My first 'real' post here.

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PhillyC

New member
My name's Phil. I am currently 202 pounds and just under 5'11 at the age of 15. I am planning on beginning an exercise and diet plan that, hopefully, will allow me to drop to 175. That's 27 pounds that I can really do without. I have already started to eat less and more healthy, but I have a few questions that I'm hoping that you all can help me with.

First off...in regards to exercise:
I'm looking for exercises that require minimal, or no, special equipment. I have a pair of 5 pound weights and that's it. I do not plan on buying a gym membership or buying any exercise machines.

As of this posting, I cannot run or jog because I dislocated my left knee a few weeks ago. Which brings me to my first big point. I'm sure the people at physical therapy will provide me with some exercises for strengthening my leg and knee area, but I was wondering if anyone knew any off the top of their head. I'm looking to prevent any further dislocations.

What exercises burn the most calories in the shortest amount of time? I know running and jogging are up there, especially when HIIT is employed. I plan to work myself up to that level once my knee is back to normal.

One more question - If I plan to lose weight, would weight lifting be recommended. If I recall, muscle weighs more than fat. Therefore, would weight lifing be detrimental to my goal of losing weight? I do realize that muscle is better than fat, but is the extra weight worth looking more buff?

In regards to diet:
This is my usual diet on your average day:

Breakfast ~5:00
A bowl of cereal (The cereal differs...from a sugery cereal to a bland cereal) with either skim, 1% or 2% milk
A small glass of orange juice

Lunch ~11:30 to 11:45
Whatever is offered at school that particular day. Often, I will get an italian sub with tons of lettuce on it, a whole milk, and chips.

Snack ~2:00
Anything from chips to cheese and crackers to a trail mix bar

Dinner ~6:30
Whatever my mother makes. There's always a vegetable though

Other notes
I don't drink enough water probably...only a glass or two a day
I chew a lot of gum, but it's sugarless
Friday/Saturday's Dinner is usually something from the local pizza shop or something like that. I'm looking into healthier options from those places.

Any suggestions on my diet?


Thanks for any help you're able to provide me, it's all greatly appreciated. :)
 
PhillyC said:
My name's Phil. I am currently 202 pounds and just under 5'11 at the age of 15. I am planning on beginning an exercise and diet plan that, hopefully, will allow me to drop to 175. That's 27 pounds that I can really do without. I have already started to eat less and more healthy, but I have a few questions that I'm hoping that you all can help me with.

First off...in regards to exercise:
I'm looking for exercises that require minimal, or no, special equipment. I have a pair of 5 pound weights and that's it. I do not plan on buying a gym membership or buying any exercise machines.

As of this posting, I cannot run or jog because I dislocated my left knee a few weeks ago. Which brings me to my first big point. I'm sure the people at physical therapy will provide me with some exercises for strengthening my leg and knee area, but I was wondering if anyone knew any off the top of their head. I'm looking to prevent any further dislocations.

What exercises burn the most calories in the shortest amount of time? I know running and jogging are up there, especially when HIIT is employed. I plan to work myself up to that level once my knee is back to normal.

One more question - If I plan to lose weight, would weight lifting be recommended. If I recall, muscle weighs more than fat. Therefore, would weight lifing be detrimental to my goal of losing weight? I do realize that muscle is better than fat, but is the extra weight worth looking more buff?

In regards to diet:
This is my usual diet on your average day:

Breakfast ~5:00
A bowl of cereal (The cereal differs...from a sugery cereal to a bland cereal) with either skim, 1% or 2% milk
A small glass of orange juice

Lunch ~11:30 to 11:45
Whatever is offered at school that particular day. Often, I will get an italian sub with tons of lettuce on it, a whole milk, and chips.

Snack ~2:00
Anything from chips to cheese and crackers to a trail mix bar

Dinner ~6:30
Whatever my mother makes. There's always a vegetable though

Other notes
I don't drink enough water probably...only a glass or two a day
I chew a lot of gum, but it's sugarless
Friday/Saturday's Dinner is usually something from the local pizza shop or something like that. I'm looking into healthier options from those places.

Any suggestions on my diet?


Thanks for any help you're able to provide me, it's all greatly appreciated. :)
Click to expand...


Weird, i have a simular goal to you, and im pretty much as tall as you and the same age lol. Im 184lb now though :p.
If you have just started the diet, i think you can kick start it by hardly eating anything at all for about a week. I could be completely wrong and i probably am, but im sure ive read somewhere that you can go really lean and you lose loads of fat in the first couple of weeks.
About the exercise equipment, dont you have a bicycle? They are great for cardio. Or you could go to your nearest swimming pool. Jogging and running tires me out more than anything else though so you should do that once your knee has healed. Im pretty sure jogging/running/cycling and swimming are best for calorie burn.
I would recommend weight lifting, it helps draw on fat. Its up to you if you want to look more toned, you would put weight on but not fat so i dont see what the problem is. Its your choice though. The scales might not show good results if you do weight lift but you should judge your weight by what you see not what the scales say.

About that diet plan, try changing the cereal to something like Weetabix or shredded wheat.
Your lunch isnt very healthy, i dont know much about subs but i know they have a lot of bread, so that would be a lot of cals. Also you shouldnt have chips. Cheese and crackers have tons of calories to. You also need to drink more, like 8+ glasses of water a day. Have you told your mum you are on a diet? She should start making you healthier things if you ask her. Mine does anyway.
Hope that helps.
 
Couple things:

1) Weight is just a number. What most of us are really trying to do is LOOK better and BE healthier - while we all often use the weight number as a proxy for those two things, because it's easy to quantify, it is not the same thing. If you are healthier and look better, what's the problem with weighing more??? So - putting on muscle can ONLY be a good thing in my opinion

Plus, when people say 'muscle weighs more than fat', you have to really think about what that means - obviously a pound of fat weighs the same as a pound of muscle. But a pound of muscle takes up much less SPACE than a pound of fat - which is why two people that weigh exactly the same amount can look totally different if one guy has 12% bodyfat, and the other guy has 20% bodyfat.

2) strength training is crucial to a weight loss program in the fact that muscle burns far more calories than fat just by existing, and a strength training routine boosts your metabolism not only while you're doing it, but for a while afterwards. Also, when you are losing weight, you're likely to be losing some muscle in the process (which you really don't want), so strength training, at the very least, can help you prevent the loss of muscle while you are losing fat.

3) As for equipment - you may find that five pounds doesn't work for you on all exercises, or at least, not forever. If you really don't want to buy anymore dumbells, elastic resistance bands can be far cheaper, and give you some opportunity to increase the resistance you are using. Your body doesn't care whether it's a band or a weight, as long as there's resistance it's pushing against.

4) I personally vehemently disagree with the suggestion to "hardly eat anything at all for a week" to kick start your diet.

5) Diet - one thing I'm doing that seems to be helping a great deal is eating 5 meals a day, smaller meals. I know this would be hard given your school schedule, and the fact that you're eating at mom's :) but you can start thinking about ways to get closer to it. Kick the sugary cereal, it's horrible for you - look for something with higher protein and fiber. I personally LOVE Kashi Go Lean. It's GREAT that you eat breakfast.

I would start educating yourself about what's in the typical foods you eat - calories, protein, fat (which kinds), carbs (which kinds). Get a sense of how many calories you are eating in a day NOW -- you can't adjust if you don't know what you are eating now.

6) This is important for EVERYONE, but especially for you since you are a teenager - make sure you are getting all your daily requirements of stuff - take a multivitamin (no weird supplements or anything, just a regular vitamin).
 
Like easy e mentioned... in terms of exercise, swimming might be great for you. When I first started reading your post I immediately thought of jogging, but damn dude, that sucks about your knee. You might want to concentrate on the knee first, and focus more on your diet as well

welcome to the forum
 
The ironic thing about my knee is that I dislocated it swimming. I love swimming, so I have no plan on letting that prohibit me from swimming in the future.

Thank you all for the ideas and suggestions. I've already started drinking more water. I'll slowly work my way up to around 8 glasses a day. It's close to 2 o clock today, and I'm already on my third glass of water. By the way, is it true that chilled water helps your metabolism more than regular water? .

Right now, my knee is my first priority. I'm purposely forgoing certain exercises just to be cautious.

I have a question about weight training. Could one use a HIIT method when it comes to lifting weights? Right now, I'm doing weight training for an hour and a half every other day. I do two 45 minute sessions...one before lunch and one after dinner. For the first 20 minutes, I go easy...just basic, medium speed lifting. Then, for the next 15 minutes I'll do 40 seconds of medium effort lifting followed by 20 seconds of near-maximum effort lifting. The last 10 minutes I start off at about 80% effort and slowly work myself down to a complete stop. While my arms are fairly sore, I can definately feel and see a difference.
 
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