Originally posted by: BoldAsLove
Originally posted by: Special K
Originally posted by: BoldAsLove
I am trying to workoff some of the fat on my belly. I am not fat by any means, I just have a gut that I want to get rid of. I am about 6'1 and weigh about 180. Is the key just a bunch of crunches? If so how many sets and how often etc.? Also what kind of food is good to eat while on a "get lean" diet?
Edit - I also have a bowflex-esque machine and a treadmill in my house for access if that helps any.
The key to abs is NOT a bunch of crunches. Having visible abs is a combination of building the muscles up and having a low enough bodyfat to see them. You build them up by doing weighted ab exercises like cable crunches. Do them 1-2 times per week max. In reality, doing this is not nearly as important as losing the fat though.
The most important point is your diet though. You could have the largest ab muscles in the world and no one will be able to see them if they are covered with a layer of fat. The key to losing the fat is to burn slightly more calories than you consume over a long period of time. To really do this, you need to start tracking your daily caloric intake. For this, I recommend
Fitday
The caloric deficit can be created through diet alone or with the addition of cardio. I prefer the diet only approach because doing cardio risks burning muscle along with it. Really though, if you are trying to lose fat you should be doing a heavy weightlifting program along with it to convince your body to hang on to as much muscle as possible.
There is a lot more info and specifics I could get into, but rather than type it all out yet again, I'll just refer you to the link in my sig. Go there, sign up, and make a post introducing yourself and stating your goals. There are a lot of people there who would be more than happy to help you. Or just PM me sometime.
Do you have any food/drink reccomendations that are healthy but yet dont taste like chalk?
I'll give you a link to a famous post on that message board I linked called "What a Bodybuilder Eats". Granted some of it may not taste good, but keep in mind you have some choices. I hate the taste of tuna, but that's OK becuase I can also get my protein from chicken breast, lean ground beef, fish, etc. You can also add 0 calorie sauces and spices to make things more flavorful. My point is that while this stuff may not be as exciting to eat as pizza, ice cream, etc., there are ways to make it taste better without sacrificing its nutritional value. Anyway, here is the link:
What a Bodybuilder Eats
The really important thing though is to find your maintenance calories, and start from there. You can do that using a calculator here:
link This calculator will give you your approximate "maintenance" calories. This gives you the amount of calories you would need to eat to keep your weight exactly the same (again, approximately). Since you want to lose fat, you will want to decrease this somewhat.
Start by eating your maintenance calories for a couple weeks and see what happens to your weight. If it stays the same, you know the calculator was right on. If you gain some weight, you know the calculator estimated too high, and if you lose weight, well that's what you want to do anyway.
Now, if your weight stayed the same or went up during those two weeks, you need to reduce your calories by say 10%. Track your weight for another week and see what happens. If you are still have not lost weight, then drop another 100 cals the next week. Keep this up each week until you are losing about 1-2 lbs. per week. You may have to make further reductions to keep the fat loss going.
As to your diet, I recommend getting about 40% of your cals from protein, 40% from carbs, and 20% from healthy fats.
Remember to weigh yourself first thing every morning. Do NOT get one of those bodyfat scales. They use bioimpedance to measure bodyfat, which is a highly inaccurate method. Instead use the mirror as your ultimate guide.
Also I cannot stress this enough - you NEED to track your calories every day on Fitday.
This should be enough info to get you started, but I would still recommend going to that board in my sig and registering. There is a ton of good info on there, and lots of helpful people too. As I mentioned earlier, you really need to add a weight training program along with your fat loss plans to see optimal results.
Also there is the whole issue of supplements - For a beginner I would only recommend a protein powder and a multivitamin. Just think of the protein powder as a convenient form of food - it's much faster and easier to mix up a shake than it is to cook a meal, so the powder helps in that regard.
Facebook
Twitter