Hello everyone, my name is Lee and this is my 1st post. I will give you a little background before I tell you what I am lacking.

9 weeks ago I hit an all-time low in my life, I was 36 yrs old and was 5'8" and 254lbs. I started out doing nothing but first thing in the morning fasted cardio for the first 4 weeks into my program. Then I incorporated weight training into my workout schedule, and have been lifting Mon, Wed and Fri, and doing HIIT cardio on my off days. As of this morning I now weigh 218.8lbs My diet is solid I feel, I use caloriecount.about.com to track my calories, proteins, carbs and fats, and it gives you a nutritional grade for your daily intake, and each Item that you consume. I've averaged an A- for 8 weeks. As you can tell, I have no problems losing the weight, and am very excited at what I see. My program is setup for 40% Protein, 40% Carbs and 20% fats. Non lifting days I reduce carbs by 10% and add it to my Protein intake. Things have worked well.

My problem now is, I work out at 6am for an hour, I have begun to lift heavier weights, and it's causing me to feel fatigued the next morning to the point that I've skipped a few Cardio workouts to sleep more. I don't miss any lifting days, but cardio seems a little easier to blow off lately. Anyone out there have any motivational speeches or insight for me to bring back "the Love for cardio"?

Hello everyone, my name is Lee and this is my 1st post. I will give you a little background before I tell you what I am lacking.

9 weeks ago I hit an all-time low in my life, I was 36 yrs old and was 5'8" and 254lbs. I started out doing nothing but first thing in the morning fasted cardio for the first 4 weeks into my program. Then I incorporated weight training into my workout schedule, and have been lifting Mon, Wed and Fri, and doing HIIT cardio on my off days. As of this morning I now weigh 218.8lbs My diet is solid I feel, I use caloriecount.about.com to track my calories, proteins, carbs and fats, and it gives you a nutritional grade for your daily intake, and each Item that you consume. I've averaged an A- for 8 weeks. As you can tell, I have no problems losing the weight, and am very excited at what I see. My program is setup for 40% Protein, 40% Carbs and 20% fats. Non lifting days I reduce carbs by 10% and add it to my Protein intake. Things have worked well.

My problem now is, I work out at 6am for an hour, I have begun to lift heavier weights, and it's causing me to feel fatigued the next morning to the point that I've skipped a few Cardio workouts to sleep more. I don't miss any lifting days, but cardio seems a little easier to blow off lately. Anyone out there have any motivational speeches or insight for me to bring back "the Love for cardio"?

Don't worry about the cardio. My motto is "less is best". If you are lifting progressively heavier, I'd take the extra sleep over cardio any day of the week. Focus on the diet. Get away with the least amount of cardio. You can always seed in small increments (if needed) later on, or if a small plateau has surfaced with fat loss. For weight training you can add in barbell complexes, add in super sets/tri-sets, or simply cut your rest times down between sets.

Welcome to JSF and good luck. :)

Thanks for the insight, Just had a hard time giving up the cardio because it's been good to me the first 4 weeks of my transformation, but I will do what you say and see where it gets me. I have no time table to get to 175, but I want to get there the right way.

Firstly - wow - that is some serious progress!!

I'd take Mastover's advice over mine anyday but I can appreciate your belief in the cardio and also your struggle to continue it when feeling the pain/tiredness from the weights....

If you have a look at my journal for the last month you'll see I missed a few of my 6.00am bootcamps as I wasn't sleeping all that well....but I had set myself a goal for my mile time to achieve in the final bootcamp of the month and my competitive spirit forced me to introduce evening sprint based HIIT sessions to make up for it - the reward of crossing the line and hearing my time was awesome - so my point....maybe find some competition....I admire your commitment to your diet - clearly you are driven by getting those scales downshifting - perhaps you can keep up your cardio motivation by giving yourself a challenge - find some steps that you have to get up and down 5 times, then 6 next time out etc with a target of say 20 in a month for HIIT, or a distance that is currently a 20 minutes run from your house and get there and back in 30 minutes for Low intensity.

Or...just keep at it...you are doing amazingly well and clearly doing everything right...everything I read says it's 80% diet and whilst I train like a maniac my scales only trickle down compared to you and I know that is because I don't have the same control on my food. :bow:

Hello everyone, my name is Lee and this is my 1st post. I will give you a little background before I tell you what I am lacking.

9 weeks ago I hit an all-time low in my life, I was 36 yrs old and was 5'8" and 254lbs. I started out doing nothing but first thing in the morning fasted cardio for the first 4 weeks into my program. Then I incorporated weight training into my workout schedule, and have been lifting Mon, Wed and Fri, and doing HIIT cardio on my off days. As of this morning I now weigh 218.8lbs My diet is solid I feel, I use caloriecount.about.com to track my calories, proteins, carbs and fats, and it gives you a nutritional grade for your daily intake, and each Item that you consume. I've averaged an A- for 8 weeks. As you can tell, I have no problems losing the weight, and am very excited at what I see. My program is setup for 40% Protein, 40% Carbs and 20% fats. Non lifting days I reduce carbs by 10% and add it to my Protein intake. Things have worked well.

My problem now is, I work out at 6am for an hour, I have begun to lift heavier weights, and it's causing me to feel fatigued the next morning to the point that I've skipped a few Cardio workouts to sleep more. I don't miss any lifting days, but cardio seems a little easier to blow off lately. Anyone out there have any motivational speeches or insight for me to bring back "the Love for cardio"?If you have lost 40 lbs in 9 weeks you are doing something right. Just keep up the good work -- you must see results already and if you maintain it you will meet your goals.

Firstly - wow - that is some serious progress!!

I'd take Mastover's advice over mine anyday but I can appreciate your belief in the cardio and also your struggle to continue it when feeling the pain/tiredness from the weights....

If you have a look at my journal for the last month you'll see I missed a few of my 6.00am bootcamps as I wasn't sleeping all that well....but I had set myself a goal for my mile time to achieve in the final bootcamp of the month and my competitive spirit forced me to introduce evening sprint based HIIT sessions to make up for it - the reward of crossing the line and hearing my time was awesome - so my point....maybe find some competition....I admire your commitment to your diet - clearly you are driven by getting those scales downshifting - perhaps you can keep up your cardio motivation by giving yourself a challenge - find some steps that you have to get up and down 5 times, then 6 next time out etc with a target of say 20 in a month for HIIT, or a distance that is currently a 20 minutes run from your house and get there and back in 30 minutes for Low intensity.

Or...just keep at it...you are doing amazingly well and clearly doing everything right...everything I read says it's 80% diet and whilst I train like a maniac my scales only trickle down compared to you and I know that is because I don't have the same control on my food. :bow:

Will13,
Thanks for the compliments, It has been the fastest 9 weeks of my life. Seems like yesterday I got on the elliptical trainer for the first time in 10 years and 30 seconds into it I distinctly remember saying to myself..."This Sucks! why didn't you just stay with it 10yrs ago and you wouldn't be going through this now"? Well I forced my way through the remaining 29:30 and said I'll never ever, ever let myself get like this again. Thanks for the support, and I may try to drop my cardio to Saturday and Sundays only since I dont lift either of those days. Cardiovascular health is something that is important to me as well.

Don't worry about the cardio. My motto is "less is best". If you are lifting progressively heavier, I'd take the extra sleep over cardio any day of the week. Focus on the diet.

I agree with this 100%, not that it's likely anyone would disagree with Mastover.

I was cutting over the summer, with limited success, then started a 4 month bulk from September; upping my calories and cutting out the cardio - true to my luck, I started burning through my fat with twice the speed I managed on a cut, anyway, point being that I've lost more fat since I gave up the cardio and lifted with more intensity and also seem to have my diet more on track.

40lbs in 9 weeks though :tucool:

Hello everyone, my name is Lee and this is my 1st post. I will give you a little background before I tell you what I am lacking.

9 weeks ago I hit an all-time low in my life, I was 36 yrs old and was 5'8" and 254lbs. I started out doing nothing but first thing in the morning fasted cardio for the first 4 weeks into my program. Then I incorporated weight training into my workout schedule, and have been lifting Mon, Wed and Fri, and doing HIIT cardio on my off days. As of this morning I now weigh 218.8lbs My diet is solid I feel, I use caloriecount.about.com to track my calories, proteins, carbs and fats, and it gives you a nutritional grade for your daily intake, and each Item that you consume. I've averaged an A- for 8 weeks. As you can tell, I have no problems losing the weight, and am very excited at what I see. My program is setup for 40% Protein, 40% Carbs and 20% fats. Non lifting days I reduce carbs by 10% and add it to my Protein intake. Things have worked well.

My problem now is, I work out at 6am for an hour, I have begun to lift heavier weights, and it's causing me to feel fatigued the next morning to the point that I've skipped a few Cardio workouts to sleep more. I don't miss any lifting days, but cardio seems a little easier to blow off lately. Anyone out there have any motivational speeches or insight for me to bring back "the Love for cardio"?

First of all, Welcome and congrats on your success this far!:claplow:


How many calories are you consuming? The reason I ask is based on my own experiance. you see, my inital fatloss actually ended up being an inital mass loss. I wasnt eating enough to support the activity (am fasted cardio) I was doing and ended up loosing alot of muscle I once had. I got too focused on moving the scale down instead of my fat % down. With cardio only, IMO, you can do more harm than good if your not eating enough calories.

Usefull information, thanks. Ill keep this in mid to "Less is best" :tu:

I was cutting over the summer, with limited success, then started a 4 month bulk from September; upping my calories and cutting out the cardio - true to my luck, I started burning through my fat with twice the speed I managed on a cut, anyway, point being that I've lost more fat since I gave up the cardio and lifted with more intensity and also seem to have my diet more on track.

+1 I've been experiencing similar results.

First of all, Welcome and congrats on your success this far!:claplow:


How many calories are you consuming? The reason I ask is based on my own experiance. you see, my inital fatloss actually ended up being an inital mass loss. I wasnt eating enough to support the activity (am fasted cardio) I was doing and ended up loosing alot of muscle I once had. I got too focused on moving the scale down instead of my fat % down. With cardio only, IMO, you can do more harm than good if your not eating enough calories.

Thank you for the welcome! On workout days I try to consume, 2500-2700 calories, non workout days I limit myself to 2200. But I always, always, always consume 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight to protect against muscle loss. I attribute the bulk of my current weight loss to the fact that I lived an extremely sedentary lifestyle for 10 years and now it's totally the opposite. Also, as I am gaining strength and my lifts increase, I'd say I am not only preserving muscle but building some as well. On Cardio days whatever I burned, I replaced before starting to count my daily calories.

Thank you for the welcome! On workout days I try to consume, 2500-2700 calories, non workout days I limit myself to 2200. But I always, always, always consume 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight to protect against muscle loss. I attribute the bulk of my current weight loss to the fact that I lived an extremely sedentary lifestyle for 10 years and now it's totally the opposite. Also, as I am gaining strength and my lifts increase, I'd say I am not only preserving muscle but building some as well. On Cardio days whatever I burned, I replaced before starting to count my daily calories.

:bow::bow::bow:

Doin it right:tucool:

Keep it up!

(I was between 1300-1500 somedays 800)

Great job Irachel,

Strength gains and weight loss are a great benefits of being a new or fresh gym junkie. Ride it as long as you can.

The progress you have already made should be enough motivation to keep you going all the way to your final goal.

If you love cardio you don't have to give it up, do what makes you happy. I love my cardio and lifting.

Well it's been 2 weeks since I started this thread, and I have taken Aram's advice about the cardio and haven't done any since then. At that time I was down to 218.8. This morning I weighed in at an even 215, bringing my total weight loss to 39lbs. Just wanted to note that I have felt huge differences in my energy levels on my lifting days and as a result I have increased my Bench press to 225lbs. Not a huge number....but it's more than I weigh! lol

...as a result I have increased my Bench press to 225lbs. Not a huge number....but it's more than I weigh! lol

Congrats :claplow:

the pic in my avatar is a pic I took this morning weighing 215, haven't weighed 215 since the late 90's. Sorry, way too modest to do shirtless!:o

Sorry today I don't have much time to read, but I read in your original post that you do HIIT on your off days.
Switch to lower intensity higher duration. HIIT can really wipe you out on low cals.

(60-70% MHR) 45mins x5 / week has been working for me.

Down from 250 at 232.2
40lbs to go to get ripped!

ONCE a week or twice throw in the HIIT....but I am willing to bet that that's what is wiping you out

Well it's been 2 weeks since I started this thread, and I have taken Aram's advice about the cardio and haven't done any since then.

Sorry today I don't have much time to read, but I read in your original post that you do HIIT on your off days.
Switch to lower intensity higher duration. HIIT can really wipe you out on low cals.

(60-70% MHR) 45mins x5 / week has been working for me.

Down from 250 at 232.2
40lbs to go to get ripped!

ONCE a week or twice throw in the HIIT....but I am willing to bet that that's what is wiping you out

:whistle::whistle:

+1 I've been experiencing similar results.

Ditto