Cardio, Keto, Losing Fat & Gaining Strength

Can anyone recommend a good cardio routine to go alongside Foundation just to increase health and lung capacity?

My cardio is really bad.  I haven't done any in years due to laziness and wanting to believe bodybuilding (and some paleo sites) dogma that I specifically cherry picked and in some cases purposely misinterpreted to not do any cardio at all.

I have recently quit smoking too thank God and I feel a lot better for it. 

I was thinking about doing P90X Plyometrics but I think I might end up overtraining.

Also, is 1lb a week fat loss too much to be gaining strength at the same time?

I weigh 210lbs 5"10(thought I was 5"11 but obviously I was wrong lol ) @ 17-18% BF and I want to get rid of about 5-7% fat and some muscle bulk in the process.  My family think I am on steroids and I just don't want to be bulky anymore however my body just seems to want to be big.

Especially since I have been following Josh's workout nutrition and a 500kcal deficit on off days I've not put on any weight at all, gotten a little stronger but my shoulders and chest just keep getting wider and wider and I don't want to be any bigger!  Considering a targeted keto diet honestly because I seem to lose bulk on this while gaining strength and I feel great on it but I know it is frowned upon here.

I'd say that there is definitely a danger of overtraining on p9x0, never done it myself but from what I remember about it they seem to pride themselves on the fact that the course is hard. I'd say start off small, do one 30 min run a week and see how that goes for you. Make sure you have a deload week to line up with your foundation deload, do 15 mins instead of 30 here. Keep a nice moderate pace (about 8-10 minute mile is good) If after about 8 weeks you're feeling good increase the time or you can add in a shorter more intense sprint workout each week but again you'll have to see how this goes.

As for calorie defecits I don't know, I just live by the principle (not always successfully I may add) of don't eat rubbish and eat plenty after training, otherwise I just eat when I'm hungry and this works well for me. I'm naturally quite slight though so weight has never been an issue for me so of course you might need a more detailed approach. You will however naturally put on a bit of muscle as you're doing quite a volume of work in foundation 1. I'm about the same height as you and currently about 170ib and really cant see myself getting any bigger than 180lb but then again that's very individual.  

About cardio, what is working for me:

- Hill sprints,

- Kettlebell Swings, 

- Kettlebell Snatches - the best,

- light running  - about 5-10 km,

For cardio, do what makes you happy, but build into it slowly.

For controlling the muscle, just ease up on your protein intake a bit and you should see those gains slow down.

All kinds of people think I'm on the juice, and that's a huge compliment! Besides, I'm always willing to walk into any clinic anywhere and take whatever blood tests someone wants to pay for Nothing but legit muscle here.

My advice is to not worry about what anyone else thinks and let your body be what it wants to be, BUT if you want to control the muscle gain then my first advice is to cut down on your protein intake.

I don't recommend going the keto route, but you are free to do as you like!

rather than full on keto, would it be that bad health-wise to be at around 100g carbs a day from veggies plus carbs during training?  Low carb is so much easier for me because I hardly get hungry at all.

WIth ANY carb source bar veggies I just don't want to stop eating and have to exercise restriction.  I have done a 500g dry weight bag of brown, yes brown, rice in a single sitting before when I slipped up and thought "I will stop when I get full, I can't over eat healthy food."  My stomach was screaming at me to stop but I was still eating and it sounds weird but I didn't want to stop until it was all gone... and then I wanted more but was simply too tired to move lol.  Stomach hurt bad.

I used to do that sort of stuff all the time when I was a child.  My parents stopped buying me birthday cake on my birthday because I would end up eating it ALL before it was time to light the candles.  I have much more self control now obviously but I still have a relentless urge for more after eating carbs.  Low baseline serotonin or something maybe (I'm the same with drugs & alcohol)?  Or overproducing insulin?  Or just a plain big old greedy fat kid at heart I don't know haha

P90X will definitely be overtraining.  I kept getting sick when I tried it due to inadequate recovery, and I wasn't doing any gymnastics training concurrently either!  While HIIT and hill sprints are extremely effective for weight loss and aerobic capacity, it sounds like you need to ease into it and build a base before these would benefit rather than harm your training, especially if you've just quit smoking.

For me, I can't recommend the couch to 5k program highly enough.  You can download an app for your smart phone with it and listen to your tunes while you run.  The program is a 9 week jogging program to take you literally from couch potato (not that you are) to running 5km.  I do it 2 or 3 times per week in addition to GST.  The first week, you start out walking for 5 minutes to warm up, then alternate 30 seconds running with 60 seconds walking, and the app tells you when to switch.  Over time, the running intervals increase and the walking intervals decrease, to where you are running for the full 30 minutes.

It is not for everyone, but it is working wonders with me:

(1) get up, grab a glass of water, & take the dog out for a long walk with intermittent slow runs if there are no hills around. Do that every day for 45 min to an hour and a half, even if it is raining or cold, or whatever! (you can follow couch to 5K in your slow runs, no problem with that! Only walk, no runs on rest days)

(2) if you missed this morning, do it this afternoon!

(3) feed your dog upon coming back.

(4) then feed yourself as per Joshua Naterman's prescriptions.

Even if you don't lose the fat (which you will), your dog will love you and be in great shape too!

dbirchall said:

rather than full on keto, would it be that bad health-wise to be at around 100g carbs a day from veggies plus carbs during training?  Low carb is so much easier for me because I hardly get hungry at all.

 

WIth ANY carb source bar veggies I just don't want to stop eating and have to exercise restriction.  I have done a 500g dry weight bag of brown, yes brown, rice in a single sitting before when I slipped up and thought "I will stop when I get full, I can't over eat healthy food."  My stomach was screaming at me to stop but I was still eating and it sounds weird but I didn't want to stop until it was all gone... and then I wanted more but was simply too tired to move lol.  Stomach hurt bad.

 

I used to do that sort of stuff all the time when I was a child.  My parents stopped buying me birthday cake on my birthday because I would end up eating it ALL before it was time to light the candles.  I have much more self control now obviously but I still have a relentless urge for more after eating carbs.  Low baseline serotonin or something maybe (I'm the same with drugs & alcohol)?  Or overproducing insulin?  Or just a plain big old greedy fat kid at heart I don't know haha

You are supposed to get hungry.

Convenience and health do not always cross paths perfectly, but it isn't difficult to get things at a good mix for your lifestyle. I'm not putting that on the public forums, as I'm working on a product that will address the issue.

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The best cardio routine is simple: pick your preferred cardio exercise (running, swimming, biking, etc). Do it without resting for 30 minutes. Do cardio work 2-3 times per week. Scheduling with relation to foundation work is pretty flexible. The only real constraint is that doing cardio immediately before strength training can leave you fatigued, leading to a lower-quality strength session. So avoid doing cario immediately before strength. But if, for example, you run in the morning and work strength at night, that's perfectly fine. 

You may need some time to work up to 30 minutes if you are in really bad shape. A good rule of thumb when starting out is to increase the workout length by just 10% per week. So to start out, you'd test yourself by doing cardio until you feel the need to stop. Mark that time, and then try to duplicate it on your next cardio session that week. The following week, you'd try to go for 10% longer, and you'd keep increasing by only 10% until you reached your desired workout length (note: this kind of progression can only take you so far. For periods of exercise longer than about an hour, you want to look into more sophisticated scheduling). 

Arto Ratilainen said:

Any estimates when and where the product will be available?

Nothing definite, that is still being worked out. Shooting for sometime this year, probably not before October.