Post: #1

I posted this in the lifters lounge without much help so I decided to make my own thread.

Alright I need some help here. Im 27 and a complete newbie when it comes to lifting weights.

Im about 60 pounds overweight. According to my doctor I should be 145-150 pounds because of my height. Im 5'5. But I weigh 210. So im fat.

I got myself a gym membership and want to start out and change my body. The problem is that I dont know where to start.

Should I do cardio first and when im 150ish start lifting weights? Or should I do both? Is it possible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time being in a caloric deficit? I want to achieve maybe 10 percent body fat in 6 months. My bodyfat now is about 50 percent because of my height.

I tend to lose weight really fast so I think 6 months is a decent goal.

Any advice? What should my diet look like? As of now my diet is based around taco bell and wendys everyday


I would appreciate the help

Post: #2

First stop looking at overall "weight" . The more important number is body fat percentage.

Next, why did you arbitrarily pick 6 months? Weight loss and personal fitness are life long endeavors. If you hit the gym and diet for six months and lose the weight just to go back to your old habits you'll become the lard ass you are today again.

It took me 3 years of lifting to get noticeably bigger and more filled out. Take into account that i was blindly following the "eat as many calories as possible" and any old fitness routine.

First, what is your diet? How many meals do you eat a day, what is in those meals,etc ? Is taco bell and Wendy's really all you eat? If so, immediately stop going there.

This alone is why you're grossly obese. Improving your diet will help you lose a tremendous amount of weight without any working out at all. You should be eating whole ingredients. The only places you are allowed to visit inthe grocery store are the meat counter, produce aisle, bakery, and oils/sugars/condiments. You are forbidden from eating anything processed.

Next, are we safe to assume you don't have any gym experience at all? Do you know proper form on any of the major lifts?

Post: #3

@The Beast:

Thanks. Yes I eat a lot of fast food. In the morning I eat Mexican food usually and in the afternoon I either eat Wendys and Taco Bell. I have no clue about diets. Only that I need to eat healthier.

And yes im a newbie, but I did workout a lot in high school and lifted weights when I was 18. Your bench press, dumbells. You know the normal stuff.

What kind of regimen do you think I should start.

Post: #4

^Man all the information you need is already on this site. Search around.

Cut out fast food.

Do cardio after lifting. Ideally, do cardio in the morning and then lift at night

You can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time because you're a newbie.

I like intermittent fasting. Try 16 hours fast, 8 hours eating window. Or fast for 24 hours once or twice a week. Look into the work of Brad Pilon and Martin Berkhan.

There are many routines. Choose one you like. Just make sure to focus on progressive overload. Increase the weight when you can, increase the reps when you can't increase weight. Add a set here and there as needed.

Good luck.

Post: #5

Brown,
You can't really lose weight rapidly, that type of change is too drastic for the body to adapt to. Rapid fat loss increase will blood cholesterol levels to increase the risk of Cardiovascular Arterial Disease, which means you will have heart attack. You have to focus on diet first and then exercise.

Cut down on fast food and start making your own meals. There are recipes in the Weightlifting & Fitness forum you can start with. As for diet, you can use the slow carb diet. Just follow the rules on this blog post by Tim Ferris:Slow Carb Diet

As MiscBrah, said do cardio after lifting weight. For weight lifting, you can follow a 5x5 system to help gain muscle and track your progress. Make sure you get trainer first, to show you how to do some exercises to ensure proper form. If you do not want to do that, go on youtube and search for Starting Strength videos with Mark Riptoe to show you proper form in doing lifts.

Post: #6

(07-18-2016 08:34 AM)Brown Pride Wrote:  @The Beast:

Thanks. Yes I eat a lot of fast food. In the morning I eat Mexican food usually and in the afternoon I either eat Wendys and Taco Bell. I have no clue about diets. Only that I need to eat healthier.

And yes im a newbie, but I did workout a lot in high school and lifted weights when I was 18. Your bench press, dumbells. You know the normal stuff.

What kind of regimen do you think I should start.

Here's something to help kick you along:

Your goal is to never set foot in any restaurant (fast or otherwise) of your own volition for a whole year. If someone invites you then you can go. You can't make the decision to go.

Next, start planning your meals. Assuming you live solo, go onto Google and pick out 3 dinners for a week from some recipes you find online. Drink a fiber supplement before 8pm. Do not eat any food after 8pm. Cook these meals.

Next, think up a lunch to eat. I recommend crackers, a hard cheese (parm), some salami, dates, banana, and some milk. Eat your lunch after 12pm.

Skip breakfast, instead drink some coffee or tea with some butter. No milk or sugar.

You will lose weight with this. You will lose weight faster working out, but cleaning up your diet will solve most of your problems in the weight department.

Are you workout goals just to lose weight, look good naked, become Arnold a la 1980s? Let us know!

Post: #7

(07-18-2016 09:45 AM)Thersites Wrote:  Brown,
You can't really lose weight rapidly, that type of change is too drastic for the body to adapt to. Rapid fat loss increase will blood cholesterol levels to increase the risk of Cardiovascular Arterial Disease, which means you will have heart attack. You have to focus on diet first and then exercise.

It's better to lose weight slowly and preserve strength when you're a more advanced lifter or athlete, however, for folks struggling with obesity, it is better to lose the weight rapidly than to derp around with weight loss efforts and ultimately get nowhere.

OP is at 50% bodyfat. He could diet for two years and still not be where he wants to be. Two years is a long time to lift weights in a gym, eat rice cakes and get nowhere with your lifting numbers.

I generally recommend a slower approach, but the fast way does get you results in a hurry. The diet is strict, you will know if you're being honest with yourself.

Are the results sustainable? That's up to you.

RFL is an extremely powerful reset button and it'll get you to where you want to go. It's your choice if you want to stay there. Crash dieting has a way of making you appreciate how many bad eating decisions you've made in the past.

OP here is the thread

/thread-48982.html

If you're interested and you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM and I can help you out.

The other posters put up some great information. What I tend to do if I want to diet without thinking too much is to skip breakfast, eat around 1 and eat nothing past 6:30 at night. Then you only have two meals to count calories for instead of three or five or whatever. I also have much more time in a day. With this approach I lose about a half a pound to a pound a week without too much effort.

Further edit:

OP at your size, you could probably lose two to three pounds of fat a week on RFL. As you get smaller, this rate will slow down to maybe a pound and a half to two pounds a week. Give RFL a go for three months and you'll likely drop 20 pounds of fat in dieting hell. Then you can get back to eating normal and lifting weights instead of dieting for a year.

Post: #8

I don't know if it's been mentioned already, but google Keto diet. I absolutely recommend it.

Post: #9

I lost 55 lbs in 6 months doing the ketogenic diet.

At your height, weight, and age

You need about 2000 to maintain that weight, so cutting your intake is important.

20 grams of carbs as a hard limit
76 grams of protein minimum, 120 max

That's about 400 calories, and you've got 1000 calories of good fat that you can play with.

You can get exact numbers here

http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com

And you need supplements until you can get everything from food

Potassium - 3000 mg
Magnesium - 400 mg
Salt - at least 5 grams, which is one teaspoon in a glass of water.

Without the electrolytes, you'll get dizzy, muscle cramps, and digestion issues. Extremely important.

In terms of what to eat
- good meat, good fat, leafy greens, cheese

Less onions, sweet peppers, and garlic.

Avoid
- sugar, tortillas, rice, bread, beans

So fajitas wrapped in lettuce with guacamole. Salsa made with tomatillos not tomatoes. Chile relleno with cheese and carne. Just no rice, beans, or tortillas. (Or yucca, potatoes, etc).

Sweets are limited to a large extent.
Beverages - tea, no juice. Soda, maybe diet.

You could make this easier and just avoid the carbs and get the vitamins you need, until you get real close to your goal.

This is a typical result

https://m.reddit.com/r/keto/comments/3b8...arch_posts

Just look through photo Friday and you'll see how fast guys are getting results.

As for exercise, lift to keep your muscles active.

WIA

Post: #10

OP, I'm exactly the same height as you, 145lbs @ 10%BF, 26 y.o. But I was really skinny 2 years ago before I started lifting (110 lbs @8% BF) so I've never been in your shoes. But I know guys who have, so I've seen what happens.

Even if you think you lose weight fast, bear in mind that the more weight you have, the easier it is to get rid of it. going from 40% BF down to 30% will take you 10 times longer than from 50 to 40. I know guys who took months to go from 30% to 20, and years from 20 to 15. Don't let this discourage you, I'm just saying because I see people set overoptimistic goals and quit if they don't get the magic results they expected. But your objective should be " In 6 months I will look so much better than what I look right now, I will look at the mirror and be so proud of what I achieved" You can't imagine the difference going from 50 to 25% looks like, specially with clothes on.



Some good advice about intermitent fasting and keto... people do get great results. But for someone that knows absolutely nothing about diet, counting calories, macros... don't you guys think it may be overwhelming to go straight for that?

The first thing you need to learn are basic nutrition concepts. Read, read, and read more. There are great books out there, for a beginner I really liked the nutrition section in "Bigger, Leaner, Stronger" (really cheap on amazon, can't vouch for the workout routine but doesn't seem like the worst out there, he also has a recipe book that may be of interest).

As for diet, the good news is that yours sucks so much that little changes go a long way. Regardless if you choose to investigate more into keto or intermitent fasting, do this and you will be a big step closer to your goals.

1 - NO FUCKING SODA. Remove liquid calories from your diet, they are way too easy to overdrink, you don't even realize it. Specially soda and beer. Milk and stuff like that may be ok sub 15%BF, but for you it's too easy to go from caloric deficit to caloric surplus (it just takes a couple glasses of milk for short guys). Learn to love water, soda and green tea).

2 - If you can't quit fast food all of the sudden (be honest with yourself here) start by reducing it to one meal a day for a month or two. Aim to remove it from your diet on the long term.

Better to change your diet slowly than to go cold turkey and burn out in a few weeks. It took you years to build bad habits, turning your diet around all of the sudden may be overwhelming.

3 - Reduce (and ultimately eliminate) overly processed foods. You may want to start by replacing simple carbs (cookies, muffins) by healthier snacks that you love (greek yogurt with berries, or whatever) and crappy snacks by tasty yet heathy alternatives (google is your friend). Satly snacks (potato chips, etc) should also be slowly takken out of your diet (google is your friend for alternatives). If you get hungry all the time, greens have no calories and fill you up (you may consider getting a juicer to make one or two green juices per day, there is a great thread on the forum).

4 - learn to cook simple stuff. Spend hours watching this guy for inspiration.




If you have no idea about cooking, and you are a busy man, set aside 2 hours per week and try a new recipe each week.

5 - Meal prep may be overwhelming at the beginning, but you'll learn to love it because it saves so much time and money each week, compared to preparing food each day. Cook for 2-3 hours on Sunday, freeze, you are done. I started by preparing lunch for just 3 days, then all week, then lunch and dinner. It takes a long time at the beginning, but once you learn how to optimize the process and coock many things at the same time, it becomes so easy.


As for exercise... it may not be a bad idea to start learning the complex lifts (somethig like StrongLifts 5x5 is available for free online) but your priority should be cardio, because you are so used to overeat that going into caloric deficit with no cardio will be impossible.

So it doesn't become boring, consider joining a boxing gym for a few days per week, combined with traditional cardio and some HIIT or tabata (google it) and maybe some kettlebels for variety. It's important not to do the same boring treadmill cardio 5 times per week, you'll lose motivation soon.


Finally, track progress, it's easy to loose track of where you started and think you are not making progress, so looking at the past will motivate you. Get calipers and measure your BF once per week. Take pictures from several angles once per month.

Post: #11

Low carb diet and tons of exercise -- if you can manage it, you'll lose weight like crazy.

Post: #12

Over the last 3 years, I tried a variety of methods to lose fat and build muscle.

My initial goal was to have six pack abs. For the training part, I went through a rigorous bodyweight training program. I was training hard but I could not reach my goal until I sorted out my diet. As for the training, you can read my story here:

/thread-53389.html

The dieting part took me a lot longer to figure out. Finding a diet that works for you is even harder than dieting itself. There are too many frauds and charlatans within the fitness industry. Unfortunately, their voices are louder than the ones who are speaking the truth. Fortunately, you are at the right place to reach the truth.

There's already plenty of good advice within this thread. I will add my experiences.

I tried many different diets during my 3 year journey:

Diets that I tried and do not recommend:

1) Atkins/Dukan Diet:
These are high protein, low carb, low fat diets. They work but you feel like shit. I found that these diets are not sustainable and they did more harm than good in terms of my overall well being. I will never try them again.

2) Glycemic Index Diet:
This is not the name of the diet but there are too many diets recommending this approach. The idea is that you only eat foods with low glycemic index.

Proponents of this kind of diets argue that when you eat food with a high glycemic index, the insulin in your blood rises. Since it's the insulin that stores fat in your body, you gain fat regardless of the calories you eat. On the other hand, when you eat food with a low glycemic index, your body will not store fat because your blood insulin will not rise.

I feel ashamed to announce that I fully bought into this diet and burned many months of my time until I found out that it's utter horseshit. It's tricky because you can actually lose some weight with this diet. Not for the reasons they argue but because you omit most of your favorite foods from your diet since they are highly ranked on glycemic index.

Diets that I tried and did not like:

1) Intermittent Fasting:
I tried this for 4 months or so. The proponents of this diet say that you will get used to eating this way when you manage to get past the first few days or weeks and I believe that it worked that way for them.

For me, it didn't happen that way. After 4 months of intermittent fasting, I felt the same way I did when I started. I never got used to it and the fat loss was not that good either.

Diets that I tried and recommend:

1) Rapid Weight Loss Diet:
This is the one Hannibal mentions above.

Losing fat is boring and you want to get it done as quick as possible (without losing your health).

I used this diet for 11 days before my above photo shoot because I was tired of my slow progress. It worked just the way it promised.

I'm not sure if I can do it for a longer period of time. I never tried because I got what I wanted from this diet within only 11 days. See the thread Hannibal linked for more information.

Of course, I didn't reach my dieting goals within only 11 days. For the diet that did most of the job, read below.

2) Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Diet:

I saved this one to the last because I love it, I got great results by it and I am still doing it (for the most part).

After getting burned out by the above diets and lots of frustration, I found this diet.

This is the least restrictive and the most sustainable diet of all the above. Even if the book recommends not eating some of your favorite foods, I found that I can still eat them as long as I stay within my daily calorie goals. Counting your calories seems like an unpleasant idea at first but it's not as difficult as I imagined and I learned a great deal about where actually my calories are coming from.

The dieting principles within the book gave me the eating guide for my goals: Building muscle and losing or avoiding to gain fat. The book has a section on weight training too, which I didn't try because I already had a solid bodyweight training schedule at the time I read the book and now I am on another solid weight training schedule.

Here's the book (no affiliate):
https://www.amazon.com/Burn-Fat-Feed-Mus...nav-subnav

Post: #13

Ok, friend...I will tell you how I did things.


First, start getting rid of junk food GRADUALLY. What do I mean gradually?


Let's say that you eat 10 burgers at CrapDonalds a week.

For the first week, make sure that you decrease the amount of burgers to 9 a week (or even better, less than 9).

A week after that, 8 a week maximun.

And so on....

Eventually, your body and your mind will get used to other food than burgers.

That is how I stopped drinking soda, chips... . My body simply does not feel any need for those.




Second thing - go to the gym, use the Stonglift 5x5 program, and follow it religiously. It is easy and you do not have to spend THAT much time in the gym. Although it's main purpose it to build strength, it is good also for someone who wants to lose fat.


Here is the webpage (study it well):

http://stronglifts.com/5x5/

(also, subscribe, because you get daily tips, that you can implement, and which motivate you). Get the App (free) as well.




And finally, let the mirror, and not the scale be your judge. For example, I have gained like 2 kg this month, and lost some stubborn belly fat at the same time.


Buena suerte!

Post: #14

Thank you all for your help. I appreciate it greatly.

One last question. Is it possible to gain muscle while being at a caloric deficit? Because I have always tnought that in order to gain muscle you need to up your calories.

But the main thing here is to lose fat.


Thank you all. You dont know how much this means to me. I have more information in this thread alone than anytning Ive had.

Gracias.

Post: #15

You'll get some newbie gains if you were not athletic before you started, but you will plateau until you can start eating at a surplus. You will perceive greater gains than what you're actually achieving because your muscles won't be smothered in as much shapeless fat.

6 months is not realistic for the degree of weight loss you're talking about. Unless there's some outside circumstance forcing a time limit on you, try taking it 10 pounds at a time. Each 10 pounds is harder to lose than the previous 10, so you cannot be discouraged about the increasing effort to lose more weight each time. By focusing on losing 10, you set a baseline for what will keep you from reversing your progress. The first 10 are going to be easy and you can probably do that in 2 weeks at your current weight just by changing your diet. A lot of it will be water weight, but even losing water weight will make you look better.

Once you've lost that 10, you know you can handle the habits and mindset as a baseline. Add a new exercise and/or diet habit as necessary for the next 10 pounds to establish a higher baseline and repeat. Once your body looks the way you want it to, you will have established all the right habits to maintain it.

I find it useful to look at calorie limits for a week as opposed to only in terms of days. My maintenance level is at about 2400 calories a day, or 16,800 a week. If I want to lose half a pound a week, I need to cut that to about 15,000 a week. Rather than split that deficit evenly over 7 days, I can take bigger cuts on certain days of the week to "earn" my normal days.

Post: #16

Recomps are common. Fat loss and muscle gain at the same time.

This is a typical one

http://m.imgur.com/VTTBK?r

WIA

Post: #17

Drink ONLY water, tea (tea from a bag, not from a can) or coffee. No sugar.
Ditch the bad food. Learn to read the labels (avoid if it has added sugar, fructose or any other 'oses' as they are sugars) and learn which type food to buy. Also check on youtube how to cook them.
For example, if you want to have a burger, don't buy them in packs or frozen, because they will have soya protein and bread crumbs in them. Get the butcher to grind some piece of meat.
Cook your own stuff. Don't buy pre-made food. If you don't know what to cook, just search on google/youtube for healthy meals, and buy accordingly. I reccomend you buy the following:
Steak, eggs, tuna (canned or fresh), salmon, green veggies, avocados, tomatoes, sweet potatoes.


Walk everywhere. Try not to take the elevator.
In the gym, vary your exercises. Start with cardio: Row, treadmill, Kbswings, eliptical, bike. Join some spinning classes.
As you lose some initial fat, get a personal trainer to teach you the basic lifts. It will be money well spent.
You can do the 5x5 Stronglifts (it's good, easy, fast) or any other variation.

Keep us posted on your progress! The first step, acknowledgment of your problem, is already done.
Good luck!

Post: #18

Lots of good advice here.

I think the most helpful health advice I ever received was to pick a small amount of meals that are easy to prepare, and stick with them.

You can pretty much eat meat and veggies until you are full, without worrying about calories.

Here are a few of my go-to meals (most of them are quite affordable as well):

1. Burrito Bowl: shred up a few cups of fresh spinach, then spoon out half an avocado. Squeeze a slice of lemon over it, and sprinkle some sea salt overtop. Finally, add a cup of pre-cooked ground beef. Finish with a few dobs of Franks Red Hot and mix it all up.

(I've eaten this at least 5 times a week for the past 4 years, and never get tired of it)

You can mix it up by using kale or broccoli instead of spinach, lime instead of lemon, or adding some cilantro. Of course, you can add salsa instead of hot sauce, but so much salsa has shit in it. Get a salsa that has just tomatoes and veggies (no sugar).

Avoid guac mix, don't add sour cream or cheese as a topping, don't add beans.

Ground beef recipe: get the best quality beef you can afford and source (grass fed ideally, and avoid extra lean cos you want some fat in there). Add some onions in a pan and saute them in either olive or coconut or avocado oil. Toss in the beef and sprinkle salt and pepper and garlic powder over it. Mix up it real good. If you like spicy, toss in some red pepper flakes. Once the meat has started to brown, sprinkle in a lot more pepper and add some chili powder. Pour in some apple cider vinegar, then mix it up again. Turn the heat as low as possible, cover it, and let it sit for at least 20 min.

When you are ready to eat the meat, take out a cups-worth, and toss in a pan. Heat it up on low (avoid the microwave if you can). You can assemble the rest of your burrito bowl, as above, in about 2 min. It makes for such a satisfying lunch that is so quick to put together (provided you pre-cook the beef).

Get a popcorn bowl and fill it up and chow down! I like to have this right after a noon workout.


2. Roasted chicken quarters w/ cooked veg & salad: from now on, think of 3 course dinner as 1 meat, 1 cooked veg, and 1 raw veg.

Rub a little oil on the chicken (same oils as above). Then mix together some spices and put them on both sides of the chicken.

FUCK pre-packaged spices. The ones in most grocery stores have poo in them, and the fancy ones are overpriced. Buy your spices in bulk and make your own mixes. 2 simple ones for chicken: (a) 1 part salt, 1 part pepper, 1 part garlic, 1/2 part oregano, 1/2 part mint; (b) 1 part salt, 1 part pepper, 1 part garlic, 1/2 part cumin, 1/2 part paprika.

Roast your chicken in the oven, low and slow. Figure out what you like best, but I prefer something like 300C for 1.5 hours, with maybe a few minutes of broiling at the end to really crisp it up.

This chicken is delicious cold as well, so you can pre-cook tons of it.

Pair it with a steamed veg. Get a high quality pot, throw in your veg (could be broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, a mixture of them all). Put in a spoonful of water or two. Cover. Heat on low for 10-15 min. On my pot, once you can spin the lid with minimal effort, the temp is ideal (not sure if that works on other pots). You can turn the stove off and let the ambient heat do the rest. After another 5 minutes or so, take off the lid and empty out the water. Keep the veg in the pot and add some healthy fat (coconut oil or raw butter ideally, but ghee or grassfed pasteurized butter would work). Again, letting the ambient heat of the pot take over, just stir a little bit and let the fat slowly melt for a few minutes. I also really love brussels sprouts, but it's easier to boil them a bit first, then remove the water and let them sit in the pan on low heat for a bit, then add the fat of your choice.

Pair this with your chicken and a salad portion, and you are good to go.

2b. Salads

Cabbage + apple + green onions: chop these all up (4 parts cabbage, 2 parts apple, 1/2 part onion) and keep them in a large tupperware container. They will stay tasty for up to a week. When you are ready to eat, pull out your portion and douse it with some apple cider vinegar, and a bit of salt (preferably Maldon, but that Himalayan stuff is good, too). Finish with a little oil and mix up.

Chard + sweet onion + pear: mix it all up and make sure the onion is chopped very fine. Similar to above ratio -- 4 parts chard, 2 parts pear, 1/2 part onion. Add some Balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and oil. If you want to get really decadent, toss in some crushed walnuts and instead of the basic topping make a fancier dressing from apple cider vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, mustard, and honey. Don't pre-make this salad though, because it doesn't keep for very long.


3. Every now and again treat yourself to a great cut of steak (I prefer ribeye), a roast sweet potato, and a salad side. Pair it with a nice red wine.


OP (or anyone else) if you found that tasty and helpful, I have a few more easy and cheap recipes for pork and fish as well, and a few more veggie/starch sides.

The key here is to learn to lean on a few foundational ingredients that you can also use for various health regimens. The two classics on this board are

Coconut Oil
&
Apple Cider Vinegar (raw)

So many recipes can be enhanced using these two ingredients.

This post is already getting too long, but I left out two other amazing ingredients that you should try to sneak into common meals:

- beets (boiled, roasted, or juiced raw)
- garlic (slice it up and let it sit for a few minutes... then either cook it on low with your meats, add it raw to salads, or roast it with other veg)

Post: #19

In the past year and a half I've most about 35-40lbs by eating high protein dietow carbs. Not no carbs but low carbs, like whole weat everything (bread, pasta, rice ), and working out 4 days a week I would've lost more but I put on a lot of muscle, so even though I've lost weight people think I've gotten bigger. I mind you 1.5 years is what it took me and only 35lbs so you may want to rethink this 6 months deal, not saying it cannot be done but if you're also trying to add muscle it'll be very hard.

Post: #20

I'd recommend taking phentermine 30mg for 4 months. Get a prescription for it. It shuts down appetite and increases metabolism. Some light jogging and lifting weights 3 times per week.

Post: #21

(07-22-2016 09:44 AM)[email protected] Wrote:  I'd recommend taking phentermine 30mg for 4 months. Get a prescription for it. It shuts down appetite and increases metabolism. Some light jogging and lifting weights 3 times per week.

I wouldn't recommend going this route. Phentermine is quite similar to an amphetamine and is classified as a controlled substance. Also, phentermine has a clinically significant rate of abnormal valve findings. There is no biological free lunch.

This guy hasn't even exploited his newb losses yet. If you don't have your diet/exercise regiment locked in, jumping to prescriptions is silly.

There are several studies showing simultaneous muscle synthesis and fat loss (usually smaller caloric deficits). However, I wouldn't expect this and that's fine. Losing fat gives the illusion of gaining muscle anyways.

OP there is a lot of good information in here, especially WIA's post on ketogenic diet. It really is as simple as minimizing carbs and starting a workout routine that gets you consistently in the gym (5+ days/week) even if you only cycle for 30 minutes. You should start applying the knowledge ASAP and update this thread with your progress. Best of luck.

One additional tip: bring some inconvenience into your life. Park further away. Walk to the grocery store. Take public transportation and walk the in-between distances. Call an old friend/relative to catch up and walk around the blog while doing so. When you check your online dating apps, go on a stroll around your neighborhood. Get a pet and walk them every morning/night. When I lived in NYC, I walked upwards of an hour a day, in addition to working out, and it was impossible to gain weight. For however lame it sounds, walking seems to be the differential (after low carb dieting) for me in staying lean. I know it helps to live in a walkable city but this is doable anywhere.

Post: #22

Rapid fat loss runs the danger of damaging your metabolism. This is the problem experienced by the biggest loser contestants and is the reason why dieters have difficulty keeping off the weight. Six months is too ambitious for the amount of weight you are trying to lose.

I would suggest losing between 1 to 1.5 lbs of fat per week is a reasonable goal. This means it would take 40-60 weeks to lose 60 lbs. You could lose more in the beginning stages.

An untrained person can easily gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. For an athletic person it is more difficult.

Your diet is poor. Changing your diet to something more healthy (no sodas, no fast food, no junk food) will go a long way. You should do both cardio and weightlifting. For survival reasons the body has a tendency to lose muscle first and preserve fat; consequently, you should lift weights to at minimum preserve your muscles.

Good luck.

Post: #23

I've been doing low carb/keto for about five years now. I started at under 30 grams of carbs, eventually allowed myself 50 grams, and now I can go up to 100 grams a day without putting on fat. That's frankly more than enough carbs for me. When I started, I lost 25 pounds in about three months. I was a sloth then, and lost the weight literally just sitting on the couch watching sportsball and Netflix and working at a desk job. About four years ago, I started moderate strength training, and have gained about another 16 pounds back, but it's not fat anymore. I'm much stronger and my body composition is very different.

I'm an old man who likes to drink, so I'll never have six-pack abs, but I look and feel 200% better than I did five years ago. Clothes fit me better, I get way more IOIs, and people compliment me all the time. In contrast to some of the posters in the thread, I never felt "like crap" or sluggish or anything like that living low-carb. If anything, I feel much better both physically and mentally. Haven't had any of the digestive issues I hear about, either, and my cholesterol is well within normal range. Obviously, that's an individual thing.

One of the downsides of low-carb is expense. Meat, cheese, eggs and fresh vegetables cost a lot more than cheap carbs like bread, rice, tortillas and flour. If you're a drinker, cocktails or whiskey often cost more than beer. I've been working a long time, so I can afford it, but it might be a hardship on a young man just starting out.

In general, I find low-carb very easy to live with. If nothing else, it allows most people to drop a lot of weight in a relatively short time, so it might also work for you.

Post: #24

Google P90X, it's doable if you have the discipline to stick to it for 3 months. Of course you need a regimen after that as well, but not as intense.

A lot of senseless hype and marketing around it, so try to somehow sift through that and decide if it fits you.

webmd.com/fitness-exercise/a-z/p90x-workout

Haven't done it myself, cause I don't have the discipline.