Overweight and Need to Lose Bodyfat

Here’s a question I was recently e-mailed about needing to lose weight.

Q: I am currently 214 lbs at about 34% bodyfat and I need to lose some fat.
Here is my plan:

I'm going to start a low carb diet and train with weights four times a week. Here’s the weight training split:
Mon: Chest and Back
Tue: Legs
Wed: Off
Thu: Arms and Abs
Fri: Off
Sat: Full Body Circuit
Sun: Off

I'm also going to start walking for 45 to 60 minutes every morning but I'll make sure to keep my heart rate in the fat burning zone.

Is there anything you'd do to upgrade or modify this?

A: From your program I’m guessing you haven’t read my blog. At 214 with 34% bodyfat you’ve got about 72lbs of fat to cut back on, so pretty much any program will work as long as you're burning more calories than you take in, but since you’re looking for an upgrade let’s see how we can improve your program.

If you’re looking for fast results I'd start by throwing this plan out and starting over from scratch. Here’s what I recommend you do:


Stop it with the body part split. You’re not a bodybuilder so you don’t need to hit each muscle with its own day. Besides you’re goal is to lose fat and your arm day won’t burn much fat or elevate your metabolism much. Instead switch to and upper lower split three times per week for a higher caloric burn and a better use of your time. Day 1 do upper body compound lifts such as rows, pull downs and presses on Day 2 rest, Day 3 do lower body exercises such as squats, lunges, and deadlifts. Day 4 rest and day 5 back to upper body. Keep alternating between upper and lower body exercises. Next week you’ll do two lower body days and one upper body day.

For cardio stop the doing the fat burning zone workouts. Besides there are several studies showing that low intensity aerobic work does almost nothing for fat loss. To get more bang for your buck switch to high intensity interval training three times per week, it burns more calories while you are doing it, burns more calories after you have done it (EPOC) and in every single head-to-head study is shown to be more effective than steady state cardio.

For your diet know that carbs aren’t bad. Making some changes aren’t a bad idea though. Switch to whole wheat pastas and breads and brown rice and load up on vegetables. Most important stick to correct portion sizes. Don’t forget high protein foods such as lean turkey, chicken and fish and healthy fats. Make sure you’re not drinking your calories either. Swap sodas and high calorie coffees for water.

Overall this plan should help you lose 1-2 lbs. of fat a week. For more tips check out my blog and workoutquest.com.