Is there anything else I can do?

[Ashura3]

Hi,

I’m 5’ 9”,, 17 years old, 188 lbs and overweight. I used to be 195-200 lbs about 3 weeks ago but I’ve been doing some light cardio and weight training along with improving my diet since then. However, now that spring is coming up and summer will be here soon, I really want to get in shape the best I can. I’ve stepped up from whatever I was doing before and I tried to improve whatever I could.

I get cardio done every single day. Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Saturday I do it twice a day, once in the morning, once in the evening, an hour each. The other days I do it once, also for an hour.

I do light weight training, focusing on certain muscle groups on certain days, on Sunday-Thursday, though on Wednesday I do a serious full out workout at the gym, doing a more extensive job with whatever muscles I’m supposed to have on that day.

With diet, I try to eat every 3 hours. I’ve cut out junk food, fast food, white carbs (rice, pasta etc), sweets, soda, juice etc. and I drink a lot of water.

An example of my diet for today was brown rice with chicken and vegetables in the morning (8:30 am), a low fat yogurt (11:30ish), a sliced banana sandwich in two slices of brown bread (2:30ish), another low fat yogurt (5:30 pm), and finally a salad for dinner (8:30 pm).

My reason for making this post is this: is there anything more I can do to help reduce fat, especially my belly and love handles? Everything in this post that I do is derived from things I’ve read up online (including these forums) and bits and pieces from my friends who work out. If there’s any little thing I can do to help get myself more fit and looking better, it’d be great.

Any input would be extremely appreciated.

 

[AJP]

If you could add some info about your cardio and lifting routines that would be helpful, what kind of cardio? do you have a specific lifting routine?

It seems like youre pretty much on your way right now, however, the main thing that I can think of, along with probably the majority of people on here, is trying some high intensity interval training (HIIT). You'll burn more calories and keep your heart rate higher longer. An example would be running at a moderate pace for say 2 minutes, the 3rd minute you pick up the pace quite a bit to atleast a "run."

The few times I do cardio, it's usually a short HIIT session on the bike, My moderate pace is at a resistance of 4-5 and rpms around 70-75. When I pick up the pace for the "intensity" third minute, or however long you make it, I do at a resistance of 10 of atleast 90 rpms.

Try to get some more protein in your diet and eat a little more often to keep your body fueled and always metabolizing, stick to fat free yogurt and no dressing on the salads, or fat free if you must.

 

[Ashura3]

Thanks for the reply.

For cardio, I usually run at 4-4.5 mph on the treadmill for an hour.

For lifting, I do whatever muscle groups I work on that. For example, today I did back, shoulders and triceps and abs.

For back, I did the lat pull down for upper, one armed rows for middle and for lower back, I'm not sure what it's called but it's the one where you're on a high bench with your upper body leaning out and you go down and up (3 sets of 15 for those).

Shoulders, I was on the shoulder press machine and this other machine where you're seated and you push your shoulders up to the sides against the machine.

Triceps I was on the machine used for the lat pulldown except with the handle for tricep workout and did inner and outer.

Abs I do crunches, oblique crunches, leg raises (3 sets each, as many reps possible for all three) and the plank (first 30 sec, second 45 sec, third 60 sec and last 30 sec).

My routine for lifting with weights or machines is knowing my max, starting my first set two levels down from it with 10-12 reps, moving up one level, 10-12 reps, moving to my max as many reps as I can go and then moving back down to my starter and maxing out my reps as my last set.

And I apologize, that was an error on my part. The yogurt I do eat is fat free, not low fat. And I never apply dressing to my salads.

Now, more protein in my diet, won't that be an obstacle for losing weight? Although I do workout, my primarily goal is the weight loss from cardio.

I've read about HIIT but I've never been clear on it. How many times would I do a HIIT session? eg, do I repeat doing 2 min easy, 1 min hard till I can't stand anymore? For an hour? And is this better than an hour at a constant pace?

Sorry for the long winded reply but I wanted to provide as much information as possible.