How to lose weight and gain muscle

03-08-2006

Although there is still a little way to go before I reach that elusive 6-pack, I have managed to lose a lot of fat over the last 6 months. When I stand on the scales today I see that I am just two pounds lighter than I was this time a year ago. Each week as I step on the scales I can see that I weigh the same, sometimes a pound less sometimes a pound more. Yet I am making progress. How? Well, as well as doing cardiovascular training I am doing a lot of heavy weight training. As I burn fat I am packing on the muscle. Standing on scales is no longer an accurate measure of my progress.

Using a tape measure is also proving to be of little use. You can measure your waist, chest, legs, arms and neck and still think that you are not making any progress when in fact you are. The fact is that when you train heavily, your body decides where the weight is going to come off first and its not always the places that you are closely monitoring. So you need a new way of measuring your progress.

Stand in front of a wall or door once a month and take three pictures. One of your front, one of your back, and one to the side. Stand in the same place each month as you have those pictures taken. Load them into your computer and compare the most recent pictures against last months and those before and you will notice those love handles start to disappear and your skin start to get tighter and muscle tone begin to show. For me I began to notice my hips more and that my upper back and chest became thicker and more defined. It was a boost to my confidence after failing to notice a difference when standing on the scales each week.

Over the last 6 months I’ve learned more about how to loose weight than I have in the last ten years and I wanted to share what I’ve learned with you.

1. You have to find what works for you.

There is a hell of a lot of information available about how to lose weight. I know, I’ve read a lot of it and I know about information overload believe me. The trick is to digest this information and then to find what works for you. Some people can have an all nighter in the pub followed by a curry and as long as they go for a run for twenty minutes the next day, they won’t put on a single pound. Others just can’t get away with that.

You have to find what works for you so experiment. Try different activities for a few weeks, try different eating habits, go to an aerobics class for a few weeks. Did it make any difference? If not move on. I learned that I could eat as much junk food as I want on one day of the week because my body will only process so much of it and chuck the rest out. Then as long as I hit the gym the next day I’ll lose any fat gain from the junk food. I also learned that I could only do this once every 7-10 days or I would gain weight. I also learned that if I ate a lot while on a holiday for up to 5-7 days, if I trained hard for 3 days upon my return I would lose all the extra weight I had gained.

2. Drink lots of water.

Get yourself a two-litre bottle of pop that’s empty and fill it with water. That’s how much you should be drinking every day, minimum. If you try drinking that much water you will find that you have no time, or thirst for any other drinks such as tea, coffee or carbonated drinks. Water keeps your body working at its best and helps you burn that fat as you exercise. If you exercise a lot or drink tea or coffee then you will need to drink even more water.

3. Exercise more than you eat or eat less than you exercise.

My current routine is that the exercise I have done today has to balance against what I eat. I usually eat as healthy as I can. Salads, protein, fruit, veg, etc. I also try to reduce my cholesterol so no really fatty foods and I keep eggs to a minimum. However, if I eat lots or nibble on something that maybe I shouldn’t, I have to exercise to cover it. This could be 30 minutes on the treadmill, an hour on the bike or an hour in the gym. If I have not done enough exercise, then I don’t eat more and that’s it.

I know for a fact that the formula for weight loss is that if you eat more than you exercise then your body stores the extra. So if you exercise more than you eat the body raids your reserve fuel store. Simple and it does work.

4. Don’t starve yourself.

You do not have to starve yourself to lose weight. You just need to know how the body works. Fruit and veg are good for you so eat as much as you want. It will fill you up but I’ll admit it’s a little dull. Starches are tasty, especially with sauce, but my body stores them like you wouldn’t believe so I try not to eat too many potatoes, rice or pasta. Protein is good but your body can only process so much of it each sitting, which is probably how the Atkins diet works. Eating too much protein is a waste so I only eat enough to help build muscle. I’ve found that eating white meats and fish after a heavy gym session helps me pack on more muscle. Tuna is the best but you should not eat too much of it each week. I eat about 4 portions max.

I try to avoid bread, especially late at night. All my body seems to do with bread is store it. So I just try to eat as little of it as possible. The same goes for pastry. No more pub pies or pasties for me. I’ve discovered a taste for packaged pastas from the cooler while I’m out and about. They are small and filling and give me the energy I need to continue with my day.

5. Do not eat for 2 hours before going to bed.

This is a strict rule for me. I would even go as far as saying that don’t eat after 8pm, as this is when I’ve found that my metabolism shuts down. It just goes to sleep and anything I eat after that gets stored.

Try to avoid alcohol late at night, as it will make you hungry. And eating cereal late at night because it sounds healthy is not a good idea, even Special K. I always weigh more the next day.

If you start getting hungry late at night, drink some water. It kills your hunger for about twenty minutes. Then go to bed. You will feel better for it in the morning and ready for breakfast.

6. Kill cravings with fruit

To me fruit is boring but I’ve found a use for it. When I start getting cravings I make a deal with myself. If I can eat a piece of fruit then I can give in to the craving. There is always fruit lying around at work and at home so I eat a piece. And I don’t feel hungry for hours afterwards. I kill my craving and I’m actually eating something that is good for me.

7. Build bigger muscles

The bigger your muscles, the more food they need. If you don’t eat any more than you always eat but your muscles are bigger, they raid your fat store for fuel in order to function. Don’t forget that they need protein to get bigger, carbohydrates and fats to burn in order to carry out the building process, and water to function and to carry away the waste.

There are a hell of a lot of books, magazines and web sites available on bodybuilding. I’ve read most of them and I studied anatomy for a short while, mainly the muscular and cardiovascular systems just so I can understand how it all works. I wanted to know how muscles got bigger so that I could improve my training techniques. I learned that there were a set of exercises for each major muscle group that made that muscle grow. These exercises added bulk when executed for 6-rep max sets with you struggling to failure on the final rep. These exercises are the flat bench press for the chest, dead-lift for the back, cable press-downs for the triceps, barbell curls for the biceps (I prefer E-Z bar to avoid wrist injury), upright press for the shoulders, squats for the legs and shrugs for the neck. Do these exercises with heavy weights, 3-4 sets of 6 reps twice a week, eat lots of protein, and your muscles should start to grow.

Ok so now you should start to bulk up. The rest of the documented exercises out there are designed to target particular muscles so that you can chisel the look you want. While squats will add bulk to your legs, calf raises will add size to your calves. Try different exercises and see what works for you. For instance I find that cable press-downs work better for my triceps than close-grip bench press.

Don’t stick to the same routine longer than a month. Your muscles will get used to it and your progress will plateau. If you have been doing the bench press for your chest you can incline or decline the bench, do flies, pec-dec, weighted press-up, you name it. There are a myriad of different exercises for each muscle group. Each works the muscle in a slightly different way. Variety is what you need to stop from plateauing believe me. I change my routine every month. I sit down and re-write it using all the exercises I know from memory. I start by writing out the major body parts; chest, back, legs, arms, shoulders, neck, abdominals, and then I write the exercises I am going to perform next to them. Then I change them again 4 weeks later. I have not plateaued since I started doing this.

A good tip when trying to build muscle is to remember that its not the lifting that builds the muscle but the lowering. However long it takes you to lift a weight, it should take you double the time to lower it. So if performing a dumbbell curl and you can lift it in two seconds, it should take you four seconds to lower it. What is happening is as you take your time to lower the weight you are causing micro tears in the muscle, which it will repair so that next time, it can handle the weight you are trying to lower.

8. Get yourself a diet buddy and a training partner.

The human mind loves the thought of competition. Its what’s spurns us on and pushes us further to beat the competition. One of the best things I did over the last 6 months was to get myself a diet buddy. The second was to get a training partner for the gym.

A diet buddy can be someone you talk to or just email once a month. Tell them about your progress, how much weight you’ve lost, how much muscle you’ve gained, and how much stronger and fitter you feel. It will have the effect of pushing them harder to do well too, if not better than you. Of course if the opposite is true you have to tell them that too. You have to tell them if you gained weight, missed gym sessions and feel like crap. Their job is to cheer you up and to tell you that you can do it, to keep it up, and to be your buddy. They also have to tell you how they are doing so you both push each other further, if they can do it so can you. Get yourself a diet buddy!

A training partner is also essential for me. We both workout at the gym together and spot each other when lifting heavy free weights. We give each other encouragement and push each other further than you would do if you were training on your own. You are also in competition with your training partner. If he does 7 reps on one set then you do 8 or higher on the next. Before long you will be increasing the weight you can both lift each month. Plus, on the days when your training partner can’t make a gym session but you can, you still go and push yourself further so that next session you are a little further along than your training partner. That will teach them to miss a session! A little competition is a good thing believe me.

I hope this blog entry has helped you in some way. I can definitely tell you without a doubt, that what I have learned about my body over the last 6 months about what it can and can’t handle, what food works best, how much and when to eat, and how I exercise has all been of great use to me. I feel fitter than I have felt in a very very long time. I want to go for runs, for bike rides and to lift weights every day but I don’t. Too much exercise is not good for you. I lift really heavy weights at present to build muscle so I only do this on Monday and Friday’s to allow a sufficient growth period in-between. On every other day except Sunday I do at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise. I do try to aim for an hour but I don’t always have time. The exercise is usually in the form of running on a treadmill but occasionally it involves getting the bike out and going for a ride. If I can get some of my mates out on their bikes I’d be going out more often because I find it boring on my own. I also do a cardio class at my gym once a week. This usually incorporates 50 minutes of cardio including warm-up followed by a 10-minute intense abdominal workout. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I like to do about 10 minutes of abdominal exercises each day after warming up. I can feel my abs under my gut now. I just need to shift the rest of this lard so I can finally see that elusive 6-pack.