Asking for some advice

[Noth]

Hey guys, I've been out of college now for about 8 months and a month ago I decided I was ready to get back into the shape I was in during highschool. To do so, I need to lose about 45 lbs and gain about 5-10 lbs of muscle.

Currently I'm on a diet (I don't want to name it b/c I don't want people to think this is an ad). Essentially it involves eating 6 meals a day (3 of which are protien shakes) that consist of 1 portion of carb, 1 of protein. Regarding workouts, its a day of cardio, next day weights, next cardio, next weights, etc... Cardio is 20min (is that too short?) Weight liftiing sessions are about 45min.

I am not taking any pills (I refuse to take any 'magic' diet pill) however from what I've read here, things like fish oil and lecithin sound beneficial. Would they help with the diet?

Thus far I've lost 18 lbs in the first month, so things seem to be going fairly well. However, I really think a 23 year old guy with a fair amount of muscle could be losing weight faster.

Having read a fair amount of the threads on this site, I can see that many of you are very educated on this subject, so I'm asking for advice. Any thoughts on how / when / for how long I should work out, what I should eat, when I should eat, supplements, etc... would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[villasenor]

i think that you can do cardio more often, i also lost 15 lbs in a month, from 240 to 225 and i can do cardio for at least 40min, dont forget to stretch, and sleep 8 hrs a day

 

[LCDforMe]

The set up sounds like Body for Life...

Anyway, 20 minutes of cardio all depends on how hard you're going...I could jog for 20 minutes and not break a sweat or do sprints for 20 minutes and want to kill myself from being so tired...all depends on the intensity.

 

[Rjkd12]

That 20 min cardio solution was awesome. I get bored running or biking (I HATE IT) so constantly changing the speed kept my mind off things. The breaks after working out hard are not so easy that you rest, but they do let you slow up a bit to recover and go hard again. If I ever need to run/bike again I'll most likely do that.

The only other time I ever ran in my life I did something similar. 35 steps walking, 35 jogging and then 35 sprinting (got it from an old school boxing coach). This is the only way to keep me interested, otherwise I just can't do it.

 

[Noth]

Yea it's BFL.

I've got an elliptical and I turn up the tension every minute as the book suggests, it really does help motivate and keep you focused on reaching the next minute rather than the whole 20. I usually break into a good sweat around the 10 min mark, and by the end I'm fairly drenched.

I'm thinking about adding another 20 min cardio in the morning before I go to work on top of the usual daily exercise.

 

[Deleted member 56619]

Yeah you could do more cardio if that 20 minutes isnt too intense for ya. Also 45 minute weight session isnt enough for anything really. You wanna warm up for like 10 min before you lift, also you wanna stretch for like 5-10 min right after you warmup. Read carnals thread at the top of the page, get yourself a routine down and add some ab work to it. You are probably gonna be in the gym 3 days a week for 1 1/2 to 2hrs a time.

 

[Envy]

You could up the cardio to 20 minutes six days a week and get faster results. You could also up the length of the cardio routine by ten minutes as you go along.

 

[LCDforMe]

My old man was into BFL for a while, he got really ripped because of all the fat and shit he took off. It was too intense for him to keep doing though is the only problem...that's why I like my diet that I can use for the rest of my life.

 

[Tkdmmafighter**]

hit the weights longer. i personally wouldnt go on any kind of "fad" or "commercial" diet. just research what needs to be included into a diet, and find how to make it work for you, it will take time, but it will be worth it.