Am I being realistic?

Rids

Rids

Rids

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2008
Posts
6,772
So, at the start of the year I went 15 stone 9. This is up from about 12 stone 9 at the start of the year before, too much drinking, too many kebabs, and too much easy living.

I am getting married in September, so I knew that this had to change, and invested in a treadmill and started to diet. Things were going well, by the 2nd week of March I'd managed to trim down to 14 stone 3, and things were looking rosier.

Lost my dad that week, and made the foolish mistake of using it as an excuse to eat. Cue: 3 weeks of eating kebabs like they're going out of fashion and drinking like a fish, start of April, 14 stone 12, bugger.

I've now got 5 months to get off as much as humanly possible, with the goal being around the 11 and half stone mark, although I'll take more if its toned and not flabby.

I've been moderating my calories to about 1500-2000 a day - usually closer to 1500 - and I've been trying to burn at least 500 calories a night on the old treadmill. Some days I eat worse and do more work on the treadmill, and I generally allow myself one day of enjoyment a week, that involves some kind of takeaway.

Is my current routine going to be enough to get me where I want to be? I have been trying to increase the intensity of my workouts, but I seem to have platued with what I can do. I can however make the workouts last longer, and am comfortable with 90 minute sessions on the treadmill burning around 900-1000 calories - mostly through uphill walking.

I am aware of the pitfalls of using the treadmill, and take normal steps and do not hold onto the bars!

Any advice?

Cheers
 
Try doing some high intensity training, I'm no expert but I understand this involves alternating between sprinting as fast as you can do then falling back to a run at certain intervals, if you're running for 90 minutes then that's probably more like endurance running which as I understand isn't really appropriate for burning the calories as you're not really pushing yourself as much.
 
You seem to be getting good gains, one stone 6 in a month and a half is pretty good.

if you feel that you aren't shifting as much, try some high intensity interval training as said. have a read of some sites and find out what interval programme would be best for you. There's quite a lot of good stuff and example programmes on http://www.intervaltraining.net/

You don't have to do interval training every time you work out (interval training is pretty ****ing horrible tbh) So if you can't handle it every other day, try:

normal cardio
interval training
rest
normal
interval
rest
etc.
 
Last edited:
It is definately possible, I dropped from 110kg to 88kg since mid December. I put on a lot in my first year post uni thanks to extravagant work parties and what not. I'm dropping around 2.5kg per week (fat volume as my muscles are getting bigger). I still want to drop my body fat, so will probably reach target weight by end of month.

I achieved this by;

Commute to work on bike (30 miles a day, saves me money too) - this is brilliant because it's the same distance and everyday I want to better my previous day.
Stopped drinking beer (only spirits)
No fizzy juice
Fruit is the only allowed snack
Weights 4 times a week
High carbs, low fat

Psychologically the start wasn't very nice - very very tired and you want to see results but you don't for a bit. When you do and others do it's like a nice comfy road.

I bought 2 benches in the sales, selectable dumbells (up to 32.5kg, the best things I have bought!), loads of disks and bars.

I think my approach was rather drastic (I went from doing nothing to doing loads) especially as there's no such thing as 9-5 in the City :P, I'll still do my weights though, even if it's 9:30pm...

The best thing I have noticed is if I get absolutely steam boat (eg last night) - I got home at 4am, got up still at 7:30am and felt fine!
 
Last edited:
Ok, gave the Interval thing a crack today, workout was something along the lines of...

4 Mins Warm Up @ 5kph
10 Mins Jog @ 10kph
1 Min Walk @ 5kph
1 Min Run @ 12kph
1.30 Min Walk @ 5kph
1.30 Min Run @ 12kph
1.30 Min Walk @ 5kph
1.30 Min Run @ 12kph
2 Min Walk @ 5kph
2 Min Run @ 12kph
2 Min Cooldown @ 5kph
Collapse.

Calorie counter on the treadmill says I burned about 330 calories, but I feel absolutely cream crackered, worse than I feel after 90 minutes uphill walk, I'm taking this as a good sign.

Going to try a day of normal cardio tomorrow, then give myself a rest day, and then hit the Interval Training again.

Does this sound like the right sort of start?

Cheers
 
I wouldn't reccomend interval stuff unless you've got a base level of fitness. If you're knackered after a few efforts of 12kph then it's probably not worth bothering with over standard cardio.
 
With the intervals that you did. I don't think that you are pushing yourself hard enough, the intense intervals should be 90% of what you can physically muster, if you can sustain 12kph for two minutes (at the end of your run at that) then it isn't hard enough for high intensity interval training, you want your heart rate to be at 90% of its max. Try for 30 second bursts, followed by 1 minute rests, 6 times, if you are pushing yourself hard enough for the bursts, then you will be almost throwing up at the end. Did you have a read of that site that I linked to before? It gives a guide as to how hard you are working in the intervals.
 
Ben M said:
With the intervals that you did. I don't think that you are pushing yourself hard enough, the intense intervals should be 90% of what you can physically muster, if you can sustain 12kph for two minutes (at the end of your run at that) then it isn't hard enough for high intensity interval training, you want your heart rate to be at 90% of its max. Try for 30 second bursts, followed by 1 minute rests, 6 times, if you are pushing yourself hard enough for the bursts, then you will be almost throwing up at the end. Did you have a read of that site that I linked to before? It gives a guide as to how hard you are working in the intervals.
Click to expand...

Read the whole site but somehow missed the example workouts.

Having had a re-read of the site, this time stumbling accross the example work outs, and the info from your post, seems I'm not working anywhere near hard enough.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll give it another crack in a couple of days and go at it harder.

Cheers
 
use a skipping rope for 30 mins a day,this will strip the weight of you and tone up all your body at the same time...thing is not everyone can skip using a rope or speed rope;)

Skipping is easily,basically you are running on the spot,so just isolate each leg and hop 5 times then switch to the other leg,before you know it you will be mixing it up with fancy footwork like a pro :-)

Once you get good you can do doubles which involves getting the rope under your feet 2 times in one jump,this involves a lot of use of the forearms and wrists while also keeping your balance and form,before you know it your sweating bigtime within 5 mins!

if your really good you can do triples,or skip backwards..something i never mastered :-)

i will always swear by skipping as one of the best all round workouts in s short space of time, you will burn triple the amount of calories compared to running in the same duration of time,its also not as boring as running and creates explosive footwork as a bonus!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom