Hello everyone,

This is my first time posting here, but ive read over lots of your articles for the past few weeks, and find this forum to be a great, friendly community!

Im a 6ft 2", 19 year old male from the UK. Ive been at Uni for a few months, and due to the demands of the course I havent so far made time for much exercise. This is something im definately going to improve upon. My diet is also undergoing a purging, and im eliminating all my snacks etc - otherwise I eat quite healthily. Since ive got out of shape in the past few months ive accumulated a bit of a belly (nothing too much, just a larger bump than previously) and my chest is very flabby.

Prior to going away to Uni I was an avid cyclist, so my legs are still in fine shape, but my upper body has always suffered - meaning that Ive never done much lifting. However, since Ive got a holiday booked in July to Greece with a group of friends, it recently occured to me that id better get my body into some sort shape.

Basically, ive got loads of free time for the next month because im on Easter break. When i get back to Uni im going to be hitting the gym at least 4 times a week and mainly doing weights. The problem im having is that I really dont know where to start for this Easter break. Should I get back into cycling (I never saw much change to my weight even when I was doing a few hundred miles a week), or should I buy some DB's and settle into a routine? Or should I try some other CV exercising?

From what ive learned, building muscles is a great way to provoke weight-loss, so should I concentrate on this at the expense of CV, or will CV only hold my muscle building back?

Also, one final concern was my diet. Im currently living at home, so to avoid massive disruption ill be eating my main evening meal with the family (usually a smallish portion of meat (chicken/turkey, with veg and some carbs in the form of potatoes or rice). For breakfast ive been sticking with Weatabix and semi skimmed milk, and my lunch varies tremendously, but is generally a sandwich with veg, or something like beans on toast.

As previously mentioned im attempting to take all the snacking out of my diet (which I suspect is where most of my excess weight is from), but do I need to make any more drastic changes?

Any help would be greatly appreciated - im looking for the biggest effect in the 4 months before my holiday.

Cheers
Brunlea

A few general points.

First, as you noted, just doing cardio (cycling) is NOT going to give you the body you want. However, you should not give that up. The universally accepted advice is that you should do some of both -- weight training and cardio. The weight training will build up the muscle mass that will make you look better and will burn up a few more calories just by its nature. The cardio will help you get your body fat to a level where those muscles are visible and not covered up by a layer of fat.

As to your eatting habits, read the stickies in this forum. If by giving up snacks you mean giving up between-meal eatting, DON'T DO IT. Again, the universal advice is to eat 3 meals and 2 or 3 snacks each day. If you can eat a meal or a snack such that you never go 4 hrs or more without eatting, that would be great. Also, when you read the diet/nutrition stickies, you'll see that you need to focus on macronutrient content at each meal. Thus, your breakfast of Wheatabix and milk is not ideal as there is not enough protein there. You'll also learn from those stickies how to make good choices among sources of each macronutrient, so that you'll start eatting high quality carbs, proteins and fats.

Best of luck!

Thus, your breakfast of Wheatabix and milk is not ideal as there is not enough protein there. You'll also learn from those stickies how to make good choices among sources of each macronutrient, so that you'll start eatting high quality carbs, proteins and fats.

Best of luck!I agree. Your body can only 'hold on' to protein for a few hours, so each one of your 6 meals or snacks should have some good protein in (meat, fish, dairy, protein shake) as well as some slow digesting carbs.

This is especially true after you've spent 8 hours asleep without eating.

I'd suggest reading the stickies, designing a plan and posting it on here for people to help you tweak it. Remember to make sure it's something you can stick with, something that will fit into your life.