Hi all,

I've started the first fitness program of my life earlier this year. I'm 29 and most of my adult life I've been more or less overweight.

I'm 5'5" and weigh 187 pounds. I go to the gym 2 or 3 times a week and do 30 minutes cardio, then 30 minutes weights. I also try to walk every day.

I must admit, I still eat a bit carelessly sometimes - usually home cooking (low fat, low salt, with vegetables and water) and breakfast and lunch is often just cereal or a brown bread sandwich.

Through a few months of this, my muscles have grown quite nicely, but the fat is still there. So basically I have a layer of fat over the muscles, so they're not visible.

I've heard that weight training boosts metabolism and helps burn fat, but I'm not sure if this is going the way it's meant to...

Can anyone suggest what I should do? Increase cardio? Decrease weights? Watch my diet more?

Thanks in advance for any advice

Do your weight training before your cardio and you should start to do some HIIT type cardio.

Food choices
- lean beef, eggs, fish, turkey, chicken, lowfat dairy, veggies, fruits and nuts should make up most of your diet.

Here's a good beginners weight training program:

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459533

Thanks newf. I've heard that doing weights before cardio would be good, but the fitness trainer at my gym told me that it might raise your blood pressure too high, so I've stuck to doing my cardio first

I can't get the link to work

Should work now(link), no idea what your trainer is on about but i can assure you its the first i've ever heard of it and most fitness professionals would have there clients doing cardio after weight training.

agreed, you are losing a lot of potential in both fat loss and lean mass gains if you do cardio first

Thanks for that guys, I'll switch to doing my weights first now.

As I'm a beginner, I've assumed that 3 times a week doing a full body workout would be ok, is that right?

The link works now, thanks newf

Doing cardio and weights the same day will actually hinder your gains/progress. You'd be better off alternating your lifting and cardio days. 3 days full body, with cardio in between. Someone else mentioned doing HIIT, but since you're just getting started, you'd want to hold off on that until you get your conditioning up.

Thanks Steve-O-68, I'll try that as the new plan - alternating full body with cardio days.

I feel a bit silly not knowing anything about these things... like I said, I've been fat and unfit most of my life, and only now trying to fix it. I've got the motivation though!

I hate to ask what seems like an obvious question but does that include doing cardio first thing in the morning? I try to do abut 20mins / 7 miles on a stationary bike first thing most mornings, will that hinder progress as well? I don't know if _all_ cardio hinders training if on the same day or if timing is also a factor.

EDIT: weight training always occurrs in the evening for me.

What are you trying to accomplish?

btw cardio is prefectly fine after weight training but i would do HIIT or some medium intensity for 20min. However, this is for those that are looking to burn fat.

I'm not sure where you get this information. Fat loss is his main goal. The more cardio he does, the better. The weight training is just to prevent muscle loss. If he were attempting to bulk up, then your advice has merit

Not necessarily..I did phase one of HGM advanced quads and lost around 3%bf in the 8 weeks. No cardio involved!! It depends on the individual and the program.

What's this HGM program folks?

Home Grown Muscle phase one iron manual kicks ass.
Was in my old log and if you saw the new pic's I posted it rocks

Yeah that's a circuit type routine - a great way to get lean without alot of cardio.

Ha i just looked it over.

http://www.menshealth.com/images/MH_Static/phase1_a.pdf