I get fitness questions from my newsletter subscribers all the time on training routines, nutrition, fat loss, bodybuilding and more. I can’t possibly answer them all so I like to answer them here or on my newsletters from time to time.
Here are a few fat burning workout questions I received recently from Angela. I think the answers can be relevant to anyone.
1. What do you recommend calorie wise? I’m 5′3 and 104 pounds. I’ve recently bumped up my calorie intake from 1300 to 1800-2000 and haven’t gained any weight. I workout 6 days a week- usually weights 4-5 times and cardio 2-3 times. (I’ve cut down on cardio.. which leads me to my next question)
Answer: While you can find a variety of guidelines for starting points with calories, the only way to really know for sure is to keep a daily calorie log for at least a week. You’ll also want to monitor your weight. If you want to be even more accurate you should grab a good electronic body fat caliper.
Obviously, in this case, you were clearly not getting enough calories if you could increase them that much without any added weight gain.
Another thing you can do is vary your calories so you aren’t getting the same amount each day. I talk more about this in a recent issue of my newsletter.
You can see it online here ==>> Newsletter Archive and if you’re not a subscriber, you sign up here ==>> 30 Day Fat Loss Blueprint It’s free and you’ll get a copy of my 30 Day Fat Loss Blueprint for free as well.
2. How much cardio should I be doing? I’ve heard that cardio eats away at your muscle which is why I’ve cut down.
Answer: Too much cardio can cause muscle loss. And if you are doing high intensity interval training with things like sprints, hill sprints, etc. you have to be extra careful because this type of cardio workout is very similar to an intense weight lifting session.
You have to balance your objectives with your workout routines. If you do two HIIT sessions a week that involve something like hill sprints, you may want to only do work the legs with a weight workout once per week.
3. At my stats should I be “bulking”? Or what do you recommend?
Again, this depends on your goals, current body composition (body fat percentage), bone structure, etc. Don’t go just by your height and weight. Height and weight ratios can be very deceiving and don’t include important thngs like I mentioned in the previous sentence.
Most top bodybuilders are considered “obese” when you go by the silly body mass index that is based on height and weight.
4. Lastly, with the Push/pull method- what should not be put back to back? This week I had planned this:
saturday: kickboxing
sunday: Pull muscles
monday: legs
tuesday: 20 minutes tabata
wednesday: push muscles and abs
thursday: pull
friday: push
saturday: off (out of town)
sunday: off (out of town.)
What do you think?
Answer: Going back to my answer about doing too much cardio, I definitely would not put your weight session for legs and your Tabata HIIT workout on back to back days.
Good split routines take a lot more thought than most people give them. For starters, as someone else already mentioned, I would not do legs and pulling (back) on consecutive days.
Second, shoulders are involved in push and pull exercises for the upper body so you need to be very careful with what exercises you select since you may be hitting your small little shoulder 4 times per week with that routines, twice on consecutive days.
I would add your pull muscles to Saturday with your kickboxing workout and take Sunday off.
On that specific split, were you not out of town, I would move Friday’s push workout to Saturday. I’m also making educated guesses because things like specific exercises, total sets, and the intensity of those sets plays a big role in putting together a split routine as well.
I would also move the Tabata HIIT workout to Saturday (again, if you weren’t out of town) to be done after the push workout that day.
With that week specifically having two days out of town, I would probably skip having the second Push workout, move the Thursday Pull workout to Friday and move the Tabata HIIT workout from Tuesday to Friday, to be done after the Pull workout.
Putting together a good split routine can be tricky. Grab my 30 Day Fat Loss Blueprint and learn more about good split routines too.
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