I just have such a lack of definition in my upper body.

I should probably point out that i have lifted before, and so i definitely wouldn't consider myself a beginner, however it was very sports specific so this type of lifting is a little different.

I should probably point out that i have lifted before, and so i definitely wouldn't consider myself a beginner, however it was very sports specific so this type of lifting is a little different.

The diet seems pretty good. For weight loss they want me to eat 2755 calories, and to add weight i need to eat 3855. Which way should i be going? I definitely need to lose some fat, but i don't want to do it at the detriment of actually adding the size I'm after also.

Is it stupid to go on an intense weights program, and doing some cardio, while eating with a calorie deficit to lose fat? Is that a waste of time?.

The plan I'm on right now suggests doing 3 sets of 6-10 reps. The workout is 4 days a week with around 13 exercises each session. I won't go into each move they suggest, but from most people's opinions it seems to be pretty good. They also have it broken down, so that if you want to personalize it, you can. For example for me, i might not do any leg sessions, but add an extra upper body session per week.

If you're at 21 - 25% BF, bulking is a terrible, terrible idea.

I'd recommend a serious fat loss diet if you want to get "ripped" and then once you get sub-15% BF to then start thinking about bulking.

Some options:

* Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss program
* Some kind of every other day refeed program where you have an overall weekly caloric deficit, but eat above maintenance and work out heavy (but with low volume) twice a week; and throw a depletion workout and some cardio in there.

KY

That's because it's covered by a layer of fat. Bulking will worsen this.

Cut the fat my friend.

1. Go 5 weeks on a resistance training / fat loss diet
2. week break
3. Repeat 1.
4. Week to prepare for trip.
5. Enjoy trip.

KY

These are interesting, sounds like a former speed skater, and unless that's true (or something very similar) I wouldn't neglect lower body training for upper body training. Heck, even if it is true, I wouldn't.

From a pure effort point of view the "lower body" compound exercises (squats, deadlifts) engage far more of your entire body, and are far more effective for changing your body. Over all these compound movements are what will bring you the best results (long or short term).

Who are "they" and how did you come up with that number? What is your current activity level? If only moderately active, these seem a bit high for 210 lbs, with 21-25% BF.

Also remember, a general rule, long cardio sessions are muscle "eating", so be cautious of those as a primary focus if you want to add significant muscle.

Most effective method to long term fat loss is a gain in LBM, and therefore base metabolic rate. So a well thought out balance of eating and training (and cardio as an option) is essential. Mixing super high volume/intensity with low caloric intake will set you backwards.

To get the most effective advice, you might want to post the exercises as well. 13 seems like a lot each session, depend on tempo and rest, could take forever to complete.

Anyway, you begin to see how the eating and training parts are all linked.

I think this seems to be the general consensus so I'm thinking i might try and get to 15% BF before i do anything else.

I'm assuming losing this amount of BF will take the entire 13 weeks at the very least to do, so I'm guessing i should just really focus on that. Is there a goal i should be setting for myself. Is getting from around 21-23% to 14% realistic in that time frame? This is the first time i've had a set BF % that i'm aiming for, rather than a specific weight.

Will this add size to my lower body? Or should i just stop worrying about that, and do the squats etc.? I'm happy to do them, i just want to get the right stuff for my body.

So i should avoid the cardio and just do the weights and get my diet spot on? I don't mind doing cardio, in fact i enjoy it. I also have a lot of time to focus on this so that's not the issue. As i said before i have around 4-5 hours a day i can be spending on this, so i want to get the most out of my time.

As far as the diet, i was recommended for losing fat to eat 2755 calories, with 172g of protein, 61g fat, and 379g carbs.

So any help would be fantastic! I think from the general view from people that i should definitely aim to get to 15% BF before i start to try and bulk up, but is the programs here going to help me do that the fastest way?

Thanks again!

As far as the diet, i was recommended for losing fat to eat 2755 calories, with 172g of protein, 61g fat, and 379g carbs.

Here's a more thorough breakdown:

Breakfast -

1 cup fat free yogurt
1 ounce low fat granola
1 teaspoon flaxseed oil
1 ounce toasted plain wheat germ

Lunch -

1 cup lettuce
1 tomato
1 medium carrot
2 tablespoons light caesar dressing
3 ounces ham
1 medium pair

Dinner -

3 ounces of chicken breast
1/2 cup of mixed frozen vegetables
1 baked potato
1 teaspoon butter
1/2 cup of strawberries

Morning snack -

3/4 cup instant oatmeal
1 cup fat free milk
1 ounce toasted plain wheat germ
3 ounces unsweetened blueberries

Afternoon snack -

2 teaspoons reduced fat peanut butter
2 celery stalks
8 ounces fat free yogurt
1/2 ounce toasted plain wheat germ
1 ounce raisins

Intermediate: Cardio Warm up, and then a warm up set on each exercise, and then aim for 3 sets of 6-10 reps which includes the warm up set. During the concentric phase is to a count of four.

Day 1: Arms and Shoulders

1. overhead press
2. upright row
3. side deltoid raise
4. Dumpbell kick back
5. preacher curl
6. forearm curl
7. reverse forearm

Day 2: Rest

Day 3: Butt, Thighs and Legs

1. Hack Squat
2. Leg curl with ankle weights
3. Leg extension with ankle weights
4. Heel raise with dumbbells
5. Ankle flexion with weight
6. Stationary lunge with dumbbells
7. Lateral lunge with barbell

Day 4: Rest

Day 5: Chest, abs, and back

1. Incline Bench
2. Dumbbell fly
3. One arm Dumbbell
4. T-Bar row
5. Dumbbell trunk twist
6. Oblique trunk rotation with weight plate
7. Dumbbell side bend

Day 6&7: Rest

Phoenix, you can literally find everything you need right on this site.

Cowpimp, Gazhole, Pfunk, Built (to seriously only name a few) all have programs built from the ground up. They cover diet, resistance training, HIIT, EVERYTHING you need.

Fitday is the best thing you can do for diet. It will help you track what you are eating with a much higher level of precision and planning than a regular journal (at least until you learn your foods).

As far as your question about HIIT, personally I do it twice a week, with 2-3 days in between. This is about all I can stand. Maybe I am overdoing it, but when I go through a HIIT routine, I am spent, and I feel beat up for at least a day after, but I will tell you honestly, that the fat is still flying off.

Diet + HIIT = lean.

.... but I'm sure after i read through as much as i can i 'll get a good idea of what's best for me.

As i said in the previous post, i'll aim to get the diet right, then start the HIIT, and then hit the resistance work.

3. Do HIIT cardio instead of longer cardio (Not sure how many times a week is good here for fat loss!)

Is that about right?

Also on your goals you state that you want a 32 inch waist, and 37 inch hips. I may be reading your post incorrectly, but assuming you are a man, that would be odd.

I actually would avoid HIIT if you have muscle mass and want to preserve it. If you diet hard, cut cals severly, and workout heavy a couple times a week AND do HIIT you are going to eat away muscle. Steady state cardio would be fine. And to be honest, if you set up your diet and deficit correctly, that will do most of the fat burning work, not cardio...especially at your BF level.

Lots of people have differing opinions on HIIT though. My two cents.

KY

Maybe I am reading into it wrong, but wouldn't a 32 inch waist and 37 inch hips be a strange ratio on a man? Maybe not, just seems like thats a lot of hip.

Ah gotcha, sorry, nothing personal, I guess it just sounded strange to me! I wasnt thinking about butt involvement, I was thinking about the measurement straight around the hip bones No offense to those blessed with butt!

No problem JMorrison.
Phoenix, you've gotten some pretty solid advice already. I would just add that I agree you should cut if your trying to look good for your trip. You won't add size , but you'll be suprised how much bigger you LOOK when you get ripped. It may actually solve your whole proportion problem. If not, then you can always start bulking.

As far as the cardio issue, Built has a article on her blog called "how to do cardio if you must" that is good. I've also seen a couple other articles that teach the same basic principles. Basically the best way to do cardio (according to the experts above), is to include a combination of both HIIT and LISS. It makes sense to me. Simply do HIIT for 5-10 min. followed by LISS for 15-30 min. after. Do this 2-4 times per week and preferably avoid doing this on the same day you work your legs. There's more to it than this but this is a basic summary.

Make sure to keep your volume low and intensity high with resistance work while you're cutting and as far as your macros go, it doesn't matter a whole lot what they are other than getting at least 1-1.5g of protein per lb of lean mass and roughly .5g of good fats per lb of lean mass. Really, aside from this any other changes to macros should all be about satieity as it will only work if you can comfortably stick to it. I cut down to the 5% range eating over 300 carbs per day but carbs don't make me hungry like they do some here. Most important thing to remember is cals. in vs. cals. out so find your maintainance and eat 500 less cals. per week for every lb you want to lose. Good luck.

The diet part is starting to get to me a little. The reason i liked the previous diet, is because it's something that i could stick to fairly easy. I'm a hopeless cook, and absolutely hate the kitchen, so a simple easy to make diet is one I'm after.
There just seems to be a lot of stuff out there, and it's awfully difficult to get it all sorted. I have the cardio i want to try, so now I'm just going to try and find the diet i can stick to, and a resistance program that suits what I'm after. After doing loads of reading lately i feel like I'm not much closer!

For the diet, I don't know how to say it any more simply than I already have. Don't over think it. Just start with the minimum macros I already stated and start tweaking things from there to fit your own satiety. You're the only one that will be able to determine what is best. Just make sure and keep to the minimum protein and fat, and eat more than maintainence to gain weight or less to cut weight. You shouldn't need to worry about anything else unless you try to get to sub 10% ranges. As far as what to eat, my staples are Boneless skinless chicken or turkey breast, eggs, whey protein, tuna, cottage cheese, oats, brown rice, whole wheat breads and tortillas, almonds, natural PB, olive oil, both starchy and fibrous veggies, (love black beans, yams and potatoes, broccolli and spinach) and fruit (not juice). Yes, there are a ton more good foods, but you wanted easy, so just get your own favs. down and then find different ways to combine or prepare them to break the monotony and it doesn't get any simpler.

I actually would avoid HIIT if you have muscle mass and want to preserve it. If you diet hard, cut cals severly, and workout heavy a couple times a week AND do HIIT you are going to eat away muscle. Steady state cardio would be fine. And to be honest, if you set up your diet and deficit correctly, that will do most of the fat burning work, not cardio...especially at your BF level.

Lots of people have differing opinions on HIIT though. My two cents.

KY

I'll definitely be doing some HIIT during this. Maybe not 3 days a week, but i'll aim for at least two and see how i go.

It's been a bit over a week since i started the diet, and I've dropped a further kilogram so I'm happy about that so far. I expect i have around 9-10kg's to go before I'm bellow 15% so still quite a ways left.

P-Funk i'm guessing by your cryptic message you believe i should have less in those workouts? Care to explain which ones? I'm thinking on days 1 and 3 may be a little much, but day 5 looks good. I did the day 5 workout on friday, but added in some side lunges and calf raises and it seemed ok. It certainly killed me, but it didn't seem overboard. I haven't been able to walk since, but that was my first leg workout in months.

For the last two weeks i have been using a program that has 2 or 3 more exercises in it and it seemed ok, so i thought this would be a reasonable one to go with.

Or are you indicating that doing 3 days resistance and 3 days cardio is too much. As i said earlier that's probably a bit of a pipe dream to be doing 3 ays of each, but i will be aiming for two and seeing how i go.

Thanks again!

Sprinters do HIIT. Long distance runners do steady state.

Is there a difference in physiques?? Your can work that out yourself.

Not a good argument at all.

Sprinters don't do HIIT either. That is a myth made up by people who know nothing about sprinting and how those athletes train.

patrick

Check out this article by Jim Wendler on his 5/3/1 system. I think he explains simplicity really well.

patrick

One thing i did notice is the HUGE amount of carbs during the carb loading phase. I'm wondering how it's possible to actually eat the amount it says. I've been doing up my diet for next week when i start and i can't really find enough carbs to eat so much. I'm using pasta, rice etc to try and get it up, but the numbers are massive.

How have other people done this?