It’s times like this I’m glad for the short edit window.
On Kenny Vs Spenny last night they had a three day weight loss contest. They each lost about 17 pounds.
Of course, that isn’t safe but I just found it amusing to see this thread the day after seeing that episode.
I gained exactly 17 pounds in 14 days during Christmas break when I was a senior in high school. I lost most of it in the next 3 days as well. Safe? Hardly! :smack:
I don’t currently still do anything near the same level of excercise as I used to. When I lost 200 pounds was about 7 years ago. It was actually pretty dissapointing, but not in a way that’s relevant to this thread.
But what I did at the time was essentially the most exertion my body could take without overdoing it. When I weighed 360, walking for a half hour and doing a little lifting was a full workout. By the time I got below 250, I’d ramped up the intensity so much that my typical workout went something like:
8-10 reps upper body lift, 8-10 reps lower body lift, immediately hop on treadmill for 4 minutes
8-10 reps different upper body lift, 8-10 different lower, hop on stairmaster for 4 minutes.
etc.
I’d eventually do 3 sets of generally 8 reps with heavy weights combined with a mix of cardio from different exercises mixed in between. I tried to have little to no downtime - directly from the weights to the machines and back. At first I needed breaks during it, but towards the end I was able to keep that up for 2 hours or more.
The next day would be a rest day where I’d try to work at least an hour of something in - swimming, mixed cardio excercise, playing basketball, whatever - just nothing with significant amounts of muscular strain.
If I tried to jump back into that routine today, I would probably die in about 20 minutes.
So, if you’re in shape enough for them, I recommend mixing them. If not, I would focus on the resistance training as a priority, and then just do whatever you feel up to doing in addition to it.
I tended to do sets of 3x8 at around 70-85% of my max-out lift. I tend to think of fewer, more intense lifts as better - but if you go too high you risk injuring yourself. Alternating upper and lower body excercises allowed the respective muscles to rest a bit while still keeping the intensity up.
Very short term weight loss is primarily the result of the loss of water, which is what allows some of those “lose 8 pounds in a week!” diets to be technically feasible but worthless.
I should have added ‘or effective in the longrun’ after noting it wasn’t safe. Didn’t mean to give the impression that I thought such a diet plan was worthwhile in any way.
For an average person (i.e. overweight but not morbidly obese) the general rule is 1–2 kg per week of sustainable long-term weight loss. If you cut calories too much or exercise too much, you’ll plateau a lot sooner at best, and might cause some health problems at worst. Santo Rugger’s 1% of starting body weight is more comprehensive and squares pretty well with guidelines I’ve seen.
Losing 44 lbs. in 90 days is probably not possible without doing yourself disservice in the long run. You could probably lose the weight, but you’d cause other problems. The worst thing about running a high calorie deficit is that you’ll be losing muscle before you affect fat stores, and if you’re starting from being sedentary, you don’t have a whole lot of spare muscle. Running a mild deficit, about 400–700 calories daily, is about all you should do if you’re exercising. For your height, assuming an average build aside from the extra fat, going below 2,000 a day is probably not a good idea.
Weight training will help you lose fat more than doing just cardio. Long, low-intensity cardio sessions don’t help as much as more intense training; intervals are optimal no matter what intensity you work at. Your goal should be a modest 15–20 minutes of aerobic exercise at a decent heart rate (rough estimate: 220-your age for max, between 60% and 85% of that max) to start out. If you’re 40, you should try to keep between 110 and 150 beats per minute while exercising (rounded slightly). You don’t have to measure continuously, just check every few minutes to keep yourself honest about your effort.
Don’t just start running. If you’re overweight and undertrained you have a high risk of injury from running. Do something low-impact at first, like a rowing machine, exercise bike, or elliptical machine. After you’ve lost some fat, gained some muscle, and gotten your joints adapted to some physical stress you can start doing some short easy runs.
While there are some benefits from doing short sessions of even more intense intervals, at 80–90% of your max, those can wait for a while, until you’re in much better shape. Longer is not necessarily better. Health and fat loss benefits drop off after 30 minutes of sustained activity. Keep the intensity up around the top end of your heart range and you should be nicely fatigued by 20–25 minutes in anyway. That’ll probably keep you busy for a few months.
For resistance training, stay away from machines. Use free weights: barbell or dumbbells. Focus on multi-muscle movements like squats, dead lifts, standing shoulder press, cleans, bench press. If at all possible, do pull ups; any modification of real pull ups is superior to machine pull downs. Curls and other isolation movements are for either bodybuilders and advanced athletes looking to fix weak points, so avoid them. Waste of time and effort for a beginner or someone who needs to get back in shape. This comprehensive set of recommendations matches very well with what I know of weight training (link thanks to Gut) and has tons of tips for inexperienced lifters.
Start out slow. It’s really easy to overdo it when you’re starting out, especially if you’ve been active in the past, because you remember what you used to be able to do. Better to err on the side of caution rather than overtrain to the point where you need a couple of days off to recover or, even worse, injure yourself.
Nuh uh, not here! I’m in Georgia! I mean, what I said was that April is my personal trainer and I recommend her highly. She’ll cut 30 days off your weight reduction time. Geez, can’t you read?
Is this the first time you’ve been absolutely right for all the wrong reasons?
- one for each of you.