Help me put together a program

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Hi Guys,

I’m trying to put together a workout program, but I’m a complete beginner and don’t know where to begin. I’d appreciate a bit of help and advice.

I suppose I’d better start off with where I am now and what I want to achieve.

I’m 6ft 1” tall and weigh 97.5 kilos, which fairly easily puts me into the overweight/obese category. I am very broad shouldered. Most of my weight is carried around my arse and stomach and errrrrr…….well quite frankly man boobs!

My main objective is to get my weight down to around 80/85 kilos and get rid of my boobs. This is not something I expect to achieve over night; I know I’m looking at the best part of a years work. I have already started addressing my diet and feel I have this fairly well under control. I avoid all fried food, all fast food and sugary pop. My diet consists of a lot of fruit, rice and vegetables. The only weak point I still have is beer, I drink about 6 pints a week. Over the last 8 weeks I have lost 5 kilos, which I think is a fairly good rate to loose weight.

I have joined a gym, but am at a loss as how to best make use of my time there. I go around 5 times a week, but am starting to feel I am starting to feel a bit lost as I don’t have a program. Unfortunately I can’t find a partner to go with and the gym I’m a member of is your standard crappy hotel gym with no one to give advice(nothing better available). You simply don’t get the same quality of gyms over here(Brunei) as you do in the UK. I also have access to a pool, only 15m long though.

With all this in mind, I’d be great if you guys could help me put a program together.

Thanks

Peter

p.s Can’t believe I’ve admitted to owning a fine pair of man boobs!
 
Soldato
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If your overall goal is weight loss then you should mainly concentrate on the cardio machines such as treadmill, bikes etc. I would aim to do at least an hours workout each session 3 or 4 times a week.

This might seem a little obvious to say but each workout should be exactly that, a workout. I've seen so many people who are obviously at the gym trying to lose weight yet all they do is have a stroll on the treadmill or a slow ride on the bike. It's not worth it if you don't put the effort in, when you do put the effort in you look and feel better afterwards.

My usuall workout would be 10 min warm up on the bike followed by roughly an hour circuit training and finally 10 min on the treadmill.

Given that for the moment at least your only aim is weight loss, I would probably go for 15 min on with 5 min rest between. For example 15 min on bike 5 min rest. I would then probably go for the rower 15 min workout 5 rest and so on.

If the machines in the gym are anything like the ones in the gym I use they will probably have all sorts of workouts programmed into them. Personally I just use random on about level 7 or 8.

I can't really give much more advice than that really other than to say if you're prepared to put the effort in you will get the rewards from it.
 
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if your a member of a gym i would be suprised if there wasnt trainers in there. speak to someone about your current position and goals. get them to check your current fitness / weight / bf% etc, then you know what you have to work with.

i would suggest a nailed diet, some good cardio (3 or 4 times a week) and some weights, some good compound movements :]
 
Soldato
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Agreed, I would think it's highly unlikely for there to be absolutely nobody supervising the gym, not least for health and safety reasons. If all else fails i'm sure they would be able to point you in the right direction.
 
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Hi Thanks for the replies. Alas there are no instructors in the gym at all, infact I have never seen anyone else in there. I think the hotel has forgotten that it even exists! Which is good in that it is effectively my own private facility.

My main goal is to loose weight, but I was hoping to work at it from both ends. Change my diet, do some cardio but also muscle build to prevent getting "floppy bits".

By "nailed diet", do you mean being really strict in what I eat? I've been told in the past that you should not reduce your calorie intake to less that 2200calories a day, is this true?

Wedgie22, is it better to work lots of groups in a session or just focus on one area. Should I mix cardio with muscle work in the same workout?

Sorry for all the questions
 
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yeah whey protein could help, lots of cardio and maybe some high rep light weights? im not sure exactly what is best for losing weight. But i heard whey protein encourages weight loss. Dont go overboard with it though :p
 
Soldato
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peter_hutson said:
By "nailed diet", do you mean being really strict in what I eat? I've been told in the past that you should not reduce your calorie intake to less that 2200calories a day, is this true?

Wedgie22, is it better to work lots of groups in a session or just focus on one area. Should I mix cardio with muscle work in the same workout?

I wouldn't say you need to be strict in what you eat, try to eat an amount whereby if you didn't do any exercise you would still not gain any weight. 2200 calories as about the daily recommended amount for an adult male so I would try not to go above that when losing weight, you'll only have to work harder to burn it off if you do. If you can eat less than 2200 calories some days then obviously it would help weight loss, tho eating much less than around 1500 calories a day is getting into unhealthy levels, you would lose weight quicker but you would feel like crap so it's not worth going to such extremes.

As for the workout, given that for the moment your goal is weight loss and a little toning it would be best to work your whole body in a full session and if possible in turns, ie bike working the lower body followed by rower working upper body etc. Concentrating on a single area is mainly used for muscle building so for the moment at least, a general full body workout would best suit. I would probably start with a 70% cardio 30% weights routine, tho obviously only you know what routine is most suitable.

Hope this is of some help :)
 

Ian

Ian

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wedgie22 said:
If you can eat less than 2200 calories some days then obviously it would help weight loss, tho eating much less than around 1500 calories a day is getting into unhealthy levels, you would lose weight quicker but you would feel like crap so it's not worth going to such extremes.

Unless yer 22 stone, have been eating 1500-2000 cals a day and lost nothing in 7 months :)
 

Ian

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Mixture of wholemeal bread, wholemeal pittas, salad, tuna, chicken, turkey, mackeral, mince, wholewheat pasta, fish sticks etc

8am for brekkie, then 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm

Its only this year ive organised it like this though. Have always eaten these sorts of foods

I think im coming to the conclusion that im simply not eating enough for someone my size. Just debating how i should go about dealing with it
 
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Ian said:
Mixture of wholemeal bread, wholemeal pittas, salad, tuna, chicken, turkey, mackeral, mince, wholewheat pasta, fish sticks etc

8am for brekkie, then 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm

Its only this year ive organised it like this though. Have always eaten these sorts of foods

I think im coming to the conclusion that im simply not eating enough for someone my size. Just debating how i should go about dealing with it

What exercise are you doing?
 

Ian

Ian

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badminton for 2 hours and then 40 odd miles on the mountain bike (spread over 4 days). although i have only really been doing this for a couple of weeks now. previously i was doing the odd 3 miles a week on the bike plus a load of walking.

although surely exercise shouldnt even come into it based on what im consuming and what my body should be burning?
 
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I can see people have already started putting plans together but had a couple of questions.

How often can you visit the gym? What are your goals, endurance, strength?

These have probably already been answered above but have started my own training programme which is going to last 8 months or so and should have me very fit by the end of it.
 
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