Weight loss journal

[Nameless King]

Just need some advice. As you can tell I hit the gym recently and trying my best to make it work hence so many threads and questions, would like to thank you guys for providing whatever advice you can, everything is helpful and helps me better understand the world of gym.

With that being said I got 2 questions.

1. Workout routine - I am 5 days a week in a gym doing cardio and weights. Cardio is my main thing since my target number 1 is to lose weight so I do cardio everyday after weight training. Now this is my current schedule: Monday (biceps + triceps), Tuesday (shoulders, forearms), Wendesday (chest, traps), Thursday (biceps + triceps), Friday (shoulders, forearms), Sat+Sun rest, then Monday (chest, traps) and so on.

As you can see I didnt included legs and back. Is it such a big deal? The reason im asking is becuase im quite big already in those areas of my body, main thing is weight loss but I want to get into weights also for experience and diversifying training a bit. Also I am not planning to strip bare chested for the beach or anything like that any time soon either. What you think of my training schedule, am I pairing exercises correctly? For example I do shoulders + forearms on one day but perhaps doing shoulders and traps on same day be better?

2. Different exercises - Each day I am trying different exercises for different muscle groups until I see which do feel better. Some exercises I found more comfortable than others but make no mistake I am still experiencing burn and pain. Today for example I tried shoulder exercises, standing barbell overhead press, cable side laterals and seat dumbell laterals. The barbel and cable side feels great and gives serious kick. The seat dumbell laterals however I found frying my shoulders too quickly, I can barely finish first set. Another example is bench press, I hated it as a kid and I do hate them now.

I do about 3 exercises for each muscle with 3 sets x 12 reps. So in this case what you think would be better? Do 2 exercises with 5 sets each or look for another exercise? Does it matter if you just keep doing the same exercise but more sets to compensate?

 

[vision1]

A lot of beginners are scared of working out their legs and back. I don't really understand the fear. Arguably the most important areas to train.

Your program is shit.

 

[Volador]

Hmm I read the whole thing and kind of don't understand what your doubts are.

What are you trying to accomplish with your training (other than losing weight)? Do you want bigger arms and nothing else? Or do you just want to stay active? If you ever intend to ever train your legs and back, it would be good to train them from the start. Not wanting to train your back is hard to understand. 3 entire days dedicated purely to biceps/triceps, shoulders and forearms. These are small muscle groups, it seems unnecessary to dedicate so much time to them, especially as a beginner.

My recommendation would be: just don't try to program by yourself if you're a beginner. If you are interested in bodybuilding, look up some good reputable programs and resources. The Renaissance Periodization channel is a good place to start.

 

[LooyStLouis]

Age sex height weight.

Goals, medical and exercise and sport history. Job and hobbies. Diet, smoking drinking.

These are things people need to know or they can't give advice to you, they can just share general information until you help them understand all of this.

I read you want to lose weight. Do you have any other goals?

 

[Fahcough]

Give some general background as stated above and it will be easier to find what works for you.

That current set up isn't going to get you near the response. Leaving out the 2 bigs which will burn more calories.

 

[don't ask]

Your workout is garbage. Find a beginner program that's well-respected. r/fitness is a great place to start. Don't make any tweaks to it because you don't know what you're doing.

You won't lose weight from working out. You need to get your diet in check.

You're focusing on all the wrong things. This is a recipe for disaster.

 

[don't ask]

My car doesn't use gas when I drive.

That sounds like a comment a stupid person would make and i know you're not a stupid person.

Trying to lose weight by focusing on working out instead of eating properly is wrong. While beneficial, working out isn't even a necessary part of the equation. Eating properly IS the necessary part of the equation.

 

[NoSmilez]

Get rid of the forearm, traps workout. Add a leg day or two along with a back day instead of a trap day. Split your shoulder and chest workouts with a day of something else.

 

[Blake_UK]

Just need some advice. As you can tell I hit the gym recently and trying my best to make it work hence so many threads and questions, would like to thank you guys for providing whatever advice you can, everything is helpful and helps me better understand the world of gym.

With that being said I got 2 questions.

1. Workout routine - I am 5 days a week in a gym doing cardio and weights. Cardio is my main thing since my target number 1 is to lose weight so I do cardio everyday after weight training. Now this is my current schedule: Monday (biceps + triceps), Tuesday (shoulders, forearms), Wendesday (chest, traps), Thursday (biceps + triceps), Friday (shoulders, forearms), Sat+Sun rest, then Monday (chest, traps) and so on.

As you can see I didnt included legs and back. Is it such a big deal? The reason im asking is becuase im quite big already in those areas of my body, main thing is weight loss but I want to get into weights also for experience and diversifying training a bit. Also I am not planning to strip bare chested for the beach or anything like that any time soon either. What you think of my training schedule, am I pairing exercises correctly? For example I do shoulders + forearms on one day but perhaps doing shoulders and traps on same day be better?

2. Different exercises - Each day I am trying different exercises for different muscle groups until I see which do feel better. Some exercises I found more comfortable than others but make no mistake I am still experiencing burn and pain. Today for example I tried shoulder exercises, standing barbell overhead press, cable side laterals and seat dumbell laterals. The barbel and cable side feels great and gives serious kick. The seat dumbell laterals however I found frying my shoulders too quickly, I can barely finish first set. Another example is bench press, I hated it as a kid and I do hate them now.

I do about 3 exercises for each muscle with 3 sets x 12 reps. So in this case what you think would be better? Do 2 exercises with 5 sets each or look for another exercise? Does it matter if you just keep doing the same exercise but more sets to compensate?

You are doing way too many isolation exercises for small muscle groups while neglecting compound movements that will work more muscles and burn more calories. Doing arms twice a week while not doing any back or legs is ridiculous tbh.

Each session should be based around 1 or 2 compound movements: presses, squats, deadlifts, rows etc.
3x12 is ok but if your main goals are weight loss again you're better off doing lower reps with heavier weights which are more taxing on your body.

Look at stronglifts 5x5 or something similar as a good starting point.

 

[don't ask]

You will lose measurable mass every time you work out, every rep. Calories and water are always being used those both have mass. Are you talking about a religious doctrine or something when you say it's wrong? I lose significant weight every single day when workout. If I don't put tons of effort into eating I lose weight faster than people think is possible. So while I understand what you're saying, it's not true that you can't lose weight by working out or that it is "wrong" for some reason. You cannot inform someone seriously abput how they can influence their body mass without talking about exercise and movement, I believe.

If you mean a fat person doing a random bro split, neglecting diet and expecting to lose lots of weight will be disappointed? Yes they will. But that doesn't mean it's wrong to train and lose weight. Training can be exciting and a primal thing that people enjoy and want to repeat, this can obviously help motivate someone to lose weight. Psychologically, focusing exclusively on dietary changes and restrictions can make someone give up and quit.

This is really simple:

1. Training by itself will not necessarily result in fat loss. It will only result in fat loss if your diet just happens to be close enough to a diet fit for your goals.

2. Focusing on training in order to lose weight is the wrong thing to focus on. While beneficial, you don't need to train at all to lose fat. That's how inessential it is. It is possible to waste hours and hours of intense effort every week for no reason, when spending much less time and effort on eating cleanly would get you to your fat loss goals much quicker. And the person who came up with this plan probably doesn't know what to focus on because he sounds pretty clueless.

3. There is science that indicates that your body does not burn calories "every time you work out, every rep". Read this: https://www.8weeksout.com/2017/11/21/recovery-driven-fitness/

Long story short, it sounds like you base everything you know on your own experiences and that's not a good thing. That kind of attitude makes the worst kind of coaches and trainers.

 

[vision1]

Science indicates your body has access to free energy?

Those studies are what sounds best so you repeat what they say. I don't give a shit about those studies.

You and I live in different worlds, talking about hours of wasted effort. Your goal is do the least amount of exercise, that's just not my goal. Exercise isn't wrong dude. Why do you think you should minimize exercise and training? That's interesting.

That article you linked, I didn't see where it said humans are exempt from the law of conservation of energy.

Your cells don't use energy or water when you move or breath, use your muscles or your heart beats, huh? That's very interesting, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Can you please explain How?

My training does necessarily result in fat loss. Riddle me this. How?

I didn't read the article but I assume it refers to studies that show total calories burned do not increase linearly with exercise. At a certain point your body reduces calorie expenditure elsewhere to compensate.

But I am also on team exercise
Cut out soda and excess sugar and work your ass off.

 

[Be the ball]

Just do burpees fatass

 

[don't ask]

Science indicates your body has access to free energy?

Those studies are what sounds best so you repeat what they say. I don't give a shit about those studies.

You and I live in different worlds, talking about hours of wasted effort. Your goal is do the least amount of exercise, that's just not my goal. Exercise isn't wrong dude. Why do you think you should minimize exercise and training? That's interesting.

That article you linked, I didn't see where it said humans are exempt from the law of conservation of energy.

Your cells don't use energy or water when you move or breath, use your muscles or your heart beats, huh? That's very interesting, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Can you please explain How?

My training does necessarily result in fat loss. Riddle me this. How?

I'm sorry you are illiterate. I cannot make my points any more clear for you. If they are still confusing you (and it appears that they are because you're attacking things I never said) i suggest you go back for remedial schooling.

 

[don't ask]

Only somebody who wants to hear himself talk would respond to a question from someone trying to lose weight and get fit by droning on about "studies" that convince you to minimize exercise. I don't know what somebody like that is doing giving advice. Anyone who does that doesn't have anything valuable to give somebody who is seeking answers, all they have is useless information they want to hear themselves repeat.

You're a freakin retard if you don't recommend exercise for fat loss, specifically. A total retard. Humans are not statistical averages in labs and applying the results of studies like "Don't ask" here does is nothing useful at all and kinda pathetic. Humans aren't cells or organs or systems they're humans. Why do you address chemical processes in the body first ("heres what somebody wrote in a study") and not the person? Weird.

lol I can't tell if you just didn't read anything I wrote or if you did read it, but you have a terrible brain injury compounded by a raging meth addiction.

Let's go through my points one by one. What part of this do you disagree with?

1. Training by itself will not necessarily result in fat loss. It will only result in fat loss if your diet just happens to be close enough to a diet fit for your goals.

 

[vision1]

lol I can't tell if you just didn't read anything I wrote or if you did read it, but you have a terrible brain injury compounded by a raging meth addiction.

Let's go through my points one by one. What part of this do you disagree with?

Diet by itself will also not necessarily result in fat loss though ...

 

[don't ask]

We are not going to agree on this.

Actually, I think we would agree on this if we went through my points. I say this because you have the reading comprehension of a potato and are upset at things I never said, only things you imagined I said. This is obvious by the nonsense you angrily typed at me.

What do you disagree with here?

1. Training by itself will not necessarily result in fat loss. It will only result in fat loss if your diet just happens to be close enough to a diet fit for your goals.

 

[don't ask]

Diet by itself will also not necessarily result in fat loss though ...

You're jumping ahead of the points. You won't lose fat if you're eating too many calories, no matter how much you train. Can we agree on this?

 

[don't ask]

If you accept the originally definition of "meme" as an mental idea that propagates in a population like a "gene" (meme = M-ind, M-ental or M-emory + gene is where the word comes from) then you can probably see the "meme" that @don't ask is spreading. It really is just a meme that has spread in theoretical and academic fitness that "exercise doesn't lose fat" and "abs are made in the kitchen". They're based on nuggets of truth but they are useless memes, not knowledge.

Like I said, if you had better reading comprehension we would probably agree. You've objected to a lot of things I didn't actually say.

 

[don't ask]

You probably mistake my normal attitude for anger but that's ok I'm actually being extremely amicable and friendly.

I think you're just parroting fitness memes dude, not offering anything useful to this guy asking questions. He is obviously not going to get anything from what you're saying. Can you not tell from his question that he is an insecure beginner? He doesn't need to hear anything about how why he doesn't need to exercise or any memes. We don't even know if he's a 15 year old baseball player or a 65 year old retired construction worker. The stuff you're talking about isn't just irrelevant, it's going to derail him. That's my perspective, so I don't think we're gonna agree.

This is what I'm referring to when I say you have the reading comprehension of a potato. I directed him to find a better work out, which i said several times was beneficial for fat loss, and told him to focus on nutrition, which will determine whether or not he actually loses weight. Everything you're arguing against are things you've imagined.

 

[LooyStLouis]

I directed him to find a better work out

Lets check the tape.

r/fitness is a great place to start.

You told him about reddit...