Don't be so hard on yourself. This may be a bit of a cliché, but people are different, and react differently to different things, both mentally and physically. Be content that you're moving in the right direction and that you're improving, even though it may be (arbitrarily) too slowly.

The key is that you ARE improving; that means you're doing something right.

As for exercise; don't over do it, especially if you're not in that good shape to start with. You may be able to exercise a lot for a few weeks at a time, but if you don't notice any results, or smaller than usual results, and that you're losing motivation, getting overly tired, hungry all the time even when you've stuffed yourself full, etc, you need to take it easy. Those are the first symptoms of serious overtraining, which is essentially a physical depression during which your body shuts down to repair itself. I've been there myself a few times, and it's horrible. You end up putting on a lot of fat as well if you reach that state.

Try to find the number of exercise sessions per week that suits your body. For me, that number seems to be three strength sessions (warming up with 20 minutes of interval on a tread mill or bike each session), and an optional pure cardio session (if I'm feeling really energetic.) Time wise, I can squeeze in more sessions every week, but it's largely wasted effort; my improvements become smaller, not just per session but on the whole as well, if I exercise more than four sessions per week for more than a couple of weeks at a time. The effort I can bring to each session is also reduced.

Thus, if you find yourself working your figurative ass off instead of your literal ass (getting very little in the way of results for a lot of effort,) try REDUCING the number of sessions per week, and try to make them shorter as well. Lots of fitness "gurus" say roughly that, including the guy behind WD if I remember correctly.


45 minutes including warm up is plenty (not counting stretching, if you do that.)

Reducing the number of sessions and their length makes it easier to focus on each session. Also, try fewer, more compound exercises (if you work out in the gym.)

I tend to do Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and then I rest the entire weekend. If I do a cardio session, I do it on Thursdays, because I do leg work on mondays. By putting it between Wednesdays and Fridays, on which I do back and chest work, respectively, I minimize overlap between muscle groups, and thus I maximize the recovery time for the major muscle groups.

After six weeks or so, I take a week of exercising, completely, and just focus on eating and sleeping (apart from working of course.) On the eight week, I do a total of 200-250 minutes of cardio (not interval; just a consistent medium to high pace) spread over 4-5 sessions, and then I restart the cycle, with 3-4 sessions a week.

It works very well for me, and I was doing that before I adopted part of the WD system. Adopting WD has really accelerated my fat loss and muscle gains though, so my exercise system seems to complement it well. My exercise system is a sort of customized version of Stuart McRoberts "Beyond Brawn" system by the way.

Flax seed oil contains 50%+ Omega-3. A 500ml (17oz) flask of the stuff will last 17 days if you take two tablespoons of it a day, and it's cheaper than nuts, especially considering the fat amount and fat composition. The cost per day for me comes in at the equivialent of .5usd, and I can almost guarantee that it's more expensive where I live 

Try to mix it with a little yoghurt or something. Apparantly eases the body's ability to absorb it as well.

Deleted.


Posted in the wrong thread. Sorry.

I'm one of those lotsa-muscles-lotsa-fat kind of guys. I easily gain both muscle mass and fat. I was at 110kg /29% fat. Now I'm at 105kg (-ish) / 24% fat, which translates into a lean gain, up from 78.1kg lean body mass, to around 79.8kg lbm. That's an average loss of 1,67% body fat per week for three weeks, and 0.5-0.6kg (-ish) lean body mass gain per week for three weeks. I believe most of the lean gain is water though, probably about 2/3; gaining almost 2kg of pure muscle mass in 3 weeks, excluding increased water %, is unreasonable in most cases (unless you're using steroids.)

I have increased the weighs when weighlifting dramatically the past month. I just seem to have more energy, and it enables me to go heavier and into higher rep ranges. I've increased my max lift weight when doing bicep curls almost 10kg! That's 22lbs in imperial.

My target is 85kg lbm and 10% body fat or less. That's a total body weight of 93-94 kg, and that means gaining a little over 5kg muscle mass, losing 16-17kg fat, and reducing my total body weight by a total of 11-12kg.

(1kg is 2,2lbs)

I've made a spreadsheet in which I record all relevant weights and percentages, and the numbers are certainly pointing in the right directions

Hi Roni. I´ve also been doing the warrior thing for about a month, and I've also lost about 5-6% body fat. I keep a rough count on the calories I consume, and for three out of the four or so weeks I've been at it, I've had a consistent 1000kcal+ deficit per day, even though I´ve been stuffing myself with what other most other systems say I shouldn't much at all of, like huge steaks, wine sauce, oven fried potatoes, pizza (home made, with less cheese,) etc.

Last week however, I didn't exercise as much as the previous three weeks, and I attended bbq parties almost every day, where I had alot of fatty foods and gravies etc (yumm, and no pangs of guilt either), but though I didn't lose any body fat, I didn't gain any either (according to my calipers.) Then again, I've lost 5 or so kilos in four (actually three) weeks, and that sort of weight loss is in itself rather fatiguing, to me atleast, so I figure I've earned taking it a bit easy and eating more sinful foods than usual for a week

The key, I think, is exercise. Atleast for me. It seems that if I do mostly weight training for a week, I lose fat and gain a little muscle, but I lose very little actual weight. If I do mostly cardio, I don't gain any muscle mass, but I lose more fat than when doing mostly weight training, and I lose more actual weight. All three of those are desirable to me; gaining muscle, losing fat, and losing total weight (last one because I'm so heavy to begin with.)

Last week, as I mentioned, I had alot more total calories every day than the previous three weeks, and less exerise, and it seems my body composition didn't change, which is exactly what I wanted. Even if I had gained a few ounces of fat, I wouldn't have fretted about it, because I WANTED to stop, or atleast stem my weight loss for a while, so that my body could acclimatize a little.

Hi. I'm new here. I'm Marcus and I've been doing the warrior thing for about a month, with good results so far. I'm visibly leaner and I've lost 10cm+ on my waist; all in just a month. I feel good. Anyways.

I did a medical check up a few weeks ago, and the doc said that my cholesterol levels, while low, had a too high proportion LDL and a too low proportion of HDL. She told me to lose weight and eat more omega-3 rich foods, etc; doc's usual orders.

So except for exercise, eating proper foods, and getting less calories in total, and all that,  I'm figuring I can probably do better if I add some extra omega 3 and such. I'm thinking of something like this:

1 tablespoon of flaxseed oil (50%+ omega-3) stirred down in some pro-biotic yoghurt, with 1 tablespoon of ground flax seeds, half a tablespoon of ground psyllium seeds for that extra anti-LDL kick, aaand some bioflav supplement to get at my stubborn fat... For "breakfast," or "brunch."

I kind of need "something" in the morning/before lunchtime, except coffee, and something like that seems sensible to me. Less than 200calories in total, which isn't that much more than a large glass of carrot juice.

Any objections? Does this seem sensible? Anything important I missed?

/Marcus