Just Starting Out - Not Sure What to Expect

[Sandy]

Hi there.

I have been reading stuff on this website and others and have finally taken the plunge to use weight training and diet as the main components to weight loss.

My goal is to not lose weight so much but reduce body fat and tone muscle.

I am 174cm's tall, 68kg's and estimated BF% of 31 - so not too happy but not obsese. Using the fitness hub and minus the 500 calories for loss I can have 1800 calories per day.

I have a gym at work (lucky I know!) and have been doing cardio, cardio and more cardio with little to no results. I admit my diet could do with an overhaul and I am trying that at the moment.

Essentially my gym program is over 2 days with core work on the fitball and 30mins cardio working 60% of MHR everyday. Pretty much 15 reps and 3 sets with a 30 second rest between on each exercise.

7am Cereal (sultana bran) with low fat milk + glass of water or natural yoghurt and fruit (rockmelon, strawberries or passionfruit)
10am Banana
11am Train
1pm Iceberg lettuce, cucumber and two hard boiled eggs or ham or chicken (a protein anyway) or tin soup which is low in fat, sodium and carbs.
3pm protein bar
6.30pm dinner and I never eat rice, pasta just a protein like chicken or meat with veg and potato. Nightime is the worst time for me for snacking.

Any tips from you experienced folk? I have bought a high-protein, lox carb powder. Its called Bodyshape by NutraLife and is a womans toning formula. Main ingrediant is Instantised Whey Protein Concentrate and Soy Protein Isolate. I am not sure where to have this during my day and the time between eating and working out.

Advice of any kind would be good . Oh yeah, I work out:

Mon, Tues - weights, fitball (abs, back extension, hamstring tuck), cardio 30mins
Wednesday - Spin class for 50mins
Thurs, Fri - weights, fitball (abs, back extension, hamstring tuck), cardio 30mins
Sat, Sun - nothing at this stage.

Thanking you all in advance!

[CubanChick]

Translation please????

What body parts are you training with weights? Please explain...

[Sandy]

Sorry if my post didn't make sense. I am weight training every part of my body - arms, back, chest, legs, abs. Everything.

[Weecrack]

Ok first off Give us a Break Down of what Parts of your body you do each day and for how long..

Key thing to cutting fat is the diet and lots af cardio imo....

You must post also a breakdown of your diet, how many grams of carbs, fats, Cholesterol extc, you intake daily, 1800 calories a day seems to be a lil high to really lost weight imo...If not on a lowcarb diet id try and take a total caloric intake for the day of like 1500....

Id get rid of the protein bars unless your goin on a low carb Diet.. Dosent look liek you are..

Cravings, when i get them i drink massive amounts of H20 {water} .. Fills you up and you dont really feel hungry afterwards.. Soo you pee alot no biggie


Thes ea re just my opinions and what has worked for me in the past years then again you women dont lose weight like us guys soo throw in your ideas

[Sandy]

Thanks Weecrack. I appreciate your reply.

Ok, I went and signed up on that fit website that everyone talks about here. Can't recall the name - but I put in all my measurements and it came back with 31% body fat and something like 2400 cals total for my normal exercise day (prior to weight training). So I minused 500 cal for weightloss and just went for 1800 as its an easy number. I am tall so maybe thats why I got a high cal allowance.

So I definitely will be going low carb and high protein in my diet and I can probably figure that one out no worries. I have been reading about the diets of the girls who do the 12 week body challenge here in Australia and I'll piece something together from their diets.

Training I split over two days. Do back, abs, legs on day 1 and chest, shoulders, bicepts, tricepts. 3 sets trying to get 12-15 reps on each. 30 second rest between sets. I do this four times per week. Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri. Wednesday is pure cardio. On each weight training day I do 30mins of cardio but have been told to not go above 60% of my max heart rate.

One question I have is that I have my own gym at home which my hubbie uses. He likes me to train with him but he does heavy weights to bulk and my program is lighter but high reps. I will be triaining at lunchtimes but is it ok to do more weights in the evening with hubbie or should I just stick to my workouts and do no more?

[Sandy]

going on memory as I don't have my program here I do

Machine assisted chin ups
Dumb bell (DB) chest press 5kg each
DB Standing side raises 3kg each
DB standing bicept curls 4kg each
Leg press 30 kgs each side
Seated row 40 or 60 pound (can't recall!)
Tricepts with rope - 30 pound
DB shoulder press whilst seated on fitball (swissball) 3kg each
Abs on fitball standard crunch or any other way I chose.
Hamstring tuck on the fitball. Thats where you lay down on your back, legs straight out with feet on the ball. Push hips up so butt and hips are off the ground then slowing roll the ball towards you with your feet while holding your hips off the ground. Works hamstrings and butt.

I think thats it. Cardio is bike, row machine or treadmill. I normally bike and row - 15mins each.

Combined with a low carb, high protein diet is there hope? Should I include a supplement? Shoudl I do this program every day or keep it split over two days? Should I work out 7 days per week.

[Weecrack]

Ok if your goin on a low carb diet check out the Suzanne Somers diet , its high protein but therem are carbs involved its broken down like this , and i modified it a lil but my bro lost 60lbs off of it in a year soo it does work


First off no white breads, Alcohols, Sugars, No whole Milk

They key thing to the diet is, You CAN eat crbs But ONLY WHOLE GRAINS

TRY to EAt At Least 2-3 Whole Grain Serving If Not Mkore A Day

Gotta make Sure In the WHOLE GRAINS ther Isnt More Than 3 Grams Of protein per Serving or its Goin to be TOO MUCH

You cannot mix whole grain carbs with fats or proteins

You CAN Mix Whol grains With Any green Veggie, As Long As no butter Is on it

You CAN eat Veggies With proteins or fats

You CANNOT Eat Fruit Juices At All on this Diet too mych Simple Sugars in it

You Can Only Eat FATS And Proteins 3 HOURS you have eaten WHOLE GRAINS...

When you Eat Veggies With PROETEIns Or FATS , You CAn Load the butter on them as much as you want

But NOT on GRAINS

This Diet Dosent rely On low Calories or Low fat to Make it Work, you NEED to eat Fat As A source of energy, You actualyl trainy our body and convert it from byring off Carbs , and simple Sugars/complex carbs to burning off the fats your intaking and the fats already on your body

Now your goin to get hunfry on this diet i myself must eat about 3000 calories a day with about 3 main meals and 3 small ones soo youll get th drift and i vouch ut works

I would start the dayy of like this

Morning- Whole grains bran flakes
or Oatmeal extc

glass Of skim milk


Snack- Salad No dressing, Lettuce, Clery Spinach EXTC.

Lunch - Large Salad And i mean make it count
Chicken Breast
or tuna salad
shrimp salad EXTC

snack - ( No since you ate proteins at lunch you gotta wait 3 hours on the dot to eat any type of whole grain carb) See how this is falling into place
Soo i would eat more veggies or somethign if you get hungry again, if you waited 3 hours eat more whole grains

Dinner- make this count too make a lage dinner , Steak Veggies mainly , If you like butter on your veggies throw ut on, I usually eat Alot At this meal soo im filled for a few hours

Snack- Now this depends on how much i have eaten in prior meals , Since ive been ont his diet for awhile, i also Put Protein Shake after My Salad In the moring and after my workouts in the after noon .. but i usually eat spinach or raw veggies

Now i know you see those low carb ice cream in the markets and such, They got Lactitol, Maltitol, Maloedextrin EXTC. They give you the Craps , Limit your intake on them or youll be sitting on the toilet bowl like i did for hours cursing yourself out sayin "ICE cream isnt worth this" also You can only eat this with meals you consumed with proteisn and fats, you CANNOT indulge low carb Candys With Whole Grans Cause They All Have Fats In them

You might be thinking to yourself , well Hard alcohols Have no Carbs In them And your 100% correct.. well theres a problem Theres alcohol, And alcohol Messes with your Blood Sugar Levels And if you drink too much on the diet you can be blacking out and Such as I did with myself , Soo i would Just reccomend you Stay Away form it if you can

Anythign you dont understand feel free to post a question

Sorry for the typo's =P

[Weecrack]

OOOH Forgot

NO Nitrates... there found in Cured meats Hot Dogs Extc... They Screw Up Your
Blood Sugar levels

And make sure you rea don what veggies you can and cannot eat Sych as advacadoes, you cant eat them with whol grains cause they got fats and such

[Sandy]

Weecrack, thanks. You rock. No probs about typo's, I get the picture. Will do a search for this diet first thing tomorrow. Looks like I'll need my sleep to figure it all out! 10pm here and just had a very hard session in my gym at home. Need a shower and bed. I know the diet is the key to this thing but I am so worried about losing lean muscle. I have taken a "before" pic and hopefully in a month or so I'll be able to post some changes.

Also, with the weight training, is it ok to have two sessions of the same muscle group in a day? Like 10hrs apart?

[Weecrack]

Id try to stick to one muscle catergory a day

And lots of cardio

[Sandy]

Won't the high cardio burn the lean muscle that I'm trying to build?

[Weecrack]

Ok.. well your syaing your at 30% body fat...

The only thing thats goin to cut your bf down is cardio

By doin cardio every other day your not goin to cut lean myscle mass

You will build it ... But cut the residual fat on top...

You can sit there and lift and build muscle

If i were you though id try and take down the bf a lil bit more

I myself am 5'9 weighed myself today and im around 203

With anytypoe of low carb diet your goin to lose a lil muscle mass, if you dont eat enough fats and proteins thought the day

[Sandy]

I started out thinking that I might do heaps of cardio cause I have muscle, there is just alot of crap sitting on top of it so I might still do this but push the weights as well. It can't hurt I suupose. Cardio in the AM and weight training in the PM and a strik diet.

My problem too is work. I am on my feet alot and have meetings which can stuff up my 6 meals thing. Not sure how to get around that yet. I really need to nut out my diet I think.

[Weecrack]

Well im not saying your goin to ge thungry like me

I lift for 1hour 15 mins 4 days a week and at leats 1 1/12 hours of cardio when i dont lift


you might not get as hungry as me =P

[Sandy]

Well I have done heaps of reading over the weekend and I'm putting together a meal plan this afternoon. I'll post it when I have done it.

[jiujitsugirl]

Hey Sandy, when I'm trying to lose body fat, this is what I find to be key:

I eat a salad or veggies at every meal with low fat organic dressing.

I stay under 1600 calories. (I try to just keep it 5 meals a day, combo of protein and carbs, but I have found in my experience, that if I can't eat every thre hours, but I still stay under 1600, the fat comes off).

I jog every morning before breakfast. (doesn't matter how long, just hit those high points.)

I weight train 3 times per week in the evening. (Lift as heavy as you want, you will, if you are doing the cardio and the 1600 cals, not gain weight.)

Finally, I drink 2 big glasses of water when I wake up and then drink water throughout the day.

If you do this, you will lose fat, I promise.

[Sandy]

Thanks for this info. That is pretty much what I have planned. I read the ebook 'Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle' and have to say that it was a wealth of information.

So I have planned my five meals a day, and make sure that I drink a big glass of water before I leave home and continue to drink throughout the day. When I calculated my lean mass, BF and required cal intake minus 20% I was at 1800 cals per day. Thats alot. I was thinking of just going with 1600 but so worried about starvation mode!

My food today as an example is;

M1 1/2 cup of oats (porridge) and a banana. I am supposed to have 1 cup with protein powder but now way can I eat all that. I barely finished this meal and my toddler took a few bits of my banana! I'll work up to eat more I guess.

M2 Yoghurt with 1 scoop of protein powder

M3 100g chicken breast with 1/2 cup of brown rice and a pile of lettuce and cucumber. I love lettuce.

M4 Low fat cheese (2 slices) and two Salada's. Probably not that good but I'll see what the scales tell me next Monday.

M5 Beef strips stir fry with veg.

I am thinking tomorrow morning that I'll get up and hill climb for an hr before breakfast to increase my appetite but also because I can see my day being full of meetings and no time to use the gym cardio equipment. I will do my weight training, anything lift just so long as I'm lifting 4 times a week in the evening.

Stats this morning were 67.9kg and 26.3% BF. I am 174cm tall. My goal is 13% BF which is around 57kg. May be too light for my height but hey, I'll decide that when I get there!

[jiujitsugirl]

Dear Sandy,

I think this looks pretty good, but I really would stay under 1800, but I can't tell how tall you are from cm because that's just not my thing. How many feet tall are you?

I too have read BTFFTM, and think it is an excellent ebook and I know in the calculations I came out needing like 2000 calories just to get by and I know that is not right and that other calorie calculators have confirmed that to maintain I need like 1750. Now I am a little on the petite side, but that said, I don't really like the calorie calculator method he uses and you'll notice that his meal plans for women are for 1400-1600 cals.

You definitely will not go into starvation mode at 1600 cals unless you are really tall. A lot of that stuff is for guys is the other thing, and they definitely have an easier time burning fat that we women do.

As far as your meal plan goes...I would suggest the following:

M1 1/2 cup of oats (porridge) and a banana. *Skip the banana, add the protein powder. Eat your protein! Or cut the banana in half or save the banana for post workout recovery.


M2 Yoghurt with 1 scoop of protein powder. *Looks good but please make sure it's low-fat yogurt with no sugar or syrup.

M3 100g chicken breast with 1/2 cup of brown rice and a pile of lettuce and cucumber. I love lettuce.
*Great here. I would add some veggies.

M4 Low fat cheese (2 slices) and two Salada's. Probably not that good but I'll see what the scales tell me next Monday.
*What on earth is a salada?

M5 Beef strips stir fry with veg. *Please low fat and low fat.


Other than that, this looks great!

Good work! Train hard!

[Sandy]

jiujitsugirl,

Thanks again for the input. I was thinking 1600 cals because of what was in the book and I cannot eat 1800cals, its too much! So 1600 here I come!

Salada's are like a cracker and you can buy low fat ones. They are very plain. They are very popular here in Australia. Most people have cheese and tomato on them.

The yogurts are fat and sugar free and taste crap to be honest, they are just a quick easy meal.

Can I ask what your average day is for food?

Just did my weights tonight and got up at 5.45am and went for a run/walk for 30mins. I had a knee recon. some 5 years back so my knees can't handle that much but one gets sick of riding a bike all the time so I hill climb when walking as that gets me puffing big time. No way can I talk so I figure thats a good measure for my cardio. I will stretch out to an hour but as this is my first week I'm easing into it.

My height? May 5'8" or 5'9"? Not sure. Need a calculator!

Sandy

[jiujitsugirl]

than I am, so I think 1600 will definitely melt some pounds away.

On weekends, or whenever, you can eat a nice big cheat meal, if you want and it will help you lose pounds. Or you can add a meal or portion to a couple of meals on a couple of days...you want those cals to go up sometimes then go back down.

My average daily food.
M1 Egg whites, veggies, oatmeal or ezekial bread (sprouted grain bread from this weird bible recipe)

M2 brown rice, black beans, veggies
or
lean roast beef sandwich on the sprouted bread
fat free mayo
BIG SALAD with low cal dressing

M3
brown rice or potatoes
fish or chicken breast
BIG salad

for snacks, as needed
almonds & grapefruit
Ultimate meal shake
myoplex shake
natural peanut butter and sugar free natural blueberry jelly on one slice ezekial bread.
celery and carrots
skim milk and protein powder with a piece of fruit.


I also supplement with flax seed oil if I'm not eating fish or something at night. I also take a multiple vitamin.

I eat some variation of this everyday. It's easier for me to think of it as breakfast lunch and dinner than as 6 meals. Also, I really don't believe in eating more than I am hungry for as that has never worked for me. I like to keep things as natural as possible, but I do find that myoplex shake really helps me recover from a hard workout. This morning, I just am too lazy to do a damn thing, so I had a shake instead of egg whites and oatmeal, and I poured my second cup of coffee into the shake...I know it's gross but I'm totally addicted to my 2 cups of daily coffee and trying to avoid the extra cals (cream and sugar please) and it actually tastes like a mocha shake...I put cocoa and peanut butter in there too, and it's pretty yummy....but maybe kind of icky sounding....