First Time Training, Help Losing

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

Hi. I am 26 and I weigh about 220 and am 6 feet tall. about two years ago I was roughly 175 and I would love to get back down to that weight or even less. My main goal is weight loss. I have been looking around and my oldest brother is a body builder and a doctor and recommended me to this site. I would use him as my personal coach but he lives all the way on the other side of the country from me and is very busy so I don’t really want to bug him too much. I have a hard time sticking with things but I am really trying to motivate myself to do allot of things right now to better my life and a better body, and with it better self esteem, I will be going in a good direction.

I have been looking at allot of programs and I have the P90x Program and am interested in starting that up soon but I have some questions. I want to know if it would be better for me to do a different program or just cardio or something if my main goal is to slim down. I don’t know exactly if the P90x will do all of that for me or not. I live a pretty sedimentary lifestyle when I am at home since I paint and play computer games allot.

I have just started a diet of sorts. I have a pretty bad metabolism due to weird sleep hours and eating habits. I almost never ate breakfast and would eat a lunch and dinner and then snack and drink soda. About 2 weeks ago I stopped drinking soda and started drinking water. I also started drinking 8 ounces of fat free milk mixed with slimfast when I get up and then one small meal. I know I should be doing another slimfast but I usually don’t…

There is a gym just up the street from me and I am going to check them out tomorrow so I have that option and I am able to get all the small components to start the P90x if it really will do what I want it to do.

My ideal is to lose the weight as fast as I can and after reading around it doesn’t seem like losing 50-60 pounds in 3 months is undoable and that would be ideal since there are some things that I would like to do in that 3-4 months away time period and I would love to have a good body by then. Also I wanted to know if while doing the P90X it is recommended to do extra cardio and would that actually help slim me down faster and when would be the best time to work out? I know I have read something about doing stuff right when you wake up but I cant remember if that was food related or workout related. Sorry if this is all disjointed and kind of rambly but any and all help would be much appreciated.

2

You wrote : " I have a hard time sticking with things "
That is not true.
You are sticking with sitting and bad food choices.
Correcting those 2 is simple.
Realistically loosing 2 pounds a week is a minimum you get when you eat real foods.
Never buy nor ingest anything labeled slim it is just marketing.

Buy foods with no ingredients list. They have the right to lie and guess what, they do.
Overweight is likely a mix of excess fat plus water retention(from salt that kills you, check your blood pressure anything over 119 as your high number should scare you it is called the silent killer for a reason. This can be done free in many pharmacies).
4 months = 17 weeks X 2 = 34 pounds lost are realistic.
Stop dreaming.
It took you more than that to get there.
You act like a kid so like your big brother i limit you to 10 Min. daily playing seated/non moving.
If you watch TV, each commercial is non stop moving MANDATORY.

Veggies fresh steamed or raw are your friends. They will flush out the garbage you accumulated.
Dairies are to be avoided.
Think quality. The bad quality/processed foods just make you feel a false unger because you are not nourished.

P90x is marketing, dreaming.
GROW UP, stop believing in fairy tales.
It is time to wake up.
You are not 12 yo anymore.

Well if you care about the program selection = M
MOVE, fast walking, up-down stairs/hills, cycling, swimming just find what you enjoy and make a bad habit of it. Do it without thinking, daily. Suround yourself with active people, not facebook pretend/cyber friends.

All the best !

3

Don’t become part of the New Years resolution crowd.

You don’t need a diet and gym membership. You need to permanently change your lifestyle.

Some small facts for you to read and really take in:

  1. your weight loss will largely be a factor of your success in dieting
  2. the best diet is one that fits your lifestyle easily and gives you options
  3. if you only care about weight loss, find an exercise program / activity you LOVE and won’t quit.

Some concrete advice: check out leangains.com
With what you said about your schedule it seems like that it would work for you.

Weights are also good for losing weight and you won’t get huge on a calorie deficit. But if you can’t get yourself up and lift, any activity is better than none for weight loss.

4

[quote]Lightdrow wrote:
Hi. I am 26 and I weigh about 220 and am 6 feet tall.[/quote]
How fat are you? Not a percentage, but are you crazy overweight with a muffin top or two, just a little pudgy, kinda Average Joe, sorta lean/some blurry definition, etc.?

Your goals are your own thing, but 6’0" and 175 (or less!) is going to have you end up really skinny-looking. Is there an athlete or celebrity who has your ideal physique?

I find it hard to believe that your brother is a bodybuilder and knows about T-Nation, and he’s okay with you drinking freaking Slimfast. That’s a diet for overweight housewives who don’t workout, not for a guy looking to get into good shape.

P90x is better than not working out at all, and if that’s where you have to start, do it. But the sooner you get into a good weight training program (lifting 3-5 days a week) the better results you’ll get.

What’re you, a piece of dirt? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Details?

This was a good idea.

This was a bad idea.

Stop the Slimfast crap. Do this, step by step:

By the end of a month, you’ll be up and running on a good fat loss/muscle-building nutrition plan.

If it took you two years to gain 45 pounds, why do you need to drop it in a few months? For most people, 1-2 pounds per week (4-8 pounds per month) is fine progress for consistent fat loss. Along the way, though, your body can look much different even if the scale doesn’t drop much - especially if you’re lifting weights and building lean muscle. But one thing at a time.

Right now, just focus on training 4 or 5 days a week. Sweating over details about “first thing in the morning” or “right after work” would be the next step. Get 16-20 workouts by Valentine’s Day, and then we’ll progress to the next step.