Getting Fit

[Bret Rigby]

Anyone got some good advice on getting into shape? Right now I'm a 5'9" tall 150 lb guy. Got a little bit of a gut and always have. I would love to get rid of the gut(maybe get a six pack) but also wanna get quite a bit meatier. Anyone got advice?

And maybe some advice on being able to stick to it, because I have a major problem with sticking with a workout plan. They always go about a month and then something happens and I quit.

Any replies would be very helpful!

[Dream]

Check out my blog, it has some health stuff on it. Ill be adding another fitness post tomorrow

www.thedreamlounge.blogspot.com

Other than that Ill cut and paste some past advice ive given to others.

For starters, I work out about 2 hours a day 7 days a week, which is only 1 day more than what you have available. For the goals your telling me (similar to my own) I would mirror myself LOL.

Ok heres how I workout (ill use yesterday for example)

Walk 15 mins on treadmill.

10 min rowing machine, not heavy resistance (the idea here is aerobic, you can talk while working out)

10 min seated bike (once again aerobic)

10 min eliptical (aerobic, your not pushing yourself, its easy)

15 min walk

Thats 1 hour used up.

Afterwards I do just one or two anaerboic excercise. Yesterday it was a type of dumbell bench that focuses on your deltoids/outside pectorals.

Went in the sauna for 15 mins, jumped in the shower. In and out of the gym in a little under 2 hours.

I usually try to do 2 excercises though. For example I would normally do that + dips. Or close grib bench plus tricep workout. Or pushups plus chin ups (upper back). Or shoulder press + bicep workout.

Try doing this, only making sure to do 2 or 3 excercises instead of 1 or 2. Also if your not going to be going in the sauna or something wear heavier clothes so you sweat more, and be sure to walk another 10 mins after your anerbic workouts. (this will prevent lactic acid from pooling in your muscles and leaving you sore in the morning).

If your going to be splitting your aerobic away from your anerboic make sure your still warming up and cooling down by walking (in fact this is key)

Also for the exercises work on your form and breathing. Focus is key.

Try working out your chest one day, shoulders next, back next, legs next, then repeat.

As for eating, man I could go on forever. Quick tips though (cross posted from under21)

Quote:
-never go more than 1 day without working out
-sweat every day
-drink plenty of water (particularily artesian/spring water)
-always warm up and cool down

quick tips

-nothing but fruit till noon
-nothing but fruit after 9pm
-no dairy, red meat, or poultry, (natural eggs are ok, as are wild fish)
-less proccessed the food is, the better
-do not mix starch and protein
-eat one type of protein at a time
-no pills, no supps, no powders of any kind
-no drink except water (tea to if you like, have trouble with the taste though)
-only acceptable juice is fresh squeezed yourself
-eat green veggies everday (water soluble foods can be combined with starch or protein)
-try to eat fruit only on an empty stomach
-eat water based fruit before dry fruit (eat an apple before a bannana, helps with digestion)
-try not to drink to much during and immediately after a meal (dillutes digestive enzymes, less effective proccess)
I doubt your going to go vegan right off the bat, but tailored more for you, severly limit your red meat and dairy intake. Eat more fish, organic chicken and turkey if you can find it. Do NOT mix starch and protein (meat and potatoes, fish and rice etc...) This like quadrupiles the time to digest the food and makes it much harder for your body to extract nutrients from it.

Eat more almonds.

Do not eat anything but water based fruit within 2 hours of working out. Dont eat within 2 hours of sleeping. Eat only fruit for breakfast.

Most importantly though realize to get the results you want its going to take a lifestyle change. Once you get in the swing of it though its just normal to you.

Let me know if you have any more questions

-Dream

[Dream]

heres some more

No problem, now lets see what I can do.

1. Doesnt look bad at all. One thing I notice here is your using dumbells a lot which is better than bars IMO so stick with it (allows for much more natural movement etc).

Keep in mind when your working out or even creating a routine like this which muscles work together, which excercises benefit eachother. For example IF your day 2 bench was on a bar, I would switch it to close grip because it works your triceps more that way.

On days you do dead lifts I would also try to do some type of forearm workout to go with that (although on day 1 you do have hammer curls which work part of your forearm).

As far as reps go, you gotta up em. Even if your trying to get big, doing an excercise a maximum of 5 times isnt ver beneficial to you. You want to have at LEAST 1 set have 10 reps in your workout. For example you could do like a 10 8 6 4 set. Dont be one of the guys that goes in the weight room and throws around a bunch of weights like a moron, *work smarter not harder*. Switching from positives one week to negatives the next will pack on muscle more than that big dumb goon next to you with double the weight all day long.

2. Doing a 15 walk, then 10 10 10, then 15 walk is just my style and preference. Doing one exercise for 30 mins all the way through is totally fine, i just prefer to do 3 different ones so I get a more complete workout. Jogging is awesome, just do something different the next day.

8 mins is fairly fast though, i would probably slow it to at least 10 min miles. I know it sounds counterintuitive but long story short your avoding your anaerboic threshold where you begin to burn glycogen instead of fat. Youll lose more weight working with less intensity, I know sounds nuts but I lost 13 pounds in 8 weeks doing it from an already solid body weight.

Over time to your threshold will increase and you will be able to burn even more calories without going anerobic. Burn fat, not sugar.

Also never warm up or cool down for less than 10 mins, ever. Always stick to 15 unless your under a REAL time constraint and can only do 10. Reason? To work your muscles need more blood. Where does it come from? Your organs. Do you think its healthy to rapidly SUCK blood out of your vital organs on a consistent basis? Nope. By warming up your allowing your body to gradually send blood to the required muscles and your organs can more efficiently shut down for the time being.

As for cooling down, lactic acid is going to build in your muscles weather you work aerobicly or anerboicly (MUCH less aerobicly though). By walking after exercising your body and gradually send blood back to the organs without leaving condensed lactic acid in your muscles (which causes sorness and fatigue).

Also remeber to walk after your workout routines for the same reason if your not going to do a sauna or steam room.

3.

*You say don't drink anything but water. Is soy milk okay? I'm more than willing to replace regular milk with soy milk

Im not a big fan of soy. A lot of vegans/vegetarians think its like the cure all for all the crap food they miss (like vegie burgers, yuck). It does have its benefits and its in some foods i eat in small amounts so I dont avoid it, I just dont buy it en mass. It also can significantly increase estrogen production, which is not good for us .

If your looking for something to replace milk with, go with almond milk. Sounds gross, but I tried it for the first time last week and im in fucking love with it. Its so healthy for you compared to other milks its ridiculous, and it tastes pretty damn good believe it or not.

*So you're vetoing sandwiches? They're starch and protein..

Basically ya. Kind of weird how common they are in most peoples daily foods to. That said though, its what your doing consistently, your lifestyle , that will ulimtatly change your body. Eating a grilled chicken sandwhich or something once a week isnt going to noticably alter your end results, its just not going to help. If you eat one every day, or meat and potatoes everyday, or fish and rice etc... Then your going to hinder your progress.

Short story on starch and protein. Basically starch is digested with alkali enzymes, meat is more acidic. What happens when you combine the 2? They neutralize eachother. *note-water soluble foods can be digested either way most of the time which is why you can eat them with either starch or protein*.

When you have pasta and chicken sitting in your stomach they do just that, sit there. They can take up to 5 times as long to digest than normal because of the digestive enzyme problem. On top of that once they do begin to go through the intestine and be absorbed, its much harder for your blood to obtain nutritents from that soupy mess.

So basically when you eat a sandwhich lets say, you get full. Once your body realizes it didnt get much nutrition from all that food though, its like wtf are you stupid? And you get hungry again. So your eating more, more calories etc... and getting less nutrition. I think you can see what this leads to. Also note* please do not think this is an ideal way to bulk up, i know it reads like that but its a bad idea and puts a lot of uneccessary stress on your body*

*I want to bulk up. What other high calorie things do you recommend I eat? And when do I eat them? Let's say I get up at 6am, grab an apple, go work out, get back, gobble up a bunch of peaches (only fruit even though I'm hungry as hell?), and then eat what for the rest of the day?

Bulking up isnt something Ive researched a whole whole lot because its just not something Im looking to do. However I do have a lot of older knowledge on it kinda sitting around in my head so let me see here...

Number one, your not going to need as much protein as you may think. If your eating your veggies and nuts, youll be getting plenty.

Im still researching when to eat and why, however its hard to find useful information on it. From what I understand right now your body goes through different digestive cycles based on the time of day. In the early morning its really just looking for energy, ie fruits.

As you go through mid day its looking for vital nutrients. This is when your eating your starch/meats/veggies etc... At night it doesnt really want anything hence nothing but fruit after 9 (easy to digest so it doesnt screw up your sleep).

When you get home from working out try eating some fruit with natural peanut butter. (btw mix up your fuit or youll get bored quickly). For example when I workout in the morning like that I would eat something small like an apple before working out, then when I get back id have a banna with PB, some grapes, organge and grapefruit juice (fresh squeezed only, anything pasteruized is crap), and maybe some actual peanuts.

BTW after while of exercising aerobiclly you wont be as hungry as you normally are after working out. When most people workout they work out anerobiclly (like run 2 miles in 12 mins or something), theyll burn off all that glycogen and hence need to eat sugar afterwards (*protein shakes and energy bars*).

Also the less acidic your diet becomes the less bacteria you have in your stomach looking for sugar, hence youll crave sweets less (even fruit).

More on bulking up, increase your starch intake. Eat more starchy veggies like lima beans and carrots and then have rice or pasta with them. Rice is especially easy to make and should get you bigger if your eating other neccessary things like veggies/fruits/ and NUTS (lots of good fat, fiber, protein, calcium, magnesium, vitamin e, etc...)-btw most nuts are acidic. Dont eat peanuts with rice, however almonds are alkaline.

Also, dont mix proteins. NEVER mix proccessed cow milk with meat, i repeat NEVER. For example though eat your nuts in the late morning with fruit, then for lunch later eat fish and veggies or something, then for dinner eat rice/pasta with veggies. Its not a huge deal but your body digests protein better one at a time.

Ok im sleepy, good night.

-Dream


Edit- Just wanted to add a few more quick tips.

Stay away from any artificial sweeteners.

When buying bottled water, go for the spring version if possible.

Stay away from high fructose corn syrup.

Aloe vera, honey, and garlic are some of the best items in the world for your body.

[dman]

Running.

It is the most efficient form of exercise out there in terms of time investment (and money invested too!).

A couple of hours spend running each day will get you far fitter than a couple of hours at the gym!

But what is far far far more important is picking a sport you will enjoy. You might not enjoy running so much... how even so, I'd suggest sticking at it and giving it a decent go at it.

Because to really enjoy it, it helps a hell of a lot to have reached a certain base level of fitness at which you can then just cruise along. Running without any apparent effort, then you can really relax and simply enjoy the run.

[Andrew AM]

Running, eh, kinda not really.

Sure it helps if you wanna cut the gut a little but wont build muscle, and slowly burns fat, but compared to if you to lift weights and how much your heart works out, burns fat when you lift weights AND builds muscle. Running has its job but, erm, solely alone wont fix all of your problems.

Swear to God, buy The Body Sculpting Bible by James Villepigue and Hugo Riveria. Its the entire encyclopedia-ish on getting in shape. It has a few routines in the back and premade workouts that suit your need to get the best in shape. I bring it along with me to the gym and its helped out so friggen much.

Promise it kicks ass.... Or, it helped out a TON for me! :cool:

http://www.amazon.com/Body-Sculpting-Bible-Men/dp/157826085X

[TheCoolerKing]

Recently I been way to busy to work out due to taking intense summer classes at college.

So in order to make up for it I been dieting. Mostly just either skipping lunch or having very little food.

And for some reason I been feeling less hungry (whenever my family is hungry I usually am not). I stay away from fast food and sometimes soda.

I gained about 10lbs putting me at 230 at my old college.
I was now able to go back to my normal weight of 220 in a few weeks after I came back home.

[Touch]

Intervals. In a way, you never do the same workout twice, so your body never gets used to anything. For example, something cardio that'll bust your ass:

==Walk for about a minute or two just to warm up
==Then boost that up to a jogging pace for a little while
==And then hit your legs hard with a sprint for 100 yards
==Then bring it back down to a jog, and if you think you need to catch your breath, walk for a little while again

It beats jogging in my book, and it's more effective.

I did this workout a couple of days ago, and I'm still sore from it....Did you see the movie 300? Remember how insanely in shape everybody was? This is the workout that was designed by the personal trainers to CHALLENGE those actors.

http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/the-300-workout-can-you-handle-it

It's crazy, but anybody can do it, anywhere, at their own pace.

Basically, just try to find something new to put your body through every time you work out.

The same rules that go for the workout itself, go for something that is just as important as the workout, if not more important (coming from somebody who manages to stay in decent shape without having to workout a whole lot)... and that secret lies in your diet. Never forget the fundamentals, right?

The three meal a day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner routine - is outdated, and quite frankly doesn't make any sense. The amount of calories you are trying to squeeze into just three meals is just too much, and results in the slowing of your metabolism (due to an excess of food, and your body reacting in a slower fashion to be able to catch up to what you put in it), and the result of that is that a lot of that food is stored as fat.

This effect is best demonstrated in a more detrimental way when you only eat one meal a day, your body becomes greedy with what it gets and tries to save everything as (you guessed it), fat.

The key here is to take in just as many calories as you were before (however many it is you think you need, only you know because it's different for everybody), and split that up into 5 or 6 smaller portioned meals throughout the course of the day, no more than 2 to 3 hours apart, to give your body time to digest it.

This way you will constantly be feeding your body, your metabolism will skyrocket through the roof, and after a couple of weeks, fat will just be melting off of your body.

Diet and exercise go together like a horse and carriage, so give your body what it needs, and challenge yourself in the gym, and you have yourself a formula for fitness

[Andrew AM]

...Mostly just either skipping lunch or having very little food.

Once again... Skipping lunch...this is NOT good for you at all. Terrible. That does far more damage than good, actually. Research more thoroughly and "Eating smaller meals to get smaller" turned out to be a old wives tale.

I suggest anyone interested on the subject look into sites like illpumpyouup.com or menshealth.com or some place on the net where they know about bodybuilding and getting in shape as a priority. Ask some pros and find out and learn from them, not really on venusianarts.com, but to the OP and others, research away from handy health orientated sites.

And Dream & Touch, good posts. :cool:

[TheCoolerKing]

Once again... Skipping lunch...this is NOT good for you at all. Terrible. That does far more damage than good, actually. Research more thoroughly and "Eating smaller meals to get smaller" turned out to be a old wives tale.

I suggest anyone interested on the subject look into sites like illpumpyouup.com or menshealth.com or some place on the net where they know about bodybuilding and getting in shape as a priority. Ask some pros and find out and learn from them, not really on venusianarts.com, but to the OP and others, research away from handy health orientated sites.

And Dream & Touch, good posts. :cool:

I been hearing that so much lately.
But it worked for me to lose 10 random lbs.

Now I'm back at my normal weight which I been stuck at all my life.
Its going to take more than just not eating to get it down anymore.


But bodybuilders are more concern about bulking up, not so much about losing mass. I'll worry about bulking more AFTER I been able to lose the weight I want.

[Blu]

Anyone got some good advice on getting into shape? Right now I'm a 5'9" tall 150 lb guy. Got a little bit of a gut and always have. I would love to get rid of the gut(maybe get a six pack) but also wanna get quite a bit meatier. Anyone got advice?
Stay away from the whopper and cheese junior.:p

[TheCoolerKing]

Stay away from the whopper and cheese junior.:p

Word to that.
I havent ate that shit in months, it makes me sick now.

[Andrew AM]

Cooler King, your still missing my point. Sure you can loose weight by not eating...Hell, you can loose weight from various avenues, healthy or not. What im trying to get across is that skipping meals is unhealthy & terrible for you, regardless of the weight your dropping off. Therefore, its better to educate yourself on the right way loose weight and get in shape. There are more effective and healthier ways to get in shape other than skipping meals.

Not going to get in an argument, but thats my last post on this. Just my two cents, take or leave it. :cool:

[Certain]

Hey Bret...quick advice

To get in shape is hard...but well worth it

Eat every 3-4 hours...small meals
and ALWAYS include protein

The more muscle you have the more fat
you can burn...so lift weights

Send me a PM and I'll send you a copy of the muscle
building book I just bought...that has fat loss tips

Remember...go for FAT loss...not WEIGHT loss

I'm 5' 9" also at around 140Lbs...not much meat not much
fat...we might have similar goals

Talk soon,
Certain