Fiona Avery Professional Bodybuilder Blog

What is a good workout routine to do at the gym?

Okay so I’ve joined up for my local gym (for the first time) and was wondering what a good workout routine is, as in what do I start off with etc etc. I’m planning to lose atleast 5-7 kilo’s and gain a bit of muscle. At the moment it is my stomach and chest which need the most work….

So you want to lose weight or get toned? Congratulations and good for you. More people in this world need to take this idea seriously and not just say they are going to lose weight, and never go through with it. Stay motivated and stick to this, and you’ll be the way you want in no time. I’ll give you the best plan and advice that I know of. I tried it myself and lost 45 lbs in 3 months! That’s a little less than 4 lbs a week, so you can have a measuring stick. However, don’t get discouraged by not being able to lose 4 lbs a week when you are getting thinner because the more weight you lose, the harder it gets.

- The reason I say to refresh your weight with the website, as you lose weight, is because as you do lose weight you will need less calories to maintain your weight, therefore decreasing how much you take in.

1. Diet
- You need to be taking in less calories than you burn. This is no mystery as it has been known for YEARS. What I recommend is going to a calorie website to see how many calories your body requires to maintain your current weight. Check this once a month to reset your plan. I’ll give you a good website below. After you find out how many daily calories your body needs, you subtract 500 from that and eat that many each day. Just by doing this you will lose 1 lb a week. That doesn’t include the workout I’m about to give you. Just to clarify the above statement, follow this example. Hypothetically, I am a 20 year old, 6’0”, 250 lb male. The website says that I need 2600 (use the little to no exercise option) calories to maintain my weight. Ok, so now I would count my calories and take in roughly 2100 calories each day to lose 1 lb a week, just by eating less.

Calorie Calculator – http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

2. Diet Foods
- It’s not just the foods people eat now days, its how much they eat. I once saw in a magazine, a picture of today’s small McDonald’s fries, and 1960’s McDonalds large fries(something like that, it was long ago). The size of today’s small was BIGGER than the old LARGE. Isn’t that sad? Ok, with that, you should know that when you eat fast food, you are getting much more than you need, so either don’t eat fast food, or eat less amounts and save left overs for tomorrow or throw them away. I would recommend not eating fast foot, except for subway. (even at subway you should only be getting 6” subs. Ok, with all of that, you want to eat healthy. The best thing you can eat is high protein foods. For example, eggs, chicken, steak (a burger once in a while, but don’t over do it), tuna, milk, etc. This will be critical in your exercising routine as it will fuel your muscles and help them grow (therefore increasing your resting metabolic rate – which I’ll get into later).

-Water. That’s all I need to say, is water. You do NOT want to drink pop. Throw any pop you have in the garbage, sell it, whatever, just get rid of it. Outside of pop, you should limit how much Gatorade, and Hawaiian punch, etc. Drinks that may seem ok, usually aren’t the best, as Gatorade and punch are high in sugar. You need to be drinking lots of water, and if you want something flavored, get crystal light, and low calorie lemonade and green tea. NO POP (diet pop either, they are both bad).

- The 7 P.M. rule. It kind of explains itself, doesn’t it? I would recommend to NEVER eat after 7 p.m. This will help keep you under your total caloric intake for the day, but also anything you do eat after 7 p.m. you are bound to put on as fat. So follow those 3 eating rules and I promise you’ll lose weight.

3. Exercise
- Okay. So with all the above information you could lose 52 lbs in a year without the following information, but most people want to lose weight quick. So consider doing the following workout, I guarantee it will work if you stick hard to it. Also, you may be wondering how you’re going to survive only eating 1500 calories a day, well if you burn the extra, reward yourself some extra.

- Jogging for 30 MINUTES. I recommend jogging at a “huff puff” pace, where if somebody asked you a question after you’ve been jogging for 20 minutes, you would only have enough breath to answer “yes..” or “no..” before inhaling again. How long should you run for? 30 minutes is perfect, anything more won’t hurt you. The reason for this is that after 20 minutes of this jogging, your body starts to go into emergency mode. The body will start to burn fat, directly, and the next 10 minutes, or later, you will be burning nothing but fat.

- Weight Training for 45 minutes – one hour. You should be lifting 2 times a week. I would recommend doing structural exercises (exercises that work more than one muscle group). I would recommend doing the squat the most. This workout alone can make you increase strength in the rest of the body and increases muscle, means increased resting metabolic rate. Which means you will be burning more cal