Okay so here goes. I am a 24 year old male, who all throughout middle/highschool was always very physically active(baseball, football, volleyball, ect.)

I'm pretty short, 5'6 on a good day.

After highschool I went to college, and for an entire year I didnt touch any sports, and stayed clear of any gym. When i was 21, I ran into a good friend of mine who was stick thin in highschool, and simply blew up from weightlifting, and talked me into coming with him to the local gym. At this point i weighed in at about 135, about what I weighed since 7th grade. My 6-pack had sorta dissapeared over the last few years though.

I loved lifting with him, and it became a regular thing for about 7 months, I got some huge gains, all of my friends/family/ect started to notice, especially the ones who hadnt seen me for some time. I was up to about 150lbs, started to get the abs back as well.

Tragedy happened as he moved 5 hours away, and I lost my lifting partner, tried going by myself, but simply didnt have the "drive", knowing that noone was waiting on me to get there every day.

Its been about two years now... and I have stayed away from the gym, moved out of my parents home, have a full time job which of course all of these things add stress. I also ate like shit for the last 9 months while living out on my own. I am up to 170, and I can really tell the difference. Most of my pants dont fit anymore, I went from a size S shirt to a L to be comfortable, I just feel downright horrible. Its really noticeable in my sides, and my neck/face area.

I bought a gym membership last week, and have been going daily. I'm just not sure if I am working hard enough to lose this weight. My diet is fine now, I have everything measured out, and i'm eating healthy. Here is what my gym routine is...:

M-F I go to the gym, I lift weights for about an hour, decent size weight, not maxing out. I do about 3-4 sets of 8-12 on everything. Then I jump on the elyptical(sp?) for 35 minutes going an average of 5.0-5.5mph, with my heart rate between 170-180. I cannot run on a treadmill, or at all really because of a knee injury due to a motorcycle accident a few years back, so thats out of the question. Bikes/elyptical/stairs are all fine though.

I do ab exercises twice a week. I feel 100% better already compared to how i've been the last few months... My question is... Is that enough? Am I going to get back into shape fairly quickly with this diet/exercise routine? How long till i'm back to where I was??? I am really open to suggestions here!!

Over 60 views and not a single response? A little help?

Diet is most important. You want to make sure you are in a caloric deficit.

Whats your lifting routine like? When you say 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps on everything, what is everything? Are you using machines? How are you splitting your workouts? When you got big before (when lfiting I mean) what kind of lifts were you doing compared to now?

The cardio looks fine.

When lifting before, I used nothing but free weights with a couple of cables thrown in. Now i'm using mainly machines.

Chest:
-Benchpress(free weight)
-Dumbell press(free)
-Incline machine
-decline machine
-Cable Flys

Triceps:
-skull crushers(free weights)
-dip machine
-free hanging dips
-reverse extensions
-rope pull down

biceps:
-dumbell curls
-concentration curls
-straight bar curl
-rope curl
-reverse curls(for forearms)

back:
-close grip pull down
-wide grip pull down
-row machine
-wide grip rows
-dumbell single rows

shoulders:
-arnold press
-shrugs
-dumbell laterals
-lifting dumbell out in front
-high pulls

legsall machines)
-calve raises
-quad extensions
-hamstring curls
-squad extensions

abs:
-medicine ball situps
-rotation machine

Since i've just been getting back into it i've been doing one muscle group by itself each day, soon i will be tossing everything together in this order:

Day 1: Chest and Triceps/Cardio
Day 2: Back and Biceps/Cardio
Day 3: Legs
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: Shoulders/Cardio
Day 6: Rest
Start back at day 1

Abs I work every other day, will start working them every day once they adjust.

Ok Your beyond my help I think. I dont know what half of those are or what they do or if you need them.

Whats your shape level?


A simpler program of the standard compound lifts might work for a bit if you are back to a beginner status (squats. deadlift. bench press, overhead press, row, pull ups, dips)

Thatrs what I do. I throw in push-ups and curls as a way of tracking my progression. In terms of non lifts i train on. But htose arent necessary. I also do crunches every other work-out. Though really I dont need to. I do so many things that incorporate abs right now Im solid for a bit.

Welcome aboard.

First let me say you shouldn't be worrying so much. You were thin when you were active and eating right.

You got fat when you stopped being active and started eating like shit.

The solution is simple and obvious.

Which you obviously know b/c you're doing it. So you don't need validation from us.

Nobody is going to be able to answer how long this will take. And truthfully, you shouldn't care or worry about how long this will take. If you have the mindset, chances are slim you'll maintain your improvements once the extra fat is off. Look at if from the 'forever' standpoint. This needs to be a permanent lifestyle change if it's going to last.

On the nutrition front, which you say you have a handle on without providing any real detail, you must be in a caloric deficit. Above all else, this is the most critical factor or else weight will not be lost.

You should also, at the very least, be worrying about eating adequate protein as it will help you maintain your muscle while eating in a deficit. Something like 1 gram per pound of goal body weight will suffice.

Of course eating healthy, balanced meals would be a good idea too.

On the exercise front, 5 days of cardio is fine.

The lifting though, could use a lot of improvement. Hitting each body part once per week is silly for a natural trainee. I'm sure it worked for you originally when you first started training with weights, but anything works when you're body isn't used to the stress of weight training.

It would do you some good to read the basic lifts sticky found on this forum.

This will give you some hindsight regarding weight training.

If you have specific questions after educating yourself a bit with those reads, by all means, ask. I'll do my best to answer them.