Like most athletes, I try to stay lean, strong, and fast so I have an advantage in my sport. This article is mainly targeted towards people who have to stay at a lower body fat percentage, like fighting sports (wrestling, MMA, Boxing, etc.), bodybuilding, and powerlifting. Despite this article being targeted toward weight class type of athletes, it is also helpful in all other sports because you will most likely be faster and stronger than the competition.
When I started trying to lose weight, I was around 187 pounds, and my wrestling weight class is 170 pounds (172 with the 2 lbs weight allowance). This meant I was 17 pounds away from even being allowed to wrestle in my weight class. So I decided to sit down and write out a plan to lose weight. Keep in mind, you most likely will not have to do all this because most people don't need to go down past 8%, and I would recommend not doing so. It is not fun.
DIET
For some reason, many people do not realize how much diet matters with your body fat percentage. They say "Oh, I'll just run it off" or something. That is not possible. Here is what I did.
Drinks
I went ahead and cut Sodas out of my drinking habits almost immediately. The average American drinks enough Soda to affect nearly 5 pounds of their fat. Cutting this out, or even just beginning to drink a little less, will help you lose a lot of fat.
The second thing I did was go from whole milk to fat free milk. Because I do so many sports and work out so much, I couldn't just not drink milk. I needed the protein and bone density. Because of this, I switched to fat free milk only. I would assume that this accounted for around 3-5 lbs of the fat on my body.
The last thing I did with drinks was start drinking 5 bottles of water per day. Water helps you keep the fat gone and it also helps you burn the fat easier.
Summary: Drink less or stop drinking Sodas, drink fat free milk, and drink more water.
Food
I did not have to do much change to my eating habits. I already ate severely clean and I was getting a higher protein : carb average than the average person.
One thing I did change is I started eating baby spinach with chicken. Healthy carbs affects your muscle growth more than carb growth, making it a lot easier to maintain muscle and lose fat.
My average day still consists of 5 meals:
Breakfast - 4 scrambled eggs and milk
pre lunch - protein shake (2000 calories, 50 grams of protein)
lunch - fish, oranges, protein bar, nutri-grain bar, apple, PB&J, and water
pre dinner - Peanut butter and bananas, and water
dinner - fish and baby spinach, along with milk.
Summary: Don't eat fast food, eat vegetables and fruits, and don't starve yourself.
Exercise
Yes, I do exercise a lot also. Originally, I was running maybe 5 miles a day, working out 2 hours, and wrestling 2 hours, but I had to change it around because of school. I went down to working out an hour every other day. However, I did continue running the 5 miles and wrestling 2 hours.
Running
You can do a lot of things running wise to help yourself lose weight. There are sprints, far distance jogs, and walking, among other things.
The best system to run to lose weight is to sprint 50-100 yards, and then jog 200 - 400 yards. Basically for every yard you sprint, jog 4x that distance. When you finish this and need to cool down, walk for 5 minute or do jumping jacks for 5 minutes.
Summary: Sprint 50-100 yards, and then jog 200 - 400 yards for maximum weight loss
Weights
Yes, weight lifting is an effective way to lose weight if you do it correctly. The correct way to lose weight while weight lifting is by doing more repetitions with a lighter weight. For example, instead of doing 4 squats at 405, do 20 squats at 185. This will easily help you lose a lot of weight and get you at the lighter weight you want.
Summary: Do more repetitions with a lighter weight to lose weight.
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