off to basic combat training soon

Question
Hello Ryan my name is Justin I've read a few of your posts and you seem to be very knowledgeable.  I am 18 years old, 75.5 inches tall 293 pounds and my bmi is 30.2%.  I know this precisely as I was at the military processing center this weekend.  I'll get right down to it, i was .2% above requirement for cardio test.  26% is the usual cutoff for army.  Because of that .2% I have to wait until July 24 before I can retest my weight.  Other than that I am fully ready for the army, passed all physicals scored high on tests, etc.  Just the weight issue.  Now I'm taking this as a good opportunity to get myself in better condition for basic training, which can be absolutely grueling.  I am currently running a 9:15 mile (I need to do 8:30 at basic otherwise its 3 weeks at fat camp).  I'm sure I can get that down by 45 seconds by then.  My question is about overtraining.  Right now I run 2 miles one day and walk/jog 6 miles the next, along with about an hour daily with weightlifting/calisthenics and another half hour daily on stairmaster or bike.  I was told by the army its recommended to lose only about 1 pound every 4 days.  In the last 10 days though I've gone from 309 to 293, from following the plan i described to you, and eating healthier (cut out all fast food, candy, soda, eating mostly lean meat and keeping protein at about 100g/day.)  I'm feeling great for not having done too much cardio in the past (i've been lifting regularly for a while now).  Am I overtraining at this point with the cardio?  Somebody mentioned the possibility of developing stress fractures to me, which is not something I want to do before I get to basic!  Pretty much I have to get as healthy as possible, quickly, without injuring myself because if I do injure myself before going to basic I'm screwed.  Thanks for your help!

Justin Zwick  

Answer
Justin,

You won't overtrain with that workload. The body can do amazing things. I used to run 15-20 miles day in and day out, with the majority of them being quick interval type miles.

That being said, the bigger someone is, the weight usually comes off fast for a while. Try to increase the running to 3 miles or 4 miles, even if you jog slowly. The body burns sugars storage first, so it takes a while of exercise before the body begins to burn fat levels. Also, stay away from sodas, refined sugars, etc. Water is by far the best and believe it or not, just by cutting the other crap out of your system and drinking water, you should feel better overall as well.Weights are good, but lift leighter with more reps. YOu don't need to be huge. After you get to where you can run 3 miles or so, you can start doing a workout such as running 10 minutes easy, then running 10X 1 minute hard(slowly and progressively getting faster throughout) with a 1 minue rest after. Then jog 10 minutes afterward to warm down. These will help increase your stride turnover and build your cardio.

Ryan