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I'm fat, but clueless what to do at the gym.

Hi guys. I've put on about three stone over the past couple of years and I really want to get back to my previous weight. I weight 13 stone now, and I'm 5"5.

I've been going to the gym for years now but never had a clue what I'm doing and never noticed any difference in weight or fitness, so I'm obviously doing something wrong. I've got stuck in a routine of cross trainer 10 mins, treadmill 20 mins, bikes 10 mins, whatever weights are free for the rest. I have no idea what to do there and tend to just dabble on a few and leave. I don't find the above easy and am normally drenched in sweat by the time I leave.

My body tends to just be a standard fat body. I don't have one area worse than another. I'm not very muscular.

I guess I'm just hoping someone will just advise me on what to do in the gym, as I hate that I've been going so long and seen no results in any way (even when accompanied by watching my diet).
Hi!

What you want to start doing is switching to free weights, and more-so doing them first rather than last. You need the energy to be lifting heavy weights!

Do a standard routine of at least three days a week, and that can range from anything such as:

MONDAYS - Back and Biceps: Five back exercises, with three-four direct sets of bicep workouts.

TUESDAYS - Cardio - 30 minutes

WEDNESDAYS - Shoulders, Legs and Traps: Five shoulder workouts, with four leg workouts, and three trap workouts.

THURSDAYS - Cardio 30 Minutes (or rest)

FRIDAYS - Chest and Triceps: Five chest workouts, with four tricep direct workouts

Make sure to keep your workouts up and moving. By this, I mean, for example; standing to do your bicep curls, not sitting. Standing will burn more calories, and use more muscles.

You want to go ahead and use mostly free-weights; they require more energy to use, and you will be sweating a hell of alot more. Hence burning more calories! You also want to go ahead and start eating a lot of protein AND carbs, but only the good carbs. Not the sugary ones. Sugar is what gains fat!

You can't build muscle and burn fat at the same time, so I'd recommend doing these workouts in a way of trying to get leaner. Do the workouts fast, and high intensity. It's a lot like cardio, but generally harder. Keep your rest times at roughly 20 seconds, maybe 30, but no more. Do roughly three to four sets of reps, at 14/12/10/8 each (or 14/10/8 if it's three sets).

Also make sure you take post-protein before the gym and immediately after. Before essentially allows your body to not burn muscle, and afterwards re-generates the muscle tissues and fibres.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSmQkbyBXyY

EDIT:

For the record, the diet should be something as simple as a 50/30/20 split of proteins/carbs/fats. You must burn more calories than you're consuming in order to lose weight, which is why I stated you cannot really build muscle mass and lose fat at the same time: gaining weight requires eating more calories, losing weight requires burning more than you're eating.

Therefore, I would recommend you to lose the fat first, and then do your bulking phase. Then generally repeat, in order, as to what is required.
(edited 10 years ago)
You need to work more harder - stay on the cross-trainer/treadmill or whatever cardio equipment for much longer until you're completely gone. 10-20 mins is not enough. Ideally, go for a run outside rather than sticking to equipments at the gym.

Also, don't eat more calories than you've burned, otherwise you'll have cancelled out all your hard work at the gym and put on weight.

It's as simple as that and stick to a routine rather than walking around aimlessly at the gym and having a go at anything that picks your fancy at a time that picks your fancy. Have a look online for some good workout routines if you need ideas and a plan to stick to.


To the poster above, that workout is more appropriate for body-building/mass gain rather than losing weight. I'm pretty sure the OP is a female wanting to lose weight.

Also, make sure you are medically fit to work out at the intensities you may be planning to work out at.
(edited 10 years ago)
It's not just the gym you need to think about, it's your diet as well. You could do, say, an hour in the gym and then completely counter the effect by eating one chocolate bar, for example. It will only work if you take the time to work out how much you're eating as well as how much exercise you're doing. If you eat more than you burn you will still fail to lose weight, no matter how much exercise you're actually completing.

It can be ridiculously easy to get back from the gym and think "oh I'll have a piece of bread now, I've earned it" (extra 100 cals plus any spread), or "I'll have a bar of chocolate" (at least 250 cals depending on which one you choose) and that's not even to mention the fact that you may be eating portion sizes that are too large in the first place.
Reply 4
To lose weight you need to consumes less calories than you burn. Simple as that. Eat less and healthier. Check your calorie intake and reduce it by 500 a day.
At the gym, cardio should make you sweat.

As for weight exercises, I can't give you specific advice. Some gyms have a trainer to show you, the machines you can probably do yourself.
I am forever trying to make squats work, but probably need a personal trainer to do them with me. I have watched various youtube tutorials, taken advice from a personal trainer and tried all variants but when I do them on my own it hurts everywhere but my butt. Meh giving up and saving for a personal trainer.
Reply 5
At 13 stone you need to be more concerned what how many calories you are eating. If you have been going to the gym for years now and you're still so overweight you must be eating a ridiculous amount of food. You should look up some healthy diets; cut out fizzy drinks, crisps, fried food, junk foot etc. But most importantly eat a significantly less amount of calories than you are now.
Original post by Millie228
To lose weight you need to consumes less calories than you burn. Simple as that. Eat less and healthier. Check your calorie intake and reduce it by 500 a day.
At the gym, cardio should make you sweat.


This. No offence to the person that recommended only doing weights and eating loads of carbs, but that's absolutely ridiculous. Even bodybuilders fit cardio into their schedule to cut out fat and lean up.

As has been said, you need to eat less calories than you burn. This means only low calorie foods and cutting down the size of each meal. It's much healthier and more effective to eat 4-5 small meals a day than it is to eat 2-3 big ones.
You've got the right idea by sticking with cardio. However, seeing a change in weight is much more about quality than quantity. A high intensity half an hour workout is a lot mor effective than a moderate intensity workout that lasts an hour.
Original post by WoodyMKC
This. No offence to the person that recommended only doing weights and eating loads of carbs, but that's absolutely ridiculous. Even bodybuilders fit cardio into their schedule to cut out fat and lean up.

As has been said, you need to eat less calories than you burn. This means only low calorie foods and cutting down the size of each meal. It's much healthier and more effective to eat 4-5 small meals a day than it is to eat 2-3 big ones.
You've got the right idea by sticking with cardio. However, seeing a change in weight is much more about quality than quantity. A high intensity half an hour workout is a lot mor effective than a moderate intensity workout that lasts an hour.


That is indeed correct; you need to burn more than you're consuming. As with the same to gain weight, you need to consume more than you're burning. But those calories which you are burning, some of which have to be some carbs. I didn't say you needed to eat a ton. The split would be a simple 50/25/25 diet of Protein/Carbs/Fat, maybe even 50/30/20.

Sugar is worse than carbs. We all need carbs for energy. Too many will be bad. I'm just saying; don't treat carbs on a whole as 'the enemy'. Which efficient work, it will do good.
Original post by Himynameskiefer
That is indeed correct; you need to burn more than you're consuming. As with the same to gain weight, you need to consume more than you're burning. But those calories which you are burning, some of which have to be some carbs. I didn't say you needed to eat a ton. The split would be a simple 50/25/25 diet of Protein/Carbs/Fat, maybe even 50/30/20.

Sugar is worse than carbs. We all need carbs for energy. Too many will be bad. I'm just saying; don't treat carbs on a whole as 'the enemy'. Which efficient work, it will do good.


Absolutely, it's unhealthy to avoid carbs altogether, as it is with most things. They should definitely be kept to a low though. But yeah, as you said, it's a good idea to try and avoid sugar as much as possible, as well as alcohol. Many people also make the mistake of avoiding foods that contain fat; not all fat in foods is bad fat and some of it even helps moderate you fat storage levels, which can help with fat loss. Saturated fats however, should be avoided... so no takeaways or crisps. As for exercise, High Intensity Interval Cardio is the way to go.

EDIT: Not at all bothered by negative rep, but people thumbing me down suggests people are disagreeing with something I wrote, which I'm guessing is the part about some fats actually being beneficial. I wouldn't make such a claim if it wasn't for the fact that it has been officially fully tested and proven. It's worrying that so many people know so little about how their body actually works, and goes a long way in explaining why so many people want to lose weight but struggle to do so.
(edited 10 years ago)
Using the advice on this thread, thanks :biggrin:
Reply 10
Original post by Airfairy
Hi guys. I've put on about three stone over the past couple of years and I really want to get back to my previous weight. I weight 13 stone now, and I'm 5"5.

I've been going to the gym for years now but never had a clue what I'm doing and never noticed any difference in weight or fitness, so I'm obviously doing something wrong. I've got stuck in a routine of cross trainer 10 mins, treadmill 20 mins, bikes 10 mins, whatever weights are free for the rest. I have no idea what to do there and tend to just dabble on a few and leave. I don't find the above easy and am normally drenched in sweat by the time I leave.


Your main problem is that you don't have a more specific tangible goal directly related to what you do in the gym. Losing weight is a gradual process and is governed by the difference in the amount of food you eat and how much energy you use. You can use exercise as a means to increase the energy you use but if that is your only motivation then it will be tough going and you will get sick of it. It will speed up weight loss but it is still a relatively slow process. I lost 3 stone in just under half a year but that included a couple of periods of illness where I couldn't eat much and the rest of the time, I was fairly active (walking 5 miles or more a day, going to the gym 5-6 days a week, running 3 times a week etc.) I think 8 months or so is a better time frame for that amount of weight.

You should really try and find an activity that you enjoy or at least want to get better at and use exercise as a means of improving some form of fitness.

You need to decide exactly what you want to get better at (e.g. get stronger, get faster, increase your 5k time, become better at football etc.) and then plan some training specific to that goal.

At the moment, it sounds like you are just spinning your wheels and getting frustrated because you have little feedback in terms of the difference your training makes. Find a hobby and get a goal rather than doing lots of uninspiring stuff simply to make yourself more active.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 11
Forget about block cardio at low intensity. Not just a waste of time while doing it, but a waste of time recovering. Only do HIIT and sprints (low intensity exercise barely improves fitness and is not necessary for good cardiac health) or swimming as hard as you can. For weight-lifting: deadlifts, squats, power cleans and bench press are the most functional movements and best for hormone optimization for fat-loss.

Don't be afraid of people judging you. I know that in all the places I've ever worked out, I've never met anybody who judged the overweight people in the gym. Most people don't care or will encourage and support you, so don't be embarrassed.

For abs, look up the myotatic crunch, do planks and side planks for as long as possible and look up the cat vomit exercise.
Morning!

Have a look at HIIT - high intensity interval training - and maybe run in some circuit training in there too (there will be classes for this at your gym) to start building your muscle tone and really getting your heart rate up.

Start thinking about calories - myfitnesspal is a great way to monitor calorie intake as well as your macros (carbs, protein, fat etc). There is also a forum on there which is great for advice regarding calories etc.

You will, at some point, need to start lifting if you don't want to be "skinnyfat" so start to eye up the weights section of the gym and NOT the machines. In my gym there's a women's only section which is great to just go and give it a bit of a try without feeling like an idiot. New Rules of Lifting for Women is a good book - I've ordered it so can't comment directly but have heard loads of good reviews on it!

Lastly - good luck!

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