Looking for some opinions

[RedEagle27]

Hello all,

I am 20 years old, 6 feet tall and about 180-185 pounds. I recently started exercising with the goal of losing a little belly fat, toning my abs, arms, and chest, and gaining some muscle in my legs (I play volleyball so I'm trying to get a little bit of a larger vertical.)

My routine right now is pretty laxidasical, I basically have been going to the gym every morning where I do one of two things:

Run: I get on a treadmill and run about an 8-9 minute mile pace for three miles. Or I do about a 9 minute mile for 25 minutes and have the treadmill simulate hills (it is the preset "fat burner" workout routine on the treadmill).
or
Swim: I go to the pool and do laps, 5 laps a set (each lap is 50m I think, 25m down and 25m back). And I do 4 to 5 sets. I generally keep each lap to about 1 minute 15 seconds and the last set I try and keep each lap at 1 minute.

Then each night before I go to bed I do 3 sets of 15 sit ups with 30 seconds rest in between each set.

This seems to be working relatively well (I have lost around 8 pounds in three weeks) but I realize my routine right now won't do much for my leg muscle or toning my arms or chest. I don't have anybody to lift with right now so I haven't been lifting. I also don't have much control over what I eat (I'm a college student) so I try to eat as healthy as I can, bagels, fruit, etc.. but my options are limited when it comes to dieting.

What I am not sure about is if this is the best way to be toning and losing weight (I know the number of sets, reps, and wait in between each has a large effect on toning). So basically I am just looking for a few more opinions on what I should be doing. If this is a good system or if I should try and alter it in some ways. Possibly a routine suggestion I could follow. Any input is great.

Thanks.

 

[Marathon James]

I'm in college so I know what you mean about the cafeteria food. It seems like you're running a decent amount. As for the push ups, if you really want to keep doing body weight workouts then try the 100 push up challenge. Whether or not you really care to do the challenge, the website can serve as a pretty good routine. I finished the challenge a couple weeks ago but I still do push ups daily based on the later weeks of the program.

 

[JTM]

You need to decide on what you want to do. You say you want to "tone" up yet want to build muscle in your legs. You can't do both at the same time.

All toning means is losing body fat so that the muscles become more pronounced and your body looks more defined. While it may appear you are gaining muscle, you are not. You can achieve this by eating under your calorie maintenance.

If you want to build muscle, then you need to eat over your maintenance level so you body has something to build the muscle with.

If you wish to continue losing weight, then there are plenty of full body body-weight routines on the net. I would recommend using one of these 3 x per week.

At the end of the day, it is your calorie intake that will dictate your results.