Not quite the CFP. Good try, though.
For cardio, walking is great when trying to save wear and tear on joints and ligaments. Treadmill with 10-15 incline at around 3 mph will be plenty to get your heart rate up. The bonus is that since you are carrying around all that extra weight, you’ll likely be strong when you lose it provided you do some weights to maintain existing muscle. Imagine how strong someone would be if they constantly carrying around a 100lb weighted vest for years and then removed it.
Honestly, it sounds like the lifting you are currently doing is fine for general fitness, which is your goal. You should start walking a few times a week for 45 min to and hour, can even watch TV while you do it if you want. Increase the time as your fitness builds and/or you get increasingly into whatever series you’re binging. You’ll get a good aerobic base this way that will benefit you greatly when/if you step it up to jogging. Like others have said, it’s whatever will work as a routine. Consistency is THE most important factor in health and fitness.
Thanks! Yes, it’s like CFA in that the pass rate is in the low 50% range. That said, it is only one test and perhaps the population of meatheads that attempt to pass it might be less “academically polished” than those attempting CFA.
Mr. CEO is what that title say FYI.
Greenie, if you’ve been trying for a while and are yo-yoing or just not shifting the weight, I would highly recommend scaling back the exercise to 1-2 short weight sessions a week focusing on compound movements, with a short 10 min HIIT cardio sesh after.
People tend to hugely overestimate the calories they burn from workouts so you shouldn’t be looking to eat more than a few 100 calories more on gym days. probably just a banana before. Don’t be drinking shakes, eating energy bars etc. if your main aim is to lose fat.
Also, consider doing a short term diet to kick start your weight liss. I’m not talking about a juice cleanse or anything like that but rather a lowish carb Mediterranean diet for 2-3 weeks where you cut out refined sugar, coffee, alcohol, processed foods, white carbs. Or go 800 calories for 2 weeks to correct your blood sugar.
Ignore any advice about mindful or intuitive eating. If you’ve been overweight for a long time your blood sugar, insulin, leptin, cortisol and testosterone will all be goosed. Ignore the signs of your body and the habits you currently have to break out of the pattern.
or just replace soda with water and use that as momentum. soda is your single biggest problem, i guarantee it.
^ whilst I agree that soda is probably a huge issue I think momentum would be best coming from a short burst of fast fat loss before rebuilding his diet and exercise plan.
As a side note, it still amazes me how many people in the US are hooked on soda.
its much better to be hooked on phonics!
How many days you should lift really depends on you. I recommend hitting all the different muscle groups through the course of the week but each one no more than 2 twice so as to give your body plenty of recovery time. As others have said, would focus on the compounds stuff like squats and dead lifts, though iso stuff is fine, just don’t get carried away with it.
You mentioned doing the whole body in one day. I don’t recommend that, that’s why I split stuff up into separate days. Personally I do a 4 day split on Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri with cardio of some type on Wed and take the weekends off or possibly do some more cardio. I used to do what you did for probably close to a decade and didn’t get anywhere fast. But after changing to a split program and altering some of the exercises I did, I saw improvements.
Also, if possible, I highly recommend swimming for cardio. I do not like the stationary bike, tread mill, elliptical, etc… at all but I realize it may not be an option for everyone. But also do the little stuff like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, etc…
Good luck with everything.