Perhaps the most important factor is your goal, more precisely your short term goal. Is it to lose fat, build muscle, develop muscular balance, get stronger or build muscular endurance? Each of these goals requires a different approach to weight lifting if they are going to be accomplished. In the first article in the series I will look at what the right weights for sale are if you are looking to lose body fat.

Lose Fat

First of all notice that I say ‘lose fat’ not ‘lose weight’. This is vitally important because with a lot of weight loss programs where you are not exercising or only performing cardio (Cardiovascular exercise; stationery bike, treadmill, rowing machine, elliptical trainer etc.) the scales may say you are lighter every week but you will also be losing muscle which is a less than ideal situation to say the least. Muscle is the key to burning as much body fat as possible, it burns 3 times more energy than fat so although you may be lighter and ‘closer’ to your goal in the short term you are cheating yourself.

From my personal experience the best way to burn fat by lifting weights is to lift heavy and lift hard, nothing shocks the body like performing a low amount of repetitions of a compound exercise (a compound exercise is an exercise that uses a number of different muscles at the same time as opposed to isolation exercises which will typically focus on one muscle). I recommend the use of barbell weights for these exercises in order to lift as heavy as possible. Good choices are the York 50KG Barbell and Dumbell Set or the Gold’s Gym 110KG Olympic Barbell set if you have a bit more money to spare (the set will last you the rest of your weight lifting life though).

I went through a number of programs when I was starting out and the one that stands out head and shoulders over the rest for me is Stronglifts 5×5. This program consists of rotating between doing 2 different routines 3 times a week and uses all of the big compound and body weight lifts, most of these exercises will be performed in 5 sets of 5 repetitions (meaning you perform 5 repetitions, take a rest period and then perform another set etc). Not only will you notice a difference in your body composition with Stronglifts but you will also get strong at a surprising rate.

It will also be beneficial for you to perform some Cardio and this will melt the fat off you if performed consistently, although it will not be required if your diet and weightlifting training is in check especially if you have a large amount of weight to lose.

I am a fan of mixing up my cardio sessions in order to a) shock the body (I have found this is a key point to losing fat effectively) and b) keep as much of the fun factor as possible (I absolutely hate cardio exercise!). A cardio session for me usually lasts about 30 minutes and in that time I like to perform 3 different exercises; 10 minutes on a stationary bike, then 10 minutes treadmill work followed by a 10 minute rowing session is my favourite and you will really feel the effects of a workout like that.

Beware a quick scientific explanation is ahead but it is necessary if you are to understand the theory behind the time that you should exercise. Energy is stored in muscles and the liver as glycogen, when these stores are depleted the body can then use stored body fat for energy which, since you’re reading this article, is what you want.

For this reason if possible exercise in the morning before eating, you may be a little weaker than exercising later in the day but because your body will have fasted all night and be almost completely out of energy from the previous days food intake you will be burning body fat as opposed to later workouts. The same can be said for working out late at night (although the effects will not be as dramatic) as you will almost completely use your glycogen stores in your night time workout and then your body will tap into its fat reserves as energy for all of its normal functions throughout the night.

Obviously your diet is a massive factor in losing fat and a subject for a series of articles in itself so I will give you a few basic guidelines:

• Restrict your calorie intake – 2500 calories for males and 2200 calories for females, check your progress after a week and adjust your intake until you are losing 2lb a week at the most.
• Watch what you drink – You may be shocked by the amount of calories (and plain horrible ingredients!) in everyday drinks. A bottle of Coca Cola has 240 calories in it, a latte has 180 and a small milkshake from McDonalds has 360 in it! Try and drink as much water as possible, if this is too much of a change for you to carry out at once diet drinks are ok although I would still steer away from them due to the amount of artificial preservatives in them.
• Nip and tuck your food – If you usually have 3 eggs for breakfast cut down to 2, if you go to a fast food restaurant (a healthy one I hope, Subway is a favourite of mine!) don’t have any extras with your meal such as crisps or cookies. Little adjustments like these may seem like they don’t matter but if you add up the calories consumed from these foods daily you will see my point, now multiply it by 7 to see the extra calories weekly and be surprised!
• Carbs are bad – I know low carb diets have had bad press recently but I’m not talking about seriously low carb diets here (even though I have been following one for 3 years now and have never felt better). Even though they are the main energy source of the body, carbohydrates are not supposed to be the staple of our diet, guess what happens if you don’t use the energy from those carbs, yep, straight on the hips/belly/legs/arms/face in the form of fat. This is the reason that you should stay away from carbohydrates around 4 hours before you go to sleep. There is one exception to this rule, after an intense workout. Your muscles should be almost completely drained off all energy so it is a perfect opportunity to replenish your energy stores.