Hi guys

Rec by Scott to come over here,

I recently decided in Feb this year that I'd lose weight, so I was overweight at the time(and nearly going to 110, even more.) Right now its been what six to seven months, and I am 90.3 kilos. The goal is to get at least to 85. Height 5ft 8.

I've been doing carido, then I went over to Stronglifts in June, and I've been doing that routine for a while, I've been reading that his workout contains to lose weight and build muscle(I've been seeing some results). I finish his 5 x 5 workouts in less than 5-10 min(I do put pressure so I can sweat), so then I proceed to do other total body workouts in less than 45 min.

Been following a lot of youtubers, Scott, Athlean, Six Pack factory, the Zeus Fitness, Millionare Hoy, etc. But Scott's videos have some excellent excerises. The expenadbales one is my fav.

Ok so that's me done, the bodyfat is now 48%, I've got my diet on track( 90% is control, and time to time I do let myself eat a Subway sandwich, but really only half, and that may be once in three months, otherwise all man made food - gone, salads, spinach, drinking protein shakes, etc). Its just a case of getting sleep and stuff.

So yeah, sorry if this went too long, but what do you guys rec for me in terms of burning weight and building muscle? That's the goal, lose weight until its around 80 to 70, get rid of that stubborn belly fat, and build muscle.

Thanks!

Keep it up man! If you haven't figured out your macros to hit, you should do that. Here's a link to an article about that.
http://muscularstrength.com/article/building-your-meal-plan-calculate-protein-carbohydrates-fat

And what helped me during my cut was intermittent fasting. Really helped me control my hunger.
http://muscularstrength.com/article/intermittent-fasting-promote-muscle-gain-and-fat-loss

great tips @ohawkey

@neilsharma, can you go to the @mealplan page and use the calculator to tell us what your daily macros are?

Also.. can you take the time to write out for us your daily workouts with the sets and reps so we can take a closer look to make the proper adjustments?

Hey Ohawkey!

Thanks for the links, I'll be sure to check them out and I'll have a look at them :)

Hi Scott

You'll be disappointed on this one, the only ones I do that is set the 5 x 5.

Otherwise I don't have a structured workout - its a combination of many exercises as possible, as I tend to go on youtube and open twenty tabs of exercises to do, and I aim to do as much as possible within 45 min.

My BMR is 1367.90 for rest.

In motion, 2599.01.

But is it advisable to drink a protein shake before eating breakfest?

My workouts are not that organized, so its a bit in the middle.

But if I had a workout it would be:

5 x 5

Push ups

Squats with weightlift

Dumbell raises or dumbell push ups

And a whole lotta more exercises.

Hope this helps!

Hey there, since you asked me to have a look at this thread i took the time to do so,

i'll go over the main problems and numbers i can find in your situation / description:

- Let's begin with the data about your body:

you're about 5,8 tall and weight 90 kilo, and 18 years old. You mention a bodyfat % of 48 percent on your profile - that can't be right.

Given the JRobin. Formula you should be somewhat around 70-80 Kilo (given no extra amount of muscles being added, since those are heavier than fat)

That does not leave room for almost 50 % of bodyfat. I don't know where you got that number but for your calcutations i'll now calc with an assumed amount

of 30% for now.

- Now let's look into the 5x5 - you say you are done in 5-10 minutes with the whole 5x5 ???

It's 3 exercises, with each 5 sets and restperiods from 1,5- 3 minutes, depending on how hard the last set was. That means even in best case scenario each exercise on its own would take lets say 1 minute for execution of 1 set plus 4 pauses of 1,5 mins = 10,5 mins just for one exercise, plus warmup sets let's say you easily need 15 mins for one.

If you can rep down 5x5 plus warmup sets, plus 3 exercises of that matter in 5-10 minutes you are probably doing something wrong. And either misunderstood the training principle or you are by far not training at your training-weight limits (which is the whole point of the 5x5), or not taking enough rest periods - which again might point towards too little weight/intensity being used.

The idea behind strentgh training is "not" to push to sweat, it's about intensity and long enough rest periods. To regain enough strenght to do the next set, which should always be at your limit, and 1,5 kilo added per barbell side, per each new training day, until you can't keep up with the weights anymore, hit the peak phase and then switch routine.

You'd be better off sweating at your cardio units, or when you do some hypertrophy sets / or a hypertrophy oriented program =)

Just to clarify it - if you say 5x5 stronglift it would be this:

The 5x5 is executed with the 4 big barbell exercises : barbell squat, barbell deadlift, barbell overhead press , and barbell row.

Pushups, dumbbell raises etc are accessory moves / additional things that do not directly belong into the main stronglift / madcow routine.

If you execute your assecory moves and exercises also in a 5x5 manner that's rather a matter of choice.

Just trying to make sure we are on the same side with the terminology as it makes it easier to help you :)

Your BMR at rest being 1300 calories can't be right either, don't know where you got those numbers from. The number in motion you got there is actually more correct, and also includes a cut. (Being in a deficit)

But to move on, since you say you participate somewhat in a 5x5 regiment, i assume you work out 3 days a week (you didn't mention how often) in a MWF pattern.

So with all those concluded numbers together i get to this rough calculation...

This here is based on your age, gendern the guestimated bodyfat of 30%, 3 times exercising per week (activity grade 3), and the goal to loose 0,5 steady kilos per week (goal 5):

So to cut and consistantly loose weight you'd be needing to eat roughly 2450 calories per day. Consistent of roughly about 244 gram carbs, 244 gram protein, 55 gram fat.

You should probably add about 2 -3 times of cardio per week to shed fat. of about 15-30 minutes. Best is normally any type of HIIT (high intensity interval ) cardio.

And maybe overthink and structure your workout a bit better. To prevent overtraining or even undertraining.

Makes sense? =)

Hey there Crood, thank you for replying!

Kinda makes sense, don't mind if I ask you a few questions?

I'll go with what you've calcuated as I am not an expert on these matters. This was from my weight and I've been calcuating online since the meter's not accuracte.

Been reading about stronglift 5 x 5 and carido - it seems to be discouraged? I haven't done much cardio, and will all the muscle I gain, will cardio destroy all of that? Apparently if you do weightlifting, and do cardio - it interferes with your muscle gain.

Yes I've been having problems, I do 5 excerises of the barbell squat, lets say, in one set. Then two, then three. They're designed to be 45 min but I don't know what I'm doing. Right now I'm benching 20 ibs. I'm thinking of adding 1.5 plates to increase the weight. I'm not sure what MWF means.

Yep, I'm doing 3 times a week, are you suggesting two times of HIIT? Can you do weight lifting or will that interfere? At this point I'm better off doing your workouts or which ones you rec.

Thank you for taking the time to calcuate my calories and stuff, so I'll follow that. Shouldn't I be on a calorie defict though? How many protein shakes would you rec me to drink and how many grams of protein would you rec to put? If I did a workout, it would have to be exhausting, sweating, and HIIT combined with a lot of moves to lose weight within 45 min. I'm excerising however 6 days(excluding sunday) including the 5 X 5 program.

What's a hypertrophy program and what does it do?

Thank you once more!

5x5 is a program to build muscle but not to extensively burn fat.

it's a hybrid between hypertrophy (lower weights, 8-15 reps range per about 4-6 sets) and strength training (high weights, low reps, doubles and singles per set).

Surely in the end muscles will burn some fat too, but the more fat you have the harder it also is to actually put on muscles easily (fat goes along with higher estrogen levels, which means lowered testosterone levels). And opposed to what many fitness gurus are trying to sell - fat does not magically turn into musclemass.

You need to decide now what you want to do..

do you wish to loose fat? if so you need to cut calories (caloric deficit as this is the only thing that will make fat go away / make you loose weight) and you also will need to tap into the fat storage of your body by doing cardio, which means higher caloric consumption and forcing the body also to use some of the stored fats as 'fuel'. Plus cardio gets your metabolism going, which will lead to elongated periods of fat burning / higher caloric needs.

Per lost pound of bodyfat you will always loose approx. 25% muscles and 75% fat.

You can still gain muscle while being on a caloric deficit.. BUT.. your nutrition then really needs to be on spot!

Eat your calories over 5-6 meals , eaten each 2-3 hours,keep that metabolism burning and running. Do your 3 workouts per week. And do cardio (best 15-30 mins HIIT) on the tuesday, and the thursday.

Take saturday / sunday off or do some short cardio here too. Sprints are a good way to amp up your fatburning rate.

The calories i calculated for you are infact a "cut", chances are you are not even eating enough yet to actually have your body fire up it's metabolism, and burn the food that comes in.

But if you go with the above mentioned work out days you should reduce the 2400 by another 250 calories.

Medhi also suggested cardio in his program, also every big guy i see in the gym who has big muscles and doesn#t just look fat is doing cardio. It will even aid you in your ability to amp up higher weights, as this can become very taxing on the cardiovascular system, and cardio builds a solid foundation.

Of course excessive cardio, meaning when you burn like most of your too little food, especially on a cut, all down by cardio, you will loose lost of weight and thus of course musclemass (as said above 25% per lost pound) but you don't wonna starve yourself into a skeleton you just want to loose weight until you are in the right zone.

MWF - means monday wednesday and friday. (Which is the regular workout sheme for stronglifts 5x5, as you always need a day to recover witzh doing all these big lifts, with increasing weights for about 4-6 weeks until you'll hit your first limits and can't increase anymore)

once you are happy with your weight and all the fat / or most of it is gone, you can still start eating in a clean surplus and calculate your calories and macros freshly based on your new weight, bodyfat level and workout amount.

See the key to success is to find and participate in something that has a long term chance of getting and 'keeping you' where you want to be. So loosing weight, then eating clean, and gaining muscle along the way, added with cardio for endurance and fatburning capacities is the way to go.

No need to burn yourself off, doing exhausting 6 days a week, semi efficient workouts :)

If you don't want to take my opinion for granted alone here is another interesting watch for you about this particular subject: youtube

@Crood

Hey Crood, is that Elliot's videos? He's awesome.

I swear though Medhi said that stronglift would lose weight, but hey at least I built some muscle, hopefully doing the carido can show it soon enough.

So should I get rid of the assumptio that carido burns muscle?

Ok so if its 30 min of carido, can I then spend the next 10-15 min doing bodyweight excerise? For me I did a workout yesterday, and I did only 20 min of HIIT cardio, and then did bodyweight, lower body excerises. Am I doing the right thing?

Could you, if you wouldn't mind make a workout routine for me?

I don't mind trying the MWF regime, I just am determined to lose weight so that's why I'm doing it six days. My nutirtion is alright, lots of protein(After workout) and eating vegetables, sprouts, spinach, flax seeds, red peppers, etc. Carbs are there as well. I got the diet phase alright. Its the excerise phase I'm looking after and I eat like what today, 5-6 small meals. So I'm def cleaning as you suggested.

I like your suggestion of eating clean and, burning fat and building muscle. What workouts do you rec because I am doing a whole lot from youtube without a proper regime except 5 x 5.

I wanna lose that belly fat that's lying there. It was carido that made me lose weight when I started on the treadmill.

What then do I do on the thursdays/tuesday and should I stay on 5 x 5? I'm not really finishing it in 45 min as its supposed to be :(

Wow @Crood has done a lot of research to get you some tips!

I would add some circuit training to your routine - this way you are still doing movements/exercises to build musle, but you are boosting your metabolism to shred fat at the same time. Total body training might be a good move for now, or push/pull splits?

Either that, or you could stick with a regular split and just add two-three days of circuit training in, and do some HIIT as well.

How many days do you want to train?? If your main goal now to build muscle, or burn fat?? What is the preferred option right now? That will dictate what you decide to base your program around.

Aslo, have you figured out your macros? Your protein, carb and fat intake? Super important.

Jordan

Yeah that was Eliot Hulse.

Stronglift says it will burn fat but you need to understand in what way that is meant. Every pound of lean musclemass will burn an additional 50 calories per day.

But the program itself and rest periods inbetween and the missing strain on your cardiovascular system make literally "shedding" fat a bit hard and unachieveable.

To achieve this kind of 'higher caloric usage' which he calls burning fat, you need to build muscle, which is hard when being overweight (hence estrogene levels and everything else we spoke ab out).

The body has different ways to perform and to react. Strength: goes on the CNS (central nervous system): heavy loads, hypertrophy (volume of repetitions): lower weight - taps into different muscle recruitment, and also acts more 'cardio'like (but doesn't replace good old cardio), and then there is little muscular strain but speedy or slowpace longterm performance (cardio) that burns off reserves from the body in order to execute this.

Let me tell you. In the end things will fall in place anyways. The more athletic and muscular the body becomes the less fat it will carry.

And just lifting weights, but put no endurance training (cardio) in it, will most likely just make you look in the end like those big bulky ghuys that carry tons of fat and can do a 1 rep max - which is fine too if you compete as powerlifter or similar - but surely not the general goal of people that want to get fit and look ripped.

For now decide what you want to do.. loose fat? or build muscle. It surely makes sense (once more) to first get rid of the unwanted extra weight that you are carrying around.

Yes cardio doesn't just shed off all your muscles unless you spend hours over hours on cardio, and consume too many calories by doing so. Loosing weight always means loosing a bit musclemass. But you can work against this by eating enough protein. (See the numbers i already had calculated for you)

Look at Scott Herman, Elit Hulsem, Derek Weida.. all those dudes do cardio - does anyone of them look like not being muscular? Don't think so :P

If you want to do more than 3 days. Stick on the 3 days to the "big compound" lifts of the 5x5 ("NOT" only bodyweight exercises. That's not really what the 5x5 is about, it#s about doing the 4 big barbell compound lifts) and on the 2 days inbetween do the cardio. so mo, we, fri - Big compound barbell lifts and presses, and Tue and Thur do cardio HIIT for about 20-30 mins.

Well then I'd rather get rid of the ugly fat that lies around my stomach now more than anything else. Weightlifting can come a bit later, but it will be more revelant once I can get rid of this belly fat. For your workout regime that you gave me, I'll start that next week. I'm going on the numbers you've given me, so thank you for that. For a Friday workout like today, I might do fifteen min of HIIT, do some compound excerises - or find some good excerises for the time being. You can also lose weight by using dumbells if I'm correct and you're jumping around them and stuff? On the days that I do weigthlifting, can I do HIIT after the big compound lift, or before? I certainly don't want to end looking more fatter - its going, but not at the pace I would like it to be. Nevertheless thank you Crood for your help and I'll get straight on work to lose weight first, and then do the muscle mass as you say later for the time being.

By the way, can I do a compound excerise after a carido excerise during a workout? Can I mix carido and compound excerises together?

Do you know of any good total bodyworkouts that do carido and weightlifting, and on the forums here, are there any good total bodywork outs that users have started threads on?

Do crunches make you lose weight? Can it make you lose weight?

Sorry if I'm bothering you with my questions, but its best I ask otherwise I won't know what I'm doing. Is it alright to eat fruits before a workout late at night? You don't gain weight by eating late at night do you?

Is it alright if I do HIIT on the days, lets say if I did stronglift~? Or am I doing something wrong there?

And should I avoid articles like this:

http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/how-to-lose-fat-without-losing-muscle/

I'll check my weight again soon, and recalucate my calories, stuff.

But yeah, determined to lsoe weight.

Hey Jordan

With the Marcos, protein, carb and fat intake, I'm going with the numbers which Crood has excellently done for me, so thank you Crood! Wish i could give you a rep!

Total body training is the primary goal. I like the circuit training, and I would do excerises that can build a bit of muscle here and then. Loose fat will be the secondnary goal overall.

I want to lose that fat first, (in the meanwhile doing the compound excerises in between), and concentrate on the lean gains later.

Maybe 6 days at first, but it will change depending on what I do.

Can I ask you both, Jordan and Crood, what are your workout routines, and what did you guys to get where you are? How many days do you guys do your workouts? Sorry if I'm asking silly/basic questions.

Thanks Jordan!

you can give me some rep by visiting my profile and clicking on "motivate" (underneath the avatar) if you wish to do so =)

6 days are too much! don't forget you wish to build muscle and those muscles are build in the restphases aka: sleep and off-days)

4 days a week is more than enough and if you feel like it a bit cardio at the weekend.

About my workouts. They are a bit insane lol. Since i am mixing strength training (the big compound moves) with calistenics (athletics), and conditioning work, and cardio.

I normally cycle through loading phases (where i add more weights as lonmg as i can) and deloading phases (lesser weight and giving the body some time off froim the stress, the nervous system time to regenerate and to allow better growth)

To get to the point where i am, i tried to do it right and utilized all the big moves that include more than just one musclegroup, plus some assecory moves (isolation exercises). 4 days a week. Mo / Tue and Thursday/Friday. Including the 4 main compound lifts: barbell squats, barbell Deadlifts, barbell rows, and barbell overhead presses. And fullbody moves such as pullups / chinups and weighted dips with a weightbelt in a diprig).

In addition mostly 1-2 accessory exercises that would hit the same musclegroups that i had been working on that day. (so on a day with barbell rows and deadlift, which works your biceps and upper back, i'd do a few pullups or chinups, and maybe some bicep curls or some cable rows.)

On Tue and Friday i would do cardio 15 mins HIIT either before or after working out. (depending on which bodyparts i'd be working out that day and how much i need my legs for it)

on Monday and Thursday i'd do calisthenics after my main workout was done. (but again i am a bit insane lol) mostly about half an hour as many of the moves are really taxing on the system and it's often already beating you to the ground to do that kind of stuff after having done heavy barbell squats etc.

If you don't care so much about the fat right now.. then go with the 5x5 but read it again, as i think you still might not completely understand how it works. Or have a look here: http://muscularstrength.com/forums.php?pageAction=POSTS&subForumID=32&threadID=2677

when you scroll down to my book-long post (lol) you'll find the full description of how the 5x5 should be executed. I was explaining it to that member. That should help you too!

Cheers!

Well, I am still a relative beginner to be honest - still some serious gains to make!!

Anyway, at the moment I am doing a 6-days a week, Push/Pull/Legs split. So I do push, pull, legs, push, pull, legs, then rest. I'm doing compound movements twice a week as well.

However, as @Crood has alluded to above, 6 days is potentially enough/too much, at least for doing pure muscle gain. Rest is pretty damn important, so I'm actually going to change to a five day split, and have two rest/active rest days.

Have you decided what you will do??

Jordan

i'd strongly think so, Jordan. Lesser days will do you good. You'll see. You'll also have more energy to go heavier on the main lifts. I'd even recommend you try a 4 day regime for a while. And a tad of cardio (15 mins HIIT) on 2 of the off days. I'd like to hear how that would go for you =)

You are very skinny just as me, and we need to pay even more attention to rest and healing times, to not just burn those valueable hard worked for muscles away again =)

And dare to eat more Jordan, really. I noticed how much better things go, also especially in terms of strength and we need strength and higher weights to grow =)

I eat a lot more and my carbs mainly right before and after working out and much protein and fats distributed over the rest of the day. And i still don't pack on visual fat, so don't be afraid, try it !

Cheers!!!