hi bros,

moved to new home phacilities and they have a gym/sauna can use for free..!  since i've been back in hong kong, i have grown a mini belly and it is not good for a young guy like me...

here's my plan

each day ride 1 hour of bicycle which burns up to 5-700 calories plus full set of sit ups where you just move ur body slowly to up in sit up position until your abs start shaking and you hold the position for a long time..

also clean eating habbits no chips, FAT free ice cream, no coke, just water..

any advise or suggestions?
would like to know what you bros would to do slim down in a situation like mine..!

thanks a million

Do some light weight lifting if possible. I lost 30 lbs from Jan 2009 to now just watching what I eat and weight training. If you really want to slim down, try using a jump rope, it works the entire body and is more effective than biking.

In my case, I do chest, and triceps one day, shoulders, upper back, biceps another day and then lower body/lower back another day. Each day I have included abs and some cardio (basketball or biking, occasionally some jump rope if I still have energy).

It all depends on your goals, if you just want to slim down, then cardio and dieting are key. If you want a fitter body, then you'll need to diet, do cardio and weight train.

If you really want to improve your body, check out P90x. It's pretty hard core and you actually need to be in decent shape to start, but the results are crazy. I have a couple friends doing it now and one of them is really starting to look like the pictures on the web site.

Try mixing the cardio work like running, cross training and cycling so that different muscles are exercised. As after a while your body gets used to one form of exercise and will not be effective in the long run.

Remember only after 20 minutes or so is when your body starts to burn body fat.

In regards to eating, if you start to feel hungry, try to delay eating as much as you can. By doing this, you are depriving your body with energy and will burn body fat for energy.

slight lifting will definitely help. your belly is an accumulation of all the fat in your system.  working as much of your system as possible will help you a lot.  if you don't wanna lift, at least alternate between the rowingmachine/treadmill/stepmachine/elliptical.

remember that fat is the result of extra energy that your body doesn't use.  your energy comes from carbohydates, which is mostly from sugar, rice, bread and even beer.  beer has many carbs (they don't call it a beer belly for nothing).  so to burn fat, you basically gotta do enough work to burn more energy than your are eating.  in this respect, a low carb diet is very helpful.  you can use low fat forms of protein to fill your meals instead.  this will also help you build muscle.  it's also a good idea to not have any carbs for dinner.

those are just a few beginners tips, ima little bit of a gym rat, so feel free to pm me anything.

Eating is a habit, and habits, with a little patience and perseverance, can be changed. Decades ago I used to eat a lot of crap like ice cream and cheeseburgers. Now when I try to eat that stuff it literally makes me nauseous.

Your weight is nothing more than a function of the balance, or imbalance, between caloric intake and energy expenditure. Tho the amount of calories anyone needs to maintain a weight of X kilos varies with each person's metabolism, anyone can lose weight if he lowers his caloric intake sufficiently.

And it's much more efficient for the average person to lose weight by eating less than it is to slim down by exercise. However, exercise has many benefits beyond weight loss, so you should exercise even if you're real slim to begin with.

Also, most people have no idea how many calories they consume each day. For a week or so, you should make a list of everything that you eat each day just to get an idea of how much you actually are consuming. You'll find that that cookie here, that bite of cheese there, that mouthful of ice cream and cafe latte add up to many hours on a bike.

Personally, while I lift weights moderately and do cardio several times each week, I think that sex is absolutely the best excercise....cardio, strengthens abs, chest, arms and legs and is fun....see this webmd link: http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/features/10-surprising-health-benefits-of-sex  I build a gut everytime I don't get any for a week or two, even keeping-up the gym routine

mid-life crisis dieting, eh???

As Mars says the most important thing is to reduce intake below what your body needs each day.  You can help a little bit by doing exercise, but the impact of exercise is NOT to burn the fat (fat stores energy waaaay too efficiently to burn it up with exercise) but by increasing your metabolism throughout the day.  

The biggest issue to handle is your own motivation: if you weigh yourself, you find your weight going up and down every day, simply due to water retention and the amount of poo in your gut.  It's easy to get started, make some progress, then get frustrated and give up.  Losing weight is a long-term game, and you need to handle the issue of disillusionment right up front.  The good news is there's a way to do it:  

The Hacker's Diet - at this link - is BY FAR THE BEST WAY I HAVE EVER SEEN OF HANDLING THE ISSUE OF WEIGHT-LOSS AND MOTIVATION TO KEEP IT UP.  The key is to track your weight over the long term, and measure your progress by plotting today's weight against a 20-day moving average.  A bit like monitoring a stock chart: you only worry if the trend crosses the moving average, otherwise you're on track.  This means you can get over minor setbacks (e.g. a christmas blow-out) and get right back in the groove afterwards.  The author - John Walker - is the founder of Autodesk (the drawing software co) who figured it out to manage his own weight.  He calls the concept the "eat-watch" - i.e. using the same principle we use to tell us if we're on time or not.  

The best news is you can eat ANYTHING YOU LIKE (yes, even those greasy chips) as long as you CUT DOWN THE TOTAL QUANTITY.  Yes, it works.  Happy to take a PM on the question - I'm even coaching some friends on the process, and it works for them too.  

Good luck!

also keep in mind that when you're over 35 years, you loose about 3-5% of muscle tissue a year depending on what you do
so try to build up your muscle mass earlier in life that way it's easier to maintain it through your later years

the older you get, the harder it is to build muscle
muscle burns more calories!

also, increasing your muscle mass helps to increase your metabolsim

excersize is important but if you have more muscle mass you will burn more calories

Any tips on what to eat day by day? And what to eat if you want to stick to the 6 to 8 small portions a day?

I notice in Hong Kong even though food is aplenty, 95% is stuffed with fat, oil or other non-nurrishing ingredients

Ummm... isn't this a forum for punters! You guys left out the best cardio of all, screwing hot HGs!

TinTin, Dr. Gary prescribes 2 HGs daily until you drop the weight you're after. Add in 4 days a week of weightlifting to accelerate the process (find a trainer to teach you for 3-6 months if you don't know how to weight train), and cut out the sugar soft drinks (switch to diet if you must), ice cream, fried foods, and sweets and you'll be set.

G

Dude, if a guy lost 4% (the midpoint in that 3-5% of yours) of his muscle mass each year after the age of 35, that would mean that by the age of 65, he would have lost 70% of his muscle tissue!

Check out this article on the relationship between aging, exercise and muscle strength/mass.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/2 ... ld-age-muscles.html

"Without exercise, Dr. Mazzeo's study concluded, total muscle mass decreases by nearly 50 percent between ages 20 and 90. Computer tomography of individual muscles shows that after age 30 there is a decrease in cross-sectional areas of the thigh, decreased muscle density"

I'm in my mid-50's, and I haven't lost any muscle mass because I exercise regularly. In fact, because I began exercising in my mid 30's, I now have larger muscles than when I was 25. So yes, aging does take a toll on muscle tissue, but a good exercise program can prevent much of that decline.

i just went back and checked, it's per decade.
my bad
but it's as much as 20+ percent per decade after 60's especially if living a sedentary lifetyle

but like you said, it's totally dependant on your lifestyle
and you said you began exercising in your mid 30's, did that include weight training or strickly cardio?

i'm in my late 30's and i'm planning ahead
i'm hoping to be like you where i am able to maintain a good amount of muscle mass and continue to exercise regularly

stay away from simple carbs and stick with complex carbs (like oatmeal)
nuts are really good snacks
lots of dark color veggies
eggs are great sources of protein
fish and fish oil
flax seed oil

there's actually tons of good info on the internet
try here for a baseline:
http://www.menshealth.com/cda/channelpage.do?channel=nutrition

Totally agree with emm7.  

Except that what you eat has nothing to do with what you weigh - it's all down to how much you eat vs your metabolism.  The myth about dieting by eating specific foods is a great way to sell books, training classes, spa retreats, and health foods.  For example, Kellogg first started using cereals in his health farms simply because they fill your belly so you don't eat what you used to.  Breakfast cereals then became a huge industry ...

But in the end you are what you eat, so the other health benefits make it worth being fussy.  A vegetarian diet is well known for creating much greater clarity of mind, for example.  Processed foods generally mess you up.  Vitamins are best eaten from natural sources.  etc. etc. etc.  

Learn to listen to your body: ultimately your best diet is highly individual and needs to change week by week depending on what you're short of at the time and what it is your body needs.  If you get a craving (other than an addictive craving) you may well need something that's in that food.

i learned to eat veggies with no dressing
no soda what so ever
i try not to eat processed foods as much as possible
fruits and eggs for breakfast
nuts for snacks
lots of chicken breast and fish
berries in my protein shakes with natural yogurt (not the sugary kind)

after about 8 months of this (along with daily exercise) i got my cholesterol down to about 150

I live in japan right now...so I dont really have many issues with weight.  gotta do a lot of walking around to get to places here... I do know of one food that really helps though.  its called konnyaku which is like a jelly of sorts but has zero calories.  u can cut it up into thin slices so its like noodles and eat it that way, or simply with soysauce or what not.  it has no taste by itself but is filling and has no calories.  of course, this is popular among women and lazy people i guess...like me

The best thing to do with konnyaku is flush it down the toilet. Vile, disgusting stuff!   The only Japanese food I don't like - tho whether or not it actually is food is open to debate seeing that it has zero nutritional value. The Japanese eat it to wash out their intestines. Man, better to be fat than to fill you stomach with konnyaku. Eat some lettuce instead.

well its all about burning more than you eat.
But remember the body adabts to you new habits after three weeks so shifting training is a must. Good Luck

wow..!  

talk about advise on losing your belly..!  well actually i am 25 years old and with mini belly so i really gotta plan ahead. you know with a guy like me in 25 and free gym downstairs i really gotta hit it and get slim or i will be super fat when i am in my 30's

i do have a question regarding eating prior/after finishing exercise.

i heard we eat 30 minutes before we exercise and 2 hours only after we exercise.. is that the case? or maybe different?

30minutes before and within 30min after your exercise and it should be with fast carbohydrates like fruits.