New member, New journal, time to trim up.

[fatman24]

OK so I'm Jon. I decided in July last year that I would stop being a lazy a'hole and join a gym.

So I joined weighing in at 21st 7lbs / 303lbs and a BF% of 29.9% unfit and un healthy. I did their boring cardio programmes for about 6 months before doing some ankle ligament damage before xmas which left me unable to do pretty much anything for a couple months. That led me to about February this year where I realised I needed to shift somer serious fat and fast before my wedding in May. In all that time at the gym I'd lost 15lbs (making me 20st 6lbs) and my BF% dropped to 25%.

I came accross 'The Abs Diet' by the editor of Men's Health and decided to give it a go. It talked about how weight training burns fat better then cardio (the oppostie to what they told me at the gym?) and after just 3 weeks of following the eating principles and doing the recommended workouts I'm now weighing 19st 8lbs and my BF% is 21.3%. I burnt 13lbs of fat in 3 weeks, almost as much as 6 months of 'dieting' and cardio sessions!!

I've now decided that weights are defintly the way to go and I now ENJOY going to the gym where as before the cardio slogs seemed a real chore.

To Summarise
My Height: 6ft 1in
My Weight: 19st 8lbs / 274lbs
BF%: 21.3%

My Goals
1. Continue to burn body fat following the abs diet so I don't look like a porker on my wedding day.
2. build muscle mass to look leaner and maybe look half decent when I take my shirt off for my honeymoon.
3. Upon returning from honeymoon continue to get in a nice shape, strip my body fat, tune my physique. I've always been fat and overweight and never much to look at which would be nice to change! (long term goal)

I'm doing the abs diet workout 3 times a week as instructed in the book and I'm doing cardio in between by playing 5 a side football with friends twice a week (thats soccer to you americans! )

The Work outs are as follows....

Warm Up
Ab crunches 1 x 12
Heel lifts 1 x 12
Side Jack knifes 1 x 12ea side
Bridge 1 or 2 times, hold as long as you can
Bench Press 3 x 12/10/8
Lat Pulldown 3 x 12/10/8
Military Press 3 x 12/10/8
Seated Row 3 x 12/10/8
Leg extensions 3 x 12/10/8
Bicep Curls 3 x 12/10/8
Leg Curls 3 x 12/10/8
Tricep Kick backs 3 x 12/10/8


There is another work our which I do once a week whic puts more emphasis on legs but I can't remember it off the top of my head and have lent the book to a friend (D'oh!)

Anyway, it seems to be working so far and I hoped maybe if I record my progress here people can comment, tell me where I could improve etc or lend support, for all of which I would be most grateful.

:newbie:

[fatman24]

Off to the gym shortly. I want to see more muscle mass. Should I consider changing my sets to 10/8/6 and useing heavier weight?

[AJ_H]

I came accross 'The Abs Diet' by the editor of Men's Health and decided to give it a go. It talked about how weight training burns fat better then cardio (the oppostie to what they told me at the gym?) and after just 3 weeks of following the eating principles and doing the recommended workouts I'm now weighing 19st 8lbs and my BF% is 21.3%. I burnt 13lbs of fat in 3 weeks, almost as much as 6 months of 'dieting' and cardio sessions!!


weight training does not exactly burn fat faster than cardio. It develops muscle which your body will burn off lots of energy (including fat) to sustain that muscle. Cardio will burn fat faster but with more muscle you are more likely to keep burning that fat off over a long period of time, if that makes sense?

Men's health is not exactly the bees knees as far as weightlifting goes. I would say you might want to take a look at a routine that focuses more on core lifts like squatting, deadlifting, benching and pressing such as Baby Got Back, WBB 1.1 (both found on the articles on this site) or Rippetoe's Starting Strength and do a bit of cardio on the side.

Hope this helps and good luck with your goals- AH

edit - your routine is probably better for burning fat than building muscle, if that is your main goal then ignore what I've said but I still think cardio would be better for burning the fat and you can keep your weightlifting sessions to building muscle

[fatman24]

weight training does not exactly burn fat faster than cardio. It develops muscle which your body will burn off lots of energy (including fat) to sustain that muscle. Cardio will burn fat faster but with more muscle you are more likely to keep burning that fat off over a long period of time, if that makes sense?

Yes that makes sense and is kind of what I meant without quoting paragraphs of the book. :)

Men's health is not exactly the bees knees as far as weightlifting goes. I would say you might want to take a look at a routine that focuses more on core lifts like squatting, deadlifting, benching and pressing such as Baby Got Back, WBB 1.1 (both found on the articles on this site) or Rippetoe's Starting Strength and do a bit of cardio on the side.

These sound interesting, I'll look them up. I'm a complete novice and appreciate the help. I use a lot of the cable resistance machines for working my back. Would you (or anyone) say that barbells and free weights are better for this?

Hope this helps and good luck with your goals- AH

edit - your routine is probably better for burning fat than building muscle, if that is your main goal then ignore what I've said but I still think cardio would be better for burning the fat and you can keep your weightlifting sessions to building muscle

I'm playing football 2 or 3 times a week to ensure I get my heart rate raised plenty nad keep my general fitness good.

Thanks for all your advice. I see you have a journal of your own which I'm now off to read.

Thanks mate.



Thanks

[fatman24]

April 8th - Leg's Emphasis

Today's workour was as follows:

5 minute run and 5 mins cross trainer to warm up.

Leg Press (Cable resistance)
Stacked - 8, 6, 4

Leg Curls
On plate 10 x 8
Plate 12 x 6
Plate 13 x 4

Leg Extensions
Plate 9 x 8
Plate 11 x 6
Plate 12 x 4

Bench Press
Warm up on the bar.
10 x 50kg
8 x 60kg
4 x 65kg (Pathetic I know!!!)

Incline Dumbell Press
8 x 20kg
6 x 22kg
4 x 24kg

Decline Dumbell Press
8 x 18kg
6 x 20kg
3 x 22kg (couldn't make a fourth)

Seated Row (Cable Machine)
Plate 12 x 8
Plate 13 x 6
Plate 14 x 4

Upright Row (With Barbell)
8 x 40kg
6 x 40kg
4 x 40kg

Dumb Bell Military Press
8 x 20kg
6 x 22kg
3 x 24kg (Again, couldnt manage a fourth!)

Tricep Dips (On plate 3 of the dip machine)
12
10
8

Tricep cable pulldowns
Plate 11 x 8
Plate 12 x 6
Plate 13 x 4

Tricep kickbacks
8 x 10kg
6 x 10kg
4 x 10kg

Bicep Curls (on Barbell)
8 x 25kg
6 x 25kg
4 x 25kg

Dumb bell bicep curls
8 x 12kg
6 x 14kg
4 x 14kg

A good 90 minutes in the gym. I felt pretty pumped up after.

[AJ_H]

I would definitely say that free weights are better for back or any muscle. You can back up with machines if you are a bber but free weights are still the bread and butter. For back: deadlifts, bent over barbell rows (dumbbell and barbell are both good) and chins or assisted chin/lat pulldown if you can't (assisted chin is preferable over lat pulldown). football should be plenty for overall fitness as you stated but I like to mix it up a bit - kettlebell work, boxing that sort of thing just to save boredom more than anything but thats your choice. hope this helps, will try to keep up with your journal.

oh and i forgot all though its not specifically a back exercise, squatting will help with that and everything else as well. I recommend squat as the king of all lifts. check out squatrx on youtube and watch the playlist, one of the best things you could possibly do for your squat technique is to follow these 20 or so videos.