Re: Motivation needed
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Ah thanks for this, I just realised that I never get enough sleep! that could be one of the factors affecting the weight loss progress.
Anyways about my diet.... I have always skipped breakfast, instead I munch on an appple or a banana as I am driving to work and then have a latte to get me through until lunch time. Then at lunch, I have jacket potatot with either tuna filling or prawn and mayo filling with plenty of salad. Or sometimes they do fish and chips on fridays so once a month I have that. probabaly have a can of diet coke once every week if that. for dinner its either one chappati with what ever is cooked, mostly chicken or vegetable or some sort of daal again with salad. once in a while go to nandos and have their chicken with the skin and chips. Or chinese, chow mein. thats like once in a month.
Today I had three apples today, one whilst driving, one at lunch time and one after gym. one venti latte (thats the biggest latte from starbucks) one grande cappucino and one green tea. I also drank about 2 litres of water and an another whilst in the sauna. When i got home from gym, I had chicken. I didnt want chappati so I had chicken on its own. and now sipping on another green tea...... oh and maybe once in a month, i'll have masala fish in naan from my local takeaway! :)
with weights, would you suggest heavy weights? or lighter weights with more reps? I never figured that one out, which is better for becoming leaner?
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If your looking to cut (lose fat) I'd suggest going for higher reps and sets, so obviously in order to finish your workout you'd be looking to start off with lighter weights. Obviously you want to be going up ever so slightly with the weights if the ones your using get too easy to maintain a certain amount of intensity. Do not worry about gaining muscle as you wont gain any unless your eating more than your maintenance. Gaining muscle is difficult which is why people literally breaking their backs in the gym cant manage it! What you want to be doing is lifting any weights at a controlled tempo. When someone is looking to gain muscle they lift at a certain tempo, e.g. a 3-1-1, meaning 3 seconds to lift, one to bring down, and one to go back up. Thats a rather controlled and 'slow' tempo. What you want to be doing is lifting at a certain and managable momentum and not be reckless. Every rep must be done at the full range of motion and you can increase how quickly you go through your motions as the weeks go by and your conditioning gets better.
To start off with don't worry about how long your workouts are taking, obviously you dont want to be spending hours in the gym (No more than hour really and even thats pushing it slightly perhaps). Though if you want to improve your conditioning and stamina, note down how long each workout takes and try and finish the next one slightly quicker. As your body adapts, gets more conditioned the work capacity will increase and you can go at it harder! The greater the oxygen debt the better, if your 'sucking for air' its good!
To begin with you could go for 3-4 sets (eventually going to 5 or even 6 which is what I did when 'cutting') and starting with 6-8 reps and then working upto 10-12 as the weeks get by and your body adapts. You want to be doing slightly more than your last workout to make your body WORK!
I've looked up the number of calories in Starbucks' Ventie Latte, appears to have 306 calories, a grande cappucino appears to have 120. So thats 520 calories your taking in, with a decent amount of fat. And if you have this regularly there's no way you'll lose fat. You mentioned that you have a latte earlier on as well, so that could be upto 700 calories right there and then. A jacket potato can have upto 150 calories, a tablespoon full of mayyo has 50 calories. The amount of tuna I have in 2 of my sandwiches is worth 345 calories. So that could be another 500 or so calories. Three apples? 150 calories. 1 banana? 120 calories. 3 slices of normal white bread? 282 calories. One big class of milk (300ml)? 300 calories. So you see how easily the calories can add up, even for foods which you might think would be low-calorie. You might think your easily eating below your maintenance but infact you could be going way over! Like I said before you dont need to count calories religiously and worry about every single one but you should have an idea. A simple 'roti salaan' meal can have 350 calories.
To try and help you see where I'm coming from below is a sample of what I was eating when I was 'cutting' last year, where I was trying to lose any fat and keep on the muscle I'd put on in the months before.
For breakfast I had 7 eggs (Yes SEVEN), though only one egg yolk. Eggs are fantastic for their high protien count and low fat and carbs. Had 2 slices of wholegrain bread alongside a small portion of salad (cucmbers, onions, tomatoes). So that amounted to roundabout 700 calories and 48g of protein.
Then a couple hours later I would have a protein shake with a small glass of milk (before my workout) and a small one afterwards, which combined, would total 390 calories and 67g of protein.
Then I'd go for some more carbs in the middle of the day, this time some fruits. An Apple, grapes, peantus (easy calories for me to snack at without getting hungry)
A couple hours down the line I'd have 2 slices of fish with some beans, worth about 500 calories. Followed by another slow releasing protein shake with a small glass of milk. Coming to 850 calories overall and 65g of protein.
All the time drinking lots of water and of course working out at a good intensity.
So for my whole day I had around 2000 calories and about 180g of protein, so I'd worked my diet out to lose fat and maintain any muscle I'd put on before by eating sufficient amounts of protein. And I was eating roundabout exactly what I needed to be eating! I'd broken it all down into small meals:
Breakfast
Pre Workout
Post Workout
Lunch (though snacks really)
Dinner
Granted what I was eating was not perfect but working out at the right intensity and trying to keep it as clean as I could meant that I could, relatively easily, lose weight.
I easily lost 12 KGs in no time. Granted I didnt have a lot of fat to lose in the first place, only reason I went for it was to showhin a couple of month off the muscle I'd gained (and you cant gain muscle without gaining a bit of fat!) and I've made some decent gains if I say so myself so it all worked out :)
You should not stop doing cardio just because your working out with weights. Some people do a bit of cardio after their weights workout, some do it on their offdays (3-4-5 days on weights, and at least 2 days of cardio). I did weights 4 times a week and cardio on the other 2 days. With one day completely off.
There's different types of cardio as well, each with positives and negatives. A lot of people go for 'HIIT' cardio, which is small for high intensity interval training. And I found this to be the most effective.
This might all appear to be a bit confusing at first but its extremely simple. Once you work out your plan and outline a basic diet to follow you'll definitely start losing weight very quickly.
hopefully you haven’t done that ^^^^ again. Bulimia and other eating disorders can be very serious and i’ve seen pics of girls that have it, they look sickly and like skeletons.
