Q: I am working very hard towards losing 30lbs and am doing cardio training (running/biking for 45mins x 4 days week) along with proper dieting (carbs from veggies, whole grains, increased protein intake).

I have limited time for weight training and try to get to the gym 2-3 times/week.
I’ve been doing chest, back and shoulders of 3 x 6, arms 3x 8 and legs 3 x 10 in an effort to maintain my strength.

It feels like it’s working but I’m not sure if this is the right approach.

Please advise.

Cameron


A: You definitely have the basic ingredients for success in order to reach your goals. By incorporating a proper nutritional plan with strength and cardiovascular exercises, your approach is vowed to success … if you can fine tune each one of these basic departments of your lifestyle.

First, let’s talk about your nutrition. It’s absolutely the first aspect of your life that you need to nail and from what you write, you seem to understand the basics.. At all time, you must be aware of the quality and the quantity of food you are ingesting. You must aim to eat as natural as possible just since we still have the same digestive system as from our ancestor of more than 15 000 years ago…. And they didn’t have all those processed food.

The Body doesn’t need a lot of food at a time to get energy. The extra, the body stores it as… fat. SO you should always control your portions so you never feel full after a meal. The frequency of your meals is just as crucial because it could be a double edge sword. If you eat too often, there’s a risk that you eat too much and pack on extra calories and the other side, if you don’t eat often enough, your body perceives it as fasting and then slows down your metabolism and then when you actually eat a meal, it stores more easily the rare food you’re giving it. The idea is to eat approx. 6 small meals every 2 ½ hours.

Nutrition alone is proven to be less effective than when you incorporate exercise in you weekly schedule. Just like you’re doing, cardio and strength training is essential. Although to be able to benefit fully of your time spent doing cardio, you should train at the right intensity. Since you goal is to lose fat, a test done in a laboratory could determine at which exact intensity your body is using fat as fuel during exercise. (It’s not a (hazard) that we have such lab within our Mansfield Club. It’s because we know how the body works). This test will help you to make sure that you always train at the proper intensity instead of the grey area of doubts where most people spend their training time not knowing exactly.

AS for the strength exercises, you must make sure that you target all muscle groups and that you change variables of your training plan, approx. every 4 weeks. The human body is a wonderful machine and it can adapt pretty much to any stimulus that we can present it. For this reason, in order to reap all the benefits of your time spent in the gym, change variables of your routine often. We’re talking for example of the tempo of each rep, the number of reps, the number of sets, the order of exercises, completely change exercises,… This way, your body won’t have the time to adapt and you’ll keep progressing towards your goal.

Thank you for writing us question and good luck in your quest to reach your goal. Passion, determination and patience are the key.

Steve Prud'Homme
Fitness Director, Peak Centre Director


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