How can I get buff in three months?

Factual Questions
1

So, I’m a 270 lb, 6’1", 25 year-old male, who’s sat at a desk for the past 5 years. And I have three months to get as fit and sculpted as possible. Is this even possible?

How would I go about doing this? What’s the maximum results I can expect in such a short time frame? Should I expect to lose more fat than gain more muscle? What types of foods should I eat?

I’d like to do a combination of running & weight lifting & other exercises (situps, pushups, jumprope, whatever). I’m willing to dedicate 3-4 hours a day, 3-5 days a week, to all of this. I’ll have an exercise partner, so I don’t need to worry about motivation.

I realize it’s probably unhealthy to just jump in like this… but I’ll just take it slow for the first few weeks and then start to really get into it. It just needs to be done! It’s just a matter of knowing exactly what to do… if somebody could outline an exact regimen for me to follow, that would be great.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

2

I, too, have wondered what a healthy level of short-term weight loss can be. Thank you for asking this.

3

www.johnstonefitness.com

4

Why only 3 months? you’re 25… wouldn’t be time for a class reunion… :dubious: Hmm… :smiley:

5

You sound tall so I don’t know whether you are specifically looking to lose weight as well as build muscle. If you are looking to lose weight, low-carbing can be most effective for gut-fat. However, low-carbing (especially stricter regimes such as Atkins Induction) can be very incompatible with heavy exercise.

Foodwise: definitely avoid all sugary things and refined carbs (this is good for general healthy eating anyway), limit alcohol, avoid caffeine, and if you have a gut - cut out all beer. The South Beach Diet book has some interesting info on how beer leads to a (beer!)-gut, glycaemic index, etc.

Eat masses of vegetables (avoiding starches like potato/carrots) and try to eat fruits such as berries, because they have a lower glycaemic index. If you want to eat bananas (which are high) try eating them a couple of hours before training.

Avoid saturated fats and trans-fats but include healthy vegetable oils and fish oils, specifically things like olive oil.

If you’re a regular pastry or candy eater you may feel a bit light headed for the first few days of giving up. Maybe switch to a granary roll instead to ease yourself off these things.

Also: consider taking multivitamins. Even eating masses of healthy food it’s easy to miss out certain nutrients, and that can make you tired and underperform when you exercise. I recommend http://www.fitday.com for a great, free online health and fitness tracker - it lets you enter your foods (and calculates the percentage RDA vitamins and minerals for you, so you can see at a glance what you’re lacking) and your weight (it plots nice graphs for you!) and also allows you to put in what excercise you’ve done (returning graphs of calories ingested vs calories burnt).

6

Training 3-4 hours a day is just plain stupid. The only thing that’ll get you is injured and depressed.

I gotta say, you’re probably going to be disappointed with the results you can get in three months. You might be able to drop 20-25 lbs., but without knowing your % bodyfat, it’s hard to say. The fatter you are, the easier it is to lose fat.

There are as many opinions on how best to lose fat as there are people who are trying to lose fat. The most important thing to do is to stick with whatever you choose. A lot of people have had good results with “Body For Life”, which is a twelve-week program.

7

I wasn’t really planning to work out that much. I was just expressing my dedication to getting in shape.

The johnstonefitness site looks pretty good… I’ll probably end up following something similar to that. The Body for Life program looks equally well, but their site is less informative, presumably so I’ll buy the book.

And no, it’s not for a reunion… it’s for myself! Oh yeah, and a girl…

Thanks for the input so far… keep the suggestions and tips coming!

8

Just remember, the mods don’t like it when you change your username more than once, so if you go through with, this you really have to make it stick. Otherwise you’ll feel really silly nine months from now when you’re all flabby again, but you still have to post as buffdave. :smiley:

9

I’m going to throw out something that worked for me: started wrestling. Man, in a month, I packed on some serious muscle doing that (and it was only a month before I got injured and had to give it up!). Of course, I was pretty heavily (heh) into healthy eating and bodyweight calisthenics at the time too, but I got into the wrestling from more-or-less moderate exercise.

10

Well, I’m far from becoming buff, but what I’m doing may help you at least lose some of the extra fat from your body.

I started March 18th at 231 pounds (I’m 24, 6’1"). I don’t really look overweight (or so I’m told, I’m pretty broad), but for health reasons I decided 200 pounds is probably more healthy.

As of today I’ve lost 21 pounds and am 10 away from my goal.

Along with some co-workers and friends, we started a weight loss competition. Nothing too unhealthy, we all put in $50 and whoever loses 5% or more of their body weight splits the pot after three months. That’s great motivtion – having co-workers doing it with you and having a monetary incentive.

So, here’s what I did… Breakfast consists of either a small bowl of oatmeal or a granola bar along with orange juice or water. Previous to this, I almost never ate breakfast. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, I pretty much eat whatever I want then. My evening meal usually consists of something easy to make and relatively healthy (grilled chicken breast, salmon, turky sandwich, vegetable soup, and the likes). So actually, for my plan I didn’t modify my diet a lot. It is mostly exercise.

Previous to the weight loss I did like to hike a lot (I’m fortunate to live only a few miles from the mountains, so challenging terrain is not hard to come by here). Now I make sure to go at least twice a week. Wednesdays after work I go on a 3 to 6 mile hike with a group of co-workers. We take turns each week selecting a new place. On either Saturday or Sunday I take a much longer hike – usually anywhere from 9 to 20 miles depending on my motivation and how much time I have.

On days that I don’t hike, I go for a short jog. It’s difficult for me to jog for extended periods of time, so I’ve adopted a plan from Cool Running called Couch to 5K. This has helped my cardiovascular health immensely. I can jog for a lot longer now thatn I could two months ago and my resting heart rate has gone from almost 80 to under 50. Usually I do this 3 or 4 times a week depending on the weather.

Also, I joined a hockey club. Before that, I had never played in my life, but it’s something I always wanted to try. It’s a great cardiovascular workout.

Well, that’s how I am in much better shape. Now, to get buff, I’d recommend adding some weight lifting to work out your upper body. Right now my legs are looking really nice, but not so much my upper body (though, every other day I do push ups and several types of crunches )

This is the longest I’ve managed to stick with something like this. The biggest parts are regularly scheduling things and getting other people around you involved to help keep you motivated.

11

Beats, me. Like you, I haven’t hit the gym in awhile. I would guess IMHO that if you find a suitable diet, go to the gym regularly and have a disciplined routine of weights and cardio, you should see some results in 3 months. Not Brad Pitt in Fight Club results or anything unless you get a professional trainer and make it your full time job. I’m talking ‘not embarassed to remove your shirt at the beach’ results.
That reminds me. I really need to start working out again. I haven’t joined a gym since my job keeps me on the road 4 days a week but I really should start using the hotel gyms.

12

You can definitely lose a lot of weight. YMMV, but I lost 31 pounds in 3 months on Weight Watchers. That’s not buff but it will make a huge difference in how you feel and will make exercise a much more realistic activity.

13

Your number 1 priority is to not pick up an injury.

Even a minor lower back/shoulder/knee injury will essentially put you out of action physically until after your ‘deadline’.

If you have a lot of time, you might consider signing up for some classes. Ashtanga Yoga is good for supplety, which helps reduce injury risk.

Wrestling is an excellent CV workout (as are the normally brutal warmups!), but it can be an easy way to pick up injuries, the same goes for Olympic lifting.

Get in a pool, swim hard for 30 mins a day. Good, safe and unlikely to cause an injury.

Actually TRAINING for 3-4 hours a day, as Ultrafilter said, will be counter-productive. However you will need to keep active as much as possible to speed up your metabolism, use stairs instead of elavators etc.

Check your salt intake too. A little ‘fat’ is actually just water retention. If you just stop using Salt from the shaker, and avoid processed food, you shouldn’t need to buy special ‘low sodium’ foods. In my experience this can often make a big difference in the mirror, however the scales won’t really be affected.

Hydration, keep a bottle of water with you, especially when training. Drink as often as you can.

As for muscle gain, you may have time to build a few pounds of muscle YMMV, however this is a tough thing to do when trying to seriously reduce fat. Keep any heavy lifting (if you decide to do any) limited to once or twice a week. Any more and you will quite possibly be overtraining.

I will also add the caveat here that you should be thinking of some longer term goals. It’s all very well to have a near term goal, but aiming to do a half triatholon or do 30 chinups, squat XXXlbs etc will keep your momentum going.

Good Luck.

14

Google search for max OT, that is YOUR BEST WAY TO DO IT.

Take no other consolation, do max ot, take supplements, eat a shitload, and you can do it in 2 with the right dedication.

15

also:
www.johnstonefitness.com
you’ll love me for that link and the inspiration it’ll bring

16

Haha!

17

Like all the other advice here, I’d recommend a reasonable amount of exercise (i.e., no more than, say 5 days per week at 45 minutes - 1 hour per day of cardio and maybe weight lifting 2-3 times a week for 20 minutes to start, increasing your intensity as you get used to exercising more) and a healthy diet. I think most doctors would recommend that you just try to cut back on eating refined stuff like white flour, sugar, processed foods. Also, when you’re starting out, make small changes: eat whole wheat bread instead of white, substitute fruit for candy or other sweets, etc. Plus, you might want to avoid all of a sudden switching to a super-healthy diet. It sounds counter-productive, but if you’ve been eating mostly junk, all of a sudden eating mostly fruits, vegetables and whole grains can result in some pretty strong intestinal discomfort, like bloating and gas. If you find that your new diet causes you pain, you’re less likely to stick with it.

18

I had a friend who lost 30 pounds in three months by cutting out soda, taking the stairs and eating more at work (he works at chipotle).

Soda and beer are HUGE things you can cut out and lose weight.

Another thing: you should check with your doctor before starting to lose weight, especially as quickly as you are planning.

So, are you getting married?

19

Considering the OP’s handle, and the fact that he’s 275# at 6’1", I’d say he sounds overweight to me. I’m four inches shorter and weigh about 160#, and I could probably stand to lose a little myself.

fatdave, at least at your age you should have metabolism on your side. Exercise will definitely help you, but not if you overeat. If I were you, I’d look at the food I typically eat during a week and note the times I tend to eat a lot of high-calorie food, or drink sugared sodas or alcoholic drinks, if applicable.

Ultrafilter, if he’s got the time he could work out as much as he suggests, as long as he’s not doing heavy lifting on the same muscle groups on successive days. Lots of people do legs one day, then upper body and core (abs and lower back) the next day. Or he could alternate aerobic days with lifting days.

20

After about an hour of lifting, testosterone levels start to drop, and cortisol levels start to rise. That’s a bad scene for wanting to get leaner, so that much weight training is right out.

Doing that much aerobic exercise is possible if you build up to it, but if you’re already heavy, it can be really bad for your knees.

Me, I only train about 4 hours a week, and I make great progress, both as far as fat loss and strength levels. Who needs to train 3-4 hours a day?