Busy Student Needs Help With Diet

Let me first start out that I have always been around 180. In high school I wrestled 150, after my dad died in 2004 I shot up to 180...and after a busy past 6 months of school and nonstop fast food, I'm at 23 I'm at a bad 5'7 190 pounds. My biggest problem is I'm taking summer classes, and working 30 hours a week. So on Tuesdays/Thursdays I'm away from home from 10 AM to 7 PM, getting home at 5 the other days. My diet has always been my huge downfall, and this time I want to drop down to at least 160 and stay there. I'm a little bit wider, built more like a wrestler, so I'd like to keep some mass on until I feel comfortable working out with weights. For now I just have been trying to eat right and rebuild my cardio that months of idling with martial arts and fast food have killed.

Any suggestions for a busy student and thoughts on my weight goals? How much of a time do you think it'd take for me to drop to 160 and even 150, and if thats a good idea.

 

How far is your class and job? You should ride your bike to and from. Cut back on sweets and burgers. Well I'm sure you know how to eat right. Basically, if you ride your bike around all the time, you will reach your ideal weight by the end of the summer guaranteed.

 

That's the thing right now I'm pretty far from campus, and idk if I'd feel safe enough to ride down these streets to work. I'm about a 15 minute drive from campus. I work on campus and have to drive down the road a little bit more for class. I cut back, no fast food, been eating chicken and beef, peanut butter, no pop, more water, taking my protein, been running with a hoody on M-F taking weekends off. I wanna start swimming soon.

Without practicing martial arts it all seems sooo....far away I'm going to look at bikes when I go home this weekend even just to ride around the back streets just to get out and exercise.

 

Don't do this. You're only losing water weight. You can't 'sweat' away fat.

 

Thanks for the tip sir! I didn't know that.

 

Just something small, but before you leave for classes and when you come back home, you should do 500 reps of crunches. Crunches focus on getting rid of the fat around the abdomen. Do this M-F if you have no other way to exercise. On the weekends definitely swim, try to water jog from end to end. Yeah and don't ride a bike if you don't feel safe on the streets, no problem or weight issue is worth your life, remember that.

 

In the time you do 500 crunches, you could do a body weight circuit or HIIT which will be FAR better for shedding fat. Crunches work your core, they build up the abdominal wall and if he has fat, it is going to make it stick out more. Crunches do not burn fat. Also, there are many more effective ab workouts like rollouts, flags, saxon side bends and such.

 

It's impossible to spot burn. You can't focus on getting rid of fat in a specific area. If anything, the crunches will make him look fatter, as the muscle will cause the fat to stick out more.

 

I like to grill about a half dozen chicken breasts at a time. These taste great hot or cold so you can take them anywhere with you.

You can make salads, spinach and other greens, eggs, chicken, beef...

Sandwiches: There are some great tasting flat breads out there. High in fiber, low in carbs. Add some lean meat...

Hope this helps

 

Oh wow I never knew that, I was always told differently about the crunches. Yeah do a circuit workout. I feel that doing leg circuits make me sweat more.

 

Burpees & Crunchees FTW!

 

Burpee?

 

Bodybuilding.com - Ross Enamait - Burpee Conditioning - No More Nonsense!

To help burn the fat and conditioning on top of your diet.

 

I have a similar problem, staying away from home from 7 am until 7pm, after training. For me what works best is cooking big quantities of chicken breast, whole grain rice, potato, lean ground beef, etc... and put them in tupperwares that I take every day to work, training etc.
It saves me a lot of time (I cook on Sunday afternoon and fill my fridge with food for the whole week so I don't worry about cooking for 7 days) and it saves me a lot of money as well becuase I never eat out.
On top of that, organizing it that way, I make sure I eat the right thing every day.

Eating right has made a huge difference in the way I feel and train, my energy level is much higher and I'm losing weight little by little while gaining a bit of muscle.

 

So you just cook the cihcken, freeze it, and then heat it up in a microwave at work??

What are some ways to prepare food, I'm hardly a good cook.

 

you know you can't lose fat from specific areas? when you lose fat you lose it everywhere, crunches can make your abs more toned which may make it appear that you have lost fat just in that area.

 

No, I don't even freeze it, I just put it inside the fridge and it holds up real well. Salads and vegetables won't hold up that well, though, keep that in mind or you'll have some nasty lettuce and tomato on Thursdays and Fridays.....

How do I cook it? I put cooking spray on the pan and throw the chicken on it! lol! the simpler the better. What I use a lot is spices, I go to my grocery store and buy onion and garlic powders, pepper, all kinds of herbs.... anything that won't add calories to the food but will give it some flavor. I love Mexican food so I always have some taco spice mix that gives a great taste to anything I put it on.

As for the brown rice, I simply boil it, addd spices and mix it with lean ground beef (I dry the fat out when I cook it). That, rice + beef, is my snack before training, about two hours before class while I'm still at work. It's not heavy on my stomach and it gives me lots of energy for training.

Potatos, I make home made mashed potato, it heats up great in the microwave. It's easy. I peel and boil potatos until they're soft then mix it with a bit of Smart Choice butter (a teaspoon) and fat free milk until it's creamy enough (I use a blender for that). Add some onion and garlic sault to it and it tastes great! That and ckicken breast is my lunch this week.

Oh, and my breakfast, which I also eat at work, is a sandwhich made with whole grain bread, lunch meat (usually turkey breast) and spinach. A bit of Smart Choice mayo on the bread and voila! I'm good to go.

For dinner, I'm back home so I can cook whatever I want, usually with lots of veggies.

Cooking is a bit of a pain, it takes time and sometimes food doesn't taste that good but the work is well worth when you lose weight and train harder....

 

you can cook almost anything with garlic and onion

 

Nobody said chicken breast tastes good...lol! What I do is adding a bit of BBQ or Teriyaki sauce to the chicken while I'm cooking it. I'm sure that's cheating a little, but as long as you don't pour a whole bottle, you should be ok....

 

LIES! your plastic surgeon can spot burn that fat away j/k

Seriously though he is right you cant spot burn anything in excerise. Cruches are a bad idea with core work, because the 85% of your abs you cant see wont get any stronger and you get chuck liddel belly. Wouldnt trying to do weight help as they keep you bulky which you seem to like and help burn the fat as you put on muscle.