What to do at the gym to lose weight

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  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
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    Calorie deficit + cardio + Resistance Training

    fixed it...

    - Diet for weight control
    - Cardio for cardiovascular fitness...your heart and lungs and overall endurance
    - Resistance training to preserve lean mass, and be strong...and look awesome once you've cut the fat.
  • MRSpivey
    MRSpivey Posts: 270 Member
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    The only way to lose weight is to have a calorie deficit. How you reach it is up to you - with common sense that's it. Sure you have an idea of what an healthy diet is made of?
    http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/loseweight/Pages/Loseweighthome.aspx
    To gain upper body strenght do any resistance training for the upper body. There's a multitude of exercises. Go to your local gym and you can be advised there.
    ^^ This. As a fitness instructor, my opinion is that when you have a fair amount of fat to lose, a combination of strength and cardio works quicker than just strength training alone. Building muscle is very important, muscles are the furnace that burns the fat. But you gotta put in a little fat burning time as well! Your workouts don't have to be marathon cardio sessions at all. That is why higher intensity shorter workouts have become popular... less time + increased metabolism. But build up to these, start slow and reasonable, don't kill yourself then be super sore for a week, never to work out again! Being here on MFP, logging your food daily and being aware of what you eat is HUGE. Good job making the commitment to yourself, it is the very best thing you can do. Smile, keep that head high, you CAN do this! (:

    ^^^THIS!!!

    I have done a total body workout with cardio three days a week (~9-12 hours weekly) and have been adamant about logging and keeping my macros.

    34277608.png
  • belanger26
    belanger26 Posts: 1
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    One of the best things to do is set smaller goals towards your bigger goal. 65lbs can sound so discouraging. Set a goal of 15lbs by a certain date. Be realistic. Document your food consumption. I lost 30lbs before my wedding but I made sure I had 6 months to do it. Every week you need to have goals on calorie intake AND goals on excercise. Track it. Weigh in weekly. Take progress pictures. It's really exciting when you meet your first goal. It makes you motivated to keep going.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    Calorie deficit + cardio + Resistance Training

    fixed it...

    - Diet for weight control
    - Cardio for cardiovascular fitness...your heart and lungs and overall endurance
    - Resistance training to preserve lean mass, and be strong...and look awesome once you've cut the fat.

    In to add that "Cardio - to eat more while maintaining the same deficit you can get from diet alone" (cardio allows you to eat, mmm)
  • Lightbulb1088
    Lightbulb1088 Posts: 189 Member
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    I would ask for help at your gym. The way I look at it is any thing you do as far as exercise will help you burn cals. Strenght training is a good way to loose fat and gain muscle. Cardio helps burn cals fast and is good for your heart, lungs. So you can mix up the kinds of things you may like to do.

    Eat less calories then the program tells you. It took me a while to figure this part out, but if you don't eat them the weight comes off. It was hard for me to find the calorie count for me, with exercise but this is all about a life style change for me and not a race.
  • CJ_Holmes
    CJ_Holmes Posts: 759 Member
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    Great advice on here- I would be careful with the "100 pushups" program if you decide to try it. It ramps up pretty quickly, and though I gained enough muscle strength to get up to 42, my joints and connective tissues didn't have the time to catch up and I ened up with a few nagging shoulder injuries. I'd suggest trying a well-rounded strength program rather than focusing on any one move. Have fun!
  • bumblebreezy91
    bumblebreezy91 Posts: 520 Member
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    I go on treadmill for 10 minutes get warmed up and I'm on the weights.

    I don't do any cardio! Weights I've been told for long time will keep your metabolism burning for longer than any cardio sesh.

    You should talk to a PT at your gym and ask them for a program.

    I don't eat any bread, pasta or potatoes.

    Swap potato for sweet potato
    Eat protein to help with muscle growth.
    Eggs, fish, chicken, turkey is pure protein. Lots of vegetables

    Minimal dairy! Not much fruit. If your going to eat fruit - any kind of berry!

    Water - drink water. Nothing else!

    This is what I do anyways. Read up on "Paleo"

    If you like paleo, that's cool but it's totally unnecessary for weight loss. I drink milk, eat pasta, white bread, potatoes of all kind and let's throw in the fact I squeeze ice cream, pizza and fast food in there as well. Nutrient dense foods are important but that's an arbitrary list of nonsense that no one HAD to follow to lose weight. I've lost 50 lbs, gone up in strength in lifting and lowered my body fat % doing all the things you're telling OP not to do.


    I don't eat pasta, bread anything with wheat due to coeliac disease. I'm not really telling anybody not to do anything if your going to quote me. Read it before you quote. I'm just saying what's working for me.

    Everybody is different.

    :)

    She read it. You just never said you have Celiac's until she quoted you with a counter-argument. Everybody is different, but nobody loses weight unless they're eating at a calorie deficit, "paleo" or not.

    Obviously, if you literally cannot eat something due to an allergy, don't include it in your diet. But deprivation diets don't work long-term, so for people who can tolerate wheat, going "paleo" for no medical reason whatsoever is an entirely personal choice that should be made with the understanding that one will be living with that diet for their entire life if they intend to keep the weight off for their entire life.
  • fatfudgery
    fatfudgery Posts: 449 Member
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    Like others have said, all you need to lose weight is a caloric deficit. Some people use cardio exercise (running, swimming, biking, that kind of thing) to create that deficit, but it's not needed. Personally, I find that doing a lot of aerobic exercise makes me super hungry and makes it hard for me to maintain a deficit, so I have to limit the amount of cardio I do. You should definitely do at least some cardio for heart health and general fitness, but don't overdo it or it might make it harder to control what you eat...

    Now, for strength, you have to lift heavy weights. Don't just go to the gym and start curling and benching without a plan, though: take some time to learn and understand how your body works (the difference between strength and muscle mass, the role of your central nervous system in strength training, weight loss/gain while lifting, why lifting while losing weight is important, etc.) and get on a well-established strength training program. The two most popular beginners programs out there are Starting Strength (get the book on Amazon) and Stronglifts 5x5 (http://www.stronglifts.com/). Take a look at both, pick one and do it consistently.
  • queenbea77
    queenbea77 Posts: 404 Member
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    Strength training is as important as the rest. I do it M,W & F and on T, TH I do spin. If I have time after my M, W & F routine I get on the TM or elliptical. Just mix it up every 6 weeks or so to keep your muscles guessing.

    Diet is just as important, all the exercise in the world isn't going to help if you over eat. I just cut out sugar, fake sugar and cut way back on my carbs. I don't do white bread, pasta etc. when I do carbs.
  • plankaddict
    plankaddict Posts: 4
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    My suggestion is:

    diet + cardio + weight training

    DIET:
    for now just thrive for calorie deficit, but it would be better if you could ditch the junk completely as junk doesn't help you gaining muscle. Do not drink alcohol, you have no idea how many calories you're drinking if you are a regular guy.

    CARDIO:
    better if done fasted (morning!) and better if you wait about an hour after you've done to introduce calories. So don't eat for the 3/5 hours before and for 1 hour afterward. Keep you heartrate monitored so that you're maximizing your effort (ask your coach about it).

    WEIGHT TRAINING:
    Lifting weights (please, work your legs as well!) help you build lean muscle. Lean muscle speeds up your metabolism, you see where I'm going with this?

    -- Do something everyday. Don't be like "oh, I've ran yesterday, I have to rest a couple of days". Nope, work your arms.
    -- Stretch!
  • ItalianInBoston
    ItalianInBoston Posts: 3
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    A lot of great posts here, thank you all very much.

    I have already been eating less calories and doing an hour of cardio every time I go to the gym, usually a combination of running and walking fast on the treadmill, sometimes I'll switch it up and get on the bike. I get the cardio thing, what I'm still kind of confused about it what kind of weight workouts I should be doing. There are so many from the free weights, to the machines. I have no clue what I'm doing there haha.

    It's kind of hard to get someone at the gym to show me because I go at 1am when I get out if work so that's why I turned to this site to hopefully figure it out. I'll check out the other various posts, thanks again!

    If anyone has anything else to add or posts I can check out about weight workouts please post them!
  • Springfield1970
    Springfield1970 Posts: 1,945 Member
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    Go to the fitness section of the forums and search.

    My advice....take advice from people who have been where you are, have got where you want to go....and have been there for a good long time.

    You'll save a lot of time, pain and confusion. Anyone can call themselves an authority and get a qualification. Are they succeeding?

    Oh....and this...

    Abs are made in the kitchen.
  • Springfield1970
    Springfield1970 Posts: 1,945 Member
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    Like others have said, all you need to lose weight is a caloric deficit. Some people use cardio exercise (running, swimming, biking, that kind of thing) to create that deficit, but it's not needed. Personally, I find that doing a lot of aerobic exercise makes me super hungry and makes it hard for me to maintain a deficit, so I have to limit the amount of cardio I do. You should definitely do at least some cardio for heart health and general fitness, but don't overdo it or it might make it harder to control what you eat...

    Now, for strength, you have to lift heavy weights. Don't just go to the gym and start curling and benching without a plan, though: take some time to learn and understand how your body works (the difference between strength and muscle mass, the role of your central nervous system in strength training, weight loss/gain while lifting, why lifting while losing weight is important, etc.) and get on a well-established strength training program. The two most popular beginners programs out there are Starting Strength (get the book on Amazon) and Stronglifts 5x5 (http://www.stronglifts.com/). Take a look at both, pick one and do it consistently.

    And this is golden too....

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