[quote]jasaman wrote:
Hi Tiribulus,
Thanks for the words of encouragement! They really help! I appreciate any help you can give me.
Thanks!
jasaman
[/quote]
I’m with Zap in saying that cardio is indeed not the devil, I’m a big proponent. A definition of “cardio” in your case would be helpful too. However, assuming anything intense enough for a real impact, 45 minutes every day will definitely get you healthier than you are now, but it will not leave you much for weight training, especially in your current condition.
Additionally weight training accomplishes 2 vital things. 1, it charges your metabolism and makes your body demand more calories. 2, it gives you more muscle which in turn also demands more calories.
Here’s what I didn’t do. I didn’t weigh myself so I’m not sure what I weighed before I started. I had a large bulbous viscerally fat belly that was flat out repulsive. I used that as my progress meter for a while.
I also didn’t jump in too hard too fast knowing that being in the abominable shape I was I would risk hurting myself and or having a heart attack.
I woke up one hung over shitty Saturday morning with my 10 year old daughter asking me if I would take her to the park like I promised and I mumbled something about not being up to it and when I sat up and saw the disappointment in her face the light went on. WTF am I doing?
I have this beautiful little girl and I’d rather be a drunken slob than trying to be the kind of man I’d like her to marry? Not to mention how useless I’d become to my wife. (in a nutshell)
I put together a full body routine using bodyweight exercises, household furniture and gallon milk jugs filled with water while we waited on approval for a home equity loan. I immediately also designed an ultra clean 40/40/20 diet of about 3000-3200 cals a day spread over six meals.
I didn’t even do any real cardio at all for about the first six weeks or so I don’t think. I just walked at lunch and took the stairs instead of the elevator at work.
After about the third week like this we got our loan and I bought a couple thousand dollars worth of carefully selected weight training equipment based on olympic plates along with a stationary bike. I spent a couple more weeks going light, but with some actual weights and then dug in for real.
The fat almost literally fell off my body and within 6 months I’d lost 10 inches off that disgusting waistline, my blood sugar was absolutely normal and my blood pressure, which I had checked by a lady at Sam’s Club before and after had gone from 180/110 to 118/82. All of this started in March of this year.
Now I do 25-30 minutes of cardio 3 times a week and train hard n heavy. People around me are wide eyed and dumbfounded, but not enough to do anything I say when I tell them how I did it.
Shit, I just got paged. I gotta go for now.
Edit:
I think I have a few more minutes.
One thing that is very misunderstood by a lot of folks is that while the actual muscle contractions themselves involved in weight training are anerobic, make no mistake, the overall aerobic effect on your metabolism in unavoidable. Big, compound weight training exercises will build your aerobic capacity and will also have you chewing up calories like mad for quite a while after you’re done.
If you don’t care about gaining muscle and are just concerned about getting out of danger and losing the fat, which there’s nothing wrong with, then do 45 minutes of cardio every day and watch your calories. Weight training will be a tone up type afterthought. Just know that if you stick with that you will wind up small and thin, but probably decently healthy overall, which there’s also nothing wrong with, but definitely not my preference.
If you have visions of yourself bigger and more muscular, yes friend this can be you, then 45 minutes a day is both unnecessary and counterproductive.
There goes my pager again :-[ , you’d think I’d be a millionaire with as important as they seem to think I am when they can’t figure something out.
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