How Fat Geeks Lose Weight in 8 Weeks

April 14th, 2008 Posted in Healthy Lifestyle, Motivation, Workout Routines

OK, so you’re a fat guy (or girl) and you sit in front of a computer all day. In case you didn’t realize it, you are a fat nerd. Or perhaps a fat geek. Those two terms can be used interchangeably for the purpose of this article. The only two things that will happen if you keep this up are that you will get fatter and then you will die. These things are not fun. To combat this, you should start an 8 week fitness boot camp. You will start slowly, learn some initial lessons over the course of the 8 weeks, and be prepared to embark on a lifetime fitness plan after the boot camp is over. Let us start with some motivational wisdom…

Let me tell you what you will not have if you are a fat geek:
Woman Pointing

Sexy girls trying to date you
Sexy girls even looking at you (unless they are pointing and laughing)
The strength to pick up anything over 20 pounds without straining your back
Visible abs
Comfortable seating in pretty much any public place except those airplanes that offer double wides for fat folks
Low cholesterol
The speed to out run anyone or anything that might be trying to mug you or eat you. If a rabid skunk comes at you, you’re toast buddy.
A life expectancy higher than mid-50s, but then if I were you I probably wouldn’t be looking forward to that whole ’staying alive’ thing anyway.

Yes indeed, being a fat nerd is probably the worst thing you can do for your social life and for your general health.

Now picture your body weight at a level where you can actually see some muscle definition. Go ahead and imagine it. Now add about a year’s worth of dedicated weight training to that image. Starting to look good, isn’t it? Combine this image with the intelligence of a geek, and what do you have?

Let me tell you what you could have as a healthy, hardbody geek:
Hot Chick

Now you will be accessible to acceptable looking females.
You have the strength and agility to perform in emergency situations.
Your blood pressure and cholesterol levels are probably within the limits of a healthy male.
Now you have the confidence to excel in business or on the job. Feel free to get a promotion or ask for that raise.
Whoa! You can fit in molded plastic seats now without flab overflowing the edges.
With any luck you can look forward to an extended life with your beautiful wife, enjoying the wealth you’ve accumulated throughout the years, playing sports or engaging in fun physical activities in the Bahamas.

You fat boys see where I am going with this? If you are real smart, you have a chance to do well in life. If you are real good looking you still have a chance of doing well in life. Combine the two, and you are a force to be reckoned with!

How to Turn that Fat into Phat: Lifestyle Eating

It is insanity to continue on your current path hoping for a change. It won’t happen. You must take it upon yourself to start a lifestyle change that includes both diet and exercise. That is not to say that you should start a fad diet; instead, you should change your daily lifestyle eating habits.

Changes you can make today:

Stop drinking soda and start drinking any of the following (listed in order of preference):
- Water
- Crystal Lite or some other sugar-free juice or drink mix
- Tea
- Coffee, decaf
- Coffee, caffeinated
- Diet soda
Chew sugar free gum instead of eating or sucking on candy. This cuts down on empty sugar calories and cavities.
Limit yourself to one vending machine visit a day, for one food item only. Try to choose something healthier than a candy bar or potato chips. Think about pretzels, Sun Chips, Chex Mix, sunflower seeds, and peanuts.
Remove all or most starchy, fatty snacks from your lunchbox and replace them with fruit, nuts, and foods high in protein. This means no chips, cake, cookies, pizza, or anything slathered in mayo, dressing, or butter.
Eat breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and at least one more snack throughout the day. These should all be small meals that follow the previous rule about fruits, nuts, and high-protein foods

How to Turn that Fat into Phat: Exercise

While following a healthy diet is good for you, you will still need to make your body stronger and more agile. You will accomplish this through some sort of exercise or training. I recommend a combination of weight lifting and interval sprints, but you might want to start with something a little easier. Remember, all you need to do to start is pledge to exercise for 30 minutes a day, 3 days a week. You will want to add minutes and days eventually so that you are doing 60 minutes a day, 4 days a week, but once again, start off with a light exercise program to test the waters.

Changes you can make today:

Stand up and walk around for 5 minutes every hour. Seriously.
Sit up straight, suck in your abdomen, and keep your shoulders back. This will keep your posture healthy and your ab muscles tight. You want to keep your core strong and functional rather than weak and tire-like.
Choose a form of exercise that you want to try, sign up at a facility that offers that form of exercise, and/or go buy the equipment necessary to participate in that sport. Here are some options:
- Walking/Jogging/Running
- Mountain biking or road riding
- Martial arts or boxing
- Weight lifting, circuit training, or cardio machines.
- Hiking, rowing, or a group sport of your choice.
- A combination of any of the above.
Find someone similar to yourself and ask if they want to be your workout partner. Having a workout partner usually increases motivation. You will feel more accountable for showing up at the gym if someone is there waiting for you.

How to Turn that Fat into Phat: General Lifestyle

Last, but not least, you should be concerned with your general lifestyle. Make sure to get at least 7 hours of sleep every night. Sitting in front of the computer for 18 hours a day, exercising for an hour, and sleeping for 5 hours just isn’t going to cut it. To feel strong and confident about yourself, you need to eat well, exercise, sleep well, shower, shave, brush your teeth, and dress confidently. If you make an effort to improve all these areas of your life, a little bit at a time, you will morph into the person that you really want to be: a healthy, successful, guy, who also looks good naked.

So What EXACTLY Should I Do?

Good question!
Pushups
Week 1: Walk at a moderate pace for 30 minutes on Mon/Weds/Fri. Try to hit some hills. Practice ALL the new lifestyle eating tips. Decide what additional exercise you wish to participate in and get that membership to the gym or dojo, and/or go out and buy your new equipment.

Week 2: Reduce the walking to 20 minutes, and combine it with 30 minutes of whatever exercise or sport you chose. I recommend 5 minutes on the elliptical, 30 minutes of circuit training, and 15 more minutes on the elliptical. Or perhaps you have a 60 minutes kickboxing class. Either way, pick up the pace. Don’t forget to stretch after working out.

Week 3: You should be at a combined 60 minutes of exercise 3 days a week. This week you should practice targeting your carbs and calories. The bulk of carbs and calories should make up breakfast. Also consume some carbs before and after training, but never at night. Try to eat a low carb, low calorie dinner. Avoid anything more than a small fruit or high-protein snack before bed.

Week 4: You are approaching your half-way point in the 8 week fat geek boot camp. By now you should be familiar with the general exercise plan. This is a good time for me to recommend trying some free weights. Take one day off from circuit training and try some bench presses or some dumbbell shoulder presses instead of machines.

Week 5: You are half way there. During this week I recommend making 50% of each workout based around free weights. If you don’t know what to do based on articles from this site and other Internet fitness sites, just go ask one of the trainers at the gym to give you one exercise for each muscle group. A full body weight training routine is what you will eventually strive for.

Week 6: If possible, add in one extra workout on the weekend. Since you are in the initial stages of this lifestyle change, your body has not adapted to exercise yet; you are not actually putting forth maximal intensity and effort because your body has not yet been trained to do so. Therefore you can add a fourth day without worrying about overtraining. All you should be doing on this forth day, is some additional cardio. Bring back the 30 minute walk or bike ride if you so choose.

Week 7: You should have a good idea about how to eat on a daily basis at this point. You should have a good idea about how much exercise your body can tolerate and what you really want to do for exercise. You should know generally how to perform most simple exercises like bench presses, deadlifts, squats, shoulder presses, curls, sit ups, etc… You should be exercising intensely 3 times per week with some form of weight lifting or martial arts, warming up, stretching, and cooling down. Hopefully you are also implementing some form of fourth 30 minute workout. If you are not doing some of these things, or don’t know how to do some of these things, it is your responsibility to ask around or research it online.

Week 8: You have nearly graduated the fat geek boot camp. It is now time to set future goals. Plan out your exercise routines 2 months at a time. Get goals for fat loss, strength gain, endurance, or whatever else you have decided to focus on training. Start keeping a training log if you are weight training.

My recommendation is to keep 3-4 workouts per week, for a 45 minute duration not counting warm ups, cool downs, stretching, talking, ogling treadmill girls, or any other time wasters. Stick 90% to free weights, and focus on the largest muscles in the following order of importance:

Legs
Back
Chest
Abdominals
Lower Back
Shoulders
Triceps
Everything Else

If you stick to this diet and exercise plan, and integrate it as part of your lifestyle, you will feel so much better. You will once again, or maybe for the first time ever, have a chance with women (or men, if it applies). You will be stronger and healthier, making you less prone to disease, illness, or injury. Best of all, you will feel much more confident about yourself, thereby allowing you a chance for greater success in business, with client relationships, and with personal relations. Plus I’m sure you will look much sharper in a suit and tie when you turn that spare tire girth into broad shoulder girth.

Nothing will ever happen if you don’t try, so stop being a slob and just give this 8 week program a try. You won’t regret it.

Written by Steve Hanson
Discussing Conditioning, Weightlifting, Powerlifting, Strongman Training, Nutrition, Diet, Recipes, Martial Arts, and Healthy Lifestyle Ideas
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