Maximizing for Super Weight Loss

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1


I am overweight and trying to lose as much fat as possible. I know this will take time, but I just want to make sure I am doing a proper workout to insure the maximum results. I had a friend of mine who has been a lifter for a few years make me up this program and it seems to be doing pretty good so far, but I am wondering if I should change my cardio routine or not.

Everyday I do 20 minutes on either an AMT Precor machine, like the one pictured below, or an AMT elliptical machine. I am always sweating my ass off by the end of it. Then I jump into the weight lifting.

Here it is:
Day One

20 minute warm-up Cardio
Squat warm-up x 10 x 5 x 2 (115 lbs) / workset x 20 (135 lbs)
Incline DB Press x 10 x 6 (45 lbs)
DB Row x 12 x 6 (50 lbs)
Tricep Extension x 12 x 8 (120 lbs)
Abs
Cooldown

Day Two

20 minute warm-up Cardio
Leg Press x 15 (500 lbs)
Pulldown x 10 x 6 (180 lbs)
Bench Press warm-up x 5 x 3 (115 lbs)/ workset x 8 x 5 x 3 (145)
Barbell Curl x 12 x 8 (65 lbs)
Abs
45 degree Back Extension x 25
Cooldown

Day Three

20 minute warm-up Cardio
Leg extension x 25 (150 lbs)
Leg Curl x 25 (150 lbs) ← can’t remember exact weight
Overhead Press x 10 x 5 (150 lbs) ← can’t remember exact lbs
Cable Row x 12 x 8 (140 lbs)
Machine Fly x 25 front (80 lbs) x 25 back (40 lbs)
Abs
Cooldown

Day Four

20 minute warm-up Cardio
Pullover Machine - warm-up x 10 (110) / workset x 15 x 20 (140)
DB Press x 10 x 6 x 4 (45 lbs)
Skullcrusher x 8 x 6 (50 lbs)
DB Shrug x 12 x 8 (60 lbs)
Abs
Cooldown

Day Five

20 minute warm-up Cardio
Barbell Deadlift warm-up x 5 x 3 x 1 / workset x 8 x 5 x 3
DB Flys x 10 x 15 (27.5 lbs)
Cable Row x 10 x 6 (140 lbs)
Sevens (Barbell Curl) (45lbs bar for now)
Wallsit x 2
Abs
Cooldown

This is only my second week into this work routine so I don’t have very much weight. I am also very new to weightlifting to general. I am going to learn deadlift tonight with my friend so I can you an idea of how much I will be lifting on day 5. I also take the following supps:

3 fish oil capsules x 3 day
Men’s Multivitamin
1 g of Vitamin C supp
2 capsules Biotest HRX x 2 day
2 scoops Biotest Superfood x 1 day
4 Biotest BCAA tabs x 3 day
2 scoops EAS Whey Protein + 16 oz skim milk after gym.

I also try to eat as best I can. I choose veggies and fruit and lean meat when at all possible.

Thanks for the help!

2

Hey and congrats on your road to being a FFB. I am a FFB myself and can learn you some advice from experience. Make sure you lift heavy, and instead of the 20min steady state I’d recommend HIIT, OR if you wanna stay steady state do some incline treadmill walking (like 12-15 incline at a power walk pace).

[quote]buckjawnson wrote:

I also try to eat as best I can. I choose veggies and fruit and lean meat when at all possible.

[/quote]

Your biggest ally will be nutrition. From the info you gave it seems like it is not your focus when it should be your priority. Eatting “lean meats veggies and fruits when you can” is def not gonna do the job. Instead of “when you can” aim for always. Don’t take cheat days. Keep a food log and strive for atleast 90% compliance!

If you’re very specifically aiming to lose fat I’d stay with water and tea. Fuck skim milk. If you’re gonna drink milk go for whole milk to get the fat in your diet. Just make sure to count it. I know somebody is gonna back me up on whole milk?

I wish you luck, but of course luck has nothing to do with it!

3

Hey man,

it’s great that you decided to do something positive and have committed yourself to losing your unwanted fat. but, i think you could further maximize your results by using: 1) HIIT (high intensity interval training) instead of mild cardio. HIIT has been proven to burn more fat in less time than standard cardio or endurance training. 2) Full body or 2 day split workouts utilizing compound lifts. Not only will you burn more calories and hit more muscles during your workouts, but you will also burn more calories during the recovery period.

When I want to lose substantial bodyfat, my routine looks something like…

Day 1: Full Body
Day 2: 20-30 minutes HIIT
Day 3: FB
Day 4: HIIT
Day 5: FB
Day 6: HIIT
Day 7: Rest or light cardio

I also limit my carbohydrate intake to only my first meal of the day and around workouts. On days that I do HIIT, I make sure to have minimal amounts of carbohydrates before, as to keep my glycogen stores low (so my body burns the fat off itself). I also skip the PWO carb/protein shake on HIIT days and opt for a healthy balanced meal afterwards. My final words of advice would be to make sure you are getting around 1 gram of protein per lb of body weight and that you follow qualified and proven methods. I bet your friend has aquired a good amount of knowledge during his years, but I doubt that he can top the lifetime of experiment and experience that a lot of the contributors have on this site. So, you might want to take a look at their programs and diets for fat loss… :slight_smile:

4

Thanks for the info guys. Can you give me an example of an HIIT program that I could use to replace my 20 minutes of solid state cardio? I was also thinking about cutting milk completely but I am not sure if I can handle the protein without milk.

5

The 20 minutes of cardio is going to be helpful; however, I’d move it to after the weight training, not before. I don’t think you need to be doing HIIT right off the bat.

6

[quote]Breakzilla wrote:
Hey and congrats on your road to being a FFB. I am a FFB myself and can learn you some advice from experience. Make sure you lift heavy, and instead of the 20min steady state I’d recommend HIIT, OR if you wanna stay steady state do some incline treadmill walking (like 12-15 incline at a power walk pace).

buckjawnson wrote:

I also try to eat as best I can. I choose veggies and fruit and lean meat when at all possible.

Your biggest ally will be nutrition. From the info you gave it seems like it is not your focus when it should be your priority. Eatting “lean meats veggies and fruits when you can” is def not gonna do the job. Instead of “when you can” aim for always. Don’t take cheat days. Keep a food log and strive for atleast 90% compliance!

If you’re very specifically aiming to lose fat I’d stay with water and tea. Fuck skim milk. If you’re gonna drink milk go for whole milk to get the fat in your diet. Just make sure to count it. I know somebody is gonna back me up on whole milk?

I wish you luck, but of course luck has nothing to do with it![/quote]

You’re wrong about skim milk:

Here’s an article that posted today from Reuters Health. I’m posting it because I want to make sure my T-Brothers get a chance to scan over it…

Tue Apr 17, 2:50 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Weightlifters who drink skim milk after a workout will build about twice as much muscle as those who rely on soy beverages, a new study suggests.

What’s more, milk is far cheaper than supplements specifically designed to help weightlifters pump up after a workout, Dr. Stuart M. Phillips of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health. The researchers used powdered skim milk in the current study, available in any grocery store.

“I have done these calculations and figure that ounce for ounce milk is 20-30 times less expensive than most supplemental protein sources available,” he said in an e-mail interview.

Consuming protein after “pumping iron” is known to help build muscle mass, Phillips and his team note in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, but it is not clear whether some types of protein are more effective than others.

Quickly digested or “fast” proteins, including whey and soy, cause a temporary flood of amino acids into the blood, they explain, making more of these protein “building blocks” available for uptake by muscle. Proteins that take longer to digest, such as casein that is found in milk, produce a more gradual and long-lasting increase in blood levels of amino acids. While these “slow” proteins don’t promote muscle formation, they do prevent muscle breakdown.

The researchers hypothesized that a combination of “slow” and “fast” proteins like casein and whey, both found in cow’s milk, would be most effective for building muscle. To investigate, eight men who regularly lifted weights were given a soy beverage or skim milk after performing a series of exercises with one leg.

For three hours after the workout, the researchers found, muscle uptake of amino acids was significantly greater when the men drank milk than when they consumed soy.

The gains were measured in this study after a single workout, “but if extended out to 10 weeks the data suggest (but did not show) that gains in muscle mass would be twice as great with milk as with soy,” Phillips said.

In other research, Phillips and his colleagues found evidence that milk may also benefit athletes after exhaustive exercise, such as cycling.

The current study was funded by the National Dairy Council, along with the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. However, Phillips noted, the council had no say in the study’s publication and did not vet the manuscript.

SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, April 2007.

7

Oh, and the fats on whole milk aren’t as good as healthy fats from nuts and fish.

Therefore, I’d go fish + skim milk for maximum effects.

8

Thanks for the info. From what I’ve read tho it seems that the nutrients in milk tend to be fat soluble? Either way any real milk vs soy milk I will def agree with. You are def correct about the quality of fat. Olive Oil FTW.

The only reason I said I’m not sure about the milk is because he is training to lose mass not gain it. I could see of course eating like you’re gaining would help in recovery.

9

Okay, so if I moved the 20 minutes of cardio to after the weight training, how would that benefit me? Thanks for the info on the milk. The only problem I am having is that drinking milk everyday seems to give me some bad gas, which my friends seem to get as well. Oh well I can put up with that. lol

As for the HIIT, I am not sure I would be able to survive it. For example, while doing cardio as hard as I can my heart rate is between 175-192 so it’s pretty high.

10

Ok, I seem to be doing pretty good. I have been recovering faster and faster as the weeks have been progressing. The BCAA and protein shakes are simply amazing for this. Tonight is my “break” day so I am just going to relax and play some wallyball to get light cardio. I have also started to keep a food log of what I eat. It’s amazing because I want to eat better things so I don’t make my log look like crap! Sweet!

I will keep you updated, thanks again.

11

When you are trying to lose weight you always want to do your cardio on an empty stomach if at all possible. The reason you should do your cardio at the end of your workout is b/c by the time you have finished your workout you should have burned off the food already in your stomach and used it as fuel to lift the weights.

After your workout you are essentially on an empty stomach so when you do your cardio your body is forced to use fat reserves as fuel instead of the food in your stomach. A warm up pre-workout is fine but when maximizing fat loss you need to do cardio on an empty stomach i.e. upon waking or after workout.

Hope that helps.

12

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
When you are trying to lose weight you always want to do your cardio on an empty stomach if at all possible. The reason you should do your cardio at the end of your workout is b/c by the time you have finished your workout you should have burned off the food already in your stomach and used it as fuel to lift the weights.

After your workout you are essentially on an empty stomach so when you do your cardio your body is forced to use fat reserves as fuel instead of the food in your stomach. A warm up pre-workout is fine but when maximizing fat loss you need to do cardio on an empty stomach i.e. upon waking or after workout.

Hope that helps.[/quote]

Thank you very much for that info.

I am not sure what I will be capable of after I have put most of my energy into lifting, so I will be trying this out tomorrow night (Day 4).

Thanks again

13

Okay, well last night I did cardio after my weight training and wow what a difference. My body was begging for me to quit but I pushed through. It was way harder to do after lifting than before but I definitely think I burned more this way. I also upped some of my numbers:

Pullover machine - warm-up 125lbs x 10, workset 155lbs x 15 x 20
DB Press - warm-up of 40lbs x 10, workset 45lbs x 10, 50lbs x 6, 55lbs x 4

I also tried the deadlift for the first time. Man it feels really awkward to me but I am hoping I get used to it. I learned the motions with 2 45s, then lifted a little with 4 45s. Tonight is my workout that includes deadlift with a bunch of sets, so I am going to warm-up with 135lbs then do my workset with 225, actually probably less than that.

14

Haha yah, thats the way you gotta do it, hope you stick with it.

15

I definitely think I will. In fact I am worried about being addicted to the gym, simply because if I take a break day I feel crappy about not going and as soon as I get back in there I feel so much better. But yeah I am sick of being fat, and I finally found a “hobby” that I really enjoy and isn’t that expensive, haha.

16

yah this is one of those things that is great to be addicted too, and one that is usually incurable lol. Fine by me, keep up the good work.

17

[quote]RaaAaAaaafa wrote:
Breakzilla wrote:
Hey and congrats on your road to being a FFB. I am a FFB myself and can learn you some advice from experience. Make sure you lift heavy, and instead of the 20min steady state I’d recommend HIIT, OR if you wanna stay steady state do some incline treadmill walking (like 12-15 incline at a power walk pace).

buckjawnson wrote:

I also try to eat as best I can. I choose veggies and fruit and lean meat when at all possible.

Your biggest ally will be nutrition. From the info you gave it seems like it is not your focus when it should be your priority. Eatting “lean meats veggies and fruits when you can” is def not gonna do the job. Instead of “when you can” aim for always. Don’t take cheat days. Keep a food log and strive for atleast 90% compliance!

If you’re very specifically aiming to lose fat I’d stay with water and tea. Fuck skim milk. If you’re gonna drink milk go for whole milk to get the fat in your diet. Just make sure to count it. I know somebody is gonna back me up on whole milk?

I wish you luck, but of course luck has nothing to do with it!

You’re wrong about skim milk:

Here’s an article that posted today from Reuters Health. I’m posting it because I want to make sure my T-Brothers get a chance to scan over it…

Tue Apr 17, 2:50 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Weightlifters who drink skim milk after a workout will build about twice as much muscle as those who rely on soy beverages, a new study suggests.

What’s more, milk is far cheaper than supplements specifically designed to help weightlifters pump up after a workout, Dr. Stuart M. Phillips of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health. The researchers used powdered skim milk in the current study, available in any grocery store.

“I have done these calculations and figure that ounce for ounce milk is 20-30 times less expensive than most supplemental protein sources available,” he said in an e-mail interview.

Consuming protein after “pumping iron” is known to help build muscle mass, Phillips and his team note in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, but it is not clear whether some types of protein are more effective than others.

Quickly digested or “fast” proteins, including whey and soy, cause a temporary flood of amino acids into the blood, they explain, making more of these protein “building blocks” available for uptake by muscle. Proteins that take longer to digest, such as casein that is found in milk, produce a more gradual and long-lasting increase in blood levels of amino acids. While these “slow” proteins don’t promote muscle formation, they do prevent muscle breakdown.

The researchers hypothesized that a combination of “slow” and “fast” proteins like casein and whey, both found in cow’s milk, would be most effective for building muscle. To investigate, eight men who regularly lifted weights were given a soy beverage or skim milk after performing a series of exercises with one leg.

For three hours after the workout, the researchers found, muscle uptake of amino acids was significantly greater when the men drank milk than when they consumed soy.

The gains were measured in this study after a single workout, “but if extended out to 10 weeks the data suggest (but did not show) that gains in muscle mass would be twice as great with milk as with soy,” Phillips said.

In other research, Phillips and his colleagues found evidence that milk may also benefit athletes after exhaustive exercise, such as cycling.

The current study was funded by the National Dairy Council, along with the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. However, Phillips noted, the council had no say in the study’s publication and did not vet the manuscript.

SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, April 2007.

[/quote]

Whatever. That article means nothing. BOTH are sub-optimal post-workout. Why compare suck to shit? Instead have carbs in a 2:1 ratio to hydrolyzed whey protein. The carbs should be half dextrose and half malto. Handy enough, Surge has it all pre-mixed for you [with BCAAs and some other added goodies]

18

jsbrook you have a very good point but the thing that sucks about those powders is you pay like $35 for them and it lasts for 8 days. Kind of ridiculous. I Pay $70 for a 10 lb bag of whey protein with 155 servings. Gives me BCAA’s 23g of protein but only 4 carbs. So id rather just save my hard earned money, drink milk and eat oatmeal immediatly afterwards for my carbs.

personally I’d love to use products like Surge and all these other products that have carbs and protein in them but they just aren’t cost effective. . .

19

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
jsbrook you have a very good point but the thing that sucks about those powders is you pay like $35 for them and it lasts for 8 days. Kind of ridiculous. I Pay $70 for a 10 lb bag of whey protein with 155 servings. Gives me BCAA’s 23g of protein but only 4 carbs. So id rather just save my hard earned money, drink milk and eat oatmeal immediatly afterwards for my carbs.

personally I’d love to use products like Surge and all these other products that have carbs and protein in them but they just aren’t cost effective. . . [/quote]

I agree I would also love to be able to afford those types of proteins and stuff, but I am a broke college student that can barely afford the current supplements I take. Maybe whenever I actually graduate and get a job then I can blow some decent money on training aids. :slight_smile:

20

Hi Buck:

I’m also in process of lossing my substantial unwanted fat. I’ve been at it for about two months and have had very good sucess with a HIIT full body weight workout.

http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1589833

I’m eating real clean and healthy and doing this HIIT program 4 times a week, and I’ve lost 30 lbs. I modified this HIIT to include some bench press work, and deadlifts. I’m presently teaching myslef squats using a stick and once i have the form/flexability down, I’ll add both front and back squats. There is also noticable muscle gains so weight loss is not my guide, fat loss is what is motivating to me. I’ve lost 3 0r 4 pant sizes, and my 3x and 4x shirts hang on me like Omar the tent makers extra’s.

Good to hear your focusing on your diet. I suspect it could get pretty frustrating if your working your tail off in the gym but your moving in the opposite direction at the dinner table. I’ll check in with you and look forward to hearing about your progress.