Questions regarding exercise and nutrition

K

Kat74

New member
-Stats (32, 5'5", 194, not too sure about body fat...but its up there!)

-Diet (I'll just put todays meal-
Breakfast-weight control oatmeal
Snack-serving of fruit and dannon fit yogurt
Lunch-chicken salad/reduced fat mayo/2 egg/oninon mixed...1 cup in low fat wheat tortilla, serving of fruit
pre-workout meal-1 cup of chicken salad
Dinner-serving of fruit/rest of the chicken salad/fat free milk
105 oz of water

Ok, this isn't the best meal plan, however, I was on the go all day, so it was fast and easy...I usually try and eat more veggies than fruit...I eat red meat once a week and the rest is either chicken or fish...I stay away from sugar in beverages and in general...I'm not a pasta person nor a bread person so I rarely eat them...I tend to eat rice about 2x a week...)

-Exercise routine in detail (cardio 1 hour 3 times a week/30 minutes the rest of the week along with upper and lower body workouts at the gym and abs everday)

-Current and overall goal-I'd like to lose 50 pounds and lower my body fat

-How long you have been doing what you are doing in diet and routine...I've been on the eating plan for about 3 months and cardio for 3 months, I just started working out with weights at the gym last week...

-If you have any medical problems or injuries we should be aware of...No medical probs, besides being overweight!

Ok my question is regarding how long I should be working out, and how frequently...I have been doing upper body/abs one day and the next I would switch to lower body and abs...and I always do cardio prior...I have been going to the gym 6 days a week and on the 7th day, I usually do something light and walk 3 miles...am I doing too much? I'm seeing the scale move up...and I know I shouldn't focus too much on the numbers...but is that normal to gain weight?

And my next question was on whey protien...I was told that I should start taking it to up my protien intake...I went out and bought it...but I have no freakin' clue to how to incorperate that into my diet...do I supplement it as a meal? drink it as a snack? prior to workout...??

Thanks for your help

Kataleena
 
Scale going up might be a good thing....

I know that sounds terrible, but from the general view of your exercise routine you could very well just be putting on new muscle, which is deceptively heavier than fat. As long as the clothes arent getting tighter in the wrong places you should be fine. I experienced the same thing. I had been doing cardio primarily for a long time and was seeing small results. Then I started seriously weight training and I almost died because I gained 10 pounds in a short amount of time when I should have been losing!!! The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that even though the weight was going up, my pants kept falling down! Thank goodness my wife was paying attention because as I was gaining weight and of course not seeing any difference in my own shape, she was going wild seeing and feeling all sorts of new muscles in places she had not felt them on me before. So she pushed me not to worry about it. Once the muscle kinda got to where it wanted to be, the weight started coming down again, only faster than before since I am sure that extra weight in muscle I had put on was causing me to burn a little more fat.

Sounds funny, but give yourself a feel. If things are getting firmer and harder, or perhaps even bigger, that could be where the weight is coming from.

sirant
 
Regarding protein, I asked Steve pretty much the same question the other day. He said he drinks half his protein shake during his workout and the other half immediately afterwards. Then he has a proper meal about an hour after that.

I've recently started protein shakes, and I have them when I get back from the gym, about 10 minutes after I finish.
 
I'm not an expert, but I was doing the same type of routine as you before I came on to this forum and I've learned quite a few things. First if you're trying to lose fat, which I think you are, you need to lift heavier weights and incorporate higher intensity training. It's weird, but you don't have to be in the gym for hours at a time. Don't worry, I used to take a 1 hour spinning class and lift for 45 minutes afterwards, so I was in that place for 2 hours. So reading this you're probably thinking - NO WAY! But now, I'm in and out of the gym in 45 minutes.

If you look through steve's diary, there's a lot of information in there buried between the other fun stuff. He has a great diary with some awesome information that will blow your mind about what you thought was fat loss and how to go about it.

At first I was really skeptical about the routines he suggested, but decided to try it out since what I was doing currently was not working. A month later I'm seeing results I hadn't seen in months. It's slow for me, because I don't have a lot to lose, less than 20 pounds. But I feel leaner.

A big thing too is really watching what you eat. I use Fitday to help me calculate the number of grams of fat, carb, and protein I need. Also, another surprise, is that you need to eat more, atleast 1500 or 300-500 below maintenance. Maintenance calories = the number of calories you need so you don't gain or lose weight (to find your number take 15*your body weight).

Again, these are some of the things that I've learned since being here and so I'm not an expert in at all. You'll see that almost all of us here have started the same way as you and have learned quite a bit from each other.

Whey Protein are great with shakes. Put some strawberries, yogurt and a scoop of whey in and it's a great snack!
 
Thanks so much for your replies...I need to really look at my diet, and like you said probably up it a little bit...

I always thought lifting heavy would mean you would get bigger...so I would stay away from it...but I will try it, give myself a couple of months and see how that goes....

Again, thank you for ya'lls help! I really appreciate it
 
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