I've tried asking people I know and now I'm here.

[specialc]

Height - 5'11"
Weight - 205 lb
Age - 27
Sex - Male
BMR - 2059.57
Activity Factor - 1.55
TDEE - 3192
Goal - Loss weight and get tone
Training Experience - I've been lifting for a month now.

I can't really give meals. Sometimes I skip breakfast or lunch, I see a lot of 1300 cal diets and I just can't do that, I get way too hungry and get bad headaches. I'm fairly active.

I;m just not sure what to do. I lift at least 5 times a week. I don't know what muscle groups to work the day after certain ones, I'm very new to all of this. I'm not looking to be incredibly cut or anything like that, I just want to be healthy. I can jog 5 miles but I can't seem to lose anything so that just leaves my diet. I work on my feet as an engineer so the very low cal diet is hard. I read a lot of posts on this site and all of you know what you're talking about so I'm asking for your help. What should I do?

 

[roguemonkeyjr]

First of all, you shouldn't skip meals. You should eat at least 5 small meals a day. Eat clean food to lose weight much quicker. Lean protein with every meal i.e. chicken, fish, turkey, lean steak, cottage cheese, eggs, whey protein or any other protein blend. You're carbs should be mostly complex i.e oatmeal, whole wheat bread. whole wheat pasta, brown rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, etc. Except post workout where u need simple carbs. Like dextrose or waxy maise, or fruit if you don't have the money to buy dextrose. Also don't cut fats out from your diet. Try to get them from healthy sources i.e nuts, fish, olive oils and others. Eat lots of veggies, there is pretty much no way you will get fat eating veggies.

 

[specialc]

Sweet, I'll give that a go and see what happens. Thanks a lot.

 

[scotty too hotty]

Not eating breakfast not only shuts down your metabolism, (bad) but eight hours of sleep with no food puts you into a catabolic state. These two combined will make you store belly fat and lose muscle. Once you do add muscle, you will be suprised at the amount of calories burned while sleeping. I was off of work for a month, so I slept in and didn't eat. Rest is good, right? Not without nutrition, because I lost size and strength from not eating at seven a.m. I was also less hungry when I ate later, meaning my metabolism wasn't functioning like it normally does.

 

[scotty too hotty]

Promise me you'll eat, and I'll help with your routine, I'll see what Trauk thinks, too.

 

[SouthernLord]

First of all, you shouldn't skip meals. You should eat at least 5 small meals a day. Eat clean food to lose weight much quicker. Lean protein with every meal i.e. chicken, fish, turkey, lean steak, cottage cheese, eggs, whey protein or any other protein blend. You're carbs should be mostly complex i.e oatmeal, whole wheat bread. whole wheat pasta, brown rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, etc. Except post workout where u need simple carbs. Like dextrose or waxy maise, or fruit if you don't have the money to buy dextrose. Also don't cut fats out from your diet. Try to get them from healthy sources i.e nuts, fish, olive oils and others. Eat lots of veggies, there is pretty much no way you will get fat eating veggies.

Good post

To the OP....

If you are really serious about this you will spend the money and download Tom Venuto's Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle ebook. It's the best diet book I have ever read. It is life changing.

http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/burn/

 

[specialc]

The more questions I ask people, the more questions I end up with. When should I eat breakfast? I've been eating oatmeal and an orange about 20 minutes after I wake up (5:30am or so). I love tuna and I can just eat it out of the can and it's the in water kind. I have that around 9:30. Since I started eating breakfast and the small meals like you guys said, I noticed I'm hungry a lot more. Is that good? For lunch I make some pasta or a sandwich. My vegetable intake still sucks. I have problems just eating those. I love them but its only day 2 so I'll see what happens. My dinner is pretty small. I take about 30 minutes before and 20 after my workout which ends around 6:30pm and then i make dinner at 7:30/ My times are screwed up. I was told you shouldn't eat within 2 hours or your bedtime. I'm still trying to get a lifting routine down.

 

[Tatyana]

Fantastic that you have your TDEE and activity factor.

I think breakfast is an essential as well.

Really, it doesn't matter how many times you eat at day, it does seem to be the calorie balance over 24 hours.

It will come down to personal preference how many meals you eat, if you can eat before bed, the time between meals, and how large your meals are.

It does seem that quite a few people like 5-7 smaller meals in the day.


Try out a few eating patterns and see what you prefer, but just get breakfast in you.

 

[roguemonkeyjr]

If I can make a suggestion... you should add some protein to your breakfast
Just a tip.

Ryan

 

[specialc]

Here's one, is whey protein idk, normal protein? Is it the same as chicken or steak?

 

[scotty too hotty]

Whey is derived from milk. Okay bro, I have a very simple routine that should still be challenging enough for you. The days you choose to rest will be determined by how sore you are and what is going on in your personal life, but make these exercises your staples for three months, and then we can adjust you from there.
Day 1 = chest and abs
Flat Benchpress- warmup and five sets of ten reps. You must determine what weight is sufficient to accomplish this. If you fall short a few reps it's okay, use a spotter on those sets. Alternate flat bench every other week with decline bench.
Incline dumbell flies- three sets of ten reps.
100 pushups- do these after benching and the flys. Do whatever it takes to get them done, rest accordingly, but still hustle.
Butterfly machine- two sets of ten reps.
Abs- this is up to you, you get out what of it the time you put in.
Day 2 = back
Pullups- fifteen, or do as many in one set if you can do more, thats it.
Barbell Rows- make sure your torso is as close to 90 degress to the floor as possible! warmup and five sets of ten reps. Alternate these bi-weekly with t bar rows.
Lat pulldowns- two sets of twenty reps.
One arm dumbell rows- two sets of ten reps.
Any cable type row of your choice, w/close grip. This all depends on what your gym has, just make sure youuse the close grip attatchment. Three sets, ten reps
Day 3 = Legs
Leg extentions- Two sets, twenty reps, two sets ten reps. Good form ass to ground or at least parallel squats- warmup and five sets of ten reps.
Any calf exercise, five sets, ten reps.
Leg curls- four sets, ten reps.
Leg curls four sets- ten reps.
Day 4 = Arms
I will give you freedom of exercises on arms, but I want you to always do olympic straight bar curls, six sets, ten reps. You must always do ez-curl skullcrushers, six sets ten reps. For your other exercise choices, change them every week, but you must always do two more exercises for bi's and tri's. Do three sets on each, ten reps.
Day 5 = Shoulders
Warmup- then alternate weekly incline press and military press, four sets- ten reps.
Side lateral raises- five sets, ten reps each.
Front lateral raises- five sets, ten reps each.
Olympic barbell shrugs(use straps)- four sets, ten reps.
Shoulder machine press- twenty reps.
Also twice monthly, you can either chose to skip one of these days, rest more in between, or whatever you wish, but you must go to the gym, warmup, and deadlift for 45 minutes. Watch a video to learn the proper technique. I suggest starting with a weight you can do ten reps of, do that set, and then drop your reps to five. Rest as much between sets as you want, but remember I'm watching you! These are the days when you will find your true inner-self by spending time in the gym working hard. I suggest resting about four minutes between sets of deadlits until you get stronger, then you can rest longer. The choice is yours my friend. Now let's see if anyone can ad or subtract from this. This is a good basic program to help build muscle for a few months, then we can adjust it according to your results.

 

[specialc]

Thanks a lot man! I can't wait to get off work so I can start day one.

 

[specialc]

okay, day 1

Bench 120 - 10
140 - 10
160 - 10
160 - 10
160 - 10
Flies 40 - 10
40 - 10 (40 each hand)
40 - 10

Push ups 59 and it took 10 minutes hahaha I couldnt do anymore. It got to the point I was doing sets of 2 with a minute break

Other flies 60 - 10
60 - 10
60 - 10


If that's Beginners, I cant imagine what you people lift on a normal day.
looking forward to tomorrow!!

 

[specialc]

I also noticed something and I'm not sure about it. It took me about 45 minutes to do all of that not including warm up and people say they would spend hours at the gym. I was burnt out after 45, should it take me longer? I would wait about 30 seconds between sets aside from the push ups.

 

[scotty too hotty]

I don't think it's beneficial to lift more than an hour if you focus on one specific muscle group per day. Let's see how that chest feels tommorrow. If it's not too sore, we can add more exercises. If you want to make it a full hour, and you still have energy, go jog on the treadmill for 15 minutes. I believe if it takes longer than an hour per muscle group, you're not training with enough intensity (legs the only exception). You don't have to do all five days of this in a week, if you're too sore. Just follow the progression into next week. Let me know how you're doing tommorrow!