Freshman 15

[Vincent]

We all know what it is, What i want is to have a freshman -15...

Well 3 months ago i started a diet. Essentially eat less, eat healthier, do more. It worked well i'd say. I lost 20 lbs (a lot muscle ) but i also lost 3 inches around my waste and cut my face a lot.

Well in the past month, I got off the diet. I moved to school, and dorm food, although bad, is easy to eat. And really not healthy.

What I'm most interested is, is losing my gut (32 inches ) and putting on some muscle.

I would love to get a 6 pack and am willing to do whatever it takes to get it.

Some basic info about me:

I'm 5'8, waist 33" (should be 32"), Stomach 32" (could be close to 28 i think)
I try to work out 4 days a week, a-Although it ends up more like 3 days.
I usually work back and bi mon, thurs. Chest shoulder tri tues fri. This is high weight, low rep workouts, trying to build muscle. I take wed and the weekends off.


Like I said, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get a 6 pack, or close to it. Eat salad for 6 months strait, i can do that. Do 100 sit ups a day for 6 months, I'll do that. But first I want to know if its the right thing to do.

Give me your advice.

-How many situps/crunches/other things should i do, how often?
-Should i run? How far? How often?
-What foods should I avoid, what should i focus on?
-Anything else you can recomend.

Yes i've already read diesels great post, but it leaves things out. Plus being a freshman, i don't have the luxory of cooking my own food.

Thanks guys!

 

[Ixnys]

The BEST thing for you to do is go out and by "The Sports Nutrition Guidebook" by Nancy Clark. It talks all about nutrition and educates you on how to eat right and achieve your goals. She is an MD as well as a registered dietician. Everything you need to learn about how to eat right is in that book. You'll find out how overated protein is in the weightlifting world. PROTEIN DOESN'T BECOME MUSCLE! It just helps rebuild and repair muscle. Carbohydrates become muscle. GET THAT BOOK! It will change your eating habits forever.

If you want to loose weight, you need to burn more calories than you take in. I don't know your weight, but I'd take your weight and multiply it by 12. That's a rough estimate of how many calories you burn a day.

So let's say you're 160lbs. 160x12=1920. So you burn 1920 calories a day. If you eat more than 1920 calories it will either go to fat or, if you're working out, those extra (about 200 calories) can go towards muscle.

If you want to loose weight, you have to consume less than 1920 calories a day. That doesn't mean starving yourself. It just means maybe you should eat 1500-1800 calories a day instead.

Cardio can help you lose weight in the fact that let's say you ate 2000 calories on a certain day, you could jog for 30 minutes and lose 300 calories bringing your caloric intake for the day back down to 1700.

Of course you should continue working out. Just having more muscle burns off calories. You'll have to work your abs, but if you want to see them, it has more to do with your bodyfat being low.

P.S. A site like fitday.com can be REALLY helpful in monitoring your caloric intake for the day and charting your progress.

 

[DJBen]

Right. You've said you'll do whatever it takes, so heres my suggestion.

First you're going to want to eat a little bit more protein from lean sources such as tuna, chicken, eggs and so on. This is known to help retain muscle.

As far as the diet goes, burn more than you use. Thats a personal thing. Work it out for yourself, but I should imagine 2350kcals + being really active would be enough to start burning a small amount of fat each day.

Doing 837948279 sit ups wont do jack except build endurance in your abs. No my friend, you need to get rid of the water retention that you probably have - that most people have, and just lose some fat. That really is all there is to a 6 pack, although you might only have a 4/5... it's all about genetics. Get rid of water retention by drinking green tea and water. Water should be your main drink.

Carb sources should be good complex carbs. Avoid simple carbs unless it's breakfast [but dont go overboard here], pre workout, and post workout. Complex carbs are wheat bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, yams, and such like.


Now for training.

Do weights as you normally would. But I notice that you're still missing something out. Legs. This is a fairly standard split that you might want to start on for a while:

Day1: Back+bi
Day2:Chest+delt+tri
Day3:Legs+calfs

Insert traps and forearms where you feel you want to. Personally I really dont think it should be done on back day though - I do my traps on leg day. This split isnt too hard to stick to. I assume you know the big compound lifts you should stick to - and if not - you should just read other posts

Cardio: Do HIIT style running. Wind sprints. The easiest way to learn about HIIT is to google it imo. Theres a whole library of information on the internet, but not my head - it's busy with coursework


Overview:

Plenty of water
REALLY healthy diet
HIIT for cardio
Heavy 3 day split for weights
Find the time to cook all your food. Sandwhiches are really worth while, I pretty much live on the damn things. Use milk for extra protein and calcium, and make sure you eat all your fruit and veg.

"You'll find out how overated protein is in the weightlifting world. PROTEIN DOESN'T BECOME MUSCLE! It just helps rebuild and repair muscle. Carbohydrates become muscle. GET THAT BOOK! It will change your eating habits forever."

Thank god someone appreciates high carb bulking. I keep reading about everyone going on 40/40/20 splits etc for bulking, it's insane. Protein is not overrated though - just abused. 280g+ of protein, imo, is completely worthless. Anything just below that is optimum for your average lifter [note: not n00b lifter]

While you're getting that six pack, read up about bulking up. If theres any confusion, ask questions nearer to your bulking phase,

Goodluck with it.

 

[semag]

Dining commons (dorm) foods for cutting:

cottage cheese
tuna
1 glass of fat free milk per day
lotsa water
Green tea
chicken breast (take the skin off)
broccoli
caulliflower
spinach
some fruits or yogurt (not too much)
Whole wheat breads, pasta, oatmeal... complex carbs. But keep the carbs to breakfast, pre and post workout.

Do HIIT.

Get your lean body weight, multiply by 11, and cut down to that amount of calories after a few weeks, but I wouldn't say to go below 1500 or 1600 calories

KEEP A DIARY OF FOOD YOU EAT, AND WRITE DOWN THE CALORIES

you have no idea how much that helps.

 

[SmoothTalker]

Hey does that high calorie day thing really boost metabolism?

 

[The Bartender]

Go to bodybuilding.com and read up there if the STICKIES arent enough for you here. Losing weight is all about what you eat vs. what you burn. I could eat 6 bigmacs a day and still lose weight if I did enough cardio (extreme case, but I could make it happen)

 

[The Bartender]

I never recommended it. I said it can be done. Is it smart, easy, reasonable? No!.

It does boil down to calories in vs calories out in the end.

 

[The Bartender]

you're only referring to metabolism. 2000 calories is always 2000 calories to the same person. An inch is an inch no matter how tall you are....a pound is a pound...get it? I know some ppl have a slower metabolism which factors into how much they need to burn vs eat. Find that number for you and work from there.

 

[NRM]

2000 fat calories vs 2000 carbs/protein/fat calories are NOT the same and they do NOT burn the same way.

Carbs become muscle, protein rebuilds muscle, fats are empty calories that need to be burned. If you eat tons of Big Macs or lard and just do cardio, your body will become extremely catabolic and end up burning muscle leaving you with loads of fat.

 

[dockta]

Originally posted by NRM
2000 fat calories vs 2000 carbs/protein/fat calories are NOT the same and they do NOT burn the same way.

Carbs become muscle, protein rebuilds muscle, fats are empty calories that need to be burned. If you eat tons of Big Macs or lard and just do cardio, your body will become extremely catabolic and end up burning muscle leaving you with loads of fat.

Good Post NRM.