vacation definition holiday
Best advice for a 16 stone (225 lbs) bloke to tone for a vacation / holiday in 8 weeks?
Hello everyone.
After a little bit of advice. Going on holiday in 8 weeks, and am resonably happy with appearance, but looking to lose my winter gut and tone up round the arms and shoulders. I’m pretty bulky as it is so no real need for more size / strength, just a bit of definition.
I have a feeling that jogging 2 miles, 3 times a week with 3kg weights in each hand, and consuming about 1800 calories per day should do the trick to lose about a stone (14lbs), but just looking for some additional help, especially around motiviation.
All advice welcome!!
Thanks!!
You sound like you know what you’re doing, so I’d stick with it. Here’s my twopenn’orth:
Exercise:
Do as much cardio as you can at 65-70% of maximum heart rate (rough and ready 220 – your age). Depending on your current fitness, build up gradually and don’t overdo it. Lose the 3kg weights: not much point in that, to be honest. Main point is build up gradually, and don’t go mad: getting a torn calf/plantar fasciitis is no fun when you’re on holiday mate, trust me. I would be more inclined to try daily fast walking rather than the jogging. When I say ‘fast’ I mean about an hour to an hour-and-a-half of 6-7km per hour walking: basically so fast that it would be easier to break into a run. This is a great fat burner, and can be incorporated into your daily routine more easily. 7-10 hours of that a week will result in significant fat loss.
Try to fit some weights in, again depending on your current fitness and experience in weightlifting. Seeming as you’re not trying to build muscle, concentrate on high reps/ low weight (try 2 sets of 15-20 to start with). Go for compound exercises such as bench press, squats, deadlifts, rather than faffy excises like tricep kickbacks, as they recruit more muscle groups and burn more calories as a consequence. For arms, try the usual arm curls using a combi/EZ bar, concentration curls (one are at a time), and for triceps either pushdowns or lying triceps extensions (preferably both). For shoulders, most important would be military presses, followed by lateral raises (don’t go higher than arms parallel to the floor: all that does is stress your acromioclavicular joint). I wouldn’t bother with front raises: they’ll get enough of a hammering from the bench presses.
Diet
1800Kcal seems reasonable considering your current weight: go down to 1500KCal if you weight loss starts to plateau but don’t go lower than that: do more cardio instead if necessary. Four or five small meals with equal balance of calories, protein and carbs are better than one or two big meals. Cutting out the beer, whilst dire, will help enormously. Make sure you have an adequate protein intake (roughly 1.6 – 1.8g per kg of body weight), and drink plenty of water.
Good luck mate. With some hard work and dedication, you will see a noticeable difference in eight weeks.
Cheers,
N
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