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Hi I am a 20 year old police officer and I am extremely out of shape. I have a large amount of fat on my stomach, it actually hangs over. I am depressed at the fact that I cannot lose weight, my DREAM is to someday have a six pack.Please help, any suggestions????
Tish,
It sounds like you really want to get in shape. I like the sound of that. Once you have a goal in mind, you're already half way there. You say that you are depressed at the fact that you can't lose weight. So I will take it that you've tried, however, since I don't know what you did to attempt weight loss, it's hard for me to pin point exactly what is wrong with your training and diet program. Don't worry though, and most importantly; don't get depressed, we're not at a total loss.
I'll give you the basic tools that you will need to get in shape and have the abs you've always dreamed of. First and foremost, you got to watch your diet closely. You'll never see your abs until you diet and burn away that layer of fat over your abdominal muscles. Keep a close eye on your protein, fat, and carbohydrate intake. You want to keep your protein intake high, somewhere around 1.25gm per pound of bodyweight a day minimum. Work your way up to that amount slowly. Stick with the leaner sources of protein. Chicken, fish, egg whites, and whey, milk, or egg protein powder are the most ideal sources in your situation. You really don't want to consume too much fat. A little fat here and there is ok, if you like red meat, eat it a couple times a week, but make sure you trim it well. Also, salmon is good to.
For your carbohydrates, stick with the clean carbs. Don't eat processed, unbleached, enriched carbs, like white bread, pasta, rolls, bagels and croutons. Read the ingredient label. If it says the product is enriched or unbleached, don't eat it. If you want to lost fat, you have to eat slow burning complex carbs, like brown rice, oatmeal, (NOT the instant one-minute oatmeal. REAL oatmeal) sweet potatoes, potatoes, all vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower are best because they're higher in fiber). Also, don't eat too many carbs either. You only want them for energy, not because you like to eat them. Eat a small serving of complex carbs and vegetables with your first 3 or 4 high protein meals of the day. After that, stop eating the carbs, and eat just protein for the rest of the day, and night. Taking in 5-6 small meals a day will help increase the speed of your metabolism.
Exercise! Very important, you must exercise aerobically. Low impact cardio done for longer amounts of times will burn off that unwanted fat. You can take your pick of using a Stairmaster, treadmill or elliptical. Those will your best choices. Try doing 30 minutes 3 times a week, and then work your way from there. You can work your way up to an hour daily, if you really feel it's necessary. Check your body fat levels periodically. Make sure they are going down. If you hit a plateau, then up your cardio, or decrease your carbohydrate intake. Also, train with weights to help you hold muscle mass while dieting. If you diet and don't train the entire body with weights, you have a higher chance of losing muscle mass while dieting. Muscle never does well in a low calorie environment. So train each body part once a week with weights.
For your abs, stick with the basic movements, crunches, hanging knee raises, and roman chair sit-ups. Pick 2 of the exercises I just mentioned and complete 3-4 sets of as many reps as possible. Do this twice a week. When your abs get stronger, hold a 10-pound plate behind your head when you do your crunches. For more info on ab training, just click here.
Good luck with the program and I hope my advice will help you get the abs of your dreams!
Train Hard,
Ricky Gonzalez
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