I need help getting fitter...

Usually when I feel a bit down it means I'm working out too much, that I need more proper rest or to tone down the intensity and let the body recuperate properly. You have to balance it, you're suppose to feel happy. If you think about the rest part makes sense, if your not rested enough your body is generally in a less happy state.

Another question is, when was your last relapse? I notice if I do too much exercise and it was just a day or three after the relapse I am generally a shitload more tired..maybe that's just me or something...best wishes

 

Losing weight is all about having a calorie deficit. 1 large pizza has more calories than you could burn in like several hours of intense exercise. Which is easier - not eating the pizza, or doing several hours of intense exercise a day? So don't worry too much about the exercise of things, see that as a way to speed up the process, but focus mainly on diet as your means for losing weight.

A good thing to know to manage your calories is your maintenance calories. How do we work that out? Well..

Get yourself a waist measuring tape, measure around your navel (i.e. around your stomach at the belly button area) - don't suck your breath in, but don't puff your stomach out either, just relax normally. Get that measurement. Then measure around your neck at the thinnest point (just under the adam's apple).

Now take those measurements and go here: http://www.thrivepersonalfitness.com/bodyfat-calculator/

Once you have your body fat %, remove that % from 100% to get your % lean weight, so say your body fat % is 25%, then that's 75% lean weight. Now, weigh yourself, and times that weight by the % lean weight. So say you weigh 140lbs, and you're 25% body fat, 75% lean weight, that means 0.75 * 140lbs = 105lbs lean weight.

Now using that lean weight, carry out the following formula:
BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)

Now you have to multiply that BMR (Base metabolic rate) by how active you are, so:
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. Active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2 X day training, marathon, football camp, contest, etc.)

That'll give you how many calories you need to maintain the same weight. If you want to build muscle, you want to eat more calories than this (but you'll also gain some fat). If you want to lose fat, you need to eat less calories than this. If you want to do both at the same time (although very slowly) then you want to workout hard and eat around maintenance calories.

As an example I'll do the calculations with my stats. These stats aren't 100% accurate since I'm a bit too lazy to go weigh myself again now, so I'm just going to go with what they were yesterday:
Height: 171cm
Weight: 139.5lbs
Navel: 32.5"
Neck: 14"
Body Fat %: 17.6%

That leaves me with a lean mass of around ~115lbs give or take. Convert that into kg and you get 52.16kg

So BMR = 370 + (21.6 x 52.16)
BMR = 1496~

I exercise 6 days a week, relatively hard, but not for long periods of time, so I'd say I probably fall around the moderately active range.

So my maintenance calories = 1496*1.55 = 2318.8 calories

The great thing about this too is the activity multiplier that we just did, accounts for all your exercise. So the calories you get here is what you need to eat - you won't be affecting this final number by the exercise you do at all.

In order to lose about 1-1.5lbs a week, you need to have a calorie deficit of around 500 calories. So I would need to eat around 1818 calories to lose 1-1.5lb of fat a week with my current exercise regimen.

Currently I //am// trying to lower my body fat % to around 10-12% before I bulk, but 1818 calories is a little too small for my liking, so I'm instead eating around 2100 calories a day, and losing about 0.5-0.7lb a week instead.

So, work out your maintenance calories using this, and stay below it. Yes, it really is worth tracking calories too if you're serious about losing weight - no you don't have to track every single meal, but the first time you eat something, work out the calories, and then just go by that previous amount the next time you eat it.

Finally, if you have any muscle that you want to keep, eat lots of protein. When on the calorie deficit required to lose weight, your body will start breaking down muscle as well as fat. By consuming large amounts of protein, we trick our body into thinking it already broke down muscle into protein, and so it doesn't bother to break any down - i.e. you keep the muscle, while losing the fat. 1 gram of protein per lb of lean body weight is a good amount.

For what it's worth, using the info I've outlined in this post, I've gone down from like 27-29%+ body fat to 17.6% in the last few months, maintained and in fact actually grown more muscle mass, all while eating enough to not feel hungry, and not having to do ridiculous amounts of cardio.

As a final tip: Care about your weekly weight measurements, NOT your daily ones. Your weight fluctuates throughout the day, nevermind from day to day. So it might seem like you've gained weight when you've lost some, or vice versa - all just because of differences in water weight etc.