zomboid: sorry brah, no such thing as spot reduction

kahl: you're overlooking the protein in the cheese, meat, and sauce. you have to really keep your eye on all of the health benefits of such a diet.

milhouse: burpees are okay, but I will do them as warm up. if you don't have gym equipment, do convict conditioning. you'll find it a few posts back.

gw: you'll be doing five sets of 27 cleans. pretty sick numbers, bro.

Break down exactly what those exercises you described are, and I'll do them.

NO SPOT REDUCTION?! So, I have to exercise everything to lose mah shit in a few areas? It's mainly excess skin from my awesome weight loss from high school (I started banging chicks shortly thereafter, bros!!! :rock).

This is where you'll find convict conditioning. all of those exercises are beyond self explanatory. Besides, don't you get enough exercise by ripping the black guts out of the Earth?

also, if you're trying to fill out loose skin, you really need to focus on building muscle. muscle growth will tighten the skin up, but you might always have a little bit of the droopy pooch. convict conditioning probably isn't going to help you so much. do you have any decent gyms in your area?

I haven't done oil stuff in a while. I just finished a bunch of school and have my practicum left, braw. The broke student diet for me consisted of a lot of shitty cafeteria meals and a lot of drinking, but I lost weight. I'm basically just too skinny right now. Not so gaunt as, like, Fathom, but I don't have as much muscle as I used to.

Then you need to get into a gym. People always say they want to lose weight or whatever, but nobody wants to do what is necessary to accomplish that. If you want to fill out, convict conditioning won't help you.

I basically just want to be more limber and slightly more toned while still being able to smoke. I don't want/need to get BRO big, bro.

Bluh bluh I hear that all the time. Look, there's no such thing as just toning up and you don't just get big by picking up a dumbbell. Getting big takes time, a lot of effort, discipline and dietary commitment. Assuming you don't eat like shit, you lose fat as you build muscle and you'll be able to fill out your loose skin well before you turn into Ronnie Coleman.

Fine, fag.

When I got back into the gym after my car accident, here's the routine I did to ease myself back into it:

A
Bench 3x5
Bent over rows 3x5
Overhead press 3x5
Deadlifts 1x5

B
Squats 3x8
Dumbbell lunges 3x8
Pullups 3x8
Leg press 3x8

I worked A/B/Rest/A/B/Rest etc. It's a simple routine that helped me get back to where I was before the accident. It's full of compound exercises with moderate reps and can help you when paired with a decent diet.

ehhh i already get enough protein from all the cock i suck

you know what i only just realized? you can cold brew bagged green tea just fine.

so now i just throw a teabag in a bottle of water and leave it in the fridge for a few hours.

f yea

So I was trying to study the convict conditioning chart above, but some things were too tiny to read. I ended up getting the book and if you look past all the "hey dude, lifting weights is for fags, in prison you gotta be tough" talk, there's really detailed explanations on how to do each exercise and how to get from step 1 to 10 without killing yourself. I'd recommend getting it, even if it's through illegal means. The beginning exercises look easy enough for a novice such as I.

I want to go on the record as fucking loving those kneeling push ups. I thought they'd destroy my knees if I did more than, like, five, but I didn't even feel any strain on them and I was doing this on a concrete floor.

My arms also feel like they were torn up pretty good.

Cranberry juice is a terrible replacement for soda for a couple reasons: one, it has more calories; two, it has more acid. the main reasons people hate on soda are for its calories and acid. diet soda is actually perfectly goddamn fine and there are credible studies that have proven that phosphoric acid does not "leech calcium from the bones by lowering the stomach acid ph", as most broscientists will claim. I drink a lot of diet caffeine-free sodas myself, but caffeine is fine too if you aren't having a hypertension problem.

Sauce: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11522558

stubborn fat deposits in males are in the lower stomach and back. i won't go into the science of it because there's a good chance you don't give a shit, but the mix of fats in those areas contain a higher ratio of alpha-2 fats that are difficult to mobilize and therefore burn. if you're already reasonably lean (15%bf or less) then you may want to consider doing cardio when fasted and supplementing with a yohimbine hcl/caffeine stack. i'll give more details if that's the case. more than likely though, you just need to lower your bodyfat. count calories and stay at about 2200, though again if you srsly give a shit let me know and we can figure out a more exact kcal requirement.

burpees are pretty good for cardio. they're not good for much else. personally i think they're the best pre-workout cardio you can do, provided you can do about 20 of them without wanting to pass out. a good set of burpees will warm up everything, but any pre-workout cardio should be done at medium intensity; so unless you can do burpees all day long, an elliptical will serve you better.

for people who are wondering what a burpee is:


i prefer the variation with a chin-up at the top of the jump

1x2 means 1 set of 2 reps. A 'set' is one series of lifts and a 'rep' is one complete movement. Most of my numbers are 3x5; on bench press this means i lie down and do 5 presses, then rest, for a total of 3 times.

this is a power clean:


it's an olympic lift, and i wouldn't recommend olympic lifts for anyone who is lifting for only aesthetics.

this is what literally every single person who ever wants fitness advice says. just an fyi. as terezi2 said, you will not get big unless you eat big and/or take roids.

I've never actually read the book, I just have looked at the bodyweight exercises and they're all pretty solid. I also hear it recommended by people I respect. Ty for looking into it and letting me know it's full of toughguy bullshit about weightlifting so I can warn people in the future. The only problem I have with the charts is that they want you to do 20 reps of stuff which is tres silly. 3-5 reps is best for strength and 10-12 is best for size; more than that will help your endurance and tolerance to lactic acid, neither of which are related to aesthetics. maybe if you're doing a sport that requires you to do 50 handstand pushups as part of your competition it would make sense.

speaking of cardio, I think it's important to note that all forms of cardio are not equal. well, there's a lot of broscience and speculation, at least.

my two favorite forms of cardio are swimming and HIIT. HIIT is high intensity interval training, which essentially means that throughout your exercise you will have short spurts of the most intense effort you can muster. when jogging, you'll have a two minute stretch at your normal pace, then 30 seconds at a full sprint, returning to the normal pace and continuing to alternate.

Yeah, the areas you described are where there are still small deposits. It's weird, because my hip bones stick out, but I have a bit of fat around the back of them. I don't know what my body fat % is at. MAYHAPS CARDIO IS IN ORDER.

I was just thinking some squats and bench presses were in order, most of the barbell tomfoolery I've seen looks completely batshit. Basically my bro plan looks something like:

Run to the gym or, failing that, run on the treadmill when I get there
3x5 BENCH PRESSES RARRRRRGH
3x5 SQUATS RARRRRGH
3x20 Kneeling push-ups
3x7 Chin-ups, to be increased later when I stop being a puny piece of shit
Swim a few laps or just run back home if I don't mind being a repulsive sweaty shit on the street

I did a sort of prototype version of this today and ran a few miles on the beach, did a shitload of kneeling push-ups, bodyweight squats and chin-ups, then went swimming in the ocean. I have no idea why I didn't just do this years ago, it's easy as shit and I was sweating up a monsoon.

Also, question about chin-ups: Underhand or overhand? Should I just do an even amount of both?

same here, but I do DDR for HIIT. yes it fucking counts if you do the shit i do.

GW: generally speaking, don't do more than 10 minutes of cardio on lifting days--it will negatively impact your lifts and your body's ability to heal from lifts. your routine also needs more core work, shoulder work and back work other than lats (chins will cover your lats). I recommend deadlifts, standing dumbbell military presses, and cable rows. the bodyweight equivalents would be handstand shoulder presses and inverted rows. you don't have to do all this shit on the same day. beginners should usually pick 3 exercises to do per day. so for you, i'd recommend:

day 1:
3x5 barbell squat (or 3xlots of pistol squats)
3x5 bbell or dbell bench press (or 3xlots of pushups)
3x5 chin up

day 2:
1x5 barbell deadlift (or 3x lots of superman & crunches/situps)
3x5 standing dumbbell military press (or 3x5 handstand pushups)
3x5 cable row (or 3x lots of inverted rows)

exercises in parenthesis are bodyweight equivalents. don't settle for bodyweight shit if you don't have to because you won't get the results you want nearly as fast and you'll plateau early. squat and deadz are the most important lifts which is why i put them first, so if you get too tired to finish the whole thing (pussy) then you at least got the important stuff done.

btw this is my favorite site to pull exercises from, and it helps you to build an understanding of the musculature involved too:
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html

for example if you want more ideas for exercises that target the same muscles as cable rows, you could go to 'general back' and then goodness look at all those rows.

btw my fitocracy name is Payback, my profile is here: http://www.fitocracy.com/profile/payback/

this is one of those "do as i say, not as i do" things--don't copy anyone's routine (esp if they've been lifting for years). what is appropriate and works for them is not necessarily appropriate for you.

that routine i just posted is pretty solid for beginners. you may want to add curls if you're into that sort of thing. i recommend doing some wrist work after a few months (especially pronations and supinations), and that goes double for people who don't use dumbbells much.

To expand on Terezi1, you might also try some barbell shrugs to work on your traps and some bent over rows to work on your middle back and shoulders.

You might also consider the clean and jerk if you have any kettlebells around, as that would probably be significantly less stressful than using a barbell and hits so many muscle groups.

bent over row hits the same targets as cable rows, but cable rows are harder to fuck up and are easier on your spine. considering i advised him to DL on the same day i feel the cable row is a better option.

bluh, I never feel satisfied with cable rows

HOW MUCH FOOD SHOULD YOU EAT?
To lose weight, you need to eat less calories than your body uses every day. This is commonly referred to as "calories in vs. calories out." Calorie-counting websites can help with the "calories in" portion, but you will likely need a different site to track the "calories out" side because estimates of calories expended are usually inflated. "Calories out" refers to three types of calorie use: calories used to continue existing, also called your basal metabolic rate, calories used by your metabolism (which is influenced by exercise), and calories directly burned through exercise.

So to lose weight, your "calories in" need to be less than your "calories out." It really is that simple. The error in this equation invariably comes down to people being terrible at estimating both sides of it. Common thinking is that because a pound of fat is represented by 3500 calories, eating at a 500 calorie deficit every day will result in a 1-pound loss of fat per week (500*7=3500). That's actually a pretty decent deficit for cutting, but for different reasons; weight loss is not necessarily fat loss, but we'll get to that in a minute.

How much fat would you like to lose? Obese people can eat very little and see the greatest fat losses because they're basically food camels. Human survival mechanisms also probably make it the most challenging (mentally) for these people to lose weight, because your body wants to keep eating the same types and the same amounts of food that it's used to. Regardless of your body shape and size, if you're looking to cut weight, you will have to break some habits and make new ones. Set a benchmark: 1/2 lb/week? 1 lb/week? 2 lbs/week? Go ahead and multiply 3500 by that benchmark, then divide it by 7 to reach your daily deficit. For the purposes of this example, we'll shoot for 1 lb/week: 3500 * 1 / 7 = a 500 Calorie daily deficit.

Now we have to find your Calorie requirements. First, we will find your BMR (basal metabolic rate), which is the amount of Calories you burn by existing independent of other factors (such as gravity or doing anything at all, including sitting down). You will multiply your BMR by your activity level to ballpark the effect your metabolism has on your calorie expenditure. Finally, you can then add in the direct effect of any exercise you do--personally, I tend to leave this part out as it's the most inaccurate part of the equation and leaving it out will lower your calorie target anyway and cause you to burn more fat. But I digress.

Click here to calculate BMR and the metabolic effect of activity: http://www.muscleandstrength.com/too...alculator.html. I'm 5'7", 179 lbs, age 27, male, I exercise every day. My daily needs are 3189 Calories/day. This calculation uses the basic BMR formula for BMR and the Harris-benedict formula for metabolic estimates.

So my daily requirements are 3189 and my daily deficit is 500. Therefore I should eat 3189-500= 2689 Calories a day to lose about a pound of fat per week.

I'm pretty much CUTTAN FOR LIFE so I tend to eat well below my maintenance calories--about 2000 Calories/day. With the above estimate, I would therefore be losing over 2 lbs of fat per week.

If you're trying to GAIN WEIGHT, you would have a caloric surplus instead of a deficit, which you would add to your requirements instead of subtracting it. If I wanted to GAIN 2 lbs per week, I should therefore eat 3189+1000= 4189 Calories/day.

So the biggest part of not being a fatshit is your eats. I cannot recommend a calorie counting website enough. I use fatsecret because they have an android app that scans food barcodes too. Just because you're trying to lose weight does not mean that you must only eat granola bars and tree bark (in fact, both are generally very bad ideas). Find foods that you like at accessible restaurants and learn the calorie content of various foods. Improve your estimating ability at home by buying a food scale (it doubles as a postal scale, so it's a useful thing to have anyway). Your goal with making your weight loss fat loss is to eat as much protein as possible while limiting sugar and fat (without going into too much detail, sugar is processed differently from other carbs and it's easier for it to be converted to body fat; dietary fat actually isn't necessarily bad at all, but it's very calorie-dense so if you avoid it you can eat more things within your limit, which will help satiety).

Here are some samples from my own eats this week:

Wednesday:


Friday:


Set up 'meals' inside your calorie program to make this go faster. Most of these entries are presets for me. As you can see, eating at Subway suddenly becomes awesome when you get one of their low-fat subs and then add double meat instead of getting a footlong: it costs the same and you're getting all the meat of a footlong with only half the bread. Both days I ate baked chicken breast sandwiches with pasta sauce and cheese. Pretty much anything involving chicken breast is great. Notice also that about 80% of my daily sugar intake is from Gatorade, which is consumed while I'm working out and therefore immediately burning the sugar for energy.

I have never been overweight, not that I'm bashing anyone who has been. You do what you want with your life, it's yours and no one else's. The reason I'm not fat is I walk two miles to work, lift heavy shit for 10 hours and then walk home.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, there are three things I can think of that will do the trick, but you have to stick to a regimen and never vary from it.

1. Swim. You use your whole body just to tread water. Imagine what 100 laps doing the crawl stroke does for you.
2. Ride a bicycle. Cycling is great excercise and it's kind of fun.
3. Jump in place. It's like climbing a long flight of stairs. You will get winded fast, but if you do it every day you will be able to do it more often and for longer periods of time.

As far as food; broccoli, boneless chicken breast, and fruit. Eat four small meals, two to three hours apart instead of one big one. That will train your metabolic cycle to burn food regularly instead of trying to attack a huge amount in a short time, which overwhelms it.

I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted and not gain anything, but now that I'm older I can't do that anymore. What's kept me thin is just briskly walking everywhere, running around at work to get everything done, and eating little often.

This is not intended to be exhaustive or a replacement for Chojin's advice. I think he has the right idea and it's clearly worked for him (sorry for making fun of your weight lifting video, Choj).