I need some advice

May 19th, 2009, 02:43 PM

Ok, first of all I'm 15 years old.

As long as I can remember I've been quite athetlic/slim and had a nicely toned body, but over the past 3 years I've stopped playing football and taken up Xbox as a hobby (lost interest).

I'm not unfit as such, I'm around 5ft' 6-8 and weigh 11 stone. I don't have a double chin (Lol :P) and I'm not really 'fat'. But I would like to lose some weight and get my six pack back - 'love' handles' are there (not big) and I have a bit more chubb then I'm comfortable with. Now before someone gives me an extreme diet or sport to play, all I am interested in is:

Swimming
Cycling

I do eat a lot at times, but if I do nothing on a weekend I make do on a bowl of cereal or two. Not that I starve myself, no way, just that I don't get as hungry.

As of now I can do around 10-12 pushups without having to stop and 40'ish situps. I do these once a day (usually).

I need help with a routine/diet that I can follow to get myself a nice set of pecks and six pack, reasonably quick. I've stopped growing, I think, or I have for now. I hit puberty in like year 6 so yeah, year 10 now o_O. I would much appreciate any help that people could offer

.

coachjburk · May 23rd, 2009, 11:59 PM

to begin you need to develop habits and a general routine of self discipline
begin with small yet challenging goals; M,W,F = 30 minutes of swimming, T,Th = 30 minutes of resistance training...

**pliny_2001** · May 24th, 2009, 11:44 AM

quit xbox and take up football again.

**tidalwave** · May 24th, 2009, 01:28 PM

Your physical appearance is a reflection of your lifestyle.

If you want to look like someone who swims or plays football, make those activities part of your lifestyle. If you want to look like someone who plays Xbox a lot, then that can also happen.

Find physical activities that you enjoy, whether it's at a gym, a field, a pool, on a mountain, etc. Make those things part of your lifestyle and something that you enjoy and define yourself by. Thinking about just getting your time in at the gym makes it sound like a chore and therefore less likely that you will stick with it. If you make fitness an activity that you enjoy, you will stick with it long enough to see results, and those results will make you enjoy it even more.

Ok, that's the general theory. Now for the application:

I would strive to reach certain benchmarks for athleticism in order to build a good base for any sport you choose. Work up to being able to swim x meters in __ minutes or do the 40-yard dash in __ seconds. Try to master some bodyweight exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, handstands, long and vertical jumping. Above all, the trick is going to be consistency. Stick with it and results will come.

As for diet, you can probably get away with simplicity, since you're young. Don't eat until you're 100% full, just until you feel like you have had enough to get to the next meal. Eat as much homemade and non-processed foods as possible. Limit the amount of sugar you eat and drink.

Hope that helps. You're off to a good start by asking these questions!

**joey9** · May 24th, 2009, 02:17 PM

quit xbox and take up football again.

Sports might make us look better and please our vanity, but they also improve our coordination. What if you wanted to take a girl dancing someday? Your thumbs will have good coordination from xbox, but what about the rest?

sports can also teach things like teamwork, humility, dedication, etc. Fresh air, sunshine... jeez what am I doing at my computer today?

**A1food4U** · May 26th, 2009, 11:13 AM

Random Kid,

it's easy to get caught up in the easy, "I'm a super hero" kind of mind set which video games will impart. The reality is no one out side your front door will care what level you've achieved on those "soldiering" games. Reality takes work, hard work. Starting and holding to a healthy life style is tough in the biginning but gets easier as you go.

as suggested above start slow but be consistent. Your young enough to reap the benefits for a long healthy life. . .

**Steel_UK** · May 26th, 2009, 02:56 PM

Good pecs means you need to put in some hard work that doesn't just involve a few pushups and masses of cardio.

Furthermore, what is the obsession with abs? They're great but I'm not aware of anyone who has them who do not fall into one of the following:
1.) Built like a twig and have absolutely no strength or build. Their abs show merely because of being so skinny.
2.) Decent build, low body fat and reserves, subsequently lacking energy to do things if this level is sustained.
3.) Big build, low body fat, on the gear and also likely to suffer from no.2 problems in the long run if sustained.

Henceforth why bodybuilders and figure models go through "cycling". Eat lots initially, then eat cleaner and cleaner and lose the body fat for the show. After the show it's back to "off season" where they eat what they need to sustain and build upon what they developed previously.

Of course there are exceptions but I've not really met any yet!

**pliny_2001** · May 27th, 2009, 01:25 AM

Steel - just an FYI but I've maintained abs for years, in my biggest winter bulking phase they've gone kind of vague underneath some fat but I've kept them out sharp for some pretty long times, even when gaining overall mass. My experience is that true 'bulking' and 'cutting' cycles work best for those using drugs -- natural lifters need to stay fairly lean, b/c they'll lose practically as much muscle as fat when they slim down for a show (toonces or Insex could give us some better info here, as I've never competed). And I've got plenty of energy, as I tend to do a few endurance-athlete type events (to be perfectly fair, though, I will use glucose packs for a 10k).

Being big (or at least bigger than most other people) and ripped isn't an impossible state to reach, or really even that difficult. But it doesn't involve a lot of sweets, and it doesn't involve much xbox, either.

**Insex** · May 28th, 2009, 06:20 AM

To the original poster:

Get back into organized team sports: Take up football again. If that's not an option, then take up another organized team sport that you're interested in, like swimming and cycling as you mentioned earlier.

The reason being is because of your age: You're very young and you don't know any better. No one expects a 15-year old to have the same amount of self-discipline as a professional athlete. That's why organized team sports for adolescents exist; they teach young men like yourself the basics about self-discipline. I played American football for 12 years, from age 11 to 22. I can say without a doubt that I would not have the self-discipline that I have today if it wasn't for all of the time I spent at football practice and all of the lessons my football coaches had taught me. During high school, my coaches required us to be in the weightroom lifting weights every morning at 6:15 AM. If my coaches never required us to wake up that early in the morning to lift weights, or if none of my teammates showed up to the weightroom that early in the morning, then I would have just slept in every morning.

In order to accomplish your goals, you need self-discipline so that you can draw up a plan on how you're going to achieve your goals, and you need support from your teammates and coaches to keep yourself from giving up. From what you've revealed to us, it sounds like you only have self-discipline when it comes to playing X-Box video games. I think you would greatly benefit from being involved in an organized team sport once again. It doesn't matter the sport, so long as it involves vigorous physical activity, and so long that you have a supporting group of coaches and teammates around you who will push you to work hard and help teach you self-discipline and lessons about life.