Losing weight & Toning Up Help!

Hi,

I read through the 'How to' Abs Guide and worked out that I am 5'11" and weigh 158lbs and I'm a 22y/o male so my maintenance calories per day is 9040kcal.

I have been told that if you consume 20% less calories and exercise approximately 500kcal, then you should lose body fat and tone up somewhat. For 2 months now I have been consuming 8500 kcal per day, and burning approximately 800kcal or (35mins on eliptical trainer) 5 days a week but I dont seem to be losing weight or toning up. I've noticed little change and my weight fluctuates! What can I do?

Any suggestions??
 
im hoping your maintence kcals and recent intake are mistakes, or else ive been massively off course of recent.

im guessing your maintenance should be around 2600, most will tell you to knock of 500 of that to burn fat, but instead id throw on some kcalories to around 3000 and put on some muscle first.

your cardio will not tone you up. toning is a complete misconception, as you can either put on muscle or burn fat but do neither effectively at the same time. toning is the balance between a good amount of lean mass and low body fat %. so if you want to tone throw on some muscle.

as you weigh more, you'll need more kcals to keep building more and more muscle. you can either do this or keep to your original intake and then start shifting the fat and your extra muscle looks for the calories from your own body.

you need proper resistance training and less focus on cardio, as cardio will not affect your appearance half as much as a good weights program. it will certainly not tone you, as even if you shift fat you will be revealing little underneath.

if you decide you want to tone, you're in for a long, twisting, uncertain journey.

also, ignore the 'kcalories burned' on the machines. they are very innacurate and only useful in terms of assessing how much you've worked in comparison to your last workout.
 
Thanks for the reply. I just realised that I put my maintenance calories in kilojoules as in Australia we mostly look at KJ rather than kcal.

Your information and suggestions were great so thank you! I guess i'm going to have to find out a little about starting a weights program in order to build muscle.

Regards
MR BACARDI
 
Back
Top