Help me get fit, Boardsies!

cuchulainn09

Right, I've been a lurker here for a couple of weeks. The posts are very informative (you're a helpful bunch in general!). I'm going away on the 8th of May, and I'm in shocking shape. Like, worst shape of my life kinda thing. It's gotten to a head over the last few weeks, people making the odd comment etc and I'm sick of it.

So I'm tackling this whole fat and unfit thing head on for the next couple of months. This is where you all come in - I'd appreciate your help.

First off, the diet. I'm going to post what I'm eating on a blog from tomorrow on. The diet posts here are great. Problem is, I'm in final year of college and it's fairly intense, like 8am-10pm kind of days. I'm keen to hit the whole Zone/Paleo/Low Carb thing as much as I can but does anyone have any good sites I can check out for low-effort recipies, meal ideas etc? While we're on the subject, does anyone have any tips for trying to eat in college on such a diet? I'm ****ing sick to death of the crappy diet I excuse because it's convenient. So, any help appreciated!


Next off, the weight. I'm currently a little over 15st at 182cm. That puts my BMI at a shocking 29. So, in the next 7-8 weeks, working out for 45 mins to 1hr every day, combined with a rigourous diet, what's the maximum amount of weight I can safely lose? Now I know there's a danger I could put it all on again if I lose it too quickly, but still - what's a realistic number, assuming 100% commitment to it.
I'm thinking more about giving myself a short term goal, like see how much I can get rid of in 10 days and take it from there.

Thanks for the help, Boardsies!

Khannie

My advice (I expect to get pounced on): Don't try to lose weight at a rate of any more than a pound a week in the last few months of college. Up your exercise levels, certainly, and improve your diet, but my own experience is that losing weight = ****ty concentration levels and march -> exam time in your final year is _hugely_ important.

cuchulainn09

So you're saying lose no more than half a stone-ish in 2 months? Wow. That's an angle I hadn't considered (concentration and exam results) but that figure is a lot lower than I'd thought I might hopefully achieve.

celestial

Just get on the right track. All the info is here in the stickies and you've been reading that already. When you are totally out of shape and have a crap diet the major silver lining for you is that making the right changes will have an effect very quickly. When you cut out junk food you are cutting out a massive amount of extra calories. Cue weight loss. This coupled with exercise will get you great results over the next couple of months.

My recommendation? Clean up the diet, do some cardio but also make sure you do some resistance training too.

von Neumann

realistic weight loss is slow.

1kg of fat has roughly 7,000 cal in it so, if your running 500cal a day shy it will take 14 days to looses a kg, so 2 kg a month would be a good goal.
I'm in a similar position myself op, so i feel your pain.
It's best to set honest goals from the start, more likely to suceed

Khannie

von Neumann wrote: »

It's best to set honest goals from the start, more likely to suceed

Agreed. It's slow going on and slow coming off.

You could up your weight loss to 1KG (around 2lb's) a week after your exams and that's considered sustainable. It requires about 1000 calories a day deficit to achieve this (as von Neumann already pointed out, 7000 calories = 1KG of fat).

Also, as celestial already pointed out: Just making the changes will have a huge impact on you. Stick with it! Good luck and let us know how you get on.

jaggiebunnet

I think making the change to what you eat will help big time. I started running again at the turn of the year, changed my diet so that I made a salad for lunch each day instead of eating hot chicken rolls and their ilk. Porridge and banana for breakfast and good dinner with green veg and meat (no spuds or hardly any). cottage cheese and crackers (or peanut butter) for snacks at night and apples/nuts during the day. was 13 1/2 stone when I started, now 12st 2 and still falling, that's in 8 weeks - beginning to look at changing the running to include more weights to stop it falling too much!

All I did was run between 30 mins and 45 mins 4 days a week and played football once a week. My 2 kids keep me active enough at the weekend.

I went off everything completely for the first month, no drink, bread nothing, to give myself the best possible start and now I can have a drink and eat what I want on a Saturday and be ok (without overdoing it).

Read the stickies and other threads, diet is really important and this is where I would have failed before thinking that doing the exercise would have been enough, then getting pissed off and stopping as it made no difference.

My gut is pretty much gone and I am back to using my old belt coz the new one I had bought didn't have enough notches on it

cuchulainn09

Right well I bit the bullet and took some pics last night, for something to compare myself to in a month or two. (I'm all about measurable goals )

My measurements, according to my dodgy Argos weighing scale thing, are height 183cm, weight 95.3kg, 27.5% body fat and 47.6% water. Let’s see what we can do about that in the next 10 days.


Instead of the usual 3xWeetabix with two sugars, coffee with milk and 2 sugars I had a bowl of porridge made with low fat milk, an orange juice and a Borocca (been feeling a bit tired lately, but bit skeptical as to how good they are).



Hit the gym this morning too. Did a bit of upper body weight work, nothing too strenuous, (25-50kg(ish), x 40 reps on the biceps, triceps and pecs machine), then 20 mins on that infernal cross trainer machine (it told me I'd burned 190cal) followed by 50 air squats and finished up with a 12min jog at pathetic pace - according to my iPod yoke I'd burned 183 calories at the end of it.



I'm going to try and keep this as a fitness log, hopefully you guys can give me some input as needed - and mods, perhaps I could get this tread moved to the fitness log forum?


The thing is you lot are all on about burning 1000 calories a day. How in hell can I manage this, if 45-50 mins on the gym only yields about 360 calories. Up the intensity of my gym workouts? Workout longer? Or how much do you burn in day-day activities?

jaggiebunnet

cuchulainn09 wrote: »

The thing is you lot are all on about burning 1000 calories a day. How in hell can I manage this, if 45-50 mins on the gym only yields about 360 calories. Up the intensity of my gym workouts? Workout longer? Or how much do you burn in day-day activities?

I certainly don't burn that at the gym - i do have a high intensity when running, doing 4/5 miles in 30/45 mins depending on what I am doing - ie some days do the slow pace then fast sprint, back to slow pace other days flat our for 30 minutes. I think - and i am open to correction - your body still burns calories faster after you have finished excercise and so if you eat your meal right after excercise it will be burned off quicker giving a beneficial effect.

re the berocca - i use these when i feel a bit run down and have felt they helped me but it could be all in my mind!

BlueIsland

I think improving your diet during exam times is actually one of the most productive things you could do. I know when I am eating properly an d working out I am more lively, more awake and more task orientated!!
I lost 2 stone in past eights weeks.
Diet
8.30am Bran flakes/ yoghurt
11.00am Piece of fruit/ handul of nuts or another yoghurt
1pm Tuna in brine/ salmon/ plain chicken pieces on a bed of salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomato etc)
4pm Same as 11am
6.30pm Chicken breast/ scrambled eggs/ fish with lots of steamed veg
snack on nuts or fruit.
Simple to keep ta really!! Just a smaple of something that worked for me!

aye

cuchulainn09 wrote: »

Hit the gym this morning too. Did a bit of upper body weight work, nothing too strenuous, (25-50kg(ish), x 40 reps on the biceps, triceps and pecs machine), then 20 mins on that infernal cross trainer machine (it told me I'd burned 190cal) followed by 50 air squats and finished up with a 12min jog at pathetic pace - according to my iPod yoke I'd burned 183 calories at the end of it.


The thing is you lot are all on about burning 1000 calories a day. How in hell can I manage this, if 45-50 mins on the gym only yields about 360 calories. Up the intensity of my gym workouts? Workout longer? Or how much do you burn in day-day activities?

its not burning a 1000 cals a day in the gym, its taking in less calorie dense food in your diet and exercising that will lead to taking in less calories over throughout the day.


your gym workout, is there a reason you do 40 reps!!!
is this 4 sets of 10 reps maybe?

ok, time spent on your biceps and triceps, would be better spent doing compund exercises, ones which work many muscles at once, e.g. a barbell/seated row (hits your biceps and back) and a bench press (tricpes chest).

think about how big you biceps are, now compare that to your back/chest/legs. You wanna work the big muscles primarily, to lead to increased metabolism and increase muscle.

make sure to work your legs, get some instruction and start to squat, it will build your quads, increase testosterone, and increase your metabolism, which will yield greater fat loss.

you'd get more from your resistance training by keeping it simple
squat
bench press
barbell row
deadlift
shoulder press

get some proper instruction before doing these. do 3/4 sets of 8 reps on a weight you cant lift more than 9 times. make sure to perform 2 warm up sets on lighter weights also.


as far as your exams, this is the last year in college, you have 3 months left of it, and then its done, it is priority number 1!!

so while the gym will help with stress and releasing endorphins, which are needed for the study, if you are feeling over tired, hold back a bit for the moment.

when i was in college, on days i had loads of study to do i used to do press ups on the my breaks between subjects, i found it cleared my head, just a thought.

take in some vitamin b6, and get the omega 3 into you

cuchulainn09

Yea, it's 4 x sets of 10 reps each. As for free weights, I've always kinda avoided them cause I don't have a bog of what I'm doing. Might get one of the lads to try and instruct me someday - there's some instructional videos on youtube too, although I'll treat them with caution. Cheers for all the advice so far, by the way - I'd be thanking posts if I could!

aye

cuchulainn09 wrote: »

Yea, it's 4 x sets of 10 reps each. As for free weights, I've always kinda avoided them cause I don't have a bog of what I'm doing. Might get one of the lads to try and instruct me someday - there's some instructional videos on youtube too, although I'll treat them with caution.

'expert village' videos are generally pretty good.

if you wanna stick with machines ok.

leg press
seated row
chest press
hamstring curl
shoulder press


if you can use hammer machines all the better

cuchulainn09 wrote: »

I'd be thanking posts if I could!

press the thumbs up button

cuchulainn09

Nah I know how to do it but can't. Think it's because I'm a new user. Cheers for the tip on the videos, I'll check them out.

Khannie

cuchulainn09 wrote: »

mods, perhaps I could get this tread moved to the fitness log forum?

Done. Good luck.