And a note on exercise, which is important for HEALTH, but is not the ‘lose weight savior’ you think it is.
Run a marathon to lose 1 lb of body fat.
Keep exercising for health, but diet is where you regulate most of your body weight.
Scylla, I needed to hear that clarified. I do not feel that an otherwise healthy person should require weight-loss surgery - but, there are instances where it is warranted. Those that are not mobile due to some other form of infirmity.
This is not true. Diet and exercise are at least equally important.
I for example am currently running 50 miles a week. I eat truly astonishing quantities of food to sustain this effort.
If I wasn’t running, I would blimp up. As I am, I have to eat this much to avoid losing upper body muscle.
Saying one is more important than the other is like saying the fuel is more important than the engine.
The real fact is that they both have to be right, and be in balance.
The best thing you can do dietwise is what I call the caveman diet.
Don’t eat anything a caveman wouldn’t have been able to eat.
Basic, simple, fresh, unprocessed foods are the best thing you can do for yourself, dietwise.
Such a person would not be an otherwise healthy person, IMO.
There are also certain people who just are not going to get healthy on their own no matter what. They just won’t do it for whatever reason.
I suppose surgery is a better alternative than weighing 700 pounds and dying of a heart attack or stroke.
It is important to be clear that I am speaking of the right road in terms of generally healthy people who are unsatisfied with moderate to heavy weight gain, and not people who have medical problems related to their weight, or who are morbidly obese and require medical attention to address their problem.
I hope we’re in agreement when I say that prudent diet and exercise is the most favorable and wise way to get healthy and lose weight.
I agree with Scylla, 100%.
I took the long and hard road and it’s paid off. I lost 60 pounds in the first 18 months. But you know what? There are 52 weeks in a year so that meant I lost, on average, less than a pound a week.
It was really hard, pretty much a daily struggle. I reminded myself constantly about how it takes 3500 calories to burn off 1 pound of fat so I forced myself to exercise, hard, until I was sweating, every day. I ate a lot of food, but good food. No soda, no fast food, no junk food.
Now it’s become such a habit that it’s become a way of life and I’ve never felt better. I love being able to wear a size 8 (I was an 18) and I will never go back.
But it took a long, long, long time. I didn’t see results for weeks and my weight went up and down all the time. It’s worth the wait, though, because if you lose weight too quickly your skin will be stretched and saggy and the odds are that you’ll gain it back.
Anyway, good luck, try not to be discouraged, there is a lot of support here if you need it. It will be slow, but it will happen.
Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, too!
Jesus H Christ, Scylla, are we supposed to model ourselves after someone who runs 50 miles a week? Is that typical for most people?
Give me a fuckingn break. Every goddam fucking weightloss thread is full of alll the fuckin’ exceptions, and none of actual real world stuff.
The most important thing for our poster to know is that if they need a paltry amount of calories to sustain their weight and an amazing amouint of effort -more than most even have TIME for, let alone the power - to lose a friggin pound of body fat.
Eat a big piece of cake and run for two hours TO BREAK EVEN. The OP is about losing weight. Why are they ‘stuck’? Because, they might be able to squeeze in good 30 mins of hard exercise every day (and who can do it everyday!) and burn off 350 calories per day. Yeah, so an exercise program that most people can’t do CAN contribute a reduction of calories via burning them by 2450 per week (or about 2/3 of a pound of body fat).
Eating 500 cals less per day is achievable. Burning 500 calories every day is totally unrealistic. The main emphasis must be on diet/intake, while exercise is fine tuning and for overall health.
Sure, exercise contributes, but you must educate people into understaning that exercise cannot be considered a reasonable measure to counteract mistakes made during dieting. If you eat a Big Mac you weren’t supposed to eat, who is gonna do aerobics for almost three ADDITIONAL hours plus the regular exercise time they had scheduled to LOSE weight? WHO!?
FUCK THAT! No one will do it! Oh, maybe YOU!
Eat considerably less sugar, do cardio and light weight training often, constantly “graze” on food, and drink lots of water.
www.caloriesperhour.com is a pretty nifty thing, and apt to become niftier as my own metabolism–previously a dependable, if hyper, rock of eating mass amounts of crap without visible effect–continues its trend of apparently slowing.
Three hours of aerobics is rather overkill on a single Big Mac, per it.
'Seasy.
Cut right down on fat and sugar and exercise more.
Philster, I’m kinda thinking that Scylla was just telling us about HIS situation.
Not saying that everyone must emulate him.
Hell, I run 35 miles a week. Do I think it’s for everyone? NO!
I think was Scylla said was smart, and his self disclosure just a data point.
Please, let’s not turn this thread into another ugly one. Can we?
Philster:
I see no reason to curse and get pissy with me.
My case is an extreme example, yet nonetheless a valid one.
In my experience people focus on diet and neglect exercise. Both are in fact equally important.
If you simply reduce your caloric intake without exercising, your body will tend to go into starvation mode to preserve your current weight. You will be hungry all the time, listless, and the moment you go off that diet you will likely regain all the weight you lost, and then some. You will also be losing muscle. Muscle takes energy to create and maintain. If you diet without exercise, and lose muscle, your body will now have a lower caloric requirement to sustain itself, meaning you can eat less and gain weight.
Exercising is not just a simple run a mile burn 100 calories type proposition.
Sustained cardiovascular exercise will move your metabolic level up to a higher calorie burn rate for 4-5 hours after the exercise.
Exercise in conjunction with diet will force your body to convert fat to muscle, where otherwise it would simply be burning muscle to provide weight loss. Making muscle takes energy, and sustaining it takes energy.
While one time exercise may burn off that extra piece of cake, a long term exercise program of sustained cardio effort will burn many times the calories expended in terms of muscle growth, muscle sustenance, and metabolic increase.
Dieting without exercise is most often a recipe for long-term failure.
With exercise it is a slow start, but a geometric progression that builds on itself.
As I said, exercise is going to be every bit as important in determining weight loss, if not more so than just diet.
Philster:
I will further add that I was pretty porky (240 pounds) when my kid was born in 1999.
I love to eat. Instead of going on a diet, I decided to eat well instead. I also promised myself to run a marathon which was to take place about a year almost to the day when my kid was born. It was a long term goal.
It took me 6 months to get up to 30 miles per week, and I was between 30-40 when I ran the marathon.
I lost 45 pounds without depriving myself, although it took about a year.
The actual time spent was about 45 minutes a day. I know people who spend more time than that in the bath. Contrary to popular beleif it was not a hardship for me after the first few months. I looked forward to my run as one of the high points of my day.
The feeling good, the energy gain, the efficiency more than made up for that time, IMO.
Nowadays I get itchy on my imposed rest day when I don’t run. My ten mile run only takes me an hour and twenty minutes 2-3 times a week. Then it’s forty minutes 2-3 times a week for my five mile run, a day off and then usually a 2 hour run on Sunday to bring it between 50-60 miles.
I think that’s hardly extreme. It enables me to eat as much I want though.
Somebody running 45 minutes a day on average is going to lose weight on a normal diet, and lose weight fast.
If you go much more than that, you have to make an active effort to sustain your current weight, which means hogging out.
All I’m trying to do with my personal example is illustrate the link between diet and exercise and weight loss.
Metro
It sounds as if you need to work smarter, not necessarily harder. Also a word on alchohol. Losing weight can be done if you drink, but alcohol consumption really slows down all the little connections that are being made when you eat right and workout.
Anyway you can have your beers on just ONE day of the week?
Also, as to your cardio. Some “Guerilla” or HIIT cardio might be just what the doctor ordered to kick your metab into high gear.
Guerilla
5 mins at a nice low to med pace
1 min at as HIGH as you can barely stand.
Now, 20 seconds low, 20 seconds top speed and back for the next 20 minutes.
HIIT (high intensity interval training)
1 min at low (comparable to bringing groceries in from the car).
1 min at one level up from low
1 min one more level higher (should be starting to breath a bit hard here)
1 min highest level you can stand and still go for a minute
start over at your low level
Continue over a 20-25 minute session, end with 1 minute at a level HIGHER than the highest level you can stand (you’ll know, because you’ll be BEGGING for the end, and “sure” that you can’t make the last 3 seconds), then end with a few minutes of cooldown.
Weights, kind of the same concept, more in less time.
Start at high reps, low weight, ramp up.
Make sure you’re using proper form and not just slinging them around. (you wouldn’t believe how many men do this!!!, they’re naturally strong, so they think if they are moving and lifting the weights, then they must be doing it “right”).
Hang in there, remember it takes from 8-12 weeks to show a VISIBLE change.
One small thing that helped me - don’t eat after 7 pm. Lost 5 pounds so far.
Oh, and eating my dinner at lunchtime. Have something light in the evening and make sure it has some fiber so you will stay filled up.
metroshane, you don’t seem to say how long you’ve been on your new diet/exercise regime.
Can you clarify?
about 3 weeks
Let me clarify a little more.
3 weeks this time. I’ve gone through phases and I just started back 3 weeks ago. A few months ago I went on a 5 day/week 40 min/day treadmill cycle and lost about 8lbs…then stalled. Gained it back.
I’m probably over-simplifying (mostly because I don’t wholly understand myself) but your body will make a bit of an effort to maintain your weight, even if it is not the healthiest weight for you. Make sure your cardio workout is sufficient to also burn some extra calories and you should eventually make it over your current plateau.
Hit the weights more. And heavier. The greatest fat burner is muscle. It eats calories even when you’re not moving. It will also raise your metabolism for longer than cardio will. Cardio will only raise it for a couple hours, weights will raise it for a couple days. And do not worry about bulking unless that is your goal. A lb of muscle is a lot smaller than a lb of fat. But for each added lb of muscle, you’ll burn more calories.
Also track your calories on fitday.com or something. Most people grossly underestimate how many calories they’re taking in in a day. You want more calories out than in.
Here’s a lot of information from Lyle McDonald, a poster on misc.fitness.weights, and he has a book out, but I forget what it’s on 