Q&A for: 24-Sep-05
565. Q:
fastest way to burn fat in chest
A:
Same as burning fat anywhere else on your body: How To Lose Fat. There's no fastest way, there's just the right way. Be patient and follow directions in the articles and you'll succeed. Good luck!
566. Q:
Hey Mike, 2 questions. 1. what do you think of lunchmeat turkey (honey mesquite) if i had this, i would put on multi grain wheat bread stacked with turkey, lettuce, pickles, and a tiny bit of Mayo. Also. Im a highschooler, therefore im not gonna be able to eat many meals during the day. Im trying to gain muscle, but i dont want to have to eat ground flax seed, and salmon and stuff like that. Other then chicken and turkey,what is some good high protein foods. What else shouyld i be eating in my diet? i would eat veggies for dinner meal, in the morning i normally have an egg or 2 with milk and a slice of toast.
A:
Your lunch sandwich should be good. Pile on the turkey, not just a slice or two. The rest of your diet's gonna need a lot of work though. You don't need to eat flax or salmon if you can't stand them, but you DO need to eat A LOT if you want to gain muscle. Just fill out Mike's Fitness Guide to see a sample diet. You'll need several, at the very least 5 complete meals per day. Just look at the sample meals and start substituting foods you don't like with the ones you like. Don't like flax? Add nuts instead. Don't like salmon? Add lean steak or chicken or turkey instead. Your breakfasts needs to be both bigger and much richer in protein. Same thing for your dinner. AND you'll still need two more complete meals besides that. If you absolutely cannot squeeze more meals during the school day, then you should aim for something like this:
1. Morning: BIG breakfast. Get protein from eggs, egg whites, cottage cheese (goes well with strawberries), or maybe whey protein powder. Use oatmeal instead of toast if you can. If not, at least make it two whole-wheat toasts.
2. Lunch: the sandwich you mentioned, but piled on generously with turkey. Bring an extra apple or a banana too.
3. 3PM when you get back home: complete meal, pick and choose from the Guide's suggestions.
4. 6PM: compelete meal again. Maybe time it to make it your family's dinner. Don't forget protein here again. Veggies are great for you, but by themselves they don't make a dinner. Add some chicken or steak.
5. 9PM: complete meal again!
That is the kind of diet you need to grow serious muscle. It can be quite a hassle, especially if you're not used to it, but you'll get used to it soon enough, I guarantee it.
In parallel to all this you'll of course need to do heavy whole-body weight training. The Guide will suggest a program for you and you may want to read this as well.
Without weight training, all that eating will simply cause you gain fat instead of muscle. And without all that eating, even the best weight-training will only get you modest results. So make sure you do both, you'll only be cheating yourself of results by skimping on either. Best of luck to you!
567. Q:
hey Mike, how do you lose a gut about the size of a 4 month old yorkie (dog)
A:
Doesn't matter if it's a yorkie or a great dane -- you still follow this! :)
568. Q:
how can i get skinny without pills, diets,doctors,etc?
A:
Please read and follow this. Remember that it'll take time, optimal fat loss rate is about 1 pound per week. But it's fat loss that will stick with you unlike million of various crash diets and pills which 'work' just for two weeks.
569. Q:
how do i get love handles?
A:
Getting them is easy -- just eat all sorts of junk and don't exercise too much :) Losing them requires this.
570. Q:
i hve been physically active over the years,cheerleading ,tumbiling,softball,basketball , tennis etc. i have good calf mustles and arm mustles but i have a gut how so i get rid of it without a yucky diet ,pills or going to the doctor?im 15 i wanna look good:)
A:
Your diet doesn't have to be 'yucky', but you can't expect to eat whatever you want and still lose the gut. It's great that you're active, but you'll need to turn it up another notch and do some weight training while on a semi-yucky diet to lose the gut. Read this to get some general guidelines of what to do. Or read this to get a rigid program prescription.
571. Q:
562: Isnt it ok to lose weight and lose muscle if the result of that is an improved body composition?
A:
The problem is that the way most people lose weight doesn't improve body composition for very long. It's most common for somebody to go on a crash diet when they severely undereat to lose weight quickly, possibly supplement with various diet pills, and do lots and lots of cardio. This approach does indeed lose a lot of weight quickly but a big portion of that weight, in worst scenarios most of it, is muscle. Once this initial weight loss phase ends, after a few weeks usually, the person's metabolism is in the dumps because of the lost muscle and the restrictive diet. At this point weight loss either halts or slows down dramatically with most of future losses coming from muscle.
And of course the person will perceive the slowdown in weight loss as a signal that he/she needs to eat even less and exercise even more, which makes the situation worse still. After several months of this, the person may have lost, say, 40 pounds of which, say, 25 came from muscle and 15 came from fat. They are eating maybe 1000 calories a day, doing lots of cardio, but the weightloss is complete dead and they're far from reaching their physique goals.
This is when most people give up and go back to their old routine. That's when the worst thing happens. Their bodies are used to getting by on 1000 calories/day and have lost much of the muscle that could burn those calories effectively. So they start gaining weight back, almost all in the form of fat. So a year later they're back at the original weight, with less muscle and more fat than when they started!
That's why I always always always emphasize the importance of SLOOOOOOOW weight loss and preserving all the muscle you can. I have found 1 pound/week pace to be a very good target for most people for true sustainable fat loss.
To be fair, some truly obese people can and probably should aim for much faster weight loss than 1 pound/week, but an average person who's looking to lose maybe 20-40 pounds should always emphasize gradual weight loss and weight lifting to boost metabolism and preserve muscle over fast weight loss with few calories and a ton of cardio.
572. Q:
If your burn most of your calories when exercising, what will happen? Will the body burn something else?? Will it stop functioning?
A:
Your body will always have fat reserves to dip into for energy as well as burning existing organs and tissues (including muscle) for energy. So it's extremely unlikely you'll exercise yourself to death when your body simply has no energy left for basic processes like keeping the heart beating. But in the worst-case scenarios you can starve/overexercise yourself into a severe exhaustion when you literally can barely do anything other than lie in bed all day long.
The more relevant question may be how your body is using its various energy reserves (fat, tissues, organs) to fuel your everyday functioning and exercise. The answer to that is a lot more complicated because your body is always drawing on all of those reserves even at the same time as replenishing/rebuilding them. Your goal is, in general, to influence your body to draw on fat reserves more for energy and to rebuild the tissues and organs more with extra calories. How you accomplish it is through proper diet and exercise, as described in all the Q&As and articles on my site.
573. Q:
hey mike can you please help me i don't know how to lose my obliques and my stomach and also my thights can you recomand an exercise i can perform and how many times a week i should do that for. PLEASE HELP
A:
Unfortunately the answer is not as simple as doing one or two exercises. You cannot target specific areas on your body for fat loss (no matter what the TV infomercials say), you can only let your body decide where to lose fat and it tends to lose gradually from all over. So you'll want to optimize your diet and your exercise routine to help that process along. Please read here to learn how. Good luck!
574. Q:
Mike, reply to 566 ive been weight training 5 days a week for like 7 months~, i think like earlier in the 530's i posted my schedule and you said it was good. where do carbs come in on the diet you showed me though, how much carbs should i eat and where can i get the good carbs
A:
Like I said, fill out Mike's Fitness Guide -- it will give you a very detailed diet prescription with every meals and every food broken down by protein/carbs/fats/calories. That should be your starting point. It'll probably suggest 7-8 meals/day which, I'm guessing, will be too much for you, so instead you'll want to have fewer bigger meals that add up roughly to the same protein/carbs/fats/calories. You'll also want to substitute out foods you don't like and substitute in equivalent foods that you can eat (but that are still healthy, not junk!). Some equivalent food examples are:
Salmon and other fish, lean beef, chicken, turkey, ham, cottage cheese, whey protein, eggs -- these are protein choices with a bit of fat
Virtually all veggies besides potatoes and corn -- these are are light carb choices.
Oatmeal, whole-grains, brown rice, sweet potatoes, fruits -- these are heavy carb choices
Olive oil, nuts (dry-roasted only), flax -- these are heavy fat choices
At the same time you'll want to avoid or at least minimize: fast food of all sorts (burgers, pizza, chips, fries, candy bars, etc.), white bread/pasta/rice, juices and smoothies, fried stuff, commercial salad dressings (use olive oil instead), convenience food like frozen dinners or 'Lean Pockets'.
So it'll be an exercise for you, almost to go from the diet the Guide suggested to a 5-meal one that fits your life (like I suggested in #566) but that still adds up to roughly the same protein/carbs/fats/calories. Once you have your diet planned out, with specific foods and portion sizes for each meal, you can post it here (along with your height and weight) and I'll analyze it for you and make some suggestions.
575. Q:
Q 571: I was really talking about a scenario where lets say one loses in the course of 6 months 6 pounds of muscle and loses also 20 pounds of fat.In such a scenario body composition has improved even though there is muscle loss.
A:
OK I se... Yes, a scenario like that should be considered a very successful fat loss phase. You're correct that despite some muscle loss, the overall body composition would be significantly improved AND, because muscle loss is relatively minor and weight loss was gradual, the person would not be in danger of regaining fat back. But again, in order to achieve results like that you'd have to have a solid diet and a good weight-training program.
576. Q:
im 5 ft 5 and i weigh 200 pounds and i ot man boobs is there any way i can loose them buy doing incline and decline and regular pushups because i dont have weights or anything like that what about jump roping does that help hem go away
A:
Pushups and jumping rope will help to some extent, but the manboobs won't go away just from that. You should try for more bodyweight exercise like this or, better yet, get some equipment or gym access and choose from any of the programs described here. The second and more important part is your diet: you need to make sure you eat the right foods in the right amounts. For a simple outline, look here or for a complete diet prescription, fill out Mike's Fitness Guide specifying 'Lose Fat' as your goal.
So basically if you really want to solve your problem you'll need to put more effort into both diet and exercise. It will not be fast or easy, so you gotta decide on your priorities and if you're really serious about losing the fat and manboobs, then you gotta make sacrifices. I am assuming you're a teenager, so if you do lose weight, you have to be very careful to lose it slowly and don't lose too much or you risk screwing up your growth and development. If you lose maybe 20-30 pounds over the course of 1 year it's OK. That combined with a good healthy diet and whole-body exercise should take care of your problem. Good luck!
577. Q:
im male 16 years old im 5 ft 5 i weigh 200 pounds does being overweight have anything to do with frequent facial blushing it seems like my cheeks are always a little red. when it gets hot outside it becomes bright red iv never had this problem until i got really overweight and i have alot of fat in my face is there anything i can do about this problem
A:
There's a very good chance it's related to being overweight, though a doctor can tell you better than I can. It's definitely the case that being overweight and out of shape can make you winded and flushed a lot sooner than an average person.
580. Q:
Hey Mike, reply to 574. you said to post a rough draft of my eating schedule.. here it is:
meal 1: 1 egg, 1 egg white, 1 cup orange juice, whey protein
meal 2(lunch): tukrey sandwich on whole grain bread, 3-4 slices of turkey, swiss, pickles, lettuce, and a tiny bit of mayo, bottle of water, and an apple.
meal 3: i dont know i need some ideas, right when i get home im not in the mood to have chicken or steak or sumthin.
meal 4 (preworkout): chicken, veggies (why dont you like including corn?) 1 cup milk
-workout- (~45-1 hr after meal 4)
meal 5: steak, different veggie, whey protein, glass of water
what do you think?
A:
That's starting to look a lot better. Here're my recommendations, meal-by-meal:
1. Replace the orange juice with 2-3 pieces of fruit. An orange, a banana, some straberries, etc. Have whey dissolved in plain water.
2. Looks good. I'd use even more turkey that that -- typical slices are very very light and it might take 7-8 slices to get a serious amount of protein.
3. How about a repeat of breakfast or lunch here?
4. Looks good. Go for a ton of veggies here. A sweet potato or some brown rice would be good as well. The reason I don't recommend corn is that it's relatively empty of nutrients and because to your body it's a lot like eating sugar -- quick energy rush that'll just go into fat stores. Again, a sweet potato or brown rice would be much better than corn here.
5. Also looks good, also go for a ton of veggies. If you have a good size (8 oz or more) steak, then you don't need whey here.
This should be a good start for you. What will likely happen is that you'll be able to gain weight on this diet for a month or two (because it is a lot more calories than your body is used to now). But then the weight gain will stop again. That's when you'll know to up the calories again -- maybe squeeze in a 6th meal somehow or at least increase serving sizes of some foods. But what you wrote + my suggestions should make for a good starting bulking diet.
581. Q:
Are there any foods that can make you have a bigger butt?
A:
Yes there're, but they'll also give you a bigger gut, bigger lovehandles, and more fat everywhere else which is probably not what you want. If you want to build up some muscle to fill out your butt and give it some shape, do squats and lunges. You can find both of them shown here (look in the Legs section).
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