken breasts for lunch (again, for me I use tubs, so a full Glad tub of diced up chicken breasts work for me)…

As for the water, YES… I’d write about why and how much, etc. but I’d be stating what other, more educated people have said over and over… 4L of water a day is really nothing and that should be used as a rough guide… In hotter weather I’ll drink upwards of 6L a day… This is so vastly important, not just for bodybuilding, but overall health of your internal organs, that it’s not even funny…

I’d also suggest you take a look for a beginner program here (links are at the top of the page)… I personally don’t like your program, as you’re not getting adequate rest (shoulders on day 1, followed by deads on day 2 (I don’t think you’re fully recovered from day 1 and you’re hitting secondary muscle groups that you hit on day 1 very hard), etc… It’s like this almost every day on your program, so a good beginner program should help… Whatever you do, don’t do a program written down in a bodybuilding mag that claims to get you six-pack abs in 6 days or some other crock…

If you’re doing cardio to cut bodyfat, do it after your weight training and just do light cardio (brisk walk on an high-inclined treadmill for 30 mins) and alternate to HIT cardio once or twice a week on non workout days…

[quote]Griff14 wrote:
… and performing high repetitions can help tone up…[/quote]

I’m surprised that no one commented on this BS.

High reps don’t do anything more for muscle “tone.”

Besides, when trying to lose fat, most trainees are better off with sticking to their normal rep schemes, if not going slightly lower, in order to lift as much as possible to help retain muscle while restricting calories.

Obviously, the key to losing fat is to burn more calories than you consume. There are numerous ways to go about this.

[quote]HK24719 wrote:
High reps don’t do anything more for muscle “tone.”

Besides, when trying to lose fat, most trainees are better off with sticking to their normal rep schemes, if not going slightly lower, in order to lift as much as possible to help retain muscle while restricting calories.[/quote]

Exactly…

[quote]Smallfry69 wrote:
What are your goals Kardon?[/quote]
I want to lean out, then bulk again but bulk properly this time. To give you an example of where I’m at, my waist measurement has exceeded my chest measurement.

[quote]
I’d add in a mid-morning meal and mid-afternoon meal…

I’d stick to ultra lean meats like a chicken breast, turkey breast, extra-lean beef, etc. with a pile of veggies (I bring my stuff to work in tubs, so I use tubs of celery and cuccumber).

I think your lunch is a bit small unless you’re really trying to reduce your calories, and even then it’s a bit small… At 200lbs I’d suggest 1.5-2 chicken breasts for lunch (again, for me I use tubs, so a full Glad tub of diced up chicken breasts work for me)…[/quote]
I hate chicken breasts with a passion. It can take me an hour just to finish one. If it’s the protein content of my lunch, then I could just add a protein shake with the chicken breast? Protein to calorie ratio of a whey shake is very similar to the ratio found in chicken breast.

[quote]
As for the water, YES… I’d write about why and how much, etc. but I’d be stating what other, more educated people have said over and over… 4L of water a day is really nothing and that should be used as a rough guide… In hotter weather I’ll drink upwards of 6L a day… This is so vastly important, not just for bodybuilding, but overall health of your internal organs, that it’s not even funny…

I’d also suggest you take a look for a beginner program here (links are at the top of the page)… I personally don’t like your program, as you’re not getting adequate rest (shoulders on day 1, followed by deads on day 2 (I don’t think you’re fully recovered from day 1 and you’re hitting secondary muscle groups that you hit on day 1 very hard), etc… It’s like this almost every day on your program, so a good beginner program should help… [/quote]
Couldn’t I just switch deadlift day and squat day around? Or just place deadlifts in with back day? I prefer to do only one major lift a day with assistance work around it. Doing something like chest/shoulders/tris in one workout means I lift less weight on shoulders.

[quote]
Whatever you do, don’t do a program written down in a bodybuilding mag that claims to get you six-pack abs in 6 days or some other crock…

If you’re doing cardio to cut bodyfat, do it after your weight training and just do light cardio (brisk walk on an high-inclined treadmill for 30 mins) and alternate to HIT cardio once or twice a week on non workout days…[/quote]

[quote]HK24719 wrote:

[quote]Griff14 wrote:
… and performing high repetitions can help tone up…[/quote]

I’m surprised that no one commented on this BS.

High reps don’t do anything more for muscle “tone.”

Besides, when trying to lose fat, most trainees are better off with sticking to their normal rep schemes, if not going slightly lower, in order to lift as much as possible to help retain muscle while restricting calories.[/quote]
So increase intensity and decrease volume?

[quote]
Obviously, the key to losing fat is to burn more calories than you consume. There are numerous ways to go about this.[/quote]