Bust that belly and get fit for summer!

[Youstolemyname]

I have started to notice a number of posts in here asking ‘How do I lose my beer belly?’ and ‘How do I get in shape for summer?’ The answer?- A good diet, hard work in the gym and discipline. GordyR’s sticky is fantastic and I used plenty of the advice in there coupled with the other great posters we have in here so I thought it was only fair to contribute something back to the forum. This plan is an adaptation of something I have from Men’s Health magazine and other sources. It worked for me when I was starting out and should work for you if you are a beginner to training. It won’t make you look like Arnie or a Men’s Health cover model, but it will drop your bodyfat and make you look a lot leaner. If you are already in good shape then there are probably better routines for you. But this is a definite belly buster for those couch potatoes who want to lose the flab fast!

Let’s get things straight from the off. You are going to have to make some sacrifices to do this. The main one being beers. Yes, that’s right- no beer during this plan. But it only takes 4 weeks to complete. If you can’t manage 4 weeks with no beer then I suggest googling for Alcoholics Anonymous! You will have to get a good 8 hours rest at night, cut out fizzy drinks, chocolate and sweets. But it is worth it, believe me. This guide assumes you have read GordyR’s and understand basic terms such as reps, sets and form.

I will split it into three easy sections: Diet, Weight Training and Cardio.

Diet

You will be glad to hear that the diet isn’t a diet! It’s just a sensible eating plan. You are going to be working hard in the gym so you need to fuel that engine- an empty sack wont stand up! The diet doesn’t involve weighing things out, it just relys on you and your discipline.

You eat enough at each meal to feel full- not bloated and stuffed- just full.

Drink water all day every day. Aim for at least two litres of water a day- this helps your liver process fat and flush the toxins from your system.

You have a post workout shake in the plan and here are the ingredients:

200ml of skimmed milk
1 cup of Quaker Oats (unsweetened)
1 banana
1 tbsp of peanut butter

Mix all the above in a blender and whiz until smooth then drink down. Add some ice cubes as well if you wish to make it even tastier!

Eat the two snacks before lunch- aim to be eating about every 2-3 hours. Only take a handful of nuts or grapes etc not a whole bag to feel full. A snack is just a light nibble to keep your metabolism ticking over.

Ok so what can I eat? The key here is low fat, and getting your carbs in early coupled with a decent amount of protein. Here is a possible diet plan for the whole week:




You can mix and match the food throughout the week but do not skip meals! See, it isn’t a diet at all is it? Some of the food on there is delicious.


Weights

The weights plan works as follows:

Do 1 set of ten reps, rest 60 seconds. Repeat two more times so 3 sets in total.

Use the heaviest weight you can manage ten reps with Perfect Form on the first set. Decrease the weight if you have to for the other sets but perfect form is the key. No cheating now!

We split the weights plan into two workouts- A and B. Here are the exercises, look them up at http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html

Workout Plan A:

Bench Press
Squats
Cable Row
Leg Extension
Military Press
Bent-knee incline sit-up
Barbell Curl
Calf Raises

Workout Plan B:

Lateral Pulldowns
Lying Leg Curls
Dips
Leg Press
Lateral Raises
Back Extensions
Dumbell Shrugs
Reverse Crunches

Cardio

Cardio is split into three workouts- steady state cardio, sprints and high-intensity interval training (HIIT). For the steady state cardio you should aim to be working at 70% of your maximum heart rate. To calculate your maximum heart rate as an unfit bloke, take your age from 220. I.e. 30yr olds max rate would be 220-30=190 so you would be looking to keep your heart rate at around 133 bpm. Steady state cardio can be anything- jogging, x-trainer, cycling etc.

HIIT training is the real fat burner though and the one you will feel the most! For HIIT, you warm up for 5 mins then do an interval at 85%-90% of your max rate. You then have an interval of rest at 60% of your max rate. This intense burst, rest period interval is repeated for the given amount of time followed by a five minute cool down period. HIIT can be done jogging, x-trainer, rowing etc.

Sprints are simply sprints for 10 seconds. Do them around your road or wherever you can run flat out for 10 seconds. Warm up and cool down on your sprints for 5 mins.

So here is the weights and cardio plan:




See, you can easily fit that into your week!

Final Words

Stick at it. I lost a load of bodyfat doing this when I first started at the gym a few years back. It isn’t a guaranteed quick fix- just a good introduction into going to the gym. It will get your body used to exercising again, bust the gut down that you had and make you a lot fitter than you were before you started the plan. Don't look at the scales- you should put some muscle on here so your weight will not fall dramatically. Use the mirror and a tape measure. You must do the exercise though! Eating like that with no exercise will make you even more of a bloater so move yourself down to the gym and get repping!

Best of luck should you choose to take it up! Feel free to ask questions and post further advice in here.

 

[Youstolemyname]

a good beginner scheme to follow, tho i have a few reservations.

personally i would want to see more cardio being performed, but not HITT.
also would much prefer to see muscle groupings being worked together.

I think too much cardio at that stage would end up losing too much muscle. The HIIT ensures you dont burn your hard earned muscle off.

 

[Youstolemyname]

i thought the idea was 'bust the belly and get fit' rather than get muscular..

It is. But muscles burn fat extremely efficiently. Doing lots and lots of cardio burns off muscle as well as fat, HIIT avoids the muscle burn but allows the fat burn. That's why it is recommended.

I also most probably won't be going to the gym so everything will be done at home apart from the running so I suppose apart from the running i should be doing things like sit ups and press ups?

Try and follow the plan posted. It does work really well, I promise. Even if you have to spend 20 quid to get a weights set from a catalgoue shop it is worthwhile. Just doing cardio alone will make you into a skinny oik.

 

[Youstolemyname]

Losing fat and building muscle can go hand in hand at first. As you become more and more acustomed to training you cant build muscle and drop fat.

At first it really is good to drop the fat as you start to notice a physique that you never had before. But make sure you don't do toooooo much cardio or you will become a twiglet. Thats why a maintenance weights routine is good. If you cannot get to the gym at all then look at some routines without weights. Although it sounds extremely gay, pilates has some great muscle workouts for someone who has given exercise a miss for a few years. Believe me, my first pilates class hurt more than a good session of deadlifts the day after. It was also full of hot chicks in lycra.

It is definately a good move to lose the bodyfat first before bulking as when you try to put muscle on you will gain bodyfat regardless. However, it is VERY difficult to just lose bodyfat without losing muscles so if you can, hit the weights too.

 

[Youstolemyname]

Shiftwork is fine, you can work the plan around your lifestyle. The workouts take about 1.5 hours max. 8 hours sleep a night is ideal but you can get away with 7. The rest is just as important as the training as it allows your body to recover and repair itself.

The eating key is regular, small, low fat meals. Just getting into the mentality that it isnt good to eat large meals three times a day. 5-6 smaller ones is the way to go. You don't have to eat exactly what is on that diet plan, just items similar to that. As some people have mentioned you may want to ditch the fruit juice early morning and replace it with a piece of fruit and change the post workout shake to whey in water. I have literally hundreds of recipes that I can share if the eating is going to cause problems in preparation time.

Just fit the exercise in when you can. The above plan is based around someone fitting in their workout in the afternoon some time. But you can mix it up, some people I know go to the gym before breakfast. Some go at lunchtime. If you can't spend 1.5 hours in the gym on the day when you are supposed to be doing weights and cardio then split them up. Go for a 20 min jog in the morning before breakfast then do the weights later in the day. Or have a rest day on a different day if your shifts dont allow it. You will have to make some sacrifices to your lifestyle though- that 1 hour previously spent vegging out on the playstation will now have to be used in the gym. You will find it just as relaxing, if not more so after time though

Like I say, the above is not a set in stone plan that you must follow or else it wont work- it is just a collection of advice and a starting point for someone who hasn't exercised for a while and wants to get a bit fitter and lose some fat. You can mix things from the plan to suit your lifestyle. As long as you eat sensibly and become more active then you should see results.

Hope this helps?

 

[Youstolemyname]

I made myself one of these on returning from the gym last night and as a pre-dinner filler.....Man did it fill me up! I could barely eat any of my dinner - the missus was not happy!!

Lol. Yeah, it will do that. That's not a bad thing though as it means you wont gorge yourself as much at dinner. What you eat at dinner doesn't generally get burnt off as you don't do much exercise at night.

If it becomes an issue for you then another option for the shake is getting some whey protein and mixing it with water. Holland and barrets have a sale on at the mo and it is only a tenner for a kilo of the stuff. Or use any of the many sites online for some, affordablesupplements.co.uk or myprotein.co.uk being two good ones. That should be a little less filling than the banana/oats mix.

 

[Youstolemyname]

just thought I would give this thread a shameless resurrection due to the large amount of people posting asking how to get trim for summer.

If you follow the plan above you WILL lose body fat and be in better shape in just six weeks.

Fact.