| Author | Post |
|---|
ptbochick78
New Member
| Joined: | 17 May 2005 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1 |
|
Posted: 18 May 2005 12:07 am |
|
| I am recently a new addition to this great website and I am getting quite frustrated at myself. I have been working out 5 days a week doing cardio and cut back on my calories by almost 700 calories per day and I have yet to lose even one pound. It's been a month now and nothing to show for it. I need some pointers on excerice or anything to lead me to the right path to start shedding some pounds. I am very overweight and just coming to terms with it. it's time to say goodbye to this unwanted fat but how? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.:)
|
peterinwa
New Member
| Joined: | 30 April 2005 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 35 |
|
Posted: 18 May 2005 09:10 am |
|
Hello ptbochick78,
Welcome, and thanks for your post.
I moved it for a couple of reasons. First, your frustration gave me the idea to create this new forum entitled, Stories of Struggles. Second, because it was under Exercise and you ask for pointers on exercise (or other subjects) and I want to discuss that.
Exercise is incredible. It does wonders for your health and longevity; makes you look better; and helps you feel better about yourself. And it burns calories! But it's not the answer to weight loss.
I summarize my thoughts about where exercise fits in here:
http://www.eatwellandexercise.com/
People will say they'll have an extra dessert and "burn it off later at the gym." But it's usually very unrealistic. Just calculate a large restaurant dessert and how long you'd have to walk to burn it off and it's just not practical. So the answer is to not eat the dessert in the first place.
But just as important as what you eat is the quality of the food you eat. Too often people go on diets by simply cutting down on the amount of food they eat but continue to eat highly processed junk. They don't make any progress, and in fact because the food is so high in calories and they have to eat so little of it they get tired of it and quit.
I am not assuming that you are eating "bad" foods, but if you were eating truly healthy foods I'd expect that you'd be losing weight. If the subject is new to you, the FAQ at caloriesperhour.com are a good place to start.
Best wishes,
Peter
caloriesperhour.com
P.S.
Please keep in mind that while this happens to be my website, these are just my personal thoughts. I'm just another member of this forum.
|
Dave Brown
Senior Member
|
Posted: 18 May 2005 10:24 am |
|
Hi ptbochick78,
Peter is so right about the quality of food intake. With any given caloric intake, whether you gain, lose, or remain at a steady weight is, to some degree, determined by whether your body is getting the right sorts of nutrients in the right proportions.
The other important factor is the appropriateness of food intake for your peculiar body chemistry. It may be that you need to add fat and protein calories to your diet and subtract carbohydrate calories. If you do this, make sure you add the right kinds of fat calories.
To find out more about fats, type "The Oiling of America" into a search engine and you'll be linked to a great article by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon. You can also type Penelope J. Greene in and view some articles discussing the comparative effectiveness of low-carb and low-fat approaches in a carefully controled study.
Dave Brown
Last edited on 18 May 2005 04:06 pm by Dave Brown
|
Seragilo
Senior Member
|
Posted: 21 May 2005 05:06 pm |
|
Hi There!
I agree on all the points listed here regarding food intake. I would just like to add my 2 cents about working out. Keep at it! It may take time, but you will see results. After about 4 to 6 weeks doing the same workout change it up a bit, keep you body from falling into a routine. Change the order of your work out...doing cardio then weights? Switch them over.
You mentioned being very overweight....well muscle weights more than fat so could it be possible you are building a little muscle? I too hit a spot where I wasn't lossing weight, heck I even gained a couple of pounds....I ran to my trainer screaming, she informed me thats what had happened, I built up muscle. She asked me ' do your clothes fit better? '..they did, ' do you feel better? '...I did, ' do see yourself different?' ..my goodness did I ever! I would look in the mirror and the reflection was not one I was use to.
So, please keep at it....with good eating habits and working out you will see good results soon!
Good luck to you!
|
flyawayana
Senior Member
|
Posted: 23 May 2005 06:13 pm |
|
i pretty much agree with whats been said here so far - can i suggest getting your body fat percentage done? try tracking your weight loss by that - because you could just be replacing fat with muscle. i know thats what happened to me. the scale didnt buge, at all. but yet i could fit into my "skinny jeans" agian. if BF% isnt available to you, try measuring your waist/ hips/ thighs/ circumfrance, just be sure you are not pulling tighter or loser than the last time you meaured or you'll get the numbers diferent ever time.
(when i say body fat percetage, i do NOT mean those useless hight and weight charts and show what your BMI is. those are increadible innacurate and will only mislead and frustrate you... BF% is done by a caliper, its also known as skin fold test)
fly
|
JeepDriver
Member
| Joined: | 2 June 2005 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 10 |
|
Posted: 2 June 2005 09:01 pm |
|
fly's right. If you're working out that often then there's a good chance that you're gaining muscle.
Also, you need to consider your macronutrient breakdown. Shoot for 45% protein, 45% carbs, 10% fat if you want to get serious about this. There are lots of good diets out there that follow this regimen. Check bodybuilding websites and fitness websites.
Also, cardio should be done first thing in the morning while your glucose stores are depleted. This will force your body to burn fat. If you can't do that, then always do weights before cardio, again to deplete your glucose stores.
Otherwise, just use the calculators on this site to ensure that you are burning more calories than you are taking in and you'll be sure to shed a few pounds.
|
Peter
Founder, caloriesperhour.com
| Joined: | 24 May 2005 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 4179 |
|
Posted: 2 June 2005 10:53 pm |
|
Hello JeepDriver (I'm looking forward to a cool jeep avatar), and welcome to the forum. I just read your first five posts and you have some really good stuff to share.
I would like to ask about one particular point. It is something you wrote that I hear all the time, so I'm not picking on you in particular. And it is so commonly quoted that I also don't want you to feel bad if you don't know the answer.
You wrote:
"Cardio should be done first thing in the morning while your glucose stores are depleted. This will force your body to burn fat."
This sounds totally logical. But my point is why does it matter? If you burn fat it will just leave more glucose in your blood which will turn to fat if you don't burn it up later. Conversely, if you work out later and burn glucose, just the opposite will happen.
What I'm saying is that I look at the body as one big energy supply and in the end it doesn't matter if at any moment you're burning fat or glucose.
I'm sure there must be something to the theory so I'm not really disputing it. Just saying that I can't imagine that it would make such a difference to be worth worrying about. Certainly not as much as chosing highly nutritious, low calorie foods to eat.
I look at it this way... If you enjoy cardio in the afternoon and will be more likely to do it then... now THAT makes a difference. A big difference.
Just my thoughts. Since I began this website as a hobby and it has grown so much people often assume that I have professional knowledge on such subjects. I wrote all my website text by gathering good info -- my career was as a technical writer. But I have NO training or education in these matters so please look at me as just another forum member. Just my two cents worth. Maybe one cent.;)
Thanks, Peter
|
patesguy
Senior Member
|
Posted: 3 June 2005 04:35 pm |
|
Well Jeep and Peter both have great points. there is proof that working out in the morning will help your body target fat, but only for a period of time, after some time your body turns to the muscle in your body... this length of time is different for everyone and is very tough to pinpoint, mostly because your body changes so much day to day. Also what Peter said is completely true. Find a time when you want to workout and when you are most likely to go out and do it. If you are not a morning person (believe me im not) then workout in the afternoon! as long as you are creating a deficiency in your caloric intake then you are on the right track!
The best way to target fat is to get steroids, but i do not recommend that to anyone.
Also, changes are better made slowly because you will have a better chance to keep the weight off and your body will be able to handle it better. Just remember your body's chemicals are very sensitive and the more changes you make the more messed up the harmony gets. sometimes this is good, like by eating clean and healthy exercising, and sometimes this is bad, like starving yourself and over exercising.
One more thing! changes dont really start until the 4th to 6th week mainly because your body is trying to figure out what the heck is going on!
|
JeepDriver
Member
| Joined: | 2 June 2005 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 10 |
|
Posted: 3 June 2005 06:11 pm |
|
By no means am I a qualified nutritionist but I have been working out for about 4 years now and I've seen my weight go up and down (not by much mind you). I'm a 20 year old male, 5'8 and I am not overweight but I have been doing a lot of research on fat loss as I am considering amateur bodybuilding in my future.
You're right Peter, as long as you are burning the calories it isn't too important when you do your cardio. But with a deadline like a contest or a beach vacation, you want to be as efficient as possible. Bodybuilders have experimented with everything and the most widely accepted theory in that community is to do cardio first thing in the morning. I've seen transformations of these guys losing 40 lbs in 8-10 weeks. They have really complicated routines to do this involving expensive supplements and carb loading and depletion phases to get the cuts as well as water retention on the last couple days (to get the really hard and cut look).
So I just figure if I apply those principles to my routine (although I don't plan on competing for a while) it should work for me. I started a program 5 weeks ago and I have gone from 182 lbs to 165 lbs and my bench press, squat, military press, pretty much all my weights have gone up so I am gaining muscle mass. I dont take steroids or anything like that, just protein supplements and multi-vitamins. And about 2500 calories per day - 250-300g protein, 250-300g carbs, 20-40g fats (only those occurring naturally in my diet).
But please don't consider any advice I give to be qualified, I am just relaying the research I have done over the past. Thanks!
|
Dave Brown
Senior Member
|
Posted: 18 June 2005 07:23 pm |
|
Hi JeepDriver,
Since you are interested in research on fat loss, I think you might appreciate Covert Bailey's books. There's material in his books about fat metabolism that I haven't seen duplicated anywhere else. Another good source (I'd say the best) is Know Your Fats by Mary G. Enig, PhD. On the net, there's an excellent article about ketogenic diets in The August 2004 issue of Nutrition and Metabolism and an unusually good article discussing Saturated Fats in September 2004 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Dave Brown
|
Current time is 05:28 pm | |
|
