Help a guy get in shape please.

My name is John. I am 6 foot 3 inches tall, I weigh about 210 pounds and I am almost 21 years old.

I have always been kind of a skinny kid and was a very serious soccer athlete until I was about 17. I got out of that when I was around 17-18 and have been kind of sitting around since then. I have smoked tobacco and herb, but have since given all that up.

I started jogging every weekday about 2 weeks ago. My upper body is kinda skinny except for this ugly spare tire i have.

What I would like some help with is I don't know how to get rid of it and I doubt jogging is enough. My main goals are to lose the spare tire and gain muscle. I would also like to be cut and have my arms look muscular without flexing, a decent sixpacked abdomen, and that cut above the thighs.

Does anyone have a workout regimen that could help me accomplish this? As well as some sort of eating plan? I don't really have a time-frame but I would like to see improvement asap. I know that it won't happen overnight and I am ready to give it 100%. So please, if any of you can suggest an eating plan and a workout regimen it would help very much. I don't really have access to a gym either.

If there is any other relevant information you need to know please reply with what you need to know and I will post it, thankyou.

Edit: Even though I don't have access to a gym I do have a basic wieght bench and a curl bar. That's about it.
 
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Start with some stuff off of these two sites:
www.trainforstrength.com
www.dragondoor.com
They both have some good, progressive bodyweight exercise and programs. Next question, can you get a chin/pull up bar?
Do you have dumbbells or can you get some?

With the equipment that you have listed you can do hack squats, deadlifts, bench press, bent over barbell rows, and push presses.

3-4 days of lifting, 2 days of cardio will get you going.

Go to www.johnberardi.com for nutritional advice
www.eliteFTS.com has great strength training articles

There are more sites, but that should get you going for the moment and set you up with all sorts of other questions.
 
Hmm the pull up bar might take some doing... and yes I do have a set of 10 pound and 20 pound dumbells. Thanks a ton for the advice I will look through those pages tonight. Thanks again.


Hey the Train for Strength website is great. Now I know nothing at all even in the most remote sense about fitness. Will the workouts he has listed be the correct ones to achieve my goals? Workout #1 and Workout #2 looked like they would work, but to be honest I have no idea.

About the food; I'm kinda poor right now trying to put myself through school and all so money is tight and a lot of nutritional supplements and fancy nutritional food just wont do. What are the specific things I should stay away from? What are the specific things I should stick with? I have a friend telling me I should eat pretty much whatever at breakfast, cottage cheese and tuna for lunch, and some sort of meat for dinner. He says leave out all the table salt and sugar and to try to throw in fruits and vegetables with all the meals. Is he blowing hot air or not?

Also; what time should I be working out? Is there a best time of day to be doing this? How far away from meals and sleeping should I be doing this?

Thanks again!
 
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Hmmm...no gym at your school? What a shame. Anyway.....

The only problem is he has pull ups in his workout and you don't have a pull up bar, you could use a tree limb though ;) . Since you're new, just working out will have dramatic effects; I picked Scrapper because you don't need a lot of equipment to do his workouts and/or exercises. Workout 1 and 2 would be a good place to start, just do the exercises you can from each one.

If you can afford it, I would get a multivitamin and some fish oil; both of those items can be bought for cheap. As far as nutrition, some easy guidelines to follow:
1)eat 10-15 servings of fruits and vegetables daily (if you can) or at least with every meal. Those frozen bags of veggies make a great item in your freezer. You can also get frozen bags of berries.
2)Tuna, oatmeal, salmon, cottage cheese, eggs, and lean ground turkey are great things to have on stock.
3)If you can't afford to eat 5-6 times a day, get some Optimum Nutrition whey protein, it's about $13 for 32 servings. But even if you don't get 6 meals in a day make sure and try and get at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day minimum.
4)Cottage cheese provides good protein if you eat it before bed.
5)For breakfast, I would have oatmeal, milk, a couple servings of fruit, and a couple egg whites....the rest of your meals can be smaller, I just like a big, healthy breakfast.

By the way, your friend wasn't to far off.

Generally, give it 60-90 minutes after eating to workout, saves from cramps :) . Other than that, workout when ya want. Ohhhhh....after working out, try and have some carbs and protein. A protein shake and a banana would be perfect. Orrr...add some protein to gatorade.

As far as what to avoid-fast foods, foods with trans fats, foods with high fructose corn syrup, if it comes in a bright, shiny wrapper-it's prob junk. The John Berardi site addy that I gave you in my first response will have an excellent guide on what to and what not to eat.

So, there ya go. None of the foods I listed will break your pocketbook. Start out simple and work your way up from there.
 
template for the average person.
by average I mean you just want to gain muscle efficiently this template will outline the basics. once you understand the basics you can make adjustments and additions that is best for you.

DIET: -40% protein 40% carbs 20%fat this is a basic layout. "what kind of protein?" well you should eat: chicken,tuna,eggs,fish,beef are all acceptable basically avoid things like fast food meats and other stuff that's just common since. "what about carbs?" mainly oats, whole grains, starchy vegetables, fruit. "and fat?" most of your fat intake should be from vegetable oils,milk, seeds and nuts. if you don't like those foods there are some alternatives. -"how many calories?" 18 times your bodyweight is a basic, so if you weigh 180lbs that's 3240 calories a day. most people are not exact or even close, a way to help is to write down what your going to eat, how many calories and protein/carbs/fat etc are in each food. -liquids: 1-2 gallons/4-8 Liters of water or milk a day is the basic amount you want(milk is about 90% water). you should eat 6 meals a day spaced out 2-3 houres.

SUPPLEMENTS: (first tier supps) a good multi-vitamin is an absolute MUST and the most important in the supp world, because it is almost impossible for the average lazy person to get all the vitamins & minerals needed for optimal hypertrophy (muscle gain). next on the list is EFA's (essential fatty acids) for much the same reason that it's hard to get in a teen diet, and I'm not talking about pizza grease & steak fat. (second tier supps) -creatine, is an amino acid. It is normally produced in the body from arginine, glycine and methionine. Creatine plays a vital role in cellular energy production as creatinephosphate (phosphocreatine) in regenerating adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in skeletal muscle, it's perfectly safe. -protein powder: this is used for pre/post workout some use it for morning/night as well mainly just for post. (whey) is the one of choice.
those are the 4 main supps I could go on for the rest of my natural born life about third and fourth tier supps like glutamin, L-arginin, ZMA, etc. but I'm just covering the basics o ya the tiers are order of importance. I'm leaving out PH's if you know what those are

WORKOUT PROGRAMS: alot of these exercises have dumbbell-counterparts.
Chest: Parallel bar dips, Bench Press, Incline Press
Legs:Squats (including front squats), tiff-Legged deadlifts, Calf-raises
Back:Bent-over rows, Chins Bent-legged, Deadlifts (also a leg exercise)
Delts:Military press, Lateral raises
Arms:Close-grip bench, press Close-grip chins
you can find fully detailed workouts.

SLEEP: you need 8-10 hours a night, bodybuilders/weightlifters need more than regular people.

BODYTYPES: Ectomorph(skelitor),Mesomorph(heman),Endomorph (fat lizard guy) do a search on the net and you will find more info, this will effect your diet and workout program

CONCLUSION: this isn't thermonuclear science, and you don't need to be an endocrinologist, being perfectly exact is not needed for the average person. If you have further questions search, not just here but others sites like google,altavista,etc. advertisements can say almost anything, so research and find the truth. by.phaledax
 
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