Advise please

[Rockin']

Ok point taken, do you have any suggestions for eating or drinking something pre workout or during when I presume my blood sugar gets low and I feel weak?

V8.....

[Facade]

I eat some fruit before for some quick energy, so that might work for you to. I see a lot of information here already. Try to stick to the basics at first though as those can be challenging enough. More complicated stuff only gets relevant when you are starting to get some tangible results. The two basic points for me are this:

- You lose weight when you burn more calories than you take in. Make sure that whatever you're eating is about 500 calories less of what you need to sustain your current weight. You could do more, but to be honest i'm not sure if that's smart as you will notice it and it might not help you in other activities in your life.

- Make sure you eat throughout the day. Sometimes people think that they will lose weight when they just stop eating or skip meals. When you skip meals for too long you might think you are doing good, but you're giving your body the signal that less calories are coming. Your body will adjust and your metabolism will slow down. That's not something that will help you achieve your goals. What you are eating is alright I believe. If you are able though i would cut those 3 times you eat into 5 or 6 times. So keep the overall volume the same but cut them up in 6 smaller meals so you eat something every 2-3 hours of the day. That being said I presume that the overall volume is in calories less than you burn throughout the day. It goes without saying that you'll never lose weight if the total is more than what you need whether it's protein veggies or whatever.

- Not really basic, but if you want to retain some muscle i do advise some weight training of some sort. Get some dumbbells or a pull up bar. Both are cheap and give you wide ranges of exercises. Especially pull ups are very good exercises. A benefit that cardio does not have is that strength training increases your metabolic rate. Interval exercises do that to (Tabata), but do not build muscle as far as i'm aware and if they do it's in a small ammount. The two points mentioned above are most important, but i'd consider doing some weight exercises to get a nice shape when you're done. Both in cardio or in strength training it's important to hit the big muscle groups as they require more energy.

Sidenote:
- I see you were asking about ab exercises. Please note that doing ab exercises will not give you a sixpack as it is impossible to locally burn fat. That being said there's nothing against doing ab exercises if you enjoy them, but i presume your goal is to burn fat. For that goal ab exercises aren't your first choice, because it's a relatively small muscle group. When your fat percentage lowers however, it wouldn't be bad to do some ab exercises. You say you have a fat percentage of ~20% though so i would say now is not that time.

[Andrewtheface]

I eat some fruit before for some quick energy, so that might work for you to. I see a lot of information here already. Try to stick to the basics at first though as those can be challenging enough. More complicated stuff only gets relevant when you are starting to get some tangible results. The two basic points for me are this:

- You lose weight when you burn more calories than you take in. Make sure that whatever you're eating is about 500 calories less of what you need to sustain your current weight. You could do more, but to be honest i'm not sure if that's smart as you will notice it and it might not help you in other activities in your life.

- Make sure you eat throughout the day. Sometimes people think that they will lose weight when they just stop eating or skip meals. When you skip meals for too long you might think you are doing good, but you're giving your body the signal that less calories are coming. Your body will adjust and your metabolism will slow down. That's not something that will help you achieve your goals. What you are eating is alright I believe. If you are able though i would cut those 3 times you eat into 5 or 6 times. So keep the overall volume the same but cut them up in 6 smaller meals so you eat something every 2-3 hours of the day. That being said I presume that the overall volume is in calories less than you burn throughout the day. It goes without saying that you'll never lose weight if the total is more than what you need whether it's protein veggies or whatever.

- Not really basic, but if you want to retain some muscle i do advise some weight training of some sort. Get some dumbbells or a pull up bar. Both are cheap and give you wide ranges of exercises. Especially pull ups are very good exercises. A benefit that cardio does not have is that strength training increases your metabolic rate. Interval exercises do that to (Tabata), but do not build muscle as far as i'm aware and if they do it's in a small ammount. The two points mentioned above are most important, but i'd consider doing some weight exercises to get a nice shape when you're done. Both in cardio or in strength training it's important to hit the big muscle groups as they require more energy.

Sidenote:
- I see you were asking about ab exercises. Please note that doing ab exercises will not give you a sixpack as it is impossible to locally burn fat. That being said there's nothing against doing ab exercises if you enjoy them, but i presume your goal is to burn fat. For that goal ab exercises aren't your first choice, because it's a relatively small muscle group. When your fat percentage lowers however, it wouldn't be bad to do some ab exercises. You say you have a fat percentage of ~20% though so i would say now is not that time.

Great advise once again thanks!

I tried eating some red grapes before training and it works really well. I haven't felt weak or dizzy doing my last couple of sessions so thanks for the advise.

You talk about weights which I think is a good idea but what's your thought ps on resistance band training opposed to weights?

Cheers

[Facade]

Glad to hear it helped.

As for your other question. I personally never liked working with a resistance band. When i worked with it i found it pretty hard to make a controlled motion. Especially when the exercise was on the heavy side, I often made moves where i suddenly let go or where i used other parts of my body to complete a certain exercise. Also I found it hard to adjust the intensity of the workout to the level I was at that time. An exercise was either way too easy or way too hard. Both of these factors combined, resulted in some injuries from time to time and just not very good results.

Imo free weights offer more freedom in that department as you can add and remove weight as you progress. I also found it easier to make a controlled motion so I could focus on the muscles i wanted to hit. Finally weights give you a wider array of exercises than a resistance band. So i personally prefer weights, although I have to add that this is just my opinion and there might be others out there with better experiences.

I do think that as a fitness tool by itself it could be alright if you use it creatively, but I do not think it will help much in actually developing muscle. Resitance band equipment is often used in cardio-like exercises where you do like 100 repetitions of something. If you want to buid muscle a rep range of 8-12 in for example 4 sets is often practised. When you are easily or comfortably completing the final set of 8-12 repetitions you increase weight. With a weight band that would be out of the question as you can't add more weight. I'm sure there are ways to increase the resistance by certain ways you operate it, but none of those ways offer the fine tuning weights give you.

So whether or not it's sufficient is ultimately dependant on what you want to achieve. If you want to use it as a tool to give you some strength combined with endurance of certain muscles (just general fitness) then a resistance band should be alright. If you plan on building some muscle, I would get weights. There are even exercises based on body weight that might get you better results.

[Andrewtheface]

I prefer the idea of free weights it's just a cost issue really but I do agree with you.

I went for a run this morning, well I walked for 4 and run 2 miles stopping three times whilst I was running. I need to improve a lot in this area, I thought I was getting somewhere with my fitness too .......... I think running is a lot harder than skipping Imo.

Thanks for the advise again.

[RENT A KI11]

Daran Barker had bad hip joints so he used to do Yoga to tone up and just spared to get fitness for a full fight.

[Andrewtheface]

Thanks for the suggestion I will have a look at that. Cheers