| baltimorepablo
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Last week I was eating McDonalds and anything else I wanted, drinking about 4-6 glasses of Pepsi a day and didn't work out at all. Last Tuesday (5 days ago) I decided to start running and have ran a mile everyday on my elliptical as well as stop all sodas, junk food, etc; cold turkey. A couple days after that a co-worker was talking about starting the South Beach Diet and how he lost 11lbs in 1.5 weeks already and I was intrigued since he is a little heavier than me but still about the same.
I have never had a "athletic" looking body and was pretty sure I would never get there. Even when I was doing a lot of sports in High School I was a little bigger than most. My frame is that of a football player so I know it has potential it's just getting there that has always seemed too far gone to me.
Right now I'm about 288lbs, 6'4", male. I think that a healthy goal is 250lbs and hopefully turn some of the fat into muscle. Today I started doing a little weights with the machine I have next to the elliptical. My routine today was, 15 reps of bench press x2 and 15 reps of pull down x2 and then 1 mile of jogging/running (about 20 minutes).
My question to you guys is, do you think this is a good plan or what do you think I can do to maximize my muscle tone? I know I need to lose a lot of fat but I also want to turn some of it into muscle... and get rid of that double chin :D . But please post your opinions!
About the SB diet.. I think I'm going to start it tomorrow or Tuesday. Currently I'm not eating bad really but it's not controlled; i.e. today I ate 3 eggs in the morning, bannana with 1tsp of peanut butter for snack, peanut butter and jelly in a pita bread for lunch with a Special-K bar and for dinner, skinless chicken legs with a light salad. I have zero knowledge of nutrition or eating right habits, so I'm kind of winging it. I don't think that the Special-K bars are good for you and I don't know if the peanut butter and jelly is good for you either (I hope it is because it's my favorite!). Any advice in this dept. is greatly appreciated. As far as drinks go, I quit all sodas and am drinking only water and apple juice. |
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Sun May 20, 2007 11:25 pm |
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| Mr. Green
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| Well, it sounds like you have a good work-out plan, now you just need to fix you diet if you go on SB. No fruits on P1 and get rid of the apple juice, probably a lot of sugar added to it. You can enjoy a diet pepsi here and there. Use natural PB and again, jelly has sugar. You want to cut out those sugars. |
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Mon May 21, 2007 12:03 pm |
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| OldGreyBob
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| Apple juice is used sweeten other 'all fruit' fruit drinks. Why? Because of the very high sugar content. I, too, would suggest you drop it. I would also suggest AB work. I my opinion, you can never do enough AB work. Also do not forget stretching at the end of exercise, that will pay dividends the next time you exercise. |
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Mon May 21, 2007 8:12 pm |
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| RedRox
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I'm probably the worst one here to critique exercise programs as I don't really participate in traditional kinds of exercise. But if you are going to follow the SB eating guidelines, then you do need to learn a bit about nutriiton and how different types of food components are processed and affect you. Whether you choose to start in Phase 1 (recommended) or Phase 2 (OK) is up to you, but you should learn what foods are allowed in each (And P2 foods just add to the P1 list so you need both anyway.) and how to put a reasonably decent daily meal plan together. I highly recommend you find the FAQ sticky threads in the main P1 and P2 forums and there are links there to the food lists and meal planning guidelines that should help a lot. Good luck!
P.S. You are right the special K bars are not a good choice really. Not enough fiber and relatively higher glycemic impact on your blood sugars. And actually energy bars, protein bars, protein shakes, meal replacemennt bars, etc. are not a good idea in general. Better to just eat real foods with appropriate nutritional contents. The peanut butter should only be natural PB and have only peanuts and salt on the ingredient list and any jams or jellies should be sugar free types and used in very small quantities as a condiment. A medium banana a day is fine in P2, but all fruits and grains are off limits in P1. Apples are fine in P2, but apple juice just keeps the sugars but you get none of the fiber and other benefits of the apple itself. Keep eating lots of vegetables! |
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Mon May 21, 2007 8:58 pm |
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| A-Rod
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are you running a mile or are you on the elliptical machine for a distance of one mile?
in either case, you should be doing at minimum, 30 minutes of cardio exercise at least 4 times a week. 60 minutes per sesion is better, if you can.
you need to do more weight training than bench presses and pulldowns. you need a full-body workout, including squats and lunges, abs as bob mentioned, triceps, shoulders and back, etc. can you enlist some help at the gym on developing a weight training program?
your eating is about halfway there and you've gotten some good advice. have you read the book or the stickies on this forum? those will tell you everything you need to know - 4.5 cups of veggies per day, 3+ oz. of protein at lunch and dinner, 2 tbs of healthy fats at lunch and dinner, and snacks of veggies, protein, dairy, etc. is the basic plan. |
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Mon May 21, 2007 11:27 pm |
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