How long?

[Disco Dave]

Right, I've started doing my cardio first thing in the morning, and have also cut down to skimmed milk from semi (2 pints a day). How long until I see my body fat decrease? I'm currently 10% but would like to get to around 7%. I've also started taking flax seed oil.

 

[blood_drinker]

wtf, how do you expect to get an answer when all you have told us is that you cut down on milk. wtf? any fatass can cutdown on milk but eat mcdonalds 6 times a day, and wont cut bodyfat, even if he added the flax oil.

if you still want a genuine answer elaborate on your dull post.

 

[supersizeme]

Dave - we'd have to know what your stats are, what your diet looks like (including caloric content), how much cardio you're doing and when you're doing...so much shit we'd have to know before we could even begin to gauge how quickly you'll drop fat. besides, you want to shoot for around 2lbs a week fat loss, any more than that and you could be looking at muscle loss.

 

[Disco Dave]

Fair comment guys!!

I don't count my calorie intake for a start, this could be a problem!! My "average" days diet would be as follows;

8am - Bowl of bran flakes with skimmed milk, protein supplement ("Simply Protein" by EAS) 2 flax seed capsules

10am - 2 slices of wholemeal toast with peanut butter CLA capsule

1pm - 1 Chicken breast, 200g low fat natural yoghurt - CLA capsule

4pm - Protein shake & fruit - apple/banana

7pm - Chicken or fish + potatoes or pasta - 2 flax seed capsules

10pm - Protein shake + 2 flax seed capsules quickly followed by bed!!

I train with weights Monday Wednesday and Friday, and split the works outs as chest/tri/shoulders and back/bi/legs so I'm working each group every other workout. I've started doing cardio in the morning at approximately 7am before I eat anything.

I weigh 176lbs and I'm 6ft tall.

So how do I shed the rest of my fat? Referring to my original message, will this help? Should I be doing cardio every morning or only on the days I'm not weight training? (I weight train in the evening)

Cheers.

Dave

 

[lunatic calm]

Too much cardio can hamper gains in strength and size. Find out how little you can get away with. Doin it every day won't help. Try cutting down on your rest intervals between sets and exercises. Keep your reps around 8-10 and this MAY help. The idea is to get your natural gh pumpin which helps with lipolysis (fat burning). Of course, this is a gross oversimplification. Many studies have shown these variables to help.

 

[johnny123]

TOO MANY CARBS!

all that milk/pasta/fruit is a bit much. need more protein. at least try to add up the protein and carb amounts, and let us know what that total is daily. you seem a bit light for wanting to cut up and lose weight. you diet is not really a cutting diet, more like a slight bulking maintainance diet.

 

[Disco Dave]

That's the problem you see, I don't know how much I take in, carbs or protein!
I don't want to lose weight, but I do want to lose the lovehandles, this is the only area of my body I'm unhappy with, ideally I want to cut down so I can see my abs, and then put muscle on after, so all the time I remain lean, is this the hard way about it? I find it hard to shed fat and don't want to bulk right up and then try cutting down again, it's taken years to see my top two abs!!

 

[Superfoot]

Not much I can add here, I would suggest that if you are cutting, drop the 10PM meal. Eating protein then going directly to bed is a good bulking trick but it won't help you lose fat.

Are you mixing your protein with fruit juice or milk? This is easy to overlook when you are counting your total carbs.

Also, milk, fruit, and yogert all have a lot of simple sugars in them. Try to cut these (except for after your workouts) and use a more complex source of carbs (oatmeal, beans, brown rice, etc.).

You'll start to see results pretty quickly but depending on your body and your goal it's impossible to say when you'll hit it.

Good luck.

 

[Disco Dave]

The reason for having the 10pm meal was to keep my metabolic rate up. I'd dearly love to put on more size, but like I say I don't want to put on fat.

I was taking the protein with semi-skimmed milk but have cut to skimmed, I worked out I was consuming about 15g of unneccesary fat per day! I only did this last week so I'm hopeful this will help maintain leanness.

So is there a way to increase muscle mass without putting on weight around the waist, or is it a case of bulking up and then cutting down?

Thanks for the advice guys, it's much appreciated

 

[keiko]

It's darn near impossible to make any appreciable gains without adding some fat. Do a search on these boards, and you'll see most people bulk and cut, bulk and cut.

There's no such thing as spot reduction--if you burn fat, you'll lose it all over, not just your lovehandles.

In my experience CLA is worthless. If you've lived on margarine and tropical fats, it might be a revelation, but if you already have healthy fats in your diet, it's not needed.

Don't eat carbs in the later afternoon or evening if you want to cut. Keep track of your calories. There are several on-line sites or you could just write it down.