Losing fat and gaining muscle

[peterroyal]

My diet is: Breakfast: Porridge and yoghurt, snack: protein shake, Lunch:salad with tuna or chicken, snack:two slices of wholemeal toast with peanut butter, then gym. A shake after the gym and an evening meal of fish or meat with vegetables.
I train by myself so I can't lift too heavy. I can squat about 60 kg, but I can't go heavier as my left knee is a bit dodgy. My bench was about 50kg. I really need to grab a personal trainer to help me find my 1 rep max.

I apologise if I got the wrong end of the stick earlier.......I am grateful for all advice.

[Pkant2002]

See if your gym has an AMT machine it is very simular to running but without the impact stress that is associated with treadmills this may be a good option if you are going to be running alot and hadnt previously done so. It takes time to strengthen these koints ect and suddenly going from nothing to full on may come as a rather large shock to your body.

[liftmore]

Quote

Hi People, this is my first post.

I need to lose weight and hopefully gain a bit of muscle, I currently weigh 101kg and would like to get down to about 85 kg by May (I'm getting married!).

I'm going to be doing four spinning classes a week and I plan to do an extra session of just weights, I want to do a 30-40 min weight session before each spinning class. Does anyone have any tips for me please? Would low weight high reps be best or lift heavy low reps?

I'm not new to gym work, I was ill in the summer and had along lay off work and ate loads of rubbish. I need a plan that i can stick too and I WILL stick to it.
Any advice gratefully received!

Cheers

Hi Peter,

Firstly congratulations to you.

This is my first post here and I am posting as I wanted to give you my advice as it may help.

I have struggled with my weight for some time and after a back injury was unable to train with weights. Now my back is better I am seeing a professional bodybuilder once a week. Since November 2011 I have lost around 15lbs.

What I was told to do is cut out all sugar and dairy products, including any milk. Also cut out wheat. So no bread for me.

For breakfast I have porridge with water and a scoop of whey, This is after 1 hour of fasted cardio with my heart rate at around 120 bpm. I do this 6 mornings per week. Before my cardio I have BCAAs and Glutamine. You could get up 1 hour earlier than normal and go for a fast walk or do 20 minutes on hiit instead.

My daily calories are around 2300. No carbs after 1pm only green veg. I drink around 5 litres of water per day. Eating protien every 2- 3 hours.
I do seperate weight training in the afternoon or eveing after work 4 - 5 per week on top of my morning cardio and do around an hour focused on compound lifts, as heavy as I can and with slow proper form, contracting the muscle on each and every rep. If I can be bothered I also do another 30 mins walk on the treadmill after my weights. I add a post workout shake after this for protien and carbs.

I have Sunday as complete rest and load up on carbs, may have 1 cheat meal. But not a cheat day!!!!

This may seem excessive but I am losing fat % and my body is looking much better. I will continue to do this until my bodyfat is around 10%, then I will bulk up. I was 17 stone at my heaviest. I am 6ft 2. When I started doing this in November I was 14st .8 (22% bf) and now I am 13st 6. (18%bf)

I am no expert but this is working for me and I hope this helps.

[zag_2005]

Congrats all round! So.... I was 101kg on boxing day 2011 and now im 93kg. So wer in a simular situation really.

Weights before cardio for certain, your body uses alot of your carbs to fuel the resitance training, then more fat is utilised during your cardio.

Heavy weights, low reps, no more than 10 reps maximum! Heavy weights place more stress on the muscles in a shorter space of time, also it damages the muscle more, so the body uses kcals to repair itself. Also known as "afterburn", the continued spike in metabloism after a workout, where your body, repairs and rebuilds.

Spinning - great workout for burning lots of kcals, but dont get dependant on it, no matter how hard it is, your body will get used to it within a few weeks, if your burning 1000kcal an hour currently, that may drop as low as half of that as you get fitter, because your body become more afficient at dealing with the stress, therefore less energy used to do the same job, mix it up, 3 weeks spining, 1 week boxercise, 1 week gym cardio for example.

Ive forgot what else you asked, lol.

Gaz

[peterroyal]

Hi gaz,

Congratulations on your weight loss! I've managed to lose 5kg since January 3rd so I'm pleased with my progress so far.
I've not lifted a weight yet though, I'm using the structure of classes while I get back in the routine. At the moment I do spinning and circuit training on Tuesdays, spinning on wednesday and sunday and boxing circuits on Thursday. I have Monday, Friday and Saturday off. I also have a stretching routine that I do most days.

My nutrition is getting better, the biggest change I have made is to have my main meal at lunch time instead of evening.
Our spinning classes are mixed up by some classes spent entirely out of the saddle.

Pete