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Originally Posted by Stinger88
I'm not going to not drink, I'm a 21 year old college student and I want to have fun. I do want to make as many improvements as possible though.
Consider changing what you drink. If you are drinking 20 drinks of spirts mixed with soda a week, switching to a diet soda will instantly cut a whole heap of bad calories from your diet. If you are drinking 20 beers a week, switching to spirts mixed with a diet soda will also cut a fair few calories.
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Originally Posted by Stinger88
I could probably use to drink more water especially after drinking to reduce the effects of hangovers.
Drinking more water is almost always a good idea.
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Originally Posted by Stinger88
It's just tough to do this when my friends I see daily are not doing this but are in better shape, although many are athletes and working out much harder than me.
The impact of exercise on weight loss is gernerally small compared to the impact of a better/lower calorie diet. The effectivness of exercise for losing weight is gernerally very overstated.
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Originally Posted by Stinger88
I did a lot of reading last night and I think my gameplan is to try to eat 5-6 small meals a day, although I'm going to have to cook a lot more to actually pull this off. I've read a little about this but I'm still not totally sure how it works. Sounds like a big breakfast is a plus but after that I should be eating snacks/small meals? I know I should be focusing on lean protein and fruits/veggies but some specific examples would be great. Linking to sites with this kind of info would be great.
What jim said:
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Originally Posted by jimi1999uk
I think the idea of eating a lot of small meals to stoke up your metabolism is going to have a small impact at best aside from being a pain to implement for most people. The most important thing is going to be your total calories in total calories out balance.
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Originally Posted by Stinger88
As for workouts I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing for weights yet, my roommate who's pretty savvy about it is making me a plan that focuses on big muscle groups, I think I'm going to start with this. Starting Strength intrigues me too though, I read about it for about an hour last night.
Be wary about the advice "pretty savvy" exercise people give you. Most people would consider personal trainers at least "pretty savvy" when it comes to workout advice, but they are usually quite terrible.
Start doing starting strength. Continue researching starting strength. When your savvy friend suggests a different program, ask him why it is more effective than SS.
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Originally Posted by Stinger88
For cardio I'm going to do HIIT, since I'll be doing this at the gym what cardio machine do you think is most effective for this? Also they have a pool so I was thinking about doing some swimming.
I love the concept 2 rowing machine, but this is really personal opinion thing. Do whatever keeps you less bored. If swimming laps does it for you, do that. If you like being outside, got to a football field and run sprints. If you have the skills, do some jump-rope.
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Originally Posted by Stinger88
Thanks guys!
np