Exercise Change For Different Goals

Hiya,

Just to start, here are my stats:

Height: 6 foot
Weight: 18.2 Stone
BMI: 35

Well for a while now I have been doing a fair bit of weight lifting (not talking huge amounts, but building my arms and shoulders etc), whilst hardly doing any cardio.

I feel I have taken on too much at once, and I think I should be focusing on losing the flab and the weight before I sort my muscles out.

Now, with the help of a decent diet I hope to lose as much fat and weight as possible within the next four months, as I need to get my BMI down to around 30, and with this I understand I need to lay off the weights and focus on cardio!

I was wondering if someone can have a look over my current workout plan which I intend to start by using by visiting the gym 3 times per week:

Warm Up: 1000m row
Treadmill: 10 minutes (jog)
Cross Trainer: 10 minutes
Exercise Bike: 10 minutes (increasing levels of effort)

Alongside this I would quite like to start doing the Couch To 5K podcasts go get into the swing of things. Also of note my job is active and I can cycle or walk a few miles per day.

Can anyone advise on a good, sensible and achievable weight loss workout that would fit in with my needs?

Theres nothing wrong with a bit of muscle growth.... contrary to popular belief, its very unlikely for anybody to even gain a pounds worth of muscle in one week... it takes months of proper (hardcore) training. But normal muscle growth should be encouraged because it means your body needs more calories to exist. Any initial gain is more likely to be water retention in your muscles and should balance out eventually.

Stick with lower weights & more reps to tone, and higher weights with less reps for muscle growth!

I would keep at it as you are going, do some weight training but focus more on the cardio. keeping your HR between the fat burning rate for sustained periods is very good for fat burning (think its 70-85% but you should be able to get an answer through google or with a HR watch)

And the most important thing of all DO NOT starve yourself for a quick loss because it nearly never works that way and its a fast way to ruin your metabolism. And you may as well wipe away all of the good work in the gym as your body consumes muscle tissue if it isnt being given a good supply of fooood.

Hope it helps

Thanks alot for that.

What is the fat burning HR? I was informed anything over 100?

Weight training is highly effective at burning calories. It has the added benefit that your muscles carry on burning calories after a session, as they rebuild during your resting phase. so dont ditch weights, BUT, many people make the common mistake of working the wrong muscles and feeling tired think its working...and dont get the results.

With weights always focus on the big muscles. These are hamstrings, quads, chest, back and shoulders. Forget arms and small muscles groups for now. So dont ditch the weights but create a programme that works these muscles. This burns most calories. Unless you take extra protein you wont bulk up massively, and dont skip meals or you lose muscle tone.

Mix this with cardio - both will help burn calories and cardio helps build endurance for weight training, and weight training builds muscles for extra intense cardio workouts. Vary your cardio - LSD (long slow distance, when you work for longer but reduced intensity), intervals (hard short bursts, short rest than next hard short burst - very effective calorie killer).

Dont fall into the 80's aerobics trap - more cardio doesnt always equal better. Science has helped us realise that the best exercise is a range of things, not one type.

This summary is quite useful - Top 10 rules for fat-burning exercise | realbuzz

I've dropped BMI from 33.3 to 29 in 10 weeks.

Thanks for that, I will look into this