Started at the gym today...

[TRENCHLORD]

This girl (kimmy) stripped away most of this muscle (to make the transition to fitness compitition instead of bodybuilding) WITH high rep weight training and plenty of cardio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfL3a...feature=relmfu

[ghstofperdition]

^That's been more or less what my exercise plan has been like. Back when I was trying to bulk up for football, I was hitting the weights as much as I could, with as much weight as I could and doing roughly 3 sets of about 10-15 reps for each muscle. I did manage to get down from 220 to 170 in a hurry and even still to this day my calves are enormous and solid as a rock. (Doing 4 sets of 50 reps of calf extensions at over 700lbs will do that to you in a hurry. )

My plan these days consists of doing several sets of 20-30 reps of a fraction of what I used to lift. No more than about 100lbs for arms and no more than 150lbs for legs. Just continuous reps all the time. I always hit the weights first and make sure that I work my biceps, triceps, shoulders, abs, gluts, legs and calves. (I take it easy on that last one because they are still in amazing shape even after neglecting them for so long)
Then I hit the bike for about 10 minutes. Afterwards I finish by hitting the treadmill for about 30-60 minutes. I mix up the time and level of incline randomly for each day so as not to plateau.

[TRENCHLORD]

Doing all that you are sure to get results.
I'm sure you already know alot about lean foods, so nothing new here,
but one thing I used to do when going into a leaning phase was to empty 3cans at a time of water-packed tuna into a big storage type bowl
and add a couple spoons of miracle whip light.
I'd just about live off these tuna salad with tons of lettuce on whole wheat sandwiches with skim milk to drink for about two weeks at a time.
Losing 15-20lbs in 2 weeks is very normal doing this.
Many tastier ways of coarse, but I'm a lazy SOB when it comes to kitchen work lol.

[ghstofperdition]

While I hate mayo/miracle whip, I absolutely love tuna-fish sammiches. I will try this actually and see how it goes. And that article on eating more fats and less carbs sounds intriguing. I'd wanna look at more resources for that before I attempt something like that though because the carb counting thing kinda struck me as a bad fad.

[Labrie]

Grains are really the culprit here. We are told to eat way to many of them. Fruits and veggies are really the only source of carbs that you need. Excess sugar causes diabetes and heart disease which, besides cancer, are the two biggest killers out there.

Back in the day our ancestors never ate wheat because it was poisonous in its raw form. Think about the Inuit. All they ate was meat and blubber and they did just fine. It wasn't until us white men started introducing refined flour (which is sugar) into our diets that we started having all these health problems (along with all the trans fat fast food which is horrible as well).

I am by no means on or all for this "Precambrian" diet thing but I definitely see some merit in it and I know people that are on it strictly and they now swear by it. One guy I know has suffered from asthma all his life and after 8 months on that diet he is now puffer free.

Anyways, just some food for thought.

[fassaction]

Originally Posted by ghstofperdition

I'm TG, so obviously I'm interested in losing weight and gaining a girlish figure. As it stands, I'm the size of a goddamn linebacker and I hate it. My target weight is roughly half of what I weigh now; ie from ~340 down to about 170.

Congrats on taking the steps to get where you want to be. The first few, are always the toughest. I cant stress to you enough about how important your diet is. There are tons of different views about how to lose weight, how to build muscle. I have personally tried many of them, but only 1 had the weight falling off of me.

Ive never been huge by any means, but I was tubby in the middle. My mother once told me I was built like Humpty Dumpty, so I knew something had to change. Last year I weighed 195 lbs. I now weigh 155 lbs. I started working out, then I quit smoking, I lost a little bit of weight, but never dipped below 185.

My girlfriend wanted me to try a program for a month. No junk, no bread, no pasta, no wheat, no processed foods....and the hardest thing for me, No beer!! and i love beer....

In 1 month I lost 20 lbs....by month 3 I was at the weight I was in high school, and I felt fantastic. I still eat bread here and there, but only occasionally.

Also, working out has to become part of your lifestyle. Which is hard for some people to make that change. Working out can be drag....being sore is no fun...and sometimes you just dont wanna go to the gym. Another good rule of thumb for working out is to keep changing the workouts every 3-4 weeks. Never let your body get accustomed to a certain routine, and when it starts to feel like its getting easier, change it up!

Currently I do 3 days of weights, I mix up with cardio and a crossfit type workout.

If you are super serious about getting into good shape, some of the at home workouts are really awesome. I would recommend P90x to just about anybody looking to lose weight and get in shape, and if you are looking to really cut some of the fat, give Insanity a shot. (Insanity is exactly just that.....its insane, and its ....ing hard...but if you stick to it, you will watch the weight fall off)

[TRENCHLORD]

Originally Posted by Labrie

Grains are really the culprit here.

Jarod Subway might disagree here .


No, really there's some definite truth to what you're saying,
but it can be done either way.

It all boils down to calories in vs calories out+ body function/maintainence requirements, reguardless of the macro-nutrient type composition.

There is certainly a huge dough eating problem in america especially .

[Uncreative123]

Originally Posted by TRENCHLORD

Jarod Subway might disagree here .


No, really there's some definite truth to what you're saying,
but it can be done either way.

It all boils down to calories in vs calories out+ body function/maintainence requirements, reguardless of the macro-nutrient type composition.

There is certainly a huge dough eating problem in america especially .

Macros don't matter if your goal is losing WEIGHT. Macros matter infinitely if your goal is losing FAT.


Losing weight is easy. Losing fat and retaining muscle is hard.

[TRENCHLORD]

Originally Posted by Uncreative123

Macros don't matter if your goal is losing WEIGHT. Macros matter infinitely if your goal is losing FAT.


Losing weight is easy. Losing fat and retaining muscle is hard.

Well OP is mainly trying to thin out.
Yeah though, you're right about losing fat while retaining muscle.
And losing glycogen stores from the muscles results in less fullness even before any muscle is burned away.

I just love carbs too much to ever go atkins style. Not to even mention my boston lagars .

[Tiger]

Regular cardio and a balanced meal plan.

Me personally, Ive been on leangains.com style diet for the past two years and I'm physical for a living, I tend to recommend it to everyone but there are many ways to skin a cat.

[Greatoliver]

Originally Posted by Tiger

*Text*

Tiger!

[Nick1]

I suggest creating a realistic workout/dieting routine thats not too hard and not too easy. If its too hard youll make up excuses to not finish or to skip a day or just burn yourself out. If its too easy you wont really get anywhere. If your determined to get in shape you can do it.


I started a pretty hard core diet back in 2008. Since then Ive lost 125lbs.

Just to quickly tell the story. I weighed around 260 (being 5 foot 10) back in 2008 due to eating fast food 3x a day and not working out at all. I decided 260 was enough. So I changed my diet to little to no carbs and low fat only. I also only ate 1 time a day as an early dinner. A big help was that I drank about a gallon of water a day and no sugar red bull and coffee which was a HUGE help. The first few weeks sucked. After about a month I started dropping weight pretty quickly. On average abour 5-10 lbs a week.


Fast forward to 2010, I then weighed about 150 so thats 110LBS I lost on almost only dieting. I started eating 2 times a day kept the exercising to about 15 min a day. Mostly just light weight lifting and some crunches. By this time my body stayed right abour 150lbs ish. Then I started doing alittle bit of cardio just to help tighten things up. Not alot just about 10 min of light jogging on my treadmil. After a month of the jogging I started to see positive results. So I increased the cardio just a little. Maybe 20 min max and still continued the weights. After quite a while I dropped a bit more weight, right around 135-145lbs which Ive stayed at since. So after months of this my treadmil up and died. So I joined a Lifetime gym which is 24 hours. So for the past 6 months or so at the gym, which Ive gone to almost every day, I really like the results I was seeing. Now I do an hour or so of cardio a day.(usually on either a treadmil/stairmaster or eliptical). Then an hour or more of weights.
I used to hate cardio now I actually enjoy it (somewhat).

So like I said Id suggest starting with something realistic and slowly increase the difficulty every week or so. Also change it up! Your body gets used to your workout routine pretty quickly. So for example work upper body Mon,Wed and Fri, then Tues,Thurs and Sun work lower body.
Also record your progress. Such as weight lost, rep counts, max weight lift, distance ran.


After a quick search I found the thread I made when I started dieting. Heres the link
Anyone on any kind of a long term diet?


Good luck!

[Captain Shoggoth]

Originally Posted by Uncreative123

Losing weight is easy. Losing fat and retaining muscle is hard.

preach brotha

Doing the latter at the moment (awww yeaah summer), shit's ridiculous

[edrod]

Originally Posted by ghstofperdition

Awesome, thank you!

Any specific routine while at the gym that I should follow?

Trypios provided some awesome advice. As far a workout routine I may be able to help you. It would help if you provided more details as a current weight, weight goal, physical abilities, etc.

There's many workout plans out there but results vary on the The person

[TRENCHLORD]

Here is something that I used back in the late 90s when getting back into working out and a semi-healthy lifestyle.
Went from 5'8" 160lbs to 220lbs in 2 1/2 yrs without gaining any noticable fat.
Instead of the 2wks bulking followed by 2wks cutting, I went 3wks bulking and 10 days cutting.
I was always more receptive to the cutting (key word WAS).
Basically it's a two steps forward one step back thing (which is an anabolic reset so to speak).
This isn't for anyone wanting sustained weight loss, rather the opposite.
Especially effective for teens and younger adults wanting to gain muscle mass and who don't put on excess fat very easily.

The Anabolic Burst Diet | LIVESTRONG.COM