help me make a plan to lose weight

[Original Poster]

I am 25 years old, weigh 15 stone 10 pounds and am going to the gym 4 days a week, Monday - Thursday.

I am at the gym for roughly 1 hour each day and am wanting to get a proper plan in place to shed the pounds as fast as possible! Going to Vegas at the start of March you see.

What kind of gym plan would people recommend I do? At the moment I am doing a mix of cardio, core and weights.

Can anyone recommend a specific plan to do?

My diet is also pretty good (during the week at least) so no problems there.

Thanks in advance!

[Burrow01]

Original Poster said:

My diet is also pretty good (during the week at least) so no problems there.

I would start here ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[ali4390]

Original Poster said:

I am 25 years old, weigh 15 stone 10 pounds and am going to the gym 4 days a week, Monday - Thursday.

I am at the gym for roughly 1 hour each day and am wanting to get a proper plan in place to shed the pounds as fast as possible! Going to Vegas at the start of March you see.

What kind of gym plan would people recommend I do? At the moment I am doing a mix of cardio, core and weights.

Can anyone recommend a specific plan to do?

My diet is also pretty good (during the week at least) so no problems there.

Thanks in advance!

Out of interest how tall are you?

What mix of cardio, core and weights are you doing?

As the above poster says, diet needs to be good at all times ideally (with the odd treat thrown in). Not left a huge amount of time to shed the pounds but should be able to lose a bit/gain a bit more definition in just over a month.

[Original Poster]

I'm 5ft 11".

Current routine is as follows -

Cardio - 30 minutes on the bike

Core - 15 sit ups, 30 second plank and finally get a medicine ball and sit down with my legs raised off the floor and move the ball either side of me, I do all this twice

Weights - Bit of everything really, mainly machines with a bit of free weights thrown in!

[grumbledoak]

You need to eat less calories and do more cardio, basically.

Assuming you don't live on lard, the best to strip are alcohol, sugar, white flour, and potatoes, in order. Add an hour on the cycle/treadmill/rower per day and you can pretty much eat as much protein and green veg as you want/can.

[Odie]

Diet is the most important thing IMHO,

What ive found is that calorie counting goes a long way towards losing weight. Their are various smart phone apps that can help with this. I was using 'my fitness pal' and also avoiding any white carbs (white bread, potatoes, white rice/pasta etc) and processed sugars (which are addictive).

Ive now fallen off the wagon a bit due to 'eating whatever crap I want' on a weekend & of course the christmas holidays.

[CaptainSlow]

Stop eating rubbish and cut out the alcohol.

You're not doing enough cardio, if you want to lose weight you have to be committed. I dropped 2.5 stone last year in about two months.

[Hoofy]

Diet: eat half of what you're currently eating. Consider "5:2 fasting". (Google it.)

CV work: google HIIT. Apply that to your cycling. (Tip: if you can pedal fast for 30 seconds, you're not pedaling fast enough.)

Weight: dumbbells and barbells are better as you activate more muscles but if you're not sure what you're doing, machines are probably a safer choice. Try to lift as heavy as possible - if you've done 6 reps and thinking "Hm, I could do another 20" then it's far too light. As there's a serious risk of injury from such things, I would employ the services of a personal trainer for one session. Or at least spend a good few hours browsing YouTube to get an idea of good and bad form. Also focus on "compound exercises" (deadlifts, bench press, squats), rather than "isolation" (bicep curls, tricep extensions).

FWIW, I've stopped dieting and stopped HIIT as I was losing weight too quickly.

[Odie]

yep cut out alcohol, drink more water (a couple of pints a day) if your cutting down your food intake.

I found water to be a great 'crutch' that I would drink when I craved a particular unhealthy food.

To mix it up a bit I was adding ice and a slice to my water too to make it less boring (this was during summer).

[CaptainSlow]

Also, your gym routine seems to be doing anything where you can sit down.

Cancel your gym membership and spend £40 on a pair of running shoes. Download the Strava app onto your smart phone. Go out for a minimum of an hour three times a week, each time you have to go a bit faster and/or further than the last.

You'll soon be dropping the weight, however, you have left it a bit late.

[lawrence567]

Sack off the bike, get on the X-trainer, burns more calories than a slow jog & is relatively easy.
Or even better the stepper.

[Original Poster]

Thanks for the help so far guys, appreciate it.

[Ordinary_Chap]

Hoofy said:

Diet: eat half of what you're currently eating. Consider "5:2 fasting". (Google it.)

CV work: google HIIT. Apply that to your cycling. (Tip: if you can pedal fast for 30 seconds, you're not pedaling fast enough.)

Weight: dumbbells and barbells are better as you activate more muscles but if you're not sure what you're doing, machines are probably a safer choice. Try to lift as heavy as possible - if you've done 6 reps and thinking "Hm, I could do another 20" then it's far too light. As there's a serious risk of injury from such things, I would employ the services of a personal trainer for one session. Or at least spend a good few hours browsing YouTube to get an idea of good and bad form. Also focus on "compound exercises" (deadlifts, bench press, squats), rather than "isolation" (bicep curls, tricep extensions).

FWIW, I've stopped dieting and stopped HIIT as I was losing weight too quickly.

This is a rather good answer.

For maximum results combine cardio with weights. But when it comes to weights you need to structure a plan for several reasons, 1. All of your muscles get a work out, 2. You're not training tired muscles (increases possibility of injury) and 3. You want to look good at the end of it.

Also when in the gym make sure you get angry, throw weights hard on the floor, grunt loudly and scream 'this aint nothing but a chicken wing!' and 'Aesthetics baby!' see here for help http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMy3uuZResw

And you should be good to go!

Lee


P.S. a newbie mistake is to try and go full tilt into the program and then burn out. If you feel tired and getting to burn out drop a days fitness or two but be honest with yourself and don't allow it to be a excuse.

Edited by Ordinary_Chap on Monday 28th January 19:24

[Original Poster]

Thanks, I'm in my third week of the gym now after a 2 and a half month break and feel it's going well.

Doing more cardio these days but still plenty of weights and lifting much more than I used to so overall it is heading in the right direction, just got to wait to start seeing results!

[Ordinary_Chap]

Original Poster said:

Thanks, I'm in my third week of the gym now after a 2 and a half month break and feel it's going well.

Doing more cardio these days but still plenty of weights and lifting much more than I used to so overall it is heading in the right direction, just got to wait to start seeing results!

You should achieve a improved fat burning session of cardio after weights, lots of research on this.

Also its simple to do a 3 or 4 day split or something like starting strength by Mark Rippetoe.

Monday; Chest/triceps
Tuesday; legs
Wednesday; cardio only
Thurday; back/biceps.
Weekend; cardio or rest - no weights

Simples!

[Original Poster]

Thanks

[otherman]

My tried and tested eating plan is this. Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and absolutely nothing else. No cake, nothing between meals, no late night kebab, no sneaky crisps when watching tv. A crazy percentage of your cals can be between meals, and you soon get used to not eating these because it doesn't feel like a 'diet'

[ambuletz]

What do you mean by your diet is good though? You could be eating home made things but at the end of the day if you are eating more calories then you burn off then you are going to put on weight.

At the end of the day it all comes down to eating fewer calories every day then you burn. How much you eat is more important then what you eat (though that still matters too an extent).

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.d...


While you don't NEED to lift weights or do exercise, it can help increase your total calorie expenditure which means that you can either
1- have a greater deficit
2- have more flexibility in the amount of things you can/can't eat.

[Odie]

The thing with calories is that unless you properly count them its difficult to tell what foods have how much in and if your diet really is 'good enough' as eating too little can be just as bad as eating too much.

[Original Poster]

Typically eat very well, tuna salads etc so the diet isn't a problem