Quote:
Originally Posted by MegaPartnerJerry
I started working out April 10, 2006 trying to get myself ready for the summer! Today is June 7 and I've been working my ass off but have only lost 4 pounds!!!:Oh crap WHAT THE fuck can I do to lose more pounds? Any ideas, I need your help!
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ok... this subject comes up and the responses often make me want to cry. so lets discuss the basics and ignore all the "just do this... just do that" crap.
first and foremost, you have to understand that you need to make a major lifestyle change. you have to be ready for that. you have to want it. second, you have to have a good reason... to live longer, to be healthy for your family or just to see your dick again, to finally bag a hot chick... whatever it is, you need a strong reason that will keep you on track, keep you focused and push you forward when you start to slip.
at the end of the day, its fairly simple science... but often difficult for people to apply.
find your body fat % - the % of body fat you are carrying vs your lean body mass.
find your BMR - how many calories your body needs at rest (without any physical activity)
now you know how much fat you have on your body. you should have a rough idea of how much fat you want to lose.
1 pound of fat = 3500 calories
if you want to lose 10 pounds, you need to burn 35,000 more calories than you consume. at this point you know how many calories a day you need... and how many you need to burn to achieve your goal.
set a goal based on where you want to be. this gives you a realistic timeline, benchmarks etc... and helps you to understand what type of progress you should expect and helps you to know if something is working or not working or to know when what you are doing stops working and you have hit a plateu. it also gives you some info as does the info below to help you to make adjustments in your routine and diet if needed.
plan your meals... so that you are getting the appropriate amount of calories and in the right proportions of macronutrients... minus 500 calories or so per day. use a baseline of 40% of your daily calories from Carbs (low glycemic carbs only), 40% from Protein, 20% from fats (also learn what types of fats you need and should be eating... this is critical!)
so... say you need 2500 per day to just live. you have planned your eating out so that you are getting 2000 cals per day from the right foods giving you a deficit of 500 cals per day.... 500 calories per day x 7 = 3500 or 1 pound of fat loss per week.
a total daily deficit of 500 cals is recommended as being "safe" and also recommended because the slower weight loss gives you a higher chance of helping reprogram your metabolism through this process. losing weight fast will cause your body to fight back. you have to be ready to make a lifestyle change... your diet has to change forever. so, say you were always eating say...3000 cals at 250 pounds. you got down to 180 which requires say 2000 a day to maintain... but typically people continue eating more and in addition to eating more, people who lose too much weight too fast tend to lose a significant amount of muscle which also slows your metabolism down (1 pound of muscle requires on average 50 calories a day). less muscle means your metabolism slows down... which means you have to eat accordingly or regaining the weight is not only easy because your body is a little pissed that you fucked away its precious fat stores... but because you slowed your own metabolism down through muscle loss and require fewer and fewer calories per day to maintain (again - means you always have to know your lean muscle mass and BMR)
add exercise to speed things up if you want. (cardio before breakfast works best) burn another 500 per day. that gives you 2 pounds per week weight loss.
track everything you are doing, write it down, keep notes and be ready to make adjustments. sometimes you need more fat, sometimes less carbs etc. subtle changes can make a big difference and there is a lot of individuality here.
once you have lost weight... remember that you have to continue to change your eating habits or you will gain it back quickly.
or... you can do all the crap everyone else says which makes little to no sense and is only appealing because its easy... struggle, get frustrated and fail.
also you can eat well, do cardio and take ephedra/caffeine/aspirin... or clenbuterol/T3 or go as far as taking DNP which can help you lose about 10 pounds a week... but will probably kill you. but remember that no pill will counter a shitty diet. DNP will but its also an industrial dye not made for human consumption and is shipped as a hazardous material.
remember that no matter what you are doing, you have to be aware of your body composition (how much fat you have, how much lean body weight you have (the rest without fat). "weight loss" and "weight gain" are not the same as "fat loss" and "fat gain". any increased physical activity can lead to a small burst of muscle gain (depending on diet, what you are doing etc) and the scale might show no change when significant fat loss has in fact occured. Cutting all carbs from your diet also causes severe dehydration - a point that few seem to understand while jumping up and down with thier rapid Atkins style success. your body stores water in the subcutaneous layers of skin and in your muscle tissue. it stores water in your muscles ONLY in conjunction with sugar (glucose). the ratio is 1 gram of glucose to 3 grams of water. when you deplete your sugar stores... you piss out the stored water as well... water is heavy, significant and dramatic weight loss occurs quickly... you might lose 10 pounds in 10 days of water weight. eat sugar/carbs, your body can now store water again, significant weight gain occurs quickly, all with no net loss or gain in fat.
its not easy for most people. there is no "one size fits all" answer for most people. we are all individuals and individuality plays a large role (be it our genetics, metabolism or how much physical activity we all actually do in a day).
there are no easy answers. either you want to change and do the work... or you don't :) "Diets" to lose weight are fine. the problem is losing the weight without making the significant lifestyle changes afterwards that caused you to gain the weight to begin with... and people tend to regain the weight.
</end lecture on the fundamentals of weight loss>