To continue on the hijack of what type of exercise - official guidance is both aerobic and resistance exercise.
The efficacy of doing both is pretty remarkable. That links shows the results of a randomized controlled trial comparing aerobic only, resistance only, and combination exercise programs in diabetics. Lower HbA1c is better.
The lipid profile and aerobic fitness benefits are comparable with aerobic alone and combination programs.
As to filmore’s point: not just into exercise. That’s the point of NEPA/NEAT. All activity matters. Probably exercise would matter less if there was adequate NEPA built into our lives. It always makes me shake my head to see people who schedule in exercise then circling around for a spot to park closer to the door, waiting to take the elevator up one or two flights when it would be at least as fast to take the stairs …
How to effectively sell activity is the very good question.
artemis, the plus side is that IF someone who is unfit can be convinced to start a program, and guided to take it on in an intelligent manner, they can measure fitness improvements pretty dang fast and continue to see them for a prolonged period of time. (See the thread of long time fitness focused people still hitting new goals and getting a kick from doing it.) The problem with doing it in a fitness center is that the tendency is to compare themselves to others around who are fitter (and to feel bad about themselves in comparison) rather than to their own established baselines.
Purely my undereducated option, but I figure an effective exercise program is a three-legged stool: Aerobic activity, resistance activity, and balance/body flexibility/core stabilization activity. Neglect any one leg, and the stool tips over. The best results are obtained when all three forms of activity can be incorporated into the program. The problem, of course, is that most of us prefer one sort of activity to the others,and if we don’t watch ourselves it’s easy to slowly neglect the non-favored exercises. (I’m certainly guilty of that - I hate high-intensity cardio, but love weights.)
I’m sure that’s true. I doubt people in the past had more free time to spend playing sports or going to the gym to work out than we have today. But their jobs required more movement, so they could meet at least a part of their daily exercise needs without having to do any active planning. With our motorized transport, escalators, elevators, etc., we have a lot more ability to completely opt out of movement today. (And if you work long hours at a sedentary job, fitting any physical activity in can become a big problem even if you WANT to do it.)
I couldn’t agree with you more! It’s getting people to take that first step which is hard. And also getting people to focus on results rather than simply looks. Some people are just going to be fat, period - but there’s a huge difference between a fat person who can run a couple of miles and lift hundred pounds, and a fat person who gets out of breath walking up one flight of stairs and who can barely lift a ten pound dumbell. That difference is missed if your focus is purely on aesthetics (which is unfortunately true of far too many people).
It’s especially important for the overweight to exercise. The extra weight itself creates health problems. Exercise is a way to combat the negative consequences of the extra weight. The tragedy is that the overweight have the hardest time working out–both physically and mentally. The extra weight creates health problems and then makes it harder to combat those added problems.
It’s like if squirrels were destroying your roof. Do nothing and the rain comes in and causes lots of damage. Exercise is like fortifying the roof and continually patching up the damage. It keeps the rain out and makes it harder for the squirrels. Losing weight is like getting rid of the squirrels entirely.
I think putting on a lot of weight for a short term and then losing it again is pretty easy. If you don’t hold the excess weight for a long time then you don’t get the kind of metabolic shifts that make it so difficult to lose weight. You could simply go back to your normal eating patterns and over time you would drop back to your natural weight.
The problem for people who have been heavy for a long time is that their normal eating patterns are what resulted in that weight. To lose weight they basically have to stay hungry for the rest of their lives. That’s a hell of thing to have to fight against.
I guess it also says that if we don’t find a medical way to reset metabolism then the only way to fight obesity is to make sure that kids don’t get overweight; I think trying to fight obesity in adults on a grand scale is doomed to failure.
Very true. My nieces both carry a lot of weight, and I know those excess pounds are going to haunt them for the rest of their lives either in the form of weight or an over-efficient metabolism.
I think you’re half right. Prevention is definitely the way to go when it comes to the currently-non-obese (including kids). But if health rather than looks is what we’re concerned about, we can improve matters if we tell the obese to focus not on the number on the scale but on improving their diet by tossing out highly processed foods and eating vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and lean proteins instead, and finding ways to incorporate a significant amount of exercise into their lives. Their weight might not change much if they follow such a program, but their overall health will improve dramatically.
(Unfortunately it’s harder to motivate obese people to do that when they know that the public at large will still view them as disgusting fatties with no willpower, despite the fact that they’re doing everything it’s currently possible to do to improve their health. Being fat-shamed when you’re doing your best is very discouraging.)
I totally agree with this. I’m a fat kid who grew into a fat adult. My diet growing up wasn’t too bad - my mom recognized we were fat and tried her hardest. We were also too poor to buy stuff like Fruit Rollups and McDonalds but it’s not like we ate quinoa and broccoli every day either.
I kept active too. I was in a lot of team sports, marching band, swimming lessons and was great at phys-ed.
I grew up to be fat, healthy, active and relatively self-confident about my size. I honestly don’t think I’m any worse about my body image than any average woman of any size.
Yes there were periods of being bullied but size isn’t the only reason people get bullied. Bullies are why people get bullied. My size has never wrecked me mentally. I don’t think that’s true for a lot of people - and a lot of people who are way smaller than me.
Now that I’m all growed up I have some good bits of knowledge under my belt about myself.
I’m not an over-eater. I am insulin resistant, though. I need to avoid carbs. That takes some willpower, some extra money and lots of work (planning, shopping, cooking). I need to do it forever.
I’m not lazy. I like exercise. Exercise doesn’t do much to affect my weight. I do need to exercise more than a typical person to lose weight. I need to do it forever.
My body has been this big since puberty. I need to work 10x harder than most to lose weight. I have to be willing to do it. I need to do it forever.
Anyway, I stray. I agree with the above post - people are way too focused on the scale. The scale means nothing. It wrecks people’s emotions. It wrecks their ability to carry out effective weight loss and weight management goals. Yeah you want to be able to measure your progress but you need to learn that the scale is a PIECE of progress measurement and not the be-all-end-all.
I don’t think enough kids or even enough adults really get this. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops.
An old elementary school friend in very good shape is giving me some pointers on getting fit, and he told me I should weigh myself twice a day (because that’s what he does, I guess.) I tried to explain to him what this will do to an overweight person psychologically, but he just didn’t get it. I stuck to my guns, though. I weigh myself once every two weeks, and even that’s pushing it. I know I’m losing weight by how my clothes fit. That’s all I need to know, really. People really need to accept that the scale is not the be-all and end-all of existence (on preview: that’s exactly what you said.) When I can run further, do more pushups, go up a flight of stairs without being winded, leave a plate of food unfinished… that is real progress.
I don’t think this is true, though. Ways to increase metabolism (and to decrease appetite, for that matter) are not unknown.
I would go so far as to say that “losing weight” should never EVER be the goal, losing fat and gaining muscle should be. Otherwise individuals lose weight (both fat and lean mass), then gain weight (more fat and less lean mass than they lost). It’s not rocket science how this messes up metabolism, and how to fix it.
Alas, it is true. Once a person has been heavy for a while, the brain comes to regard that weight as normal. When the person tries to lose the excess fat, the brain reacts as though the person is starving to death. An obese person who’s lost significant weight has the same metabolic profile as a normal weight person who is starving. And apparently the obese person’s brain never readapts to the new, lower weight as normal.
And if an obese person who was once nonobese does get back down to their original healthy weight, they require about 20% fewer calories to maintain that weight than they did prior to becoming fat And again, that change appears to be permanent.
No wonder most people can’t sustain their weight loss long-term! Keeping off the weight requires developing the same mindset as an anorexic person, and most people just can’t do that.
(I’m too lazy to look up cites in the medical literature right now, but I’m sure DSeid has supplied them before in earlier threads. And the bonus DVD (disk 3) to the HBO series “The Weight of the Nation” has a segment on the medical aspects of weight loss which is informative; that disk (along with the rest of the series) is available through Netflix.)
Yeah, in very good shape or not, I’d take fitness advice from a doorknob sooner than I would from this guy. Weighing oneself that often is absurd, water retention, food intake and other factors make such measurements meaningless and counterproductive (as it can de-motivate someone working on their health).
I am no stranger to the ins and outs of this. I have lost 125 pounds and maintained the loss.
I get what you are saying, I do. And I don’t doubt there are studies that correlate it. However, and this is the significant part, do they factor in the loss of lean mass that goes along with weight loss? If muscle mass is increased, then metabolism DOES change. Sadly, though, it decreases with weight loss unless a lot of effort goes into it.
It’s hard to factor it in and sometimes the measures used (weight loss rather than fat loss or percent body fat) make teasing it out harder. But getting measures of fat loss or oercent of body fat are hard to do in population studies and the metabolic comparisons have been made to those who were never obese who have similar FFMs. The preponderance of evidence is that combining enough resistance exercise to an aerobic program can prevent loss of fat-free mass but that such does not completely prevent the brain and metabolic responses that urge regain. Prevention of regain requires great vigilance and sustained effort. Your achieving that Sam I Am places you in a highly motivated and extremely self-disciplined crowd. The comparison to anorectics may be unflattering but for most it does require some degree of obsession with achieving the task.
Here’s an interesting recent study (pdf) discussing these issues. They compared the behavioral characteristics of those who have successfully maintained weight loss to those who never had to lose and never lost weight (controls) and to those who lost and regained.
In these studies vigilance is often seen as more frequent weighing, such as weekly (not twice a day, that’s just crazy). My humble opinion is that waist circumference and measures of fitness, or maybe even a scale that reports percent body fat through impedance, might be better items to monitor as the canaries in the mine. I have no studies however to suport that belief.
Sam I Am, what does it take for you to maintain your loss?
We all know it can be difficult to get in better shape by yourself. But what about when you have intense personal instruction on food and exercise? One example of this is the show The Biggest Loser. The contestants are very overweight and the instructors guide them through exercise and diet changes. So how well do the contestants manage after the show is over?
Here’s an article on the former contestants from The Biggest Loser. Pretty much all have gained some weight back–sometimes a significant portion–but almost all continue to be involved with exercise of some sort. Some of them even do marathons and triathlons. Even though they have gained some weight back, exercise allows them to have a much better quality of life.
Exercise is easy, losing weight is hard. Exercise is just about blocking out some time on your schedule. Losing weight is a 24/7 struggle. I would urge anyone, especially the overweight, to incorporate exercise into your life. Even if you don’t lose a single pound, the exercise will improve your body and provide many health benefits. You may lose weight, you may not, but you will definitely feel better.
Weighing myself every day is a tremendous benefit. I’ve found it extremely helpful. I would recommend it to anyone trying to lose weight
Does my weight fluctuate from day to day? Sure. But it keeps me in touch with what’s going on. You can’t freak out over a day’s results, but you eventually learn not to (or you’re just smart enough not to.) It’s just a way to keep in touch with how diet and exercise affects your body. After awhile you stop worrying about whether you’re up 0.4 pounds from yesterday.
Now, I don’t now that twice a day is useful (or meaningful) but IMHO, once every two weeks isn’t enough. You aren’t managing what you aren’t measuring. Losing weight should at least involve having the guts to see how much you weigh. Hey, don’t get me wrong; when I started losing weight I didn’t like the numbers, either, but after a few weeks I started liking the fact that, slowly but surely, the numbers were getting lower.
I have insulin resistance, so for me a ketogenic diet was key for the weight loss.
I got so used to eating that way, and I do believe the various concerns about wheat and sugar, so they will never again be a regular part of my diet. I eat them occasionally, but more and more I think “well, that wasn’t worth it”.
I eat what conventional dieters would consider a scary amount of fat, with moderate amounts of protein, and lots of green vegetables. Oatmeal, rice, fruit, and dark chocolate are all only occasional foods for me.
I always eat when I am hungry, and I do not feel deprived. The benefit of cutting out grains and sugar, and upping fat, is that you don’t feel as hungry. I have my own versions of comfort foods that work just fine, don’t knock me off track or leave me feeling gross.
I work out 2-3x per week. 15 minutes of interval training on the elliptical, 1/2 hour of strength training (heavy weights, low reps), 10 mins cool down on a rowing machine. I wasn’t working out when I lost the bulk of the weight, it has only been added this past year; primarily with the goal of reducing insulin resistance and increasing my metabolic rate. My body is changing in ways I never thought possible. Now, I care more about how strong my body is than about how thin.
I know I’m gaining weight when my clothes start fitting differently. Why do I need a scale for that?
I wish we could get away from all this “you don’t have the guts” or “you’re not smart enough” way of talking about weight loss and fitness. IMO it is not helpful. If it makes you feel better to consider yourself smarter and more gutsy than other people, that’s fine, but maybe it is not so helpful to share it out loud.
Even though I posted that being a slave to the scale wrecks people, I agree with this. I weigh myself every day at the exact same time (when I get up, after I pee) wearing the exact same thing (nothing). Sometimes it goes up, usually it stays the same, and on good days it goes down.
But I’ve learned not to freak out about it, or let it deter my forward progress. It’s just another data point in a huge list of data that I keep on my progress.
My main beef with the scale is people who equate weight with size or fitness. I think it’s a different ball of wax for less fat people (people less fat then me). It doesn’t compute to me that a specific weight translates to a dress size any more than a weight of random food translates to a specific volume.
I have weight goals but they’re not size goals. It makes me sad when someone says they have to lose X more pounds to achieve some size-related goal (clothing) and then obsess over it, or do weird shit like fasting or juicing just to get to the weight goal and then find that their size hasn’t changed at all.
I’ll say it again - everyone at any size can have weight and body hang-ups. Sucks.
It has nothing to do with ‘‘not liking the numbers.’’ It has everything to do with numbers not being the most important thing. It’s a psychological mindfuck, and I don’t play that game anymore. Research shows that people who focus on weight like this are less likely to be successful - focusing on the healthy behaviors is key. You can’t control a five pound water retention gain when you’re PMSing but you can control whether or not you are tracking your calories, exercising, measuring the food you eat, etc. If it works for me, then nothing else matters.
Sam I Am, what an inspirational and informational post. Thank you.
I’m another one who has to weigh daily. When I didn’t was when I got myself in trouble. I post my weight on a chart. While I was losing, the .4 gain didn’t matter so much as long as I could see the general trend was DOWN.
