I''m a 110 lb female in my mid 20''s and I would like to tone up a bit for the summer. With my schedule, I am able to go to the gym about 4 times a week for roughly an hour. What would be the best gym routine for me as far as cardio verses weights? Also, what are the most important things for me to cut out of my diet? I eat relatively health so I guess I am just looking for some strong pointers.
Also, I know I can''t spot train but I tend to keep my weight in my hips and thighs so anything that would slim down that area would be helpful.
Great Options For You to Lose Weight Naturally
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Stay away from saturated and trans fat, unsaturated fat is good in moderate amounts. You must abstain from candy, a little treat now and then won''t hurt though. Do not over eat your carbohydrates, eat enough - you''ll have to determine this yourself. You''ll also need to intake adequate amounts of protein and water.
How much you ingest will depend on the combination/intensity of your workout. There is no method to isolate areas to lose fat, so you''ll have to ramp up cardio. I don''t know how experienced you are at working out, but I''d suggest a split of 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of weights. You''ll have to consider what body type you are: ectomorph, endomorph, or mesomorph.
For your cardio:
Do a 1 mile test to see how fast you can run it. Use that as your base speed and try to improve on that, eventually use incline + faster speed to make your cardio workouts better.
For your weights:
I''m assuming you want a toned abdominal section, arms, thighs, glutes, and calves.
Ab Exercises: leg lifts (begin by lifting your knees up, progress to keeping your legs straight and lifting them), incline ab bench, and weighted ab crunches
Arm Exercises: bicep curls, lateral and frontal raises for deltoids, tricep pulldowns and kickbacks
Lower Body Exercises: squats, calf press
- I recommend training different muscle groups each session, so that you are working them relatively well. rather than train your whole body every day.
Just make sure you work all of your body, balance yourself out and keep healthy (you cant choose were you lose weight). Combination of weights and cardio is needed. - If you can only do the gym 4 times a week, then you need to prioritise. Strength training in the gym and run on the other 3 days.
You want to get ''toned''. Well, there is on such thing as toned. You either build muscle or lose fat. From what I can see, toned is a combination of both, but it is nearly impossible to build muscle and lose fat simultaneously.
To lose the weight, you do cardio. Low resistance, high rep, high speed is the best. They also need to use a lot of muscle mass. This is why running and swimming are very popular because the legs and lats are the two biggest muscle groups.
Day 1: Running or cycling
Day 2: Legs hurt? Lat exercises like assisted pull ups (or feet on the floor) and bent over rows
Day 3: Legs still hurt? Lats hurt? Chest exercises. Push ups are VERY good
Day 4: Legs hurt? Lats hurt? Chest hurts? Abs. Crunches, sit ups, planks
You could of course do them in this same order but do more than one on the same day.
Diet:
Vegetables are your friend for weight loss:
low calorie
nutritious
cheap
tasty
can beat eaten raw (best eaten raw)
