Losing Weight

[kisada]

first and probably easiest thing you wanna do is drop all sugars from your diet. sugar absolutely kills your metabolism.

next hardest thing is staying away from fast food and plugging in stuff that's good for you. take the time to go grocery shopping and just buy decent stuff to eat. if you know how to cook fish or chicken, it makes it even easier. stay away from high carb stuff if you can (see if you can limit yourself to less than 100 grams a day).

probably the most difficult (at least for me) is maintaining exercise habits. i don't mind it but it's difficult for me to keep up a schedule cause i'm lazy or stuff gets in the way. still, even if you can only do some moderate cardio once a week, that's enough to get you started.

personally i think the sugar thing is the easiest, and once i stopped drinking tons of soda, my metabolism sped back up and i didn't have to do too much exercise, to be honest.

other than that, my main problem was just eating way too much in single sittings. i'm the kind of guy who lives to eat, so once i decided to slim down, portioning was my real obstacle. instead of eating a full foot long sub, bag of chips and drink in one sitting, i spread it out over the course of the day. if you got something big to eat, saw it in half and space it out over time. i still love to pig out on good food, but i just have a much bigger desire to stay away from my post-high school weight. i leave eat-fests for the occasion and that's about it.

[Saga]

Is there another marathon in Nashville coming up? I might be interested in running it with you. I don't have any damn running partners around here, and running by yourself is a god damned mental pain in the ass. Anywho...

I run about 25 or so miles a week. Usually something like Monday - 4miles, Tuesday - Hill training, Wednesday - 6 miles, Thursday - 5 miles, Friday - off, Saturday 10-12 miles, Sunday - off. Been keeping this rotation ever since the the doctor released me from being a high risk heart attack victim (wasn't a health issue, but a viral issue). My metabolism stays really high.

Edit: I eat whatever I want as well. Summary, run a marathon.

Editx2: 6'0 140ish pounds depending on the day.

Editx3 There's the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon in Nashville in November, but it's full That course sounds brutal. It would be fun.

seriously, training for marathons, even half-marathons, is the best. i have a half coming up in October and i have really big breakfasts usually - big bowl of cereal, scrambled eggs, a bagel, potatoes, pineapple, sometimes sausage, etc. i'll snack on pretzels, chips or popcorn during the day sometimes but it's usually fine because i know im going to use all of that up as energy later.

but seriously, weight loss is all calories in and calories out. eat less, exercise more, and eat five or six small meals a day to keep your metabolism up. you can lift, but do it after cardio. and make sure when you work out you're doing at least 45 minutes at a time. it takes 30 minutes of constant activity for the body to burn through carbs and protein, then after that point is when fat burning starts. if you just hop on a stairmaster for 30 minutes you didn't do shit except use up all the energy you had for that day.

that's why you hear a lot of talk about long-distance runners being "efficient" fat-burners - they're keeping their heart rate up consistently for a couple hours or more at a time and they've trained to increase that threshold more and more, so once they have to dip into those fat stores during a run they've grown extremely efficient at using that fat as energy.

[archibaldcrane]

but seriously, weight loss is all calories in and calories out. eat less, exercise more, and eat five or six small meals a day to keep your metabolism up. you can lift, but do it after cardio. and make sure when you work out you're doing at least 45 minutes at a time.

This.

I pretty much do:
4oz meat (steak, chicken or fish) + dark green vegetable
Run 1.5 miles, lift weights (broken into 3 body groups, rotating) and drink a 300 cal protein shake. I do about 3g of creatine right before and right after workout.
6 inch Subway tuna on wheat, tons of veggies and mustard.
2nd shake.
4oz meat + dark green vegetable for dinner.

I don't let this interfere with going out or whatever, when I'm out with friends I eat/drink whatever I want. I'm 5'10.5, 172, 13% body fat. Trying to get down to 165/10% by Thanksgiving - 10-year high school reunion.

[Atreides]

You can watch what you eat/diet and still eat unhealthy stuff, just don't eat as much of it. Have 2 oreos instead of a sleeve. Have a few doritos instead of the whole bag. "Unhealthy" food is only unhealthy when you eat too much of it or too often.

For me, cutting out soda/chips/sweets helped a lot. Some healthy snacks:
-Raw almonds, sunflower seeds
-Dried cranberries (cheap at trader joes)
-Frosted mini-wheats (they have added sugar, just dont eat a lot of them)
-Dark chocolate (be careful how much you eat, not a whole bar)
-Peanut butter (a spoonful, reduced fat PB tastes kinda shitty)
-Baby carrots, red pepper
-Hummus (goes great with carrots)
-Frozen juice (martinelli's 100% organic apple juice tastes amazing)
-Canteloupe, grapes, pineapple, or other fresh fruit

Trader joes is a great place to shop if you're looking for healthy food options that taste good and don't cost a lot. Just be careful of their frozen foods, a lot of them have a LOT of salt (which isn't necessarily bad, unless you're prone to high blood pressure/hypertension)

Oh and make sure you drink lots of water, especially before/during your meals.

[EndgameDrama]

start Running
here are 3 rules
-run slower then you think you should be
-run a shorter distance then you think you should be
-run MORE often then you think you should be

i lost 40 pounds over a summer when i took up running. i eat several meals a day, just know your boundaries. don't eat until you are absolutely full and cant have another bite, realize that this is enough for you to be satisfied for a few hours and continue doing what you do.

as for having a gym membership, that is like the fast forward button to losing weight.

to burn fat, do several high rep low weight work outs. dont worry about using the tredmill at the gym, just run outside.


i almost forgot. before you run weigh yourself, make sure that after you are done running, you drink enough water to acompensate for all the sweat you lost. it is IMPORTANT to stay hydrated.


-run
-high rep low weight workouts
-stay hydrated
-eat several small meals a day


i take 4 shits a day! im as healthy as a lion!

use the ammount of boul movements you take a day to measure how healthy you are!

[EndgameDrama]

This.

I pretty much do:
4oz meat (steak, chicken or fish) + dark green vegetable
Run 1.5 miles, lift weights (broken into 3 body groups, rotating) and drink a 300 cal protein shake. I do about 3g of creatine right before and right after workout.
6 inch Subway tuna on wheat, tons of veggies and mustard.
2nd shake.
4oz meat + dark green vegetable for dinner.

I don't let this interfere with going out or whatever, when I'm out with friends I eat/drink whatever I want. I'm 5'10.5, 172, 13% body fat. Trying to get down to 165/10% by Thanksgiving - 10-year high school reunion.

stop taking creatine this instance.

[Leeto]

I moved to college a month ago and am now noticably skinnier...I pretty much lost my appetite when I came here. I eat like 1.5 meals a day (pretty small ones), and sometimes a snack or something late at night, and I walk probably about a mile a day just going to classes and back from my dorm. I don't know how my appetite just died though, it really kinda sucks D;

[TheKobainGuitr]

Weight lifting can actually help lose weight (well, fat anyways), true you gain muscle mass and on the scale, ur number may inscrease, but even then, muscle burns more calories when you are doing simple things like walking, or even sitting down, as opposed to someone who does not have muscles. Building muscle around the chest area can even help people who snore, lol, i just found this out for myself not that long ago when I went in for a check up since i'm diabetic. I used to snore a lot all night, then i started lifting weights and the snoring has completely stopped and the DR informed me it was cause of the muscles building in my chest area help the lungs.

[netz]

stop taking creatine this instance.

You mean "instant", of course, but it also helps to qualify what you say with an explanation.

I moved to college a month ago and am now noticably skinnier...I pretty much lost my appetite when I came here. I eat like 1.5 meals a day (pretty small ones), and sometimes a snack or something late at night, and I walk probably about a mile a day just going to classes and back from my dorm. I don't know how my appetite just died though, it really kinda sucks D;

Ehh, keep an eye out for problems that might stem from eating poorly. The most noticeable will be a complete lack of energy; after that, I'd say you might be slightly more susceptible to illness, and at the most extreme, depression (I imagine chemical balance in the brain is thrown off with no new materials from which to synthesize hormones, but I could be spouting BS here.)

[Lordender]

To start the first thing you need to do is get off white-bread, white rice, white-noodles, banana's and change to wheat-bread, brown rice, wheat noodles. All of those mentioned will break down into pure sugar into your system.

Plums can replace banana's and more healthy. Do not be fooled by thinking you can hit up mcdonalds for a low calorie chicken sandwitch or chicken salad as they have more fat than the hamburgers.

Stay away from cole-slaw, potatoe salad, the mayo will kill you and switch from regular potatoes to sweet potatoes as regular potatoes will become pure sugar.

[Saga]

Weight lifting can actually help lose weight (well, fat anyways), true you gain muscle mass and on the scale, ur number may inscrease, but even then, muscle burns more calories when you are doing simple things like walking, or even sitting down, as opposed to someone who does not have muscles. Building muscle around the chest area can even help people who snore, lol, i just found this out for myself not that long ago when I went in for a check up since i'm diabetic. I used to snore a lot all night, then i started lifting weights and the snoring has completely stopped and the DR informed me it was cause of the muscles building in my chest area help the lungs.

weight lifting is great, and i do circuit workouts a couple times a week for crosstraining, but for losing weight i would not recommend trying to weight lift as a way to lose weight. include it in your workout, sure, but your main focus is cardio. up until a certain point, you run the risk of building muscle under your body fat which only makes you look more fat. i'd say when you've trimmed down to within 10 lbs of your goal weight, go ahead and start lifting and building muscle mass.

it's incredibly difficult (and inefficient) to try and lose weight while building muscle. but if you wait until you just have a bit of fat left wherever, go ahead and start working out a lifting routine for yourself. everything kobain said is correct about muscle burning more calories, etc, and that'll come with time, just wait further down the line to do it. good luck!

[EndgameDrama]

You mean "instant", of course, but it also helps to qualify what you say with an explanation.

creatine increases the risk of cancer.

[Saga]

what doesnt nowadays

[archibaldcrane]

creatine increases the risk of cancer.

Way to link to your findings. I see one french study that suggests this link, and that's about it.

Creatine is a naturally occurring substance in everyone's muscles anyway.

[guartz]

play everquest 2 on a shitty computer.

do push ups/sit ups everytime you zone.

rockstar abbs guaranteed.

[Stu]

Way to link to your findings. I see one french study that suggests this link, and that's about it.

Creatine is a naturally occurring substance in everyone's muscles anyway.

from what i've heard, if you consistently take creatine, your body won't naturally produce it's own creatine and become dependent on it. hopefully you're not doing that cause it kinds of sounds like you are from your first post :F

[Kohan]

Way to link to your findings. I see one french study that suggests this link, and that's about it.

Creatine is a naturally occurring substance in everyone's muscles anyway.

I don't know anything about this subject at all, and am not really concerned about it since I never paid attention to creatine before this discussion. However, I found some info on the supposedly negative parts pretty easily.

http://www.hopkinshospital.org/healt...enhancers.html

http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/creatine.html

Impurities are present in virtually every manufactured product, and in some cases, even though the product may be considered harmless, the impurity is not. Such was the case in the late 1980's when an epidemic of cases of eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome, including over 30 deaths, were blamed on a contaminant present in L-tryptophan (9), an amino acid supplement widely taken as a sleep aid. Creatine, and other such supplements, are not regulated by the FDA. No published investigation has been conducted on creatine to determine what impurities might be present in creatine supplements, and what their long term effect might be.

The bottom line is that no one can confidently state that prolonged creatine supplementation is safe, and its use would best be avoided until more data can be compiled. Prolonged administration is, in essence, an uncontrolled toxicity study and one which might yield harmful results. Is it worth the risk? Remember, it's your body!

Of course, the articles on Wikipedia go into the benefits and articles which highlight those positives. So, there's argument on both sides. Personally, I'd veer on the side of caution since it is not necessary.

[Serif]

I never really trained with supplements . I did for a while back in High School, coach thought I needed to gain some weight. Don't really recommend creatine though.

seriously, training for marathons, even half-marathons, is the best. i have a half coming up in October and i have really big breakfasts usually - big bowl of cereal, scrambled eggs, a bagel, potatoes, pineapple, sometimes sausage, etc. i'll snack on pretzels, chips or popcorn during the day sometimes but it's usually fine because i know im going to use all of that up as energy later.

but seriously, weight loss is all calories in and calories out. eat less, exercise more, and eat five or six small meals a day to keep your metabolism up. you can lift, but do it after cardio. and make sure when you work out you're doing at least 45 minutes at a time. it takes 30 minutes of constant activity for the body to burn through carbs and protein, then after that point is when fat burning starts. if you just hop on a stairmaster for 30 minutes you didn't do shit except use up all the energy you had for that day.

that's why you hear a lot of talk about long-distance runners being "efficient" fat-burners - they're keeping their heart rate up consistently for a couple hours or more at a time and they've trained to increase that threshold more and more, so once they have to dip into those fat stores during a run they've grown extremely efficient at using that fat as energy.

While I do agree with the efficient fat burners, most of the time when running long distances you are sustained, energy wise, by your intake of Gu or an Electrolyte drink/pill. Which they give you calories/carbs/potassium/sodium but overall you are burning a lot of fat. Even though every runner knows when he or she goes from burning carbs to fat and they should realize to replenish their carb intake before this happens. Unless you are just going on a fat burning run but I never really been a fan of that, I naturally burn fat just by running on carbs alone.

[chardero]

Holy shit I just want to go and pop fucking pills all day!

[Sepukku]

Small shit like taking the stairs instead of riding the escalator or elevator helps, believe it or not, lol.

This is probably the best "effort to return ratio" advice that can be given. Its so simple. It takes like 30 extra seconds and it helps sooooooooooooo much. I can count on one hand how many times I've taken an elevator in the past 3 years. Even if its multiple floors, just walk em. Unless you're on like the 78th floor of a skyscraper. I just walked from the 1st to the 4th floor of a building and back down again 2 weeks ago. Was nothing. Half the time, depending on what the wait would be for the elevator, you can even save time by taking the stairs.