Hi all,
I recently found out that as a part of my job I get access to a small gym in the building. I think it has your basic cardio equipment and some other stuff for building muscle (but small enough I don’t think there is equipment to do stuff like dead-lifts or whatever in there).
I don’t know anything about working out really, but I could stand to lose some fat, which draws my attention to the treadmill that they have. I am not so concerned about building muscle and everything that involves.
I have mostly neglected going to gyms for 3 reasons.
- They are usually out of my way
- I don’t usually have the time
- I don’t want to spend what they charge
All three of these are now non-factors now that I have found out I have access to this one.
I would be using it twice a week as that is how often I am actually at the location.
So my question is, since it’s not really something I have ever looked at - if I want to lose a bunch of fat, what do I do? I can try to diet first off, and I am glad to take suggestions on what worked for other people in that regard, but more so I just don’t know how long or how fast I should run, what equipment is good for this otherwise, or really anything about using a gym.
Please note that the facility is self-serve and has no staff - they just have cleaners come in each day to clean it, the rest is up to you. I do not have the money to spend on something like a personal trainer, and the location doesn’t offer such things as well given its self-serve nature.
Thank you.
I am approximately 6’ and have not checked my weight in some time. I can manage walking a few kilometres up a respectable incline and do this fairly regularly - I also go hiking and camping on the rare occasion without too much trouble, but with that said I believe my general health is somewhat poor and I am at an age where I believe I should really start paying more attention to it. I am also fairly certain I have gained more weight than usual in the last couple years, probably due to changes in my metabolism.
My primary objective is to lose fat, and strength training can be rolled in in some minor capacity, but once I have lost some more fat I would not be opposed to more strength training. I am the kind of person where I do best where I am focusing on a single objective at a time, working to execute on that to the best of my ability, and then moving on to the next objective, which is why I really just want to focus on the fat at first as it is what is at the forefront of my mind.
The other reason why I want to focus down some fat first is because I am aware that for effective strength training, the dieting becomes slightly more complicated than a calorie deficit. I would like to buy high-protein foods etc to make that work better for me, but that generally speaking is not in the cards for me financially at the moment. From what I can see, losing fat is at least slightly cheaper than gaining muscle in that regard, so this is also a reason why I want to prioritize the fat first.
Having said all of that, I know very little about everything that actually goes into any of this, and as a person who will gladly nerd out on their own subjects, I am very glad that this is your topic to do that with and I will accept any and all knowledge you have to share regarding it :)
And that’s fair enough, the whole thing can be overwhelming. But I will mention that what I’m suggesting here does not require a huge diet shift at all. For the low low cost of $0 I believe you can make one substitution in your current diet that would enable you to build muscle. If you drink pop or eat chocolate daily, drop those in exchange them for a protein shake, or an additional egg (or two) or whatever you preferred cheap additional protein would be. It does not have to be a drastic change
Fair enough. Surprisingly I don’t often drink sugared drinks, eat chocolate or candy, confections, chips, or things like that. Probably the mass of my calorie intake exists at an intersection between bread, meat, and oil.
I think my problem as far as that goes is really more to do with portion sizing. I expect if I reduce portion sizes for what I normally eat and begin adding more vegetables as a filler I would be much better off.
Yeah it all depends on how your current diet looks. Maybe cut out something that’s high carb and substitute for something that’s high protein.