Need advice on losing weight

KrazyMofo24

Thanks, I think I'll have success losing weight so far it has been going good, just got kind of worried about dropping that much water weight within 24 hours. But I'm feeling closer to 100% now, not going to go through that anymore. I'm going to find out if I can build muscle and lose weight at the same time. However I think I'm going to have to lose weight first, then work on only building muscle. Because I believe cardio slows down muscle growth.

Also as far as the diet not going to starve myself, just going to limit the bad stuff, and eat the good stuff most of the time. Still going to limit soda, drink a lot of water, exercise a few times a week.

quadzilla

So, sorry if all this has already been posted. I'm just too lazy to read the whole thread

OK, this is actually an area I know a little bit about. First and foremost, you need aerobic exercise. Lifting weights is good for building muscle mass, but will not necessarily help you lose weight. What it will do is add lean muscle, which can actually help you lose weight, as muscle is more metabolically active than adipose (fat) tissue. Of course, if you add muscle but don't lose fat, you'll end up weighing more. What's more important that how much you weigh is your body composition. A healthy body composition will depend on your age somewhat, but you can find a table here: http://www.tanita.co.uk/index.php?id=40. It's a ways down the page.

If you want to improve your body composition, you need aerobic exercise. That will cause your body to consume fat in order to fuel the working muscles. The trick is to stay in your aerobic zone, and not go above. If you go above your aerobic zone, your muscles will begin to consume more carbohydrate and less fat. The side benefit to aerobic exercise is that it has also been shown to have a whole host of benefits, including improved memory and brain health, lower your risk of cardio-vascular disease, lowering blood pressure and resting heart rate, and many other benefits. Your aerobic zone will be 70-80 percent of your max heart rate. You can get a general idea of your max by using the age method of calculating your max heart rate which is very simple. Just subtract your age from 220. If you're serious, you'll want to get tested to find the exact number. For example, my age calculated max HR is 175, but my actual is 191 @ 45 years old. As far as how often, you should target 4-5 sessions a week of at least 30-45 minutes.

As far as diet, target an increase in protein while reducing processed foods, especially sodas. Low fat doesn't mean anything. Recent research has even shown that fat consumption is less important than total calories and the ratios of the types of calories. Avoid all processed foods like a plague. That means stick with whole grains, fresh vegetables, lean meats, and healthy fats (yes, you actually need to consume some fat). As far as sweeteners, only sucralose (Splenda) has been shown not to cause the same insulin spike that sugar and processed carbohydrates cause. And the reason insulin spikes are important is that they will actually cause you to get hungry, as the spike will be followed by a crash, which will trigger cravings for carbs, which will lead to another spike, followed by another crash, wash-rinse-repeat.

Anyway, there's tons more, but that covers most of the basics, except the two most important things. First, your weight will naturally fluctuate. It's best to weigh yourself at most once per week, and don't worry if you don't decrease your weight every week. Even men are subject to things like gaining weight due to water. If you get a good body composition scale, it can show your % of weight due to water, body fat, visceral (internal) fat, etc. Second, don't deprive yourself of things you enjoy. If it's a birthday party, have a little cake and ice cream, just stay within reason and don't eat a huge hunk of cake and an entire bowl of ice cream. Have a small piece of cake and a small scoop of ice cream, and if you feel guilty, spend an extra 15 minutes in the gym. But if you deprive yourself of the majority, or all, of the things you really like, then you'll end up going completely off your diet sooner or later.

Again, sorry if all this has already been said.

McLoki

Ok, you have had a lot of great reply's, and like someone already said - everyone has a different path to success. You just have to find yours. I can tell you what worked for me.....

I am 5'-9.5" and in July of this year was weighing in about 240. It is fairly easy for me to lose weight and I am naturally pretty muscular (even in good shape - my BMI is very high). I was fat because i love to eat and was lazy..

My goal was to lose weight, but not muscle mass. I was on cholesterol and high blood pressure medicine. The blood pressure medicine alone was over $100/month (and that was my part of the payment) so I decided if I lost weight - got off the blood pressure medicine, that would pay for a gym membership for me.

I am now at about 200# (202 actually) and according to my scale (does bodyfat as well, but realize most\all bodyfat scales are not that accurate) I am at about 11.5% bodyfat. I am off the blood pressure medicine and while i am sure I will still drop some weight - I am more in maintenance mode than weight loss mode now...

The way to lose weight is about the same for everyone - burn more than you take in, how you go about it is different for everyone though. This is what I did....

I try to work out Monday - Friday. I work out about 45min to an hour per session, My workouts are things I like to do - it will be different for everyone, but what I enjoy are Eliptical, StairMaster and swimming.

I was lifting 3 days per week as well and really should continue but I just don't like it that much (when lifting by myself) so I have been mainly concentrating on aerobic activity.

StairMaster or eliptical, I do a 5-10 min warmup (at about 1/2 whatever level your workout is) Then I do a 30-40min workout at as high an intensity as I can. followed by a 5-10 min cooldown.

Swimming I swim as far as I feel like for a warmup (usually around 500 yards or so, but I really don't pay attention that much - just get in the groove....) Then do a set of 12x100yards on the 1:35 (not that fast, but a decent clip for me) then do a set of 12x50yards on the :50. I break up sets with a 50-100 yard kick and end with a 100 - 200 yard cool down. (swimming as a workout is not for everyone but as I used to swim in high school and college, it works out for me)

For eating, I just try to make healthy choices. Also - I try to eat something about 45min or so before all larger meals. (usually a light yogurt, but whatever you like) I try to never sit down to a meal starving or I will always end up overeating.

I do not watch my calories very closely (I would if I was not moving the direction I wanted to) but I would try to eat the amount of food you should have when you are at your ideal weight and no less than that.

It has worked out really well for me so far. Whatever method you find that works for you - keep it up. If you try something and it does not work out - give it a month, if you are still not happy with how it is going, try something else. There is lots of great advice in this thread already.

Just keep at it and you will be thrilled with the results.

Michael

cnh

As with others...and I've already posted my plan above...you must have both aerobic and anaerobic exercise if you don't want to lose muscle weight. Your body on a diet will not distinguish between the muscle and fat that you lose. I often see people who lose lots of weight and look like they can't do one push up--their thinness leaves something to be desired.

I am a BIG advocate of weight training! A must if you want to keep up your strength, bone and muscle mass while dieting--in addition to regular aerobic exercise.

Aerobic exercise enlarges and strengthens the heart's capacity to pump blood, weight-lifting THICKENS the heart muscle tissue making the wall stronger and less capable of suffering damage, should, god forbid, a heart attack occur.

You need both forms and especially the strengh training as you age...because body strength in males goes pretty fast if you do NOTHING....but can remain at a very high level into one's later years...

cnh

McLoki

Just to correct a few innacuacies...

cnh wrote: »

You must have both aerobic and anaerobic exercise if you don't want to lose muscle weight. Your body on a diet will not distinguish between the muscle and fat that you lose.

Actually your body CAN tell the difference between muscle and fat. That is the problem. As has been mentioned - muscle burns more energy than fat. Your body knows this as well. If it thinks it is starving - it will burn musle first to try and help the food it does get go as far as possible.

With that being said - you can limit muscle loss doing aerobic training by keeping your workout to no more than 40-45min. (not including the warmup and warmdown phase) Workouts longer than this start using muscle almost exclusively as energy. Also I am a big believer in intensity. When you work out - do it hard. (for both aerobic AND anaerobic activities) If you have a doctors OK for intense exercise (i.e. - there is no physical reason you need to take it easy) you should not be able to pick up a phone and hold a conversation during your workout without the person on the other end knowing you are working your butt off.

Also - make sure you are eating enough. Working out hard while greatly limiting your caloric intake (especially if the calories you DO take in are not that great to begin with) is a recipie for disaster. I am not saying every calorie you take in has to be super healthy, but you should try to make sure most of them are. You are much more likely to lose muscle from not eating enough than you are from to much cardio.

weight-lifting THICKENS the heart muscle tissue making the wall stronger and less capable of suffering damage, should, god forbid, a heart attack occur.

I don't believe this one is true... Weight lifting has a lot of very good benefits (and the national heart association has recently come out and said you should weight train as part of a recovery from a heart attack) but it does not do anything for your heart. (aerobic excercise will though).
This is the american heart association thoughts on strength training.... Here is a shorter article summarizing the same report.

Prescribed and supervised resistance training (RT) enhances
muscular strength and endurance, functional capacity
and independence, and quality of life while reducing
disability in persons with and without cardiovascular disease
(CVD).

I do recommend both strength training and aerobic exercise, but when push comes to shove - you will have the best chance of making a long term change by doing exercise that you enjoy.

cnh

I'll take a look at the link above and also see where I read that it 'does' thicken the heart wall. I'm sure there was at least one study that showed that...but it is possible that follow up studies did not reproduce the data and therefore the conclusion.

I think the study demonstrated thicker, stonger tissue in weight-lifters (professional). No big deal if it's been questioned because you still need to strength train. And I doubt that enough studies have been done on aging and resistance training--yet.

cnh

McLoki

Katalo - Reported.

quadzilla

You don't really burn muscle during aerobic exercise unless you get fairly extreme. A 30-45 minute session will barely be enough to get a trained individual's HR into the aerobic zone, and won't come close to depleting the glycogen stores (which run to about 90 minutes for the average trained individual). It's not really until you enter anaerobic levels for long periods and don't take in proper fuel during an after work outs that your body starts to consume muscle tissue to fuel working the working muscles, or if you expend large numbers of calories compared to what you take in. That's what gives some people that starved look, although that will also affect extreme endurance athletes as well. It's rarely a problem for the person doing a 45 minute workout at the local gym. You can also get that starved look if you take in low calories without doing anything to build muscle tissue, so they often end up looking skinny on the outside, but lacking muscle tone and with body fat numbers that are actually as high or higher than a beefier looking person.

Strength training is good, but is not necessarily the same thing as weight lifting. I do a lot of strength training on the bike. But I also do resistance training to build core strength, but not to lose weight. To lose weight, I do long aerobic sessions, which has been the recommendation from every coach and personal trainer I've worked with.

So I somewhat agree, but somewhat disagree with some of what's been said. But that's one reason there are so many different exercise programs and diets out there; like a stereo system, what works for one person is crap for the next. I definitely agree that both strength training and aerobic training are valuable, and both should be undertaken. The exact mix will depend on what works best for you to help meet your goals. It's also important to remember that there are more levels of exercise than just aerobic and anaerobic, and your body doesn't make instantaneous transitions between them.

Sami

Jstas wrote: »

If you feel hungry, potatoes are better than other carbs because they are a starch and your body breaks them down immediately and uses them. It doesn't store them.

Raw foods are nice but your body doesn't break them down as easily and therefore they end up being empty calories 'cause your body cannot get all the nutrients out of the raw foods.

I think you have it backwards there. Fast processing = fat storage, slow processing = longer lasting energy. That's why foods with high fibre content are good for you, they give you long lasting energy and not sugar rush that ends up being fat.

French fries are one of the worst foods (not including candy, bakery etc.) you could eat because they are made of fast acting carbs plus fat in the same package. If you are trying to lose weight, eat your carbs with lean protein and your fats with protein, but don't mix simple carbs with high amounts of fat.

Sami

ohskigod wrote: »

cereal wise I roll with Raisin Bran (suger is a little higher than I like but my GI doc is a huge fan of it. his theory is, FIBER!!!!!! and it's tasty = win). Keen polkies will remember me munching on it at polkfest.

I also discovered special K protien plus....high in Protien, high fiber (not raisin bran high, but 5g a serving is pretty darn good) and it's oddly tasty.

other honerable mentions = multi grain cheerios. Kix (the honey one too, suger count not bad at all as tasty as all hell)

If oatmeal isn't for you then I would recommend Weetabix. So far the best nutritional value out there that I have found in a cereal and it does taste good (although some might find it plain).