P****d off! Advice needed!

F

Feng-Hi

0
Sorry about the language BUT I've been training for about 3 years now, got the first few years wrong and have just started on a proper training routine and feeling better for it!

The only thing I am REALLY struggling with is lowering the BF and getting a good diet in place.

For starters I am a fairly fussy eater, no salads and the only fish I can stomach is tuna from a tin!! I'm living on a 3 meal a day program with fruit as snacvks. Breakfast falls to cereal and milk, lunch will be tuna based something most of the time (tuna and wholemeal bread, toasted panini with tuna etc) and for tea it's mainly chicken or lean beef mince based meals with veg or cous cous/rice etc.

I'm staying put at 89kg (average), with my new regime I've notice better shoulders, arms and chest but I'm seeing very little in the way of stomach and feel I need to drop BF.

Anyone got any advice from own experiences?

I'm getting to the point now where my gym and cardio work feel useless!

For info I do the gym 3-4 times a week then cardio 2-4 times a week depending on work and family commitments. Cardio is running or cycling!

Cheers in advance.

F
 
This may sound dumb coming from a newb around here, but how much water are you drinking?

I've found the more I drink, the more BF is flushed. At the very least, 1/2 my body weight in oz is what I try to get in daily, but of course... more is better :)

So, right now I weigh 147. Half that is 73oz (2188.4 ml) or a little over 9 cups (2.188 l) of water.

Good luck
 
I understand your frustration Feng-Hi.

I would try to up number of meals from 3 to at least 5. Do you eat egg whites? Great protein source.

For how long do you run/cycle? Long, slow cardio is in my experience not too effective to cut bf. HIIT much better.

What is your gym routine like? If you are looking to cut bf, you should focus on full body workouts and compound exercises using the big muscle groups in your body. Maybe try complexes which are described in earlier posts..

Do you know how many calories you consume daily? Maybe lower the calorie intake a bit? What is your height?

Give us some more information, and we can hopefully come up with some good answers :)
 
geddy1234 said:
I understand your frustration Feng-Hi.

I would try to up number of meals from 3 to at least 5. Do you eat egg whites? Great protein source.

For how long do you run/cycle? Long, slow cardio is in my experience not too effective to cut bf. HIIT much better.

What is your gym routine like? If you are looking to cut bf, you should focus on full body workouts and compound exercises using the big muscle groups in your body. Maybe try complexes which are described in earlier posts..

Do you know how many calories you consume daily? Maybe lower the calorie intake a bit? What is your height?

Give us some more information, and we can hopefully come up with some good answers :)
Click to expand...

Cycling - 17 miles (to and from work) a few days a week
Running - around 3 miles on or off road depending on mood (averaging arouind 25 mins)
Gym - full body workouts (based on the Waterbury Method)
Calories avewraging 1900-2100 per day

Never had egg whites on their own


I'm 6'02" tall, active in work too, lots of walking, cycling within work!
 
Post your exact diet and daily routine (meals, times, portion sizes, calories, etc.) and we'll go from there.

Keep in mind that if you have only been doing things correctly for a year, as you said, you might still be getting noob gains, which means that even at a deficit, you may be recomping, which would lead to the scale not moving.
 
I'll compile a post with my workout and foods over the next couple of days between work as I'm on afters shifts all this week!

Cheers so far guys n' gals!
 
Yeah...been there, doing that. I feel your pain. I'm doing big cardio, pushing iron, eating far less then I think is reasonable.....results are snail-paced.

Don't get too hung-up on the scale...you can lose a LOT of fat while not seeing much results on the scale. Muscle weighs more then fat, yada yada yada.

Here's the bottom line and you won't like it: you're probably eating much more then you realize. I too thought I was around 2k per day in calories, but when I got crazy microscopic with my food journal...it was considerably more.

Here's what my nutritionist gave me: it's pretty shocking how easy it is for us to underestimate calories. A study by Lichtman et al sticks in my mind because they found that obese folks overreported physical activity by 51% and underreported dietary intake by 47%.

I know you're not obese, but you need to really start weighing your food and getting super critical on how much you're putting in your mouth. The DEPRESSING truth is that we can eat a disturbingly little amount and still maintain ourselves. Equally true is that it takes true hunger and deprivation to really burn that fat. If you even come close to eating towards feeling full, you've likely gone way past maintaining a deficit for the day.

And be careful...all that exercise is done pretty efficiently and you may psychologically feel a bit entitled to eat some more because you've burned so much. Exercise burns, on average, about 30-40% fat and the rest is glycogen...glycogen once gone will make you HUNGRY.

It's what goes in your mouth dude.....it won't be fun, but for one week go crazy on counting calories. I just did that for 10 days: each day I kept it under 2,000 calories....and I can tell you FOR SURE that after eating 2k cal's per day, I was formerly eating 30-40% more and thinking I was still running light n' lean. The smoking gun is the chomping of your jaws.....get on it.
 
iRun4Fun said:
It doesn't sound like your doing enough cardio. 2-4 days is an absolute minimum. Try upping it 4-5 times a week.
Click to expand...

How do you figure? Cardio is 100% unnecessary for fat loss. That's not to say it isn't great for you, but losing fat is all about diet.

And BSL, as for only 30-40% of calories burned being from fat, that's very dependent on the type of exercise you're doing.
 
Whats BSL..and is there a sticky somewhere for all other abbreviated words that are used here?

This place is a fountain of knowledge and I just wanna take in as much as possible, especially anything to do with nutrition/diet & weight training.

Thanks
Mick. :)
 
Mick G said:
Whats BSL..and is there a sticky somewhere for all other abbreviated words that are used here?

This place is a fountain of knowledge and I just wanna take in as much as possible, especially anything to do with nutrition/diet & weight training.

Thanks
Mick. :)
Click to expand...

Haha by BSL I meant "BikeSwimLaugh" abbreviated, and no, there's nowhere for abbreviated words. That wasn't one of them, but you'll get used to it. And if you don't....
 
As requested here are my workouts:

I'm going for the Waterbury Method which seems to be working well for me so far but here it goes.....

Usually Monday 3.01 mils off road run (best time 00:25:03)

Day 1 Usually Wednesday

Bar Squats - 120kg 4x6
Dips - 4x13 4 second reps
Dumbell rows - 32kg 4(each arm)x6
Skull crushers - 37kg 4x6
Barbell curls - 52kg 4x6
Rolling swiss ball extensions - 4x11
Swiss ball leg raises - 4x17
Crunches - 4x40

Day 2Usually Thursday

Bench press - (free) 80kg 4x6 (smiths) 90kg 4x6
Deadlift - (smiths) 110kg 4x6
Standing military press - 58kg 4x6
Upright rows - 37kg 4x6
French press - 32kg 4x6
Situps - 4x36
Leg Press - 130kg 4x6

Day 3Usually Friday

Hamer curl - 24kg 4(each arm)x6
Sides and up - 18kg 4x6
Bench curl - 22kg 4x6
One behind head - 20kg 4(each arm)x6
Leg curl - 67.5kg 4x6
Raised ball situps - 4x36
Crunch - 4x42

When on days at work
17.5 mile ride (to and from work journey)

The bike ride will sometimes replace a gym session if I am on days mostly in the week but this isn't very often. It normally falls to:

3 gyms per week with a combination of 2 runs, 1 cycle or 2 cycles 1 run or enough to fill the week. majoratively I'll have Sat and Sun with the family (or at work) but sometimes depending on the week will run on the Sunday. I also walk loads during the weekend and as part of my work I am often out walking or cycling so get extra cardio as part of work. My usual is anything between 4-8 miles of walking or riding again depenidng on demands that day, plus the necessary office work :-S

Work is the main frustrating factor to a full routine as I work a variale shift pattern and have no regular days off. Every Monday and Tuesday I get off work I am the stay at home dad whilst the wife works but I mainly run on at least one, if not both, of these days when the wife gets home so she gets half an hour with my son before bedtime and I get some fitness in.

As for my diet my day goes as follows:

Breakfast - Oat Crunch with Milk, OJ
Snack (after gym) - 4 scoop Protein Shake
Lunch - ONE of these:
Scrambled egg on whole bread, fruit
Tuna on toasted whole bread or pitta, fruit
Pasta with sauce (when at work)
Tea - majoratively something with chicken or lean beef with veg or suitable alternative(s)
Snack (if wanted) - fruit

Eating times - now these are a joke again because of work but normally breakfast is around 06:30-07:00, lunch anytime between 12:00-14:00 and tea can be any time between 16:00-22:00. There's nothing I can do about meal times due to the nature of my work and sometimes it's lucky if I even get time to eat anything for tea but make time to do it where I can. There's nothing I can do to get an every day routine in place no matter how hard I try.

Sleep on average 7-8 hours and am in the gym for 55-65 minutes each day with fast walking either side of the gym for around 35 minutes (refuse to drive to the gym), usually get to the gym and start working between 07:30-09:00 again depending on the situation and shifts.

ANything else you need to know?

Cheers
 
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