First, a book recommendation: “The New Rules of Lifting for Women,” by Lou Schuler. This addresses your questions far better than I could. I actually haven’t even started the workout program in the book yet - tomorrow’s my first day back at the gym after a few months off. However, having spent some time lifting, the advice in the book (low reps w/ heavier weight are better than high reps w/ low weight; women don’t need to train much differently than men) is very good, in my opinion.
Personally, I love lifting. Besides the myriad health benefits, I get a runner’s high from a good lifting workout like you wouldn’t BELIEVE.
I think we women tend to be intimidated by lifting and make it seem more complicated than it is. This isn’t helped by all the conflicting information out there. Look at it this way - lots of dumb guys manage to lift weights and get GREAT results, and you know they haven’t consulted every book on the subject.
I’d suggest reading a book or two (or a few websites) on the basics, and perhaps a couple of sessions with a personal trainer if you’re still feeling unsure on how to start. Ignore any advice that makes women out to be a completely different species than men, and don’t worry about your diet (beyond making sure that you’re taking in ENOUGH calories - too few will do just as much harm as too many) or even the cardio component right away. Once you’re comfortable in the weight room, you can worry about those.
Oh, and 3 sessions a week seems to be accepted as plenty to get good results. 2 can work. You don’t have to devote your whole life to it.
I have heard very, very good things about this book, it’s on my short list.
Personal anecdote: I built a small amount of muscle doing lots of reps with lighter weights. But it was slow, and I never got the results I wanted - I was still flabby.
I upped my weights & change my routine so I was really working, and couldn’t do more than 8 or maybe 10 reps per set, and finally started seeing real results. I didn’t get bigger - I got stronger, fitter, and smaller. I weight 10 lbs MORE than I did a year ago, but my clothes from last winter are a bit on the large side.
I do enjoy cardio, but due to a knee injury can’t do as much as I’d like right now (mainly, running), and sticking to mostly strength training has been working well.
Thanks, everyone. I think this has been very helpful for me and also encouraging.
One aside - does anyone have any recommendations for the use of creatine? From what I understand, studies show it is unlikely to hurt and likely to help, but is it intended for such as scenario (a beginner trying to lose body fat) or more for body-building type activities?
Creatine essentially enhances your muscles’ ability to uptake water and nutrients. While this has been shown to have some beneficial effects on strength and endurance, the effects are slight. Given its frequent side-effect of bloating, I wouldn’t recommend it for weight-loss. Personally, it tacks on 10-15 pounds of water weight and makes my face noticeably swollen.
However as you said, it really can only help from a performance standpoint. If you insist on taking it, load 20 grams a day for five days, and continue with a maintenance dose of 3-5 grams daily. No reason to buy anything but pure creatine monohydrate, as well. Everything else is expensive snakeoil (or, more commonly in this case, sucrose.)
Hmm. I may very well skip that, then. I was considering it as I don’t eat red meat and thought it might be something that would make a real difference, but, body weight is already an issue in performing exercises with good form (some exercises are just impossible to do even without weights) so I think it might be best to leave this for now and take the advice to heart to start gradually.
I’m certainly not an expert like the ones above, but I can give you some ideas of what is working for me - and it IS working; I’ve dropped four pants sizes since May.
I work with a trainer two days a week. Another day he gives me a workout card telling me what to do. I sometimes do cardio on the other days, but really haven’t kept it up because it is so boring to me.
We work a different muscle group every other day. Monday I did legs with a set of the nasty ab machine. I use medium weight starting at about 12 reps for 3 sets. I’m up to 4 sets of about 20 now. I do some free weight and some machine work. I also do some floor stuff.
The the thing I had the hardest time with - I am getting better and the results are encouraging - it eating right. I am very good on my fluid intake but I am 47 years old. All of my life I have heard “If you want to lose weight eat less”. My trainer kept telling me I had to eat every six hours, even if it was just a handful of nuts or a piece of fruit.
You have to reduce your calorie intake but you need to spread out what you do eat. One or two big meals won’t produce the results 5 small meals will, even if the total is the same amount of calories. If your body thinks you are starving, it will hoard fat. In addition, it is harder to stick with any program if you are hungry all the time.
The weight loss was very slow at first even though I was losing inches; I am starting to see more results on the scale now. I really don’t care so much about the weight as the size. I also started very very out of shape and at 241lbs. A size 22. Now I’m in a 16. Or an 18. Or a 20. I wish women’t clothing was all the same size! But that is another rant…
If you can afford a trainer I really recommend it; it was the best decision I’ve ever made. He pushes me to work hard, but he also makes sure I don’t injure myself.
Good luck! Feel free to e-mail or IM me if you want to chat!
If you’re interested in increasing metabolism and losing fat, interval training is the way to go. Research has shown that anaerobic training increases metabolism and fat loss over aerobic training even though it burns less calories.
I’m one of these people, and actually coach a crossfit-style class. I very much like the idea of high intensity work combining not necessarily super-high weight in a metabolic package that has all the effect of a “cardio” routine. I’ve been doing it for a year or so and am, at 32, in by far the best shape of my life.
I like it because it combines the basic, functional compound lifts mentioned earlier (which give you the best overall benefit) with balance and conditioning from a gymnastics approach.
What kind of shape are you in now? If you’re at a “couch potato” level of fitness (no insult intended; I’ve been there more than once), then all these nuances are irrelevant. I’ve seen so many people try to learn everything about diet and exercise before they even start, and the torrent of conflicting information often discourages them from ever starting at all. The important thing is to get moving, do what is fun for you and what you are capable of sustaining interest in. When you have a base level of fitness you can start tweaking your program and see what works best for you. Two people can do the exact same routine and end up with very different results, so it is important that you experiment and make discoveries for yourself instead of following what worked for someone else. Do cardio. Do weights. Do them in whatever order feels best to you. The differences your friends are arguing about likely only matter to elite-level athletes.
What are your goals? You can get in good shape working out a few days a week, but unless you won the genetic lottery and are under 30, you will never be in great shape working out less than 6 days per week. Exercise must become part of your lifestyle - like brushing your teeth - for long term, sustained fitness.
ultrafilter or Tubes, do you have any links or more information regarding the cons of combining cardio and weights? Something more towards the layman’s side would be appreciated.
I do 20 minutes on the stationary cycle after a 45minute session with weights, I’m curious to know just what kind of effects this might be having.
I have not had personal experience with this but Makimba Mimms claims he became permanently disabled following a Crossfit workout, and won a lawsuit against his gym and trainer (but Crossfit itself was not a defendent). In *extreme *intensity workouts (I’m not saying that’s Crossfit) muscle fibers can begin to break down and enter the bloodstream, which can cause muscle damage and kidney damage. I think this is rare and the case is controversial, even though the plaintiff won. Lots of shouting on both sides, kind of like politics
Physically I have a high amount of body fat, but I am accustomed to regular exercise (though I have not always done it). I lost about 40 pounds in the first half of the year, then went on a diet hiatus for a bit and gained only about 5 pounds back in a few months of irregular exercise and irregular eating. I’m comfortable working out in a gym now and wanted to maximize what I can get out of it.
Well, I’m sometimes an analytically-minded person. The problem is that there is absolutely so much pseudoscience, jargon, and urban legendry in the weight loss sector. I’m a skeptical person and I’ve been told so many different things that I should and shouldn’t be doing. When someone tells you ‘don’t do cardio’, it’s alarming.
I do cardio and I do weights. The question I posed was how do I do these to the best benefit, because I am comfortable doing them.
Honestly, my goal is to get to a healthy weight (for me) and improve my life expectancy. To be blunt, I’m obese, and it’s a health risk. I want to reduce my risk for heart disease, diabetes, and all the other myriad of diseases. I want to look and feel better. I have no expectation that I ever have an ‘aerobics instructor’ body - I’m just looking to improve what I’ve got.
To that end, ultrafilter’s link to stumptuous was very helpful as they have some recommendations specifically for overweight women. I think that in the past I have been unsuccessful at long-term healthy eating because I restrict calories far too much for my body weight and it makes me miserable. This has been based on the advice of doctors – who pretty much say “just follow any calorie-reduction diet” – and weight loss programs that are intended mostly for people who want to lose 10 or 20 pounds.
Crossfit definitely is not an option for me - the difficulty is too high and it seems too alarmingly gimmicky.
I think Crossfit is fine if you need someone to tell you what to do and your primary goal is just not being sedentary. But if you want anything more specific, there are better and more focused programs out there.
Good lord, how did I miss this thread. It seems like you are getting better advice here than many other places. Lots to catch up on before I throw my opinion out there. You may be interested in my post in Justin Credible’s thread as well.
Muscle is not needed, but to put it simply - more lean body mass (i.e. muscles) = more calories expended when at rest. Plus you look better and can move that television by yourself.
The problem with cardio before weight training is you may exert yourself to the point where you won’t work as hard during the weight lifting. That is why doing it on the off-days is best and breaking it into morning/evening is second best. It is not a huge deal to do them at the same time (I normally do, let’s face it time is a factor for normal people), but if you do I would recommend weights then cardio. Long steady-state cardio (think jogging for multiple miles) done consistently can result in a loss of muscle mass, but I don’t think you’re at that point yet. Tell him to chill on the supplement talk, it’s beyond your level; and if he’s a serious weight lifter he may be getting hyped on marketing. If you want to take creatine, which as a beginner isn’t a huge issue, take monohydrate creatine; and I wouldn’t do any of the loading stuff, I would take a reasonable dose every day (~5g?). I don’t take creatine, so that’s all I can offer on that front. Whey protein is great, especially if you need to get more protein in your diet; though it is not necessary. For that matter, no supplements are truly necessary (doubly so if you’re diet is not in check already). If you are just getting into the supplement game - I recommend a solid multi-vitamin, fish oil, and maybe some sort of veggie cap if you don’t get that in a regular diet. If you have special situations or deficiencies I would look into addressing those individually and perhaps dropping the multi, but all of that is superflous without the diet.
Personal trainers are sadly garbage a lot of the time, because they often give advice like your friend got. I can go into various reasons, but bottom line is the cost-benefit ratio is woeful unless you can get a real good one. The best thing they can offer you is proper form on lifts (and even then not always), so you should only need one the first couple times; unless you want to buy a personal cheerleader. Warmups are good, but a half hour is beyond a warm up in my opinion. The high rep/low weight style of lifting is not efficient.
Where did she hear this? I don’t buy it, but I’d have to hear the reasoning. It sounds like something they would have you do at Curves.
You should find it confusing. There’s all types of bullshit and marketing floating around fitness, I had to do quite a bit of researching to cut through it all when I decided I wanted to get healthy. The confusion only gets further intensified when you hear people espousing snippets of technical mumbo jumbo that they misheard, or that may have worked for them; but is ultimately bad advice. Bottom line is beginners need to know one thing to lose weight - calories in > calories out = weight gain, calories in < calories out = weight loss. I know you said your diet is healthy, but read my other post and make sure; it’s astounding how little the average person truly knows about having a good diet. The body you want starts in the kitchen, nothing else matters if you don’t put in work there. Go with the supplements I recommended earlier (fish oil, multi, whey protein), if anything. Creatine, BCAAs, and vegetable supplements should you choose.
Good post, especially regarding diet. Just to make sure you know, “tone” is a nonword that confuses and misleads people. Don’t ever think in terms of “toning”, figure out what want and then use the proper terminology. I was really glad to read in your first post that you aren’t afraid of bulking. That holds lots of women back, and it’s an incredibly unfounded fear. Cardio can be an effective means of weight loss, but I wouldn’t go with it. If you want to lose weight I would recommend HIIT, or High Intensity Interval Training. If you want I can expound on that a little more.
Yup. People worry (or hope) that if they lift something heavy a couple times they will wake up suddenly looking like Magnus ver Magnusson. It just doesn’t happen, it takes years of dedication. You can always make adjustments down the line if you don’t like what you are seeing.
Nothing wrong with doing cardio, unless you’re doing steady state (referring to heart rate) for long periods of time. Even that is not a problem unless you want to maintain the most muscle mass possible. High weight and HIIT (if you can do it) is the way to go. The diet thing is just repeated because it is so important to overall well-being. I will just say that you should track it for a couple of weeks it may open your eyes, and leave it at that.
I’m sorry, I don’t really understand what you want to know. Are you asking how to map out a fitness plan? Also, depending on how heavy you are and how many calories you are taking in, you might be able to handle the diet part better. Look at my linked post at the very beginning of this post if you want to learn about your BMR and determining your caloric intake. I have found that a good rule of thumb is 1% or 2% of total weight lost per week. A 200 pounder losing 2 lbs a week is a decent clip, as it progresses quickly and it is symptomatic of a proper lifestyle change. Obviously the amount of weight you will be losing depends on lean body mass gained, and the weight loss slows as you get in better shape.
Close, but not quite there. HIIT and even regular cardio may burn more than the simple act of weight lifting; but your reasoning for weight lifting is off. You weight lift because lean body mass (muscle) burns calories even when you are not lifting; cardio burns calories while you are doing cardio. Following that reasoning, weight lifting pays off more dividends over time than cardio does.
Are you positive about that? It is hard to quantify, but I would imagine in say 30 minutes of continuous cardio vs 30 minutes of weight lifting the cardio would win out. Of course that takes into account the breaks between sets and the like.
It comes from people spreading misleading information. They may hear a body builder or the like say no cardio, and then think well he is buff as all get-out so he has to know his stuff… cardio must be bad. This completely ignores the fact that “cardio” encompasses so many different exercises. Additionally, the advice ain’t necessarily applicable for average folks who don’t need to maintain super-hypertrophied muscles for a competition, and everyone’s fitness goals are different. Same thing as the NO CARBS craze that went around, people look for an easy out and one size fit all approach to health and ignore that it is a lifestyle change.
For the average person who just wants to feel good and get healthy, cardio is good. In my opinion the contradictory info mostly comes from the times knowledgeable people want to geek out about the information, and then a layman latches onto a small snippet and gets things twisted. There is also all the diet and exercise plans out there that need to exaggerate small differences to differentiate themselves from the competition. A calorie is a calorie, but the way it is lost does affect your fitness outcomes. Do you want endurance, fat loss, etc. It depends on what you want to accomplish. Also, I would be cautious about putting too much faith in what those machines say. They have a wide margin of error, plus consider the source. The charts come from exercise companies who know it is in their best interest to make you think you are burning loads of calories.
Great posts, Valerieblaise and olivesmarch4th.
Congratulations on the improvement, but why is he having you work on machines and what are they? The eating thing is correct. Smaller meals spread out throughout the day affect metabolic rates, insulin production, and mental mishaps. The “starvation mode” thing is tossed around too often I believe, but that is the right idea.
Crazy. Do you have any articles handy that I can see?
Glad to hear you’re comfortable going to a gym, that is one of the biggest hurdles for a beginner. If you are at a truly dangerous weight it may be in your best interest to contact a doctor about more extreme diets in the short term to get the weight off. This is only if you need to lose weight now for heath reasons. If not, the lifestyle change Cisco mentions is the way to go and it sounds like you’re on that path. Stumptuous is a good resource, keep reading as education is key but also remember to put that knowledge to work. Don’t get too caught up in body weight, especially if you are going to be weight lifting. Bust out a tailor’s tape and measure stuff like your arms, chest, waist, neck, and thighs; that is a good way to keep yourself motivated and discern changes taking place.
Disclaimer - I am not a medical professional. Talk with your health practitioner and all that jazz. If you hurt yourself or someone else that’s on you.
Unfortunately, this advice is not so simple. I have, of course, been advised to lose weight by doctors many times. Most doctors, however, do not give any real advice (at least in the States - they are too busy trying to keep the appointment under two minutes). I’ve been to a doctor about four or five times for weight loss advice in my life. The advice I’ve gotten pretty much boils down to one of the following:
1 - Be told, “eat less, exercise more” and treated like an idiot for any followup questions whatsoever. (One literally told me, in a very nasty and dismissive tone, “losing weight is simple, just eat less. Anyone can understand that.”)
2 - Be sent to a nutritionist who basically tries to discuss what protein and fat are, but has no idea what to do for a person like me (especially as a vegetarian). The last one I went to told me to use Amazon to search for ‘vegetarian diet books’ and closed off the conversation after that point. So glad I spent the money for that appointment.
3 - Be required to do a ton of bloodwork and tests to make sure it’s not a thyroid disorder, despite repeatedly insisting that I’ve been tested before. When this comes back negative, see response #1.
Unfortunately, doctors in the US medical system just aren’t equipped to handle assistance with lifestyle changes. If it can’t be solved in two minutes of advice or with a prescription, and you’re not dying, they are fairly useless. Further, nutritionists generally don’t have any information that a layman with Internet access doesn’t have, and are just as likely to pass on myths and urban legends.
Sorry to vent. It’s just frustrating that everyone always says to go to a doctor for weight loss. For many people, it’s an expensive and time consuming dead end.
You’re absolutely right, it can be VERY frustrating to talk to a doctor about it. A few years ago I was was diagnosed with PCOS, and my doctor said I’d have to lose weight. She said PCOS would make it harder, and I asked, “So, what do I do?” and she told me to try harder. Seriously. That was her advice. I tried dieting for awhile, but eventually gave up and ended up putting on MORE weight.
I’ve lost 50 lbs or so in the past year, year and a half - and I had to sort of stumble on what worked for me. Exercise has never been something I enjoyed - besides being heavy, I’m also uncoordinated, and most sports make me feel like a giant clumsy goon.
I started lifting first. I found that even though I’m clumsy, lifting slowly to make sure I had good form and didn’t, say, brain myself with a dumbbell didn’t have any negative affect. So at first my workouts took a REALLY long time, but my form was always good. Early on, I stuck with the same exact routine until I was completely comfortable with it, only changing the amount of weight I was lifting.
Then last year I bought a bike - not a fancy bike at ALL, it’s actually a vintage Schwinn cruiser. I got it because I thought it’d be a bit of fun in the summer, but it ended up being the first type of exercise I can remember that I’d do for a long time because I was having fun doing it. Fairly soon after that I started using it for transportation - I never had to set aside time to do cardio because I was ALWAYS doing cardio. Walking can be very similar. You’re not thinking about the fact that you’re exercising if you’re just GOING somewhere.
I’d probably lost about 20, 25 pounds before I ever even THOUGHT about changing my diet. The first change wasn’t even a real change in calorie consumption, it was just spreading them out throughout the day. I was shocked at how much of an increase in energy I felt when I started having 5 or 6 small meals throughout the day. I did that for awhile, and then started tweaking my diet so that I was making healthier food choices within those meals. I still occasionally have junk food, but at this point I’m aware what a serving size is, and it’s enough to fill me up.
Now, the weight I’ve lost has made a HUGE differences, and I’m down from a size 20 (pushing 22, if I’m honest with myself) to a size 10 (8 in some brands). I’m not going to say it’s been “easy,” but it hasn’t been a constant struggle, either. If you make small changes in your routine - one at a time - that are sane & healthy, you can stick with them.
Weight loss will take time. Be emotionally prepared for that. Early on, you feel like you’re putting in work and not seeing results. But one day you’ll realize you feel healthy and strong all the time, and you’ll know it’s because you’ve been taking good care of yourself. It’s a bigger reward than all the compliments on how good you look, it really is.
The answer to your question is that there really is no hard and fast answer. If there was it would be demonstrated over and over until the point that everybody agreed it worked and everybody followed it. Since there are a very large number of extremely physically fit people out there doing [relatively] extremely different things, the best solution is to experiment until you find what works best for you.
I was not exaggerating above when I said different people respond different to different workout programs. You can literally take the exact same program and give it to three different people and:
Person A drops a ton of weight, meets all of their goals, looks and feels great
Person B sees little or no results at all
Person C gets injured, has to stop working out, and as a result gains weight
I cannot stress enough how important it is to discover for yourself what works best for you. You also need to change your workouts frequently. Working out is like [can’t think of a wholesome analogy] masturbating: you’re tricking your body into a response. Eventually your body will catch on and stop responding as easily, and you have to change what you’re doing.
For your particular situation, I highly recommend ignoring bodybuilders and other dedicated athletes; they cannot relate to your level of fitness and will only give you advice that worked most recently for them, which is a world away from where you are at.
One last piece of advice is just to stay consistent. There are no shortcuts, but with the right attitude you can learn to adore the long way. Remember that anyone telling you you can have “8 minute abs” is trying to sell you something.
(By the way, sigh, I didn’t even want to mention it so as not to confuse you further, but I might as well make note of it: “don’t do cardio” is indeed an emerging fad among elite athletes. Please please please ignore it. It is a preposterous suggestion for someone in your situation. And most of them aren’t not doing cardio; they’re just replacing aerobic exercise with anaerobic exercise.)
As Cisco noted, this is not a science, but an art. People have different body types. different ability to gain or lose weight, different rates of recuperation…blah, blah, blah.
For example, I’m a big muscular guy. Cardio for me is 20 minutes 3 times a week. Any more and I lose size, because I’m burning up the calories that I need for muscle mass. My goal is size first, cardio second. When I was much younger and larger, I didn’t do cardio at all, relying instead on diet to ‘cut up’; because all my energy was used to grow.
As Cisco noted, most average people don’t want to be a bodybuilder or powerlifter.
If it was me and I was looking for a good all purpose weight training/cardio workout. I would do a really well designed circuit routine.
The people that I know who do circuit training are always changing up the excerises and because of the speed involved are in and out of the gym in under an hour.
