first off, i found this site a few months back and what a GREAT source of info and feedback. all the posters are so willing to help others and provide guidance. this is why i have now decided to post and seek some assistance with my plan.

-My objective:

To lose about 25-30 lbs of fat, most of which is in the stomach and hip region. And to try to do this in a relatively reasonable, yet steadfast, period of time.


-My background:

Male, 29 years old, 6'0, 208 lbs. Work an office job for 40+hrs a week. Excellent home gym in basement for convinience.


-Exercise/Training:

Try to work out almost everyday. Been doing circuit training 3 times a week for the last 9 months and have seen some noticeable definition in my arms and chest. Was running 1.5 miles a day at least 4-5 times a week but lately aerobic activity has been in flux. I have begun to experiment with HIIT, but this is in the early stages.


-Nutrition:

This has always been a strange issue for me (touch on that later). Lately, I have been having a protein shake after each workout and sometimes for breakfast or before bed. Breakfast usually bowl of wheat bran cereal or protein shake. Lunch consists of lean turkey on wheat with a fat free string cheese stick. Dinner is usually a couple of sirloin burgers (no bun), or chicken breast, or tuna sandwich. Snacks include peanut butter and chocolate milk (carb free).


-Genetics/history:

Parents are both overweight, mother has always been and father has been but wasn't always. I have a tendency to put on weight easily, always have. I used to always be overweight, topped out at 245lbs at age 19. Then I went on a strict diet at college, walked everyday, and worked out. Went from 245lbs to 155lbs from January to August. Probably lost a lot of muscle too, but waist size went from 44 to 32.

Weighed 155 at age 20 and kept weight off for a long time. 175 at age 24 and still felt like I looked good. At this point, my lifting and working out became lax (got in a relationship, which will do it to ya!) and gradually eased up to 195 at age 28.

Now, at age 29, I've topped out and I'm getting a tad concerned. In the last year, I've been VERY disciplined in sticking to my circuit training regimen and stayed mostly consistent with my running but managed to put on more than 10 pounds AND my pants are fitting tighter (never a good sign) and don't like the way I look in pictures.

-Questions/Concerns:

I have a feeling my diet is a problem, and I would love for some guidance in this area.

Also, I have concerns with excessive drinking when going out with friends on the weekend. If I would like to achieve my objective above, should alcohol be completely eliminated?

Finally, is a combo of circtuit training and HIIT good for me to obtain my goal of weight/fat loss?

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I thought I'd give any experts a lot of info to go on and then take it from there. Any help and comments would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hey.

Not an expert, but it sounds like diet is the issue. It normally is.

have you kept a track of how many calories you're on? has it fluctuated, do you have days when the beer takes it up high? what size portions are you having? Or could your calories be too low so your body goes into starvation mode?

If you're drinking excessively that's going to get the calories up, especially if it's beer (English pint = 250 calories, American pint = 200, bottle = 150). Vodka's better.

Howdy! Welcome!!

First things first -- concrete goals are tons better than abstract goals. Set a specific time frame for when you're going to lose the amount of weight you want to lose -- track it to something important, like a reunion or birthday or holiday or something you will remember.

Second; when it comes to food -- there is a big gap between where you are and where you need to be. There isn't really much of a continuum when it comes to food and weight loss. Most people are so far off the end of the scale when it comes to healthy eating that they're shocked when they find how much you have to watch yourself and control yourself to reach your goals. Other people are thrilled by it, as I'm sure you will be.

Aim for 100% documentation of what you eat, at first. Write it ALL down. This is extremely useful.

Then, read up on what you actually need to eat. HINT: it's almost certainly a LOT less than you do, spaced out more gradually over the day. But it's also probably a little more than you think you do. Educate yourself.

To lose weight, you really have to be on point with this stuff. Your body will get in your way. Half-assing it, excuse my French, doesn't get you half the results -- it gets you very little.

You can find this argument all over the place on this forum, and I don't want this to devolve into an argument, but I'll suggest that you TRY giving up drinking entirely. TRY it. See if it works for you. Whether or not something seems too drastic, if you don't TRY it, you'll never really know. Of course, this doesn't mean to do dangerous stuff, but broaden your idea of what you yourself are capable of doing.

I'll leave it to that for now. Read up, and good luck! Get fired up!!!:mad:

thanks for info!!

i guess after losing all that weight 10 years ago, i thought the same recipe would work today. but it sounds like that recipe would be torn apart by many on the board.

i track my lifting on a schedule, perhaps i will add a nutrition section to my spreadsheet and log my weight on a daily basis.

i have been leaning toward dropping alcohol completely, or at the very least having one drink a weekend (jack and diet or something of the like).

one issue i have is, if i want to achieve significant weight loss in the next 2-3 months, what type of training should i do? would a combo of HIIT and circruit training work best? or should i also do some distance jogging?

i track my lifting on a schedule, perhaps i will add a nutrition section to my spreadsheet and log my weight on a daily basis.
That's great! Definitely log all of your workouts. Try to log the time you spend in the gym (total time of the workout), the weight used on each set, the number of reps you do on each set too. That way you can always look back over your logs and adjust as necessary. You can also say "you know what, I was doing much better back in December, let's look at my logs and see what I was doing then."

You don't HAVE to track your food, but it can be a big help.

i have been leaning toward dropping alcohol completely, or at the very least having one drink a weekend (jack and diet or something of the like).
I would strongly suggest you eliminate alcohol. I know that's not easy (it wasn't easy for me at first), but it can help a lot. Limit it to cheat days/meals. You don't have to totally eliminate it completely right now (that would be best though, of course), perhaps just limit it to only on the weekends for now, then only on Saturdays after a month or so, then only during cheat meals after another month or so.

Sometimes it's best to taper off rather than go cold-turkey.

It depends on the person too. I have a friend who is absolutely ripped and has enormous biceps and he drinks several times a week! :mad: But me? I can take one sip of beer and the button on my pants breaks off. :lol:

one issue i have is, if i want to achieve significant weight loss in the next 2-3 months, what type of training should i do? would a combo of HIIT and circruit training work best? or should i also do some distance jogging?
This is up to you. There is so much information on this forum. I think you should start reading the sticky threads and try to put a plan together. Everyone here has opinions and everyone who is successful has certain things they like to do.

Personally, I don't like circut training. But there are some guys and gals who do it with great success. Personally, I like very, very limited cardio, but some people like doing it 7 days a week and do it with great success. It's hard to say "what is best" because it's all subject to so much interpretation and there are so many other things to consider.

My opinions? What works for me? Lift weights 3-5 days per week. Lift heavy and somewhat explosive. Have good form but don't be rigid in your form (not deliberately slow rep speeds or anything like that). Start squatting. Start deadlifting. Hit 2-3 bodyparts per day (for instance, one big bodypart like your back and one smaller bodypart like your biceps). Get in and out of the gym fairly quickly, do only a handful of sets but lift heavy and intense.

Separate cardio and weights by at least 6-8 hours, or better yet do cardio on a different day than you do your weights. Start off with minimal cardio sessions per week (1-2), and adjust it as the weeks go by.

Structure your diet so that the majority of the day's carbs fall in around the workout times and perhaps at breakfast (high carb breakfast [oats], high carb preworkout [fruit], high carb post workout[dextrose/maltodextrin or oats - you should experiment here], high carb post-post workout [approx. 1 hour after post-workout, oats/rice is good here], lower the rest of the day - your days off from the gym will have lower carb intake). Keep fat intake up especially on non-training days, but have most of those fats be "good" fats (nuts, natural peanut butter, oils, flax, fish oil, etc.). Eat protein in every meal. Eat oats. Eat beef. Eat chicken. Eat tuna. Eat eggs/egg whites. Eat turkey bacon. Eat a lot of vegetables. Drink water. Drink more water. Drink sugar-free Kool Aid when you're sick of water, but drink more water anyway. Don't be afraid of coffee, but don't go crazy with it either.

Buy some shaker bottles and some Nitrean because it's sometimes hard to eat on the road.

Throw the scale away, or only weight yourself once per week or once every two weeks. Use the tape measure, mirror, how your clothes fit, and (my best advice on this) PICTURES. Have someone take your picture every Sunday evening (or whenever), or get a digital camera or camera phone with a timer. Write the date the pic was taken on the picture at the bottom, tape it to your bathroom mirror. Every week tape the next pic to the last one so you have them running across the mirror - this is great motivation - you'll see it every time you go to the bathroom, every morning and every night. Tape a pic of yourself now and a pic of your "ideal body" (magazine, whatever) on your fridge - you'll see it when you are going to get that piece of chocolate cake or that bottle of beer. Don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry. Make a list of what you are going to buy at the grocery store and stick to that list - don't buy it if it's not on that list (unless you forgot to put oats and steak on the list).

REST WELL. Recovery is important.