any weight loss experts around?

[MeanMeosh]

right now i'm 5'10" and my weight fluctuates from 205 to 215 depending on the day of the week (same scale). i used to be 230 in january and stopped drinking any kinds of soda and walked around campus more and lost about 15 pounds. the excess weight is mostly fat and not muscle.

i want to lose about 25 to 30 pounds to get down to around 180 or below by the end of july (is this viable?) and then start adding on muscle. i've started going to the gym since last week and have been spending 30 mins on the stairmaster using the weightloss program (the slope goes from gentle to steepest setting in a square wave) every day. i would like to know what i should add on, as far as exercise goes, to lose that much weight by the end of july.

the only problem i see with the stairmaster is that every time i start working out my heartbeat shoots into the cardio workout zone instead of the lower fat burning zone. are these target heartbeat zones of any significance or are they just rough guides?

secondly, i have manboobs :embarrass; i know weight loss can't be targeted, but is there anything i can do to reduce them? my friend suggested doing inclines (i did it for the first time today, you lie back on an incline with your head lower than your knees and lift weights, not sure if the proper term is inclines). will these help? is there any other machine i can use to work them off? i have access to a full size gym at my university, they prolly have all the standard gym equipment and more.

i'm considering buying a regular mountain bike and do a lap around the lake everyday (~7 miles). will this help with weightloss or is it something to be reserved for building up your leg muscles and endurance?

on the diet side of things, i'm a vegetarian already (been so since birth, so it's not like i'm giving up meat) and am going to attempt to cut back on my food portions. i dont eat regular meals and so end up eating a lot when i do eat... am trying to regularize my meal and sleeping schedules. a problem i forsee is that its summer and i'm at home. so my mom ends up making meals for me. i'm indian and i keep failing when attempting to figure out how many calories i'm eating (they're all traditional indian dishes). she doesn't use butter or anything when cooking which is good. would it be better if i switched to an american food diet (keeping track of calorie intake is easier) until i get to the weight i want to be at?

any other advice i should heed?

search brings up one weightloss thread that appears to be similar to my question, am gonna check it out as well.

if you're reading this, thanks for reading this far =P

 

[GasX]

blah blah blah blah blah

eat less, exercise more

blah blah blah blah blah...

 

[xyion]

you didnt do incline, you did DECLINE (incline has your head higher, kind of like this /. decline looks like this \. More muscle burns more fat, so have a solid weightlifting AND cardio routine (alternate days or something). I lift 3x a week, and run 3-4x.

Make sure to eat clean. I found that my parents were more than accomodating to my change in diet. Don't be embarrased to talk to them, they are your parents of course.

Drink a gallon of water a day. Visit geekfitness.com

best of luck.

 

[Whisper]

Basically, the "eat less, work out more" statements is right; that's the core of it.

Losing 25 pounds in less than two months is possible, but I think the recommended amount of weight to lose in one month doesn't exceed 10 pounds. Pass that, and you stand a chance of losing water and muscle weight.

Any kind of cardio is going to help you lose weight. Swimming, stair climbing, whatever. The key is to burn off calories. Also, HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) as been shown to be even more effective than regular cardio at kicking off the weight. HIIT is basically "sprinting" (or whatever variant thereof, depending on the exercise) for say a minute, and then "jogging" for two-three minutes. Rinse and repeat.

As far as the "manboobs" go...as you lose weight, you'll lose those, too. But to tone up your chest (which should help), do any type of exercise related to building your chest. I'd recommend the three standard bench presses (flat bench press, incline press, and--the one you described--decline press) as well as chest flies. You can substitute dips for decline press if you'd like, and can choose to use either barbells or dumbbells for the other two presses. Also, you can throw in incline flies instead of (or in addition to, at some point) regular flies.

I'm sure someone will be in shortly to post up a website with nice little diagrams of what each of these excercises looks like.

Edit: I personally have never counted my calories. The only label reading I do is to see how much fat, saturated fat, and sugar something has in it. Beyond that, I just use common sense about eating. I stay away from anything fried, anything with lots of oil, most all cheeses, anything very sugary, anything with mayonnaise or tartar sauce, etc. Most people know what's good and bad for them, they just don't always act on it.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Why do you want to get to 180 before working out with weights? You know, the more muscle you have the greater your metabolism will be. Therefore, if you develop a program that incorporates both weight lifting and cardiovascular exercise, you will lose fat at a greater rate than you would if you simply tried to lose weight by just doing cardio.

Besides, if you just do cardio, you are going to lose muscle at a much greater rate than if you were actually lifting weights. This means that you might get down to 180 and have the exact same bf% as your current bf%.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Basically weight loss is burning more calories than you intake in. As has been said already, the more muscle you have means you burn more calories as well. It really is hard to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. You should concentrate on losing weight first and then trying to hit the weights up. It doesn't hurt to start a weight training program but don't expect to make massive gains.

Write down how many calories you intake on a daily basis. To lose weight, it should be somewhere in the 1800ish range if you're also doing cardio. You probably think you're not intaking that many calories but you'd be surprised if you wrote it down for a week.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
It really is hard to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. You should concentrate on losing weight first and then trying to hit the weights up. It doesn't hurt to start a weight training program but don't expect to make massive gains.

Yah, but the point isn't to make massive gains. The point is to retain as much of his present muscle mass as possible while losing as much fat as he can to get down to his target weight. And hell, newbie gains are weird. He might actually gain some muscle on minimal calorie intake if he hasn't lifted before (or in a very long time).

 

[RagingBITCH]

True true, didn't think of that

 

[Wahsapa]

im 6 foot and at the begining of 2002 i was close to some 270 pounds and now im a solid 180 couldnt get over 190 if i tryed. iv been and stayed around 180 for the last 6-9 months or so. i was over weight/obese all my life up until i started making life style changes and lost all the weight within a year. beacuse of that sudden weight loss my skin hasnt been able to keep up so i have all this extra skin hanging it sucks but its not as bad as it was. the longer i stay smaller the faster my skin would shrink back to its regular size, i still have these damned stretch marks from growing up overweight

going from full on cant fit in a chair fat to ideal height/weight in under a year was something i thought was never going to happen but now that it has im glad and id never want to be over weight again. being lighter helped my dancing(from no dancing cause im fat to booty shaking all night) helped my self esteem and life is so much better when you dont have to worry about your weight.

my secret... well... thats a secret

but umm, i take your a vegatarian because of religious reasons so changing your diet would be hard(er) BUT being active is prolly going to be the thing that helps you most. i found sometimes i was so busy i didnt have time to eat which helped. i also noticed the longer i held out before stuffing my face the longer i could wait until the next craving attack until it was so long between cravings that i dont even pig out anymore, unless under the right conditions

your a male so one thing you definately have on your side is working out with weights. if you can be adament even anal about working out 3 times a week for atleast one solid hour ESPECIALLY working out your chest the manboobs would turn into manboobs of fury and muscle before you know it.

buy weights(hand free weights, a curling bar) and the bike would also be a good idea also swimming for that whole body fitness look. see if your school has a pool you can use, swimming will start to work muscle you didnt even know you had(or used)

good luck

 

[Blieb]

Originally posted by: Wahsapa
my secret... well... I stopped eating 4 fried chickens a day

no chit ...