first of all, thanks john stone for being such a huge influence and inspiratio n of mine. i saw your website in november, and since then i've lost 55 lbs. from 277 to 210. thanks for the great forum too. :tucool:

my end goal is to look ripped/muscular... when should my goal change from losing weight to gaining muscle. i lift a little a bit right before doing cardio everyday, mostly as a way to warm up. when should my goal go from losing weight to gaining muscle. is there a certain point or weight i hit where i should just start focusing on lifting moreso than cardio and changing my eating habits to compliment the lifting? im trying to get down to 165 (i have a big frame too). this has always confused me. people tell me not to lift too much during the weight loss period because it will put muscle over your fat etc, so i should use it as a means of warming up. hopefully someone understands what im saying! thank you in advance and i appreciated you all and this forum. very great reading material and inspiration.

changed post
doctor says 277 not 265!

Congratulations you're on your way!
First of all your primary goal is to be healthy and mantain a healthy lifestyle, a clean diet and regular exercise.
When cutting fat, weight trainig is as important as cardio and diet.
Remember what's important is your fat-muscle ratio. You can loose all the weight you want but if it's not fat then you're loosing muscle.
And that's not good!!! You want to loose all the fat and try to keep and gain more muscle. With more muscle, more calories you'll burn every day because you'll have a faster metabolism and it will be easier to loose the fat. So... hit the weights!!! :db:
Of course you'll gain muscle and have the fat on top, but with cardio and diet you'll get rid of the fat and start seeing those muscles.
So don't let your goal be to reach a certain weight but to reduce the fat and keep the muscle that you have. You need to keep track of your body fat %.
When should you change your goal? Well first determine what body fat % you want to reach and then see how much fat you have to loose. When you get there you can change your diet to gain muscle but always trying to mantain the body fat % you got to.
Remember if you loose your muscle right now you won't be able to mantain your fat low, because once you get of your diet you'll gain it all back! Your goal... loose the fat and keep the muscle. Or you'll become one of those skinny fat people. Little muscle and alot of fat.
So three things... clean diet, cardio and weight training.

:gl:

Here's some good reading: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/south9.htm

great work so far congrats!

i definatly agree you should be lifting AND doing cardio, but keep your diet as it is right now.

That way you'll still be lossing fat, but you'll be building up those muscles, so you'll look so much better when the fat's gone AND the muscles will help you with your fat loss goals.

It's perfectly fine to lift heavy without taking in a ton of protien and fat every day to bulk up a ton. The only thing you want to try do is split up your cardio and weights if possable, that will maximise your fat and muscle loss and gains. Even consider turning a couple of cardio days into weights days if you're doing 5+ cardio a week.

I have some related questions so I thought it would be best to search for this thread.

If my goal is to have a six pack and look ripped, at what body fat % should my fat loss phase end? Also, what is cutting, bulking, etc? Anyone have a VERY beginners guide to weight lifting and body building? Hell I dont even know what reps are and what muscles are what and how to work them. Thanks.

I have some related questions so I thought it would be best to search for this thread.

If my goal is to have a six pack and look ripped, at what body fat % should my fat loss phase end? Also, what is cutting, bulking, etc? Anyone have a VERY beginners guide to weight lifting and body building? Hell I dont even know what reps are and what muscles are what and how to work them. Thanks. Briefly...

For a 6-pack you'll want less than 10% bodyfat. Check out John's pictures on the main site to see when his started popping.

Cutting is short for cutting off the fat, or looking like you were cut out of rock. Get it?

Bulking is adding muscle. For beginners treat cutting and bulking as mutually exclusive: you probably can't do both well at the same time.

"Rep" is short for repitition. A single repitition is one movement of an exercise from the beginning position, to the end position (usually the same). The example of a bicep curl:
- stick your arm straight out, palm facing up (start)
- bend it at the elbow and try to touch your shoulder with the outstreached hand (contraction)
- bend back at the elbow to straighten out your arm (end)

That is considered one rep. A set is a series of continous reps. So if you did "10 reps, for 2 sets" (sometimes written as 10x2) you would do the movement above 10 times with no real pause between reps. You'd then pause for ~ 30 seconds. What you just finished was your first set. Then do it another 10 times, that's your second set.

For a list of exercises and muscles you can check out exrx.net ('http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html'). They are truely awesome and have animated GIF's of all the exercises, nice pictures of the muscles involved, and even how to stretch the muscles! Nice!