Time is scarce for. Many people give up on an exercise regime before they start because they think they can't find the time.
As I've stated in another post, I wasn't going to compromise my time with my loved ones in the pursuit of leaning out. So I did my research on how to get this done efficiently and came to these conclusions -
The caloric burn from exercise given "GenPop" adult time constraints is at best supplementary. The key driver of fat loss is diet.
When picking an exercise regime, be aware that the body adapts to become MORE EFFICIENT at the activity. Pick a regime that causes the body to adapt in a desirable way for the desired goal.
Especially when dieting down from Fatass levels, it's important to pick your spots because the body is not existing in a caloric surplus that is ideal for recovery from intense exercise
It's important to work out a schedule for your regime that you can commit that doesn't interfere with your life. If your regime can enhance your life, even better.
In greater detail :
The caloric burn from exercise given "GenPop" adult time constraints is at best supplementary. The key driver of fat loss is diet.
I already wrote a bit about my thoughts about diet here (Ok, lets deal with this freaking diet) I think of the caloric burn of exercise as supplementary and helpful only if the foundation of a diet optimised for fat loss is present. Exercise is an important part of leaning out but its main purpose is NOT to create a caloric deficit. It can help a LITTLE, but not enough to be foundational to a fat loss plan (more on that later).
When picking an exercise regime, be aware that the body adapts to become MORE EFFICIENT at the activity. Pick a regime that causes the body to adapt in a desirable way for the desired goal.
Using activity to burn calories when the body will become more efficient at said activity with practice is a loser’s game. A fuel efficient car burns less fuel than a non fuel efficient one. A body that has gotten efficient at an activity will burn less fuel (or calories) for the same activity over time.
Don't get me wrong, if your aim is to run a marathon, becoming efficient at running is great. I had no ambitions to be a marathon runner, I just wanted to get lean.
If I could pick the kind of car I would want my body to be, I would want it to be the most obnoxiously environmentally unconscious gas guzzling Hummer.
If you've played around with the Caloric Burn Calculator, you might have realised that for the same age, and height, a person's expected total caloric burn would trend downwards as weight decreased. Unless you're willing to lose bone mass or vital organs, the only two kinds of body mass quantities you have any long term control over are fat mass and lean mass. Getting lean is an act of reducing fat mass while retaining as much lean muscle mass as possible.
In the process of getting lean, weight isn't the enemy. Excess fat is the enemy. You want to keep as much muscle mass on you as possible so caloric burn decrease is minimised as you're dropping overall weight due to fat mass loss.
Dig around on the Internet and you'll find that resistance training is the best way to do this. Whether using free weights, bodyweight, or progressively carrying heavier and heavier pieces of furniture, the body adapts to get good at what you make it do.
Activity that tells your body it needs to learn to move heavy shit around keeps it in a condition to move heavy shit around (which requires the retention/addition of muscle mass).
If you're worried that resistance training is going to make you "bulky" , if you're a Recovering Fatass like me and didn't come from an athletic background and aren't considering taking anabolic steroids, no matter how hard you push it in the gym, you'll make improvements, but almost never get enough to make you "bulky". So chill out, pick a methodology and try to keep your lean mass around while you're losing the fat (which is the actual thing that's making you bulky).
I'm not prescribing that everyone do what I did, but I picked (and slightly adapted) a program called Stronglifts 5x5. It uses barbell compound movements 3 x a week and for duration of leaning down that's 98% of the formal exercise I did.
I didn't pick bodyweight training because at my weight in the beginning, It would actually have taken a HUGE amount of motivation to build any kind of progression that would make me want to keep doing it. Stronglifts starts all the lifts with moving the bar with no loaded weight. An olympic bar weighs 20kg. Bench pressing 20kg is a LOT less intimidating that trying to do a pushup at 97 Kilos of Fatass bodyweight.
Whichever program you choose, remember that if you're starting your Recovering Fatass journey, it will feel tough in the beginning. Picking something that gives you some headroom for IMMEDIATE progression and motivation going to make it sting a little less while you're building a new habit.
An added bonus of the program was that it only used 6 exercises, so I got to practice the movements enough to build basic competency. Simplicity in terms of exercise selection also made it easy to track progress over time to make sure that I was either gaining/maintaining strength while dieting down.
Especially when dieting down from Fatass levels, it's important to pick your spots because the body is not existing in a caloric surplus that is ideal for recovery from intense activity
There are actual fitness professionals that are more qualified to speak about this than me so all I'm going to say is dieting to lose fat is not impossible but also never easy.
You're putting the body in a position where you're depleting your energy stores of fat (which it it actually doesn't want to do). You're building new habits and exposing it to less energy input than it has become accustomed to. There are going to be times where you feel like you're low on energy. As you get leaner, you might find that your energy levels drop if you're still dieting.
If we accept that diet is the main driver of fat loss and exercise should be used to drive adaptation towards leanness, then it makes sense to reserve energy for exercise that preserves/builds lean mass while dieting.
It's tempting to try to do everything at once and also include martial arts, metabolic conditioning training, High Intensity XYZ, bouldering and who knows what else in the effort to drive fat loss. But the body can only adapt when it's being exposed to a stress that it can recover from and adapt to. There is a huge difference between doing enough work to build the system and doing so much work that you break the system.
We think of the system as the body, but the mind is just as, if not more important. If either cracks, the game is over. So train hard, but also be kind to yourself.
If you have performance goals, that's FINE. But considering prioritising. Attack goals one at a time, if you want to be go from Fatass to Lean AND become an Modern Day Ninja Warrior, maybe focus on leaning out first so that you won't be carrying excess weight that could wreck your joints while you're doing your super High Intensity Ninja Warrior Jumps.
There's examples of plus size people involved in any sport, who demonstrate high levels of competence and skill. They may be great at what they do, but that doesn't make them lean.
So look. What matters to YOU? Because if what you really wanted was just to be lean, you need to train hard, but maybe you don't need to train like a Ninja.
In summary -
Diet to lose the fat. Train to keep/build muscle (which constitutes good weight, which will help maintain as much of your caloric burn as possible while you're losing fat mass).
That's how I think about it. That's how I ensured that I had as much energy as possible to get through and sustain a diet (which isn't exactly easy, even for the most determined) while still having enough energy to be a husband, dad, and productive employee and recover. (in that order of importance).
It's important to work out a schedule for your regime that you can commit that doesn't interfere with your life. If your regime can enhance your life, even better.
I work a day job and there isn't a gym near enough to my office that I can get a workout done during my lunch hour.
I wanted to be home for dinner and available to my wife and daughter during their waking hours.
I'm also introverted and I'm very anti-social when i'm working out.
Thankfully for me, I wake up relatively early. So I found a gym with 24 hour access within walking distance from my home and signed up there. Since working out is exhausting in the beginning, the act of working out first thing in the morning had the added bonus of making me fall asleep by 9pm on most nights. In addition, because I got there at 4am most days, I had the space all to myself. It was perfect. My daughter usually went to sleep right after dinner, my wife and I had an hour to reconnect and then i'd pass out before I ended up watching stupid videos on youtube and getting the late night munchies.
Your circumstances might be different, so you've got to find your own strategy.
The point i'm trying to make is that if you're a normal "GenPop" adult, and your plan involves hitting the gym 12 times a week and spending 2 hours a day doing cardio, that's going to be a short lived regime. Even if your body keeps up, your spouse might leave you.
It's not easy, but you need to find pockets of time that you can stick to. If most of us are honest with ourselves, we all can find a way to make the time. Can't get to the gym? Find a home workout program. Can't spare an hour? Find a half hour program. For a fellow Recovering Fatass who hasn't done much physical activity in a long time, even 2 days a week can yield massive results.
I don't think 5x5 Stronglifts is the be all and end all of workout programs. It's probably not the most "optimal" way to retain and build muscle. But the program and the schedule I had set up was something I knew I could stick to and make time for from day 1.
It's easy to get caught up in Fitness Content and Forums looking for the "perfect" workout routine. The best programs are pointless if you can't fit them into your life.
Dieting takes effort. Working out takes effort. I HIGHLY recommend minimising the friction between your LIFE and your workout regime.
Doing this is already hard enough, why make it worse than it has to be?