Sample Weekly Activity Schedule: Fill & Download for Free

How to Lose 15 Pounds of Fat in 3 Months or LessEverybody knows that in order to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume by following a balanced diet and doing regular exercise. This is the abstract definition of weight loss. In this post I will explain step by step what you need to do if you want to lose 15 pounds of fat in 3 months or less.Lose pounds by exercising moreDieting is only the half part of a weight loss equation; the other part is exercise and physical activity.Sample Workout scheduleThe schedule below was compiled with the help of our personal trainers.Basically is a sample weekly workout based on the principles of HIIT (for Monday and Friday and normal cardio training for Tuesday and Thursday).Remember that before engaging into any intense exercise program you have to get the opinion of your doctor.

I’m a bit extreme, but here’s how I do it.This is a spreadsheet of my tasks for the week. I recently started keeping track of everything that I wanted to accomplish this week so I could see how productive I was being and see if I could reach all of my goals.Every Sunday I sit down, look at my schedule for the week, and think about how much free time I’ll have each day when I come back from work. I think go ahead and plan out the tasks I think I am capable of accomplishing (with a bit of hard work) each day for the entire week and at the end of the week, I analyze how I did.Here’s a sample analysis, nothing too difficult, just a quick completion analysis by category:What I started noticing by doing this is that I was much more efficient with my time. I still was able to play video games, watch Youtube videos, and go out with friends, but simply by planning my week out at the beginning of each week, I budgeted how much time I could spend on each activity.Now I understand that this might be a bit much, but even something as small as figuring out what you want to do and when you want to do it by can have impressive results. Just the mere fact that you put something at the top of your to-do list for the week increases your chances of doing it. It’s even better if you have a rewards system for yourself.Anyways, this is a system that obviously allows me to maximize my efficiency during my free time. While this works for me, it won’t work for everyone and I encourage you to discover your own ways of allocating time to achieve some goals that you have for yourself.

As long as you are lifting for strength and not size, this shouldn’t be too difficult.Training for 5kTo achieve your desired time in the 5k, there is a few things you want to focus on.training volumelong runspeed work (intervals and tempos)Training volume is the number of miles you are running a week. I would recommend 25–40 miles a week if you want to improve your 5k time. This would be best accomplished with 4–6 days of running a week. You can sub some cross training (rowing, cycling, swimming, elliptical) for easy runs if needed.You’ll want to build some endurance for the 5k. A long run of 6–8 miles once a week would be a good way to accomplish this.For speed work you will want to focus on two main workouts: Tempos and intervals. Perform these at least once a week and no more than twice a week.Tempos are running a set number of miles or minutes at a set pace (faster than normal runs). To improve your 5k time, I would focus on 2 mile tempos at 5k pace or slightly faster and 4–5 miles tempos at slightly slower than 5k pace.Intervals are generally short distances (200m-1 mile) that are run in a set time with rest between each rep. These are generally done on a track but can be done on the road as well. Some good workouts for a 5k would be 3 x mile at 5k pace with 3–4 mins rest between reps or 5 x 1k (1000m) at 5k pace with 2–3 mins rest between reps.Visit McMillan Running and enter a current time into their calculator to get paces for tempos and intervals.A sample week might look like:M - Easy runT - Tempo runW - Easy runTh - IntervalsF - offS - Easy runSu - Long runStrength TrainingAgain, the important thing here is that you are training for strength and not size.The most effective plans at building strength I have used are Strong Lifts or Jim Wendler 5–3–1. Both of these focuses on big compound lifts (bench, deadlift, squat, overhead press) that activate multiple muscle groups. They also have you lifting heavier weights for low reps as opposed to lifting light weights for high reps.I would recommend lifting 2–3 times a week on these programs. The programs are hitting most of the major muscle groups in your body on each session (as opposed to having a leg day, arm day, chest day, etc.). You’ll want at least one day in between sessions.Something that I feel needs to be clarified: lifting weights does not make you stronger, it makes you weaker. Your muscles recovering after the training session (which takes time) makes you stronger. This is called super compensation. So working out the same muscle groups too often and not allowing for recovery will lead to no improvement whatsoever.Now, the trick is fitting the running and lifting workouts into the same schedule so you are still getting recover. You don’t want to lift on your easy days, because this will mean you aren’t recovering fully from runs (and doing tempos or intervals on your off days from lifting would mean you aren’t recovering from lifting sessions). So you’ll want to schedule your lifting days on the same days as your running workouts. I would do the workouts close together as opposed to one in the morning and one in the evening.For instance, you might do a tempo run at 4–5 in the evening. After jogging a cool down you could get in your lifting session for the day. Or flip the order. There is a chance that your second workout is going to be slightly affected by the first workout. So if you lift first, you might have trouble hitting paces on intervals. If you find this is the case, I would alternate weeks of which workout I did first.So a sample week of both together might look like:M - Easy runT - Tempo run/liftW - Easy runTh - Intervals/ liftF - offS - Easy runSu - Long run/liftThe other key thing is your diet. You need to make sure you are eating enough calories to fuel workouts. However, you want to avoid eating too many calories and having a caloric surplus. The cardio you are doing should make weight gain difficult, but if your surplus is large enough you might experience it. Unless you are significantly under-weight, gaining weight will make it difficult to run fast.It is hard to get more specific because each individual will be different and have different needs. However, I believe this is a great framework to work on getting stronger and improving your 5k time.