Am I on the right track?

[schase02]

Hey folks.

I would appreciate anyone reading the following and posting advice.

About a year ago, I discovered I had excessively high Triglycerides. I am 35 years old, 6 feet tall, and then weighted 234 pounds. Over the years I usually hovered around 205 or so, but the lack of exercise over the past 4 years resulted in weight gain. I never watched what I ate, all that.

Got put on medication, my Cholesterol went into proper ranges, my BP is great. And since then I started watching what I ate. Switched to diet soda, cut out the chips (switched to pretzels). Started eating either campbells chowders or weight watcher type tv dinners. And during the day I'd eat a couple pieces of fruit. Not really any more exercise at this point.

It worked though, dropped 7-8 pounds a month, over all I lost roughly 25 pounds, then seemed to level out and that was where I stayed. This point I was at 208 or so. I'd go up to 212, down to 205, but in that range.

Then I joined a gym here, for the first month I did 33 minutes every other day on a cycle to get my body used to exercising. Then I switched to an Elliptical machine, and started doing the weight machines also.

Followed the bodybuilding general guide in front of the book to keep track of progress. So here is a typical workout. Every other day. I do this after work, about 6:30pm.

Elliptical - 33:00 min - burn roughly 310 cal
Verticle Press
Bisolator
Leg Extension
Overhead Triceps
Leg Curls
Dorsiflexor
Standing Calf
Deltoid Raise
standing crunch

I first went 2 sets of 12 each, increasing weight as I could handle without over exerting, then moved to 2 sets of 15 reps. My basic plan is to now alter to 3 sets of 10 reps, then 3 sets of 12 reps. So it is roughly 33 min of cardio and 30-35 min of the weight machines.

I've been doing that for the past month. I can see some results, my legs, arms and upper body are getting more defined. But I don't seem to be loosing anymore weight. I realize that muscle weighs more than fat, but am I really putting on that much muscle that the weight isn't decreasing? Right now I'm ranging from 202-205. And this little spare tire around my waist is not going away that I can see.

My goal is 185, I am looking for toned rather than mass.

I really cannot exercise anymore than every other day given work, school, etc. Where I live and the hours makes it tough for me to eat anything other than the weight watcher tv dinners and what not (microwavable). I do splurge one night a week and eat whatever I want (Chinese or whatever). During the week I'm pretty good. I have since ditched the diet soda and changed to water through the day. I do have a couple of breakfast bars in the morning (.5 sat. fat), the two pieces of fruit during the day, and if I'm hungry I try to eat pretzels instead of something else. I also moved up the time I eat dinner to around 8pm instead of 10pm.

There are some days I'm so hungry I run next door to taco bell and have a couple taco's. But I try to minimize that as much as I can.

Before I went on my self determined diet at the beginning of this post, the Doc had tried to get me on a diabetic type diet to lower the calories (I'm not diabetic) - I never saw anything more confusing in my life, I threw that away and mostly have been trying to watch the saturated fat intake. I didn't want to add any of the supplemental nutrition stuff, I guess out of a concern if they are really good for the body or not. The other concern with supplements are would I have to take them forever or is it just until I reach my target weight. I am not totally against supplements if they will help me break this seeming barrier I'm facing and help get me to my target then I can go off of them.

So what do you think? Am I on the right path - but if I am why no more weight loss? If not, than are there any slight changes to make to put myself back on the correct path?

Thank you very much in advance.

[power press]

in short thw body adapts to everything we do, so my reccomendation is to add something else on the days yuor not doing anything. like take a 30 min walk in the evenings. and if you want that spare tire down. you need to do more abdominal training. try decline situps or weighted situps.

hope this helps.

[schase02]

really? I had done some searching around which pretty much all said targeted area fat burning doesn't work?

Whats surprising me is that I should have lost weight as soon as I started on the cardio - instead of just a few pounds I expected maybe 10 over the two months.