Hi All...I'm new here and have some questions..

V

varider30

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I just began my road to "recovery" and started in at the gym religiously about a month ago. My goal is mainly to lose weight, but of course I also want to tone. Right now I am working out every other day at the gym doing cardio (ellyptical) for 45 minutes and spend about 30 minutes on weight training. I am also trying to modify my eating habits to support everything else. On my off days I ride horses professionally, so I feel like this fills the void of not going to the gym.

My questions are: Should I increase my cardio time, or should I be varying my cardio time between different machines? Is it at some point counterproductive to stick with one machine and just increase the time spent on it? Realistically, is what I am doing enough to see significant weight loss, or should I really be working out at the gym everyday? I have also been using InStone Leanfire on my workout days....do you feel this is a good weightloss supplement? In the past when working with weights, I always seem to build more muscle mass even when I keep the actual weight reasonable. How can I prevent this from happening again (I am female and don't want to be a monster)? Lastly, I am really trying to be dedicated this time....but there are days when I just want to throw in the towel. How do you recommend being able to stay strong and determined?

Sorry for all the questions, but I thought someone here might be able to help.

Thanks
 
I am trying to keep my calories around 1500/day, and my fat gram intake to around 20/day. I am also trying to cut down on my carbs, but I am having some problem with how diet is effecting my energy level for my afternoon workout. Should I be eating protein (or having a protein shake) after my evening workouts? :confused: Many times I just eat nothing because I have no appetite at that point in the day.

What do you mean by "High Intensity" Cardio? I feel like the cardio I am doing is fairly high intensity. I keep myself above 150 steps/minute...I can't imagine it being much more intense. Is this something else I should know about?

I work full-time and have to leave for work at 6am, so working out in the morning might be difficult, but I might be able to get a workout video or something in.

Thanks for the links on the websites...I'll go check them out. I am afraid looking at my photo only depresses me...it isn't motivating me like it should :rolleyes:
 
Abear, breakfast is usually a fat free yogurt with 1/4 cup low fat granola. Another example of breakfast is 1 serving low fat high fiber cereal w/ 1 cup skim milk. Lunch is typically low fat soup, tomato-based like minestrone or vegetable pasta, and 2 slices of turkey. Another example of lunch might be a lean cuisine (max 6 grams fat). Dinner varies...I realize this is bad but I try to eat whatever is left of my daily "allowance" for calories and fat...for instance... if I only ate 900 calories and 12 fat grams combined for breakfast and lunch, then for dinner I would make sure I stayed under 600 calories and 8 grams of fat.

From your post, I guess I'm off base. What would you suggest?
 
unless you have some condition which doesnt look like you do, those calories are way too low. what happens is that when you eat too few calories, you're body will hang on to bodyfat and sacrifice lean muscle mass.

my opinion would be to have small meals roughly every 3 hours. this would work out to be about 6 meals a day. base meals off complete proteins, complex carbs and healthy fats.

for example a typical breakfast would be something like oatmeal and eggs. lunch and supper would be things like a chicken breast or salmon or turkey or lean steak with veggies or sweet potato or brown rice. in b/w meal snacks would be simple things like sandwiches, nuts, yogurt, tuna, etc

could also throw in stuff like cottage cheese, milk, olive oil, peanut butter. try to stay away from the frozen foods and canned soups. fine for here and there but not as part of a daily meal plan.

try to at least double your fat intake. fat is important for healthy joints among other things. check out this cut and paste for some more ideas.

1 – How to Prepare Your Weekly Nutrition Plan

If your current nutritional plan is preventing you from losing fat, then it’s time for you to start working on building better eating habits. This can be as simple as committing to one small nutritional improvement per day (such as replacing your lunchtime soda with water) and one large nutritional change per week (such as setting aside time on a Sunday to prepare a weekly menu and meals).

But you need to have a plan to make this work, just like how you have a plan for your workouts. Your nutrition plan should include the contents of every meal, as well as your grocery list for the week. This will enable you to have meal alternatives for nights when you might need to be running from one event to the other with no time or healthy snack alternatives when you are on the road between meetings.

It’s important that you make your plan something you can follow. If you are currently eating 7 meals per week at the golden arches, it wouldn’t be realistic to plan to replace those meals with carrot sticks and tofu this week. A better plan would be to substitute a couple of those meals with healthier sandwich options and then work on improving things even more in the following weeks.

So here’s a three-step guideline on building a better nutrition plan:

1) Prepare a weekly menu. Outline each meal and snack for every day of the upcoming week. Take into account the possibilities that you might work late or get invited out to lunch. The more options you have and preparations you make, the better you will be able to stick to your fat loss plan.

2) From your menu plan, you’ll now know what foods and ingredients you need to make it through the week. Make your grocery list and stick to it (see mine below). Grocery shopping is your first opportunity to break some bad nutritional habits. You can’t eat chips, cookies, or cakes if you don’t have them in the house – so don’t buy them and you’ll avoid any future temptation.

3) Prepare the meals or prepare the ingredients so that making the actual meal doesn’t take a lot of time. Like shopping, it’s best to do all of these preparations at one time (such as on a Sunday or another day off).

My shopping list includes:

Fruits
· Apples
· Oranges
· Blueberries
· Melon
· Peaches
· Grapefruit
· Raspberries

Vegetables
· Peppers (red, yellow, green, & orange),
· Spinach
· Asparagus
· Broccoli
· Snow Peas
· Mushrooms
· Frozen mixed vegetables
· Tomato sauce

Protein Sources
· Chicken breasts
· Turkey breasts
· Salmon fillets
· Lean beef
· Skim milk
· Low-fat, low-sugar yogurt

Carbohydrates
· Oat bread
· Oatmeal (no sugar added)
· Whole-wheat pasta

Other
· Green tea
· Unsalted, not roasted, Almonds

You’ll notice that most of these foods come without a food label. Most of the foods that you should avoid come in a bag or a box. Building a shopping list that contains very few bagged or boxed items is something to aim for. But when you do purchase something with a label, make sure to avoid two of the unhealthiest ingredients created by man:

1) High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
2) Hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil (the sources of trans-fatty acids)

You might have heard of these two ingredients. They are strongly associated with obesity and other lifestyle-diseases.
 
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