Sorry for missing your question earlier. If you start a new blog entry every few days it makes it easier for me to notice new questions since your blog will be marked as updated more recently. Substituting meals with shakes is just a matter of compromise. Protein shakes are not as good as complete meals but they are much better than missing meals altogether. So you just have to look at your schedule and decide whether you have time to eat a complete meal or whether shake is the way to go. As far as dumbbells -- are those 10-kilo ones heavy enough that you can only do 15 or fewer reps for most exercises before physically needing to take a break? I would guess that for major exercises like chest or shoulder presses or rows or squats or deadlifts you should outgrow those very soon. Remember, heavy weights and big compound exercises (those presses/rows/squats/deadlifts) is how you get the maximum fat-burning benefits out of weight training. If you only use light weights or mostly do exercises like bicep curls you will not get all that much from weight training. ("Heavy" weight just means weight heavy enough to push you close to the point of muscular failure -- physically not being able to do another rep without getting some rest first -- in 15 or fewer reps on a given set of a given exercise). |
