Losing weight - Advice welcome

J

JGNicks

0
Hey all, first time visitor here.

About a year and a half ago, I resolved to lose the extra weight I had had since I was young. I didn't organize any program or keep track of my progress, I just made a concious effort to change my lifestyle and become more active. When all was said and done, I had dropped almost 90 pounds and gotten down to about 200lbs, which for my size and build is pretty close to where I should be.

However, I'm back up to about 230 now, and I am not exactly thrilled about that. Bad habits can come back to haunt you if your not careful, I guess. Anyway, I didn't lose 90 pounds just to watch 30 climb back on, so I want to knock this weight off with a vengence. Thing is, I've spoken with some people and I've heard that your body adapts to the rigors and excersizes it's put through and the same routines become less effective over time. If this is true, does it mean that I won't be able to use the same excersizes that I used to drop the weight the first time?

Initially, I walked twice a day for 40+ mins at a time and kept my calories to under 2000 daily. That, combined with dietary changes was enough for me to lose the weight because I had no real time frame in mind. Now, I am considering a career with my local police department, and it is imperative that I get myself into the best condition possible in as little time as possible. Luckily, I work in a warehouse that requires a pretty demanding physical performance daily, so long periods of inactivity is not a concern of mine. My concern is maximizing the time that I do have in order to get the best and safest results ASAP. If I'm motivated enough, I can still get in two 40+ min runs a day and I can discipline myself again to stay around 1500-1700 calories a day, but I want to be sure that it is the best course of action before I plunge in.

Is this a good number to shoot for, or is too high/low for focused weight loss? I'm a 6'2 male with a large, fairly muscular build, so I primarily work on cardio and endurance excersize when I'm working out (high duration and high rep). I don't necessarily want the bulk that strength training builds, but I do know that muscle aids in fat burning, so would this be wise to incorperate into my new program? Will the fact that I already lost a lot of weight walking/running impact my current walking/running routine? Lastly, about my dietary habits, there isn't much to tell (or eat when your at 1500 cal, hehe), but I already have a good idea where my problem areas are. Soda is I'm sure my biggest adversary (as I glance at the Pepsi can on my computer desk), and I probably snack too much because I keep my meals on the small side. An average day's eating for me looks something like this:

Breakfast - Bowl of ceral + Men's multivitamin

Lunch - Ramen noodle cup or poultry/cheese sandwich.

Dinner - Usually something substantial (entree + side + veggie).

I imagine it prudent to substitute fruit for cookies when snacking and soda for water when drinking, but aside from those changes, is there anything else that you all can see I should be doing or changing? If possible I would like to drop this weight in the next 2-3 months, and I am willing to stick to my program like glue to get the results I want. I'll do all the running and eat like a bird if thats what it takes, but this time I'm open to some feedback before going ahead with things.

I'd be much obliged for any advice or opinions you all would like to share. Thanks for looking.
 
It seems to me like the best thing you could do is get some heavier cardio. Friends of mine in the police force say that you do have to be in good shape to do well at the police academy, and although walking is good, it doesn't doo much. Search the forums for information on HIIT, and even look into joining a gym. If you do a bunch of cardio without any weight training, you'll lose a lot of muscle mass, and that won't help you much at all.

As for your diet, you should look into splitting it up into several small meals every 2-4 hours, with your first being within an hour of waking up. This keeps your metabolism constantly active and helps to keep you from eating too much at a time. Avoid processed foods, and try to eat lots of fruit, veggies, and lean meats, and most importantly, try and get plenty of protein.

This is all just general information, there are others here that know way more than I do. Best of luck.
 
Xab said it pretty nicely.

You want to have around 6 meals/snacks a day than 3. A study which had two groups aiming to lose weight showed that both groups lost about 5kg in 2weeks but the group with 6 meals lost substatially more fat. Dont ever starve yourself because doing so will ensure the body stores fat in an attempt to avoid such a "starvation".

Do Weights!!!

This is the principle fat burner. You burn calories while undertaking the session and the muscle gained helps eliminate fat. Most calories are burnt while resting, so it is a good advantage to focus on that point. The after burn is more longer lasting after weights than aerobic or endurance trainging too!

Obviously with reference to your diet, you want to be consuming a wide variety of health foods.

AVOID - obvious i know, but trans fat, sat fat, sodium, packets that say "partially hydrogenated oils" in the nutrional part.

Instead (carbs fat and protein is all essesntial, you shouldnt deprive yourself from any) consumption of good fats, wholegrains, fibre, calcium, carbs with low GI etc.

hope that helped a bit.
 
Regarding your body adapting to exercises and then therefore becoming less effective, that generally has to do with weight training. If you do the same routine each day for a year, you're muscles become very good at performing that particular movement with less need to grow in order to complete this repetitive task. So you switch it up on them, continually forcing them to change and get stronger in order to learn to perform new movements.

With cardio, it may apply due to the fact that walking for an hour today may now be less strenuous on you than it was, thus causing you to burn less, but even if that were true, it's not really the same thing. You could always just walk longer.

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It sounds like you may not actually be eating enough to be honest. For your size and activity level, you probably need to be eating around 2500 calories per day just to maintain your body weight (check online for a calorie calculator), and the best way to burn fat is to stay 1) stay active (both cardio and weight training) and 2) reduce your daily caloric intake for sustainment by 500 calories.
 
I'd say too much processed foods from what you've written of your food plan. Change the cereal to oatmeal (NOT the instant - use the old-fashioned or steel cut oats), and drop the ramen noodles totally - that's just empty calories. Replace with something healthy and nutritious (like your chicken sandwich - always use whole grain breads as opposed to white bread). Also add fruits and veggies since it looks like you only get 1 serving of the latter. For snacks, try low fat cottage cheese and almonds, or a slice of whole wheat bread with peanut butter.
 
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