@obsolesce said in Fitness and Weightloss:
@bigbear said in Fitness and Weightloss:
@s-hackleman said in Fitness and Weightloss:
@penguinwrangler As far as weight-loss goes you will typically get better results with weight-loss with strength training than cardio. When you do cardio, you burn more calories than sitting. When you lift weights you burn more calories, then your body will spend more calories rebuilding muscle the next day, then that new muscle now takes more calories to move, so you burn more in your day to day life. I am not saying you don't need cardio, but if your goal is weight loss at least consider doing a mix. I lift 3 days a week and ride my bike 6 miles round trip to and from work for my cardio. I started about where you were and I have slowly worked from 300lbs about 8 years ago down to 185, then back up to 200, and on a cut now to get to the 170's. Weight training is what took me from 220 to 185 and made a huge difference for me.
Also, you can not exercise off a bad diet. an 30min on the treadmill barely breaks even for a single bottle of soda.
This is great advice. I think if more people knew how little running/treadmills/ellipticals did to help you lose weight a lot more people would stick to their program.
Cardio is great for your heart and other things, but getting the fat off is far more important to good health.
If you’ve hit a plateau with weight loss and food I think it’s best to start with modified pushups and squats to get your core muscles built up. Mixing in short cardio (a set of anything as close to a burpee you can pull off at your given weight) with core workouts will help burn fat as well.
I’m a firm believer in a juicy steak once a week as well as monitoring your sugar levels after intro of new foods to your diet when you stall on weight loss. You can lose ALL your weight with diet, if it’s stalled somethings wrong. The core workouts and weight training are going to significantly increase your bodies need to burn fat to sustain muscle.
Yes I've always been saying this, most recently here and here.
It always comes down to proper diet, sleep, and exercise.
For losing weight specifically, it's all about a calorie deficit (technically)... but how you do this is extremely important, because there's so many factors that can make you gain weight or prevent you from losing it directly and indirectly.
- Diet
- Avoid processed foods and drinks
- Avoid added sugars
- Avoid bad carbs (breads, potato, white rice, pastries, cereals, etc)
- Go for unprocessed, more natural foods: (natually a more healthy choice by default)
- walnuts, pecans, peanuts, etc.
- peas, broccoli, spinach, etc.
- avocado, sweet potato / yam, whole oats, etc.
- tuna, salmon, turkey, black beans, etc.
- banana, dates, berries, etc.
- Sleep
- 8.5 hours "in bed"
- 7-8 hours of actual sleeping
- if this is difficult, try "sleep compression"
- Exercise
- Strength Training (muscle, bone, heart, lung health)
- Cardio (heart and lung health)
It's true that you burn more calories just to maintain muscle than it does fat. Ideally your exercise will cause you to burn calories, and gain muscle... therefore losing fat... this is optimal. It will be a combination of strength training and cardio. How you do cardio matters, too. Straight up treadmill or running can be bad for your knees, so perhaps training yourself to "run on yoru toes" with Vibram Five Fingers shoes gradually, will help... or using an Elliptical Trainer. There a many ways to get in some medium to high intensity cardio without killing your knees.
What people often don't realize is that you need to stay away from sugar. Also you need 0 amount of carbs and sugars to survive. Carbs turn into sugar in your body so carbs = sugar, there are things with good carbs, talking in general here. I love peanut butter but I make my own from just peanuts and salt because of how much sugar they add to peanut butter. You do need fats and fats are good. Fats will buffer your blood sugar from spiking. Fiber will too. That is why the sugar in fruit is okay but not in juice. You eat the fruit and get the fiber and that helps keep your blood sugar from spiking too much but if you just do juice there is no fiber in it. I don't count calories or carbs. I eat a reasonably portion meal with healthy foods. No processed crap, no sugar etc. Sugar is addictive. That is why it is in so many processed foods. Keeps you wanting more of it. I am still loosing weight just at a lower rate than I want to. I also want to get some muscle tone back.
