Ok, iv been coming here a while, iv learnt a fair bit from when i first come here, read all the stickies more times than i can remeber. But i still feel like a total novice! no matter how many times i read things it never gets drilled into my head properly! iv picked up some better habbits though no doubt, i just wish i could acctualy get things right for once.

For the last month i moved out of my family home into a flat with some mates, its been a blast but my diet totaly went to shit-i havent worked out...we have 7 takeaways close and iv abused them bigtime, iv let myself down. My weight has stayed the same but i feel bad about it, but im not whining, im here to try and do something about it.

Im 25 in 3 months time, and rather than hit 25 feeling like crap i want to hit it feeling good after a succsesfull 12 week challenge, so thats what iv set myself and started 2 days ago.

I want to get things right, i know my diet and excersize isnt perfect so any advice would be really good.

Heres my challenge-follow my diet, lift 3 times a week and do cardio on my off days, 12 weeks should hopefully see some results.

Could you guys look over my diet and point out if anything really needs to be changed? I would like to know if i can exspect too see some reasnable results on this.

Stats...
24/25 yrs old
170lbs
5.11 tall


My diet

Breakfast-porridge oats and protien shake

Meal 1-wholemeal pasta , small amount of low fat pasta sauce and a tin of tuna+ portion of broccoli

Meal 2-either beef frying stake trimmed of fat or salmon steak + large portion of mixed veggies

Meal 3-pre workout-2 peices of wholemeal bread with olive oil spread,5 egg whites, 1 whole egg scrammbled

Meal 4-post workout-protien shake,brown rice, gravy and chicken breast+broccoli

Meal 5-300g cottage cheese, handfull of nuts


I do not know the exact maccross...but the portions of pasta and rice are 70g each, chicken breast is 125g, steak is 2 peices (apparently 400 cals the packet says) each meal comes too roughly 500 cals. Now i think im at a slight calorie deficit but im hoping since i havent lifted for a while nor dieted propely i should be able to lose fat and gain muscle for a while. Im drinking 6 litres of water a day(with a small amount of sugar free juice added)

My workout

deadlifts
bentover rows
benchpress
shoulder press
uptight rows
leg curls
arm curls
crunches
dips

Each excersize is 3 x 10 appart from dips what i do at the end of the workout-one set till i cant do anymore.workout takes around 50 mins. Unfortunatly i cant do squats as im working from home and do not have a rack.

Cardio on off days is HIIT on the stationary bike , 2 mins warmup then 30 secs on/off , 1 min warm down...atm total time 8 mins! with my current level of fitness am i even ready for HIIT? i just want to do some form of cardio. I do cardio after breakfast on offdays.

Well that was a long post but i really need to know if the plan iv made is good enough i am determined to get in shape,if anyone can give there opinion it would be great, thanks for reading.

Damn no replys..

well im guessing my posts either too long, people are sick of giving advice when i cant seem to get things right or a combo of both! either way i cant blame anyone lol.

Im going to go ahead and carry on with this plan for now, its got too be better than nothing at all.

You forgot pullups & squats in your workouts & these are a must - squats are probably above all other exercises except for maybe deadlifts. It also might help to list out how you plan to do these workouts so we can get a better idea of how your split looks.


Nutritionally: Did you get your meal plan by calculating your BMR? (how to is in the stickies) That's the best way to find out if you are in fact at a caloric deficit or not. After you do that, I suggest putting your meal plan into fitday to see what the calorie breakdown ends up actually being as well as the macro breakdown. This way you can make any adjustments on paper. If you can do this, you'll be ahead of the game when you start, having to make smaller adjustments (if any) after starting your plan.

Maintenance cals for your stats for 3x weight training and 3x cardio per week according to this site : - http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

are 2915, for fat loss 2332 and extreme fat loss 1749, the first figure would lose you about 1lb a week and the second 2-3 lbs a week.


I assume you'll be seeking a general body recomp, at your stats your best bet might be to eat 500 cals below a maintenance a day. I think if you're newbieish you'll be able to burn fat and add a little muscle at the same time with this calorie level. I guess in a flat with a few other guys weekend booze and junk might be a bit inevitable, defo do your utmost to restrict yourself to one junk food meal a week and one booze night - I do both on a Saturday night, I keep Friday clean so I can get to the gym on Sat, plus getting blootered on a Friday night can fuck your whole weekend up as you wake up on a Saturday morning/afternoon gasping for water but dying for a pish at the same time and with a thumping headache....if you can keep weekends completely clean all the better but defo have no more than one junk food meal and one booze night - if drinking beer, low carb beers can be a major belly saver - Michelob Ultra comes highly recommended, it's only got about half the cals of say budweiser, they sell it in Tesco and Asda I think.

I'd defo get a door frame chinup bar if I was you - you can get one from Argos for 7 quid and you only need a screw driver to install it, you don't even need a drill, takes just a few minutes. I would do 2-3 sets of chins 3 times a week, do them before any rows or arm curls.

Meal 1 - I'd lose the pasta as you already have carbs with the porridge at breakfast - a protein and fat meal here might be better - tin of salmon (costly mind), chicken breast maybe.

For your post weights workout meal, this should be 2 scoops protein powder plus about 300 -400 mls orange juice or raspberry juice - the idea post weights is to get protein powder along with fast acting carbs i.e. sugar into the system quickly, so post weights I would lose the brown rice, gravy and chicken breast meal after a weights workout and go with the protein shale and fruit juice.

I would suggest you count cals and portions - particularly the likes of rice and pasta, which are calorie dense as strictly as possible.


Re squats, you can do squats wit dumbells. It's not as good as barbell but I think it's decent.

Hi guys, thanks for your responses:)

dose this diet look better?

Breakfast-porridge oats and protien shake

Meal 1-either beef frying stake trimmed of fat or salmon steak + large portion of mixed veggies

Meal 2-70g wholewheat pasta, small amount of low fat pasta sauce , tin of tuna and large portion broccoli

Meal 3-pre workout-2 peices of wholemeal bread with olive oil spread,5 egg whites, 1 whole egg scrammbled

Meal 4-post workout-large protien shake (2 scoops), 400/500ml orange juice

Meal 5-300g cottage cheese, handfull of nuts

if i can do away with that pasta meal at meal 2 id love too! but i dont really know what to replace it with.

its funny you mention chinup bars, i was looking at those on ebay last night and saw this one. its not the cheapest but i like the fact door hight is less of an issue. what do you think?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Powerbar-Professional-chin-pull-up-bar-chinning_W0QQitemZ140218849902QQihZ004QQcategoryZ2 8065QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

the only problem is i can only do about 3 pull ups right now:( would it be ok to just do more sets until i can do more reps and less sets?

dumbell squats i have also been looking into, it seems like a good solution for my problem..but when i try and perform them i notice my heels come of the floor as i go lower to the ground, im not very flexable at all. is this much of a problem? my legs seem to still get a good workout.

il certainly look into this fitday site, sounds pretty helpfull!, iv invested in some digital kitchen scales too weigh out my rice /pasta and oatmeal so the portion size should be spot on.

thanks for the help:)

You forgot pullups & squats in your workouts & these are a must - squats are probably above all other exercises except for maybe deadlifts. It also might help to list out how you plan to do these workouts so we can get a better idea of how your split looks.


Nutritionally: Did you get your meal plan by calculating your BMR? (how to is in the stickies) That's the best way to find out if you are in fact at a caloric deficit or not. After you do that, I suggest putting your meal plan into fitday to see what the calorie breakdown ends up actually being as well as the macro breakdown. This way you can make any adjustments on paper. If you can do this, you'll be ahead of the game when you start, having to make smaller adjustments (if any) after starting your plan.

I had acctualy planned to do all those excersizes 3x a week:confused: is that too much? could they be split into A workout and B workout for better results?

i did calculate my BMR a while ago, but i was the same weight so im guessing its still the same, 2500 should hopefully lose me about 1lb a week if all goes to plan.

if you are saying 3x each a week, yes, that's way too much. I would break those exercises down into a 3-day or 4-day split that run the length of a week. 3-day is a good place to start because it gives you some leeway schedule-wise until you find your groove. Adding pullups & squats to your list of exercises, you could do something like this:

Monday:
Benchpress
Bent over rows
Curls
Dips

Weds:
Squats
Deadlifts
Leg curls

Friday:
Shoulder Press
Upright rows
Pullups
Abs

This sort of program works antagonistic muscle groups that are in the same plane of motion - pullups/dips, bench press/rows, etc. This is how I would go about doing these exercises if this is what you are limited to. I also recommend checking out the basic workout plans given in the stickies.

Alternatively, you could look into a full body routine like TBBT from Chad Waterbury (http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=508031).

Thanks rise, thats most helpfull!

today is a workout day, so i will follow your workout A , for workout B il try dumbell squats , and by the time workout c comes around i should easily be able to get a chin up bar. when funds permit il join a gym.

Do you think its much of a problem with my heals liffting of the floor when i squat? also for chinups until i can do bigger sets would it be ok to do more sets?

my friend lent me a book, "the complete guide to strength training-by anita bean" dose anyone have any exsperiance with this book? im almost dubiouse about reading a book when theres all the info i could ever need here, plus the opinions of many not just one person:confused:

thanks:)