Q&A for: 26-Jul-08
2713. Q:
hi, mike. please could you lose mmy belly. I am 45 years old. And 5ft 2 and I weight 110 pounds. I do cardio 6 times a week,30-45 min. And do weights 3x a week. But I CANT lose my belly fat. What can I do about this? No exercies seem to work. My diet is very clean.
A:
At 5 feet 2 inches and 110 pounds you are already in absolutely terrific shape, ESPECIALLY at 45 years old! Because you are already in such good shape, the last tiny bit of fat is going to be very hard to lose -- this is true for everyone, but becomes even more so with age. It sounds like you are doing everything right, so the only suggestions I can give you is to read through my articles if you haven't already and see if you can pick up any small pointers. One thing you may want to try is HIIT for cardio (search for 'HIIT' on my site if you are not sure what it is). Also, if you post your diet and exercise routine in great detail I may be able to suggest some things. But overall, it sounds to me like you are pretty much already doing everything right which speaks for itself in your weight -- you should be very proud!
2714. Q:
I am 13 years old and I want a 6 pack and big muscles? I weigh 6stone 1'
A:
You won't get big muscles for a few years, but you can lay a foundation for it by doing two things -- eat a lot of healthy foods and stay active. Healthy foods are all sorts of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains like oatmeal, brown rice and whole wheat bread, and lean meat, fish, and poultry. Keep sweets, sodas, fried foods, and other junk to a minimum.
Stay active by playing sports, walking, running, swimming, biking, skating, or even mowing lawns and shoveling snow in the winter. At your age and for the next several years you'll have literally once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape your body. If you feed it right and keep it active it will naturally develop healthy, lean, and muscular.
2717. Q:
For fat burning, you say to do cardio in moderation. 2-3 sessions per week, 20-30 minutes per session. Why moderation? Will doing more cardio be a problem in burning fat?
A:
The main reason I recommend cardio in moderation is simply because it is not the optimal way to lose fat. Most people treat cardio with so many calories burned per minute and so minutes per session. The fact is that not all calories 'burned' are the same. While cardio will burn fat, when done in excess it will almost inevitably burn some muscle too. This is undesirable because your muscle mass is your best natural fat burner. Muscle requires constant 'maintenance' from your body which burns calories around the clock. If you exercise those muscles with heavy resistance training, that 'maintenance' requirement is greatly increased burning even more calories! So in almost all cases, losing muscle is a bad idea.
And to make things worse many people not only do a ton of cardio but also cut their caloric intake very low (under 1000 calories is quite common) which only encourages the body to burn more muscle than fat (from the body's point of view, you are trying to kill it by not feeding it and it will do its darnest to hang on to its fat reserves as long as possible!)
Instead of doing tons of cardio, I encourage people to structure and follow a good heavy whole-body weight resistance program to stimulate all those muscles and increse that 'maintenance' around-the-clock calorie burn. And, equally important, to maintain a healthy balanced diet that promotes high metabolism and provides enough nutrition to maintain the muscle mass.
Cardio, of course, carries a great range of health benefits besides burning calories, so everyone should do some cardio. And many people simply really enjoy cardio and that's perfectly fine too -- they just need to keep their calorie intake up to provide enough fuel for the body. But overall, if you obvjective is purely to lose fat and keep it off, I believe that the diet and weight training should be emphasized over simply doing a ton of cardio.
2718. Q:
Does doing cardio effect muscle growth? How much cardio can you do, and still achieve good muscle growth. I'm 46, Male, 6', 205lbs. I need to loose a fair amount of body fat around my waist. My waist is about 39". Not 5 years ago, it was still 32". I started at the gym just two weeks ago, after not working out since I was 30 years old. I have always been on the thin muscular side, until the last 5 years or so, where my waist has picked up some fat. When my waist was 32", I weighed about 185-190lbs. So, it would seem I need to lose a fair amount of fat, to get back to where I was, when I was a bit younger. Anyway, I started working out a couple weeks ago, and couldn't even do the 30 second walk, 30 second sprint. However, after only a couple of weeks, I can now run much longer distances, at faster levels. I used to run several miles a day, every morning. Already, I'm starting to desire to run every day, and farther and farther. However, your article says to do cardio in moderation, so I am concerned that doing too much cardio may effect muscle growth. Is that true? I want to loose the fat, and I'm pretty confident I will, but I don't want to loose my muscle mass either. I'm working out currently 4 days a week with weights: 2 days upper body, 2 days lower body, with running every evening after work during the week. I don't do anything on the weekends. I'm back to eating a healthy diet, with a fair amount less calories per day.
A:
Congrats on starting in the gym! Normally I wouldn't recommend doing a lot of cardio daily, but if it keeps you motivated and you enjoy it, it should be fine, as long as you keep your weight training and don't lose weight too fast (1 pound per week is a good sustainable pace). So don't let your daily calories drop too low (for anything below 1800 calories per day is probably too low -- assuming 20+% of calories come from protein). The fact that you were naturally muscular when you were younger is also a good sign as far maintaining and even growing muscle mass as you lose fat.
Perhaps one change you can make in your cardio is devote a couple cardio sessions per week to HIIT (search for it on my site using search box in upper right). HIIT is much more likely than long steady-pace cardio to keep your metabolism up and preserve muscle mass and it still carries the same fat burning benefits.
2720. Q:
I've been weight training for about 4 months now, I can feel that my muscles have increased in size and when I flex they look bigger too, but when relaxed I still look the same as when I started. I have a naturaly slim/thin build but have gained fat since hitting 25 (now 29). Does It take alot longer to see results, or is it just the fact that when relaxed the fat hides the muscle?
A:
It sounds to me like you've made great progress for just four months if you can see noticeable increase in muscle size -- congrats! When relaxed, muscles always look a lot less noticeable than when flexed -- flexing the muscle 'amplifies' its size, so if you've gained, say, an extra inch on your arms, when you flex that may turn into extra two inches which is of course more noticeable. I'd say you are doing great and just need to keep it going.
2721. Q:
Hi mike . Im 14 male and only weigh about 95 pounds. I already do running and I do swimming once a week . I am fairly light and I am interested in gaining some muscle and weight. I want to start your body weight program as my parents wont let me lift weights until im 16. Could you give me a routine (eg. should i do running and bodyweight on the same day or on alternating days etc.) or tips or something. Any help would be much apreiciated
A:
Check out my bodyweight resitsance routine which you can do without any equipment (save a pullup bar). But even more importantly to build muscles you need to eat! You didn't mention your height by 95 pounds is quite light. Start eating a lot more (but still healthy and not junk or sweets!) and the muscles will come, especially if you stay active and hopefully start on the routine I linked (assuming your parents approve). Remember that your body cannot gain weight or muscles from nothing -- you have to give it plenty of food to grow!
2722. Q:
If I am a 17 year old male weighing a range from 161-170 pounds, and im pretty tall, what should be the calorie limit for me? (Per day.)
A:
Plug your numbers into my Fitness Guide along with your goal (lose fat, build muscle, or simply maintain) and it'll give you a suggested diet and calories total at the bottom.
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