Hey guys and gals.......I'm a newbie here. Just registered and finding lots of useful info !!
question / problem is this:
I'm a 40 yr old with a med - large frame.......fairly muscular and active, but I consider myself overweight........a little pudge in the midsection and the dreaded love handles !!!!
For the past month I have been eating (Mon - Fri) 1500 calories or a little less.....never more. On Saturday and Sunday I reward myself a little and stay below 3000 calories.
I do moderate weight training for 20 minutes M-F and intense cardio for 1 hour M-F........giving myself Saturday and Sunday off.
Problem: I was at 205 when I began.....now I'm at 204
There is very little difference in appearance and the 36" jeans I was wearing fit the exact same
Firstly you've got things the wrong way round. You'd be better doing 4-5 days of 1hr on weights, and the Cardio at 20mins 2x a week. Though I'm not going to suggest quite that, but similar.
You're eating 1,500 calories a day, and then doing potentially enough Cardio to burn muscle, as your nutrient intake can't be high enough, to support so much Cardio, without your body teaching you a lesson.
Muscle burn, starvation mode, (body holding on to calories, it feels it eally needs),
You need to rejig your workouts, cut back on Cardio, increase weights sessions, to something a bit longer and more challenging, and boost calories up. You're a 40 year old mean eating as many calories as the average 14 year old, who is slightly active when their school makes them.
Your calories could be as high as 2,500, and in the right way be beneficial.
You're also doing diddly squat at weekends, which means you're sedentary for two days straight, and bumping your cals up to nearly 3,000. Think of the fat gain potential, eating into any losses on the Monday to Friday period. It's just diet craziness. You're not just treatign yourself to extra calories, but extra problems in your diet, ruining your potential.
I would suggest these changes for now.
Workout schedule thusly.
Sunday Workout. Cardio 30 minutes interval. Use Bike, incase you start to flag, as a Treadmill might be dangerous when energy ebbs significantly.
Wednesday Workout Weights 40-60 minutes. Lower Body
Thursday Day off
Friday Workout. Weights 40-60 minutes. Upper Body. with Cardio as per Sunday
Saturday Workout Weights 40-60 minutes. Lower Body
Sunday Day Off
Either way gives you at most 3 days back to back workouts in the week, with no whole weekend slobby period.
Take the calories you have from the weekend, cut the calories back to 2,000, and then increase calories on weekdays to 2,000. This means in effect total calorie increase per week, is just 500, (13,500 now, 14,000 after switch), but you have a healthier calorie intake per weekday, and cut calories back on weekends.
Then after a week or two, add 500 calories to every day, so you're in the 2,500 range.
You need at this point, to address diet more.
I want to see diet now, which means meal types, meal times, number of meals per day.
This needs to happen, so I can see what is and isn't being done right.
You CAN do this okay. So don't start to feel like you're possibly second best. You can make these changes, before your body becomes too old to change them as easily.
At 40, you CAN have what you want, you just need to act now, before it becomes harder.
Thanks a ton for the time you put into a lengthy response......I really asppreciate it !! Seems like I was backward on approach.......I may get back into the 32's after all
I will heed your advice and give your program a try !! Sounds good and I should be able to do it without any problem. I will keep you posted on the results !!
