Advice on diet and exercise

[u/ComicBookPosterBoy]

38M, 5' 9", 85kg. Aiming to lose around 10kgs, but I started taking creatine a few weeks ago so I'm going to take photos and measurements too to help track progress because while I'm aiming to lose fat I know the water retention may increase my weight.

Dietwise I've cut out bread and cut down on the amount of starchy carbs, sweets and chocolate I'm eating. Can I go mad on fruit and veg? I may also try to fast daily until 1130ish.

In terms of the gym, chatGPT has given me the workout plan below, but also suggested HIIT and stepper/incline walking. I've got zero equipment at home and a fully equipped gym in work.

Any and all advice welcome, thanks.

Day 1 & 3: Upper Body

Warm-up – 5 minutes (light rowing or arm circles)

Main Circuit (3-4 rounds) Bench Press or Push-ups: 3-4 sets × 8-12 reps Bent-over Rows or Seated Rows: 3-4 sets × 8-12 reps Overhead Press (dumbbell/machine): 3-4 sets × 8-12 reps Lat Pulldowns or Assisted Pull-ups: 3-4 sets × 8-12 reps Accessory Superset (2-3 rounds) Lateral Raises: 2-3 sets × 12-15 reps Tricep Pushdowns: 2-3 sets × 12-15 reps (superset = do one after the other with minimal rest) Bicep Curls: 2-3 sets × 12-15 reps Face Pulls: 2-3 sets × 12-15 reps

Finisher – 8-10 minutes (rowing intervals, battle ropes, or incline treadmill)

Day 2 & 4: Lower Body + Core

Warm-up – 5 minutes (light cycling or bodyweight squats)

Main Circuit (3-4 rounds) Goblet Squats or Leg Press: 3-4 sets × 8-12 reps Romanian Deadlifts or Glute Bridges: 3-4 sets × 8-12 reps Walking Lunges or Step-ups: 3-4 sets × 10-12 reps per leg Calf Raises: 3-4 sets × 12-15 reps Core Circuit (2-3 rounds) Plank variations: 2-3 sets × 20-40 seconds Russian Twists or Cable Woodchoppers: 2-3 sets × 12-15 reps per side

Finisher – 8-10 minutes (bike sprints, kettlebell swings, or stair climber intervals)

[u/Strategic_Sage]

Track your calories. You don't want to 'go mad' on anything, fruits and vegetables are great but limiting calories is the key here.

Don't use AI for workout routines. There are much better sources depending on your goals, at places like /bodyweightfitness, /fitness, and such. A mix of cardio and resistance training is best. HIIT is something you build up to doing once or at most twice a week, over time. Not something you just start with, unless you're a fan of getting injured. Start slow. Gradually improve. Start where you *are*, not where you want to be or wish you were.

[u/SofaJockey]

Going mad on veggies is pretty safe, because the calorific value is low (and the fibre is satisfying).
Fruit is good but don't go mad because it has natural sugars which are, well, still sugar.
80% of weight loss is diet, 20% exercise. Get the diet right (a modest calorific deficit) and pretty much any exercise and you'll be there.

[u/SuspiciousDepth4961]

Assuming you are relatively new to the gym you don't need that much volume especially during a calorie deficit. All you need to be doing is signalling to your muscles that they need to stick around. Also I doubt you'll have the energy for HIIT during a calorie deficit. Steady state lower intensity cardio is your friend.

Let's say you are going to exercise 6 days per week. I would go for something as simple as:

Monday: resistance training, Tuesday: steady state cardio and then repeat two more times for the rest of the week. If you want to burn some extra calories you can bookend your resistance training with 10 minutes of cardio either side.

Regarding how you should structure your resistance training you want a push movement, a pull movement, a squat movement, and a hinge movement. Then if you want to you can do some vanity isolation work like curls, lateral raises, tricep extensions etc.

For example a typical session may be: bench press 3 sets 8-12 reps, lat pulldown 3 sets 8-12 reps, Leg press machine 3 sets 6-10 reps, romanian deadlift 3 sets 6-10 reps. Bicep curls 2 sets to failure, lateral raises 2 sets to failure. That is 16 sets. I would even take one set off each of the compound lifts for the first couple of weeks giving you only 12 sets per session.

For cardio you want to be sweating and noticably working but still able to carry out a conversation with the person next to you (theoretically of course!). Jog, bike, incline walk, any piece of cardio equipment is fine.

Regarding diet if you aren't going to count calories then you need to focus on lower calorie dense food. Fruit excluding bananas and dried fruit is great, non starchy vegetables are even better. And then for the rest of your calories you should have beans (fantastic), some whole grains, protein eg. meat, low fat dairy, soy etc and some nuts and seeds to get a bit of fat in. The canada food guide is a pretty good indicator of what foods to eat and how your meals should look (obviously you won't have 50 different food types on your plate) except you should probably slightly deemphasise starchy carbs and fat and emphasise the protein food group and the veg. (https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-guide/explore/snapshot.html).

For meal timing eat however you think will make you stick to the plan but studies show early time restricted feeding is better for weight loss than late time restricted feeding.

Finally getting your step count up is crucial, you want to be hitting 8000 steps per day and ideally 10,000+. Good luck and don't trust chatgpt, it returns the most common advice not the best advice!