> JJ wrote: > I hit 230 pounds for the first time in years. > I hit that wall too, although in my case it was 250 (probably more but who's counting?) and very little muscle.
My experience was incremental gains based on what I consider ever more sophisticated lessons learned. Here's what they are: (1.) Diet, diet, diet. Exercise is meaningless and cannot overcome a unoptimized diet. Excercise is good for other benefits, but if you want to lose fat then diet is your first place to look. Diets generally come with 3 metrics: safe, fast, effective; pick 2. (2.) Expansion of #1: Hormones, hormones, hormones. Diet and exercise will control your hormones and they will control your metabolism and therefore your fat loss. Learn to manage your insulin, leptin, and thyroid and you will have become the master. (3.) Everything has to be adapted to your preferences. And, done right, those preferences will DRASTICALLY change within 3 weeks. Done wrong they will never change and you can fall into the yo-yo trap. E.g. * I hate cardio so I stopped trying to do it and I focus on weight training instead. I'm trying tBone's cross-fit but I haven't gotten in to it too much yet. therefore I'm trying to move into some circuit training and "functional" training. From there I may move into cross-fit. * I was a carb addict. Cutting carbs was the ONLY way for me to lose fat, but I had to move slowly into it to allow my preferences to change. For example I've substituted almond milk for milk, but it took awhile to get used too. Well, if you're still reading I'll throw out a crazy diet now - which is way tough - but could be back adapted if you like the concept. But the diet WILL WORK. You can feel 100% confident of that. It's pretty simple: you combine a low carb diet with weight training and walking-type exercise. The diet concept: adapt your body to use and prefer fat for fuel rather than carbs. Maintain your metabolism with a weekly *clean* upfeed. Live in a calorie deficit the rest of the week to get your body to burn your fat for fuel. * M-Sa: 1200-1500 calories per day with about a 50-50 split between clean fats and protein, keeping carbs at about 30-50g (30 if you're hard core) per day. get fiber. * Su: 2500-3000 cal with carbs at 80-100g Carb rules: no sugar spike carbs (candy, soda, cookies, et al). oatmeal, sweet potatoes, vegetables, etc. Exception: if you lift get your sugar spike right after lifting + a protein bomb Exercise rules: weight train, circuit train, or *light* cardio (walking) 3 times a day for no more than 1 hr each, but at least 1hr/day. If you do this you will achieve your goal in 30 days with little or no muscle loss. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:274529 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
