More specific plan, is it alright?

[Bruce1975]

OK, I have been trying to figure out a workout plan for a while now. This is what I have come up with.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday
On these days I am primarily doing cardio. What I have been doing is 28 minutes on the exercise bike, 28 minutes on the stairmaster and running 3 miles on the treadmill. My knees have been bothering me some so I think I am going to cut back a little on the treadmill. Does this sound alright?

Tuesday, Thursday
I am doing some weight training on these days. I have been doing the ab machine (2x15 reps), lower back machine (2x15 reps), assisted pullups (2x15 reps), assisted dips (2x15), bench press (2x15 reps), fly's (2x15 reps), preacher curls (2x15). I also do a few leg exercises. After my workout I am doing 30 minutes of cardio.

Weekend
I generally do a bike ride or two on the weekend. The past couple weekends have had at least one decent day. Both this Sunday and the Sunday before that I managed to get in a 70 mile bike ride. Once the weather starts getting nicer I plan to ride at least 125 - 175 miles per week.

I currently weigh about 185 pounds (19% body fat). I started at 220 pounds (23% body fat). I have just started doing the weight training again, for the past three months I have been primarily concentrating on cardio for weight loss. I still want to lose another ten pounds but I am in no hurry to do it. I primarily want to just lower my body fat percentage. Keep in mind I don't want to gain any weight to do this.

Does it sound like I am on the right track?

[Bruce1975]

Anybody???????????

[Lady C]

Well the workout looks fine but what about the diet?

[Bruce1975]

I generally eat a bowl of cereal (honey nut cheerios) for breakfast. Some type of fruit for a mid morning snack. A bowl of Campbells chunky soup for lunch. A fruit bar or something for a mid afternoon snack. Then a decent dinner, for example, chicken, noodles, vegetable.

I generally drink 1 - 1 1/2 gallons of water per day. That is all I drink, I really don't like drinking anything but water, with the exception of an occasional corona.

Unfortunately I am not able to have the true six meals a day. That would really be frowned upon at my office.

[abarlament]

You need to introduce more protein into your diet. It looks like you are getting <100g of protein a day.

[Lady C]

Is your workout in the evenings? If so a big dinner would be fine, otherwise, you need to make some serious diet changes.

I personally would dump the box cereal and switch to oatmeal or even eggs. Add some protein with that fruit mid-day snack and add veggies with the fruit bar. Lunch should be something fresh, if possible, instead of canned.

You will have difficulty losing on that diet. Not enough fresh veggies and too much box, canned food, IMHO.

[Klinger]

EDIT: Sorry to step on Lady C's toes. We must have posted at the same time!

Your diet looks problematic. Try to get a protein/carb/fat source into every meal. Most cereals, soups like Chunky and those fruit bars are full of crap (salt, bad fats, et al). Better would be some lean meats on whole-grain bread, fresh raw or cooked veggies, hard-boiled eggs, cottage cheese and the like.

If you can't do work meals outside of lunch, try snacking on stuff like skim-milk mozzarella sticks, almonds and fruits high in anti-oxidants, like berries. Some organic granola bars are not too bad, either.

Try to structure your weight work a little more. Do upper body one day (bench, row, shoulder press, dips, etc) and lower body the next (squat, curls and extensions, calf work). That will help you more in the long run.

Cardio looks excessive, but if you're shooting for fat loss, I guess it's OK for you.

[Bruce1975]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll work on my diet as much as possible.

LadyC - My workout is in the evening once I get off of work.

I'm really not doing enough leg exercises to be able to justify having a seperate day for them. I believe that I am too close to race season to be able to do get much benefit from working out my legs. I can't risk tearing anything. The way my schedule is working out I am going to be able to do just enough races to qualify for the championships, if I have an injury and have to miss an additional race then I have been doing a lot of work for nothing, well not nothing but you know what I mean.

[Bruce1975]

This may be a dumb question but I'm going to ask it anyway. When eating oatmeal would it be better to have two packets at once (about 7:45 am) or would I be better off having one of them at 7:45 then another around 9:45 am? I guess this would kind of increase my number of meals.

[Lady C]

I hope when you say "packets" you aren't eating those flavored heavily sugar laden kind. You need to stick with the plain and add minimal amouts of sweeteners. All I add is some dried cranberries, cinnamon and non-flavored protein. It is better to split them into smaller meals. Each time you eat it kicks up the metabolism some.

[Bruce1975]

Uh oh, screwed up again.

Yup eating the flavored type. They have about 13 grams of sugar each, 2 grams of fat and about 150 calories. Is that really that bad?

[Lady C]

Originally Posted by LowCel

Uh oh, screwed up again.

Yup eating the flavored type. They have about 13 grams of sugar each, 2 grams of fat and about 150 calories. Is that really that bad?

That depends on you and your goals. It will hinder your fat loss if you can't burn it off. I personally have not eaten or had white sugar in my house for over 4 years.

[threenorns]

two things i don't use: sugar (period) and salt.

as for:

13 grams of sugar each, 2 grams of fat and about 150 calories

you realize that that means that out of 150 calories, 52 calories are from sugar (4 cal per gram) and 18 calories are from fat (9 cal per gram) for a total of 70 calories? in other words, your cereal is about 47% crap!

[Bruce1975]

Originally Posted by threenorns

two things i don't use: sugar (period) and salt.

as for:




you realize that that means that out of 150 calories, 52 calories are from sugar (4 cal per gram) and 18 calories are from fat (9 cal per gram) for a total of 70 calories? in other words, your cereal is about 47% crap!

Thank you. I'll see if I can figure out something better to do in the time I have.

[Lady C]

Try this version Note:We make it with just water and no splenda now.
We get up and make it then go shower. It is ready when you have finished showering.