hi and question/help

[thescreensavers]

So I never noticed we had a Health and Fitness forum till now.

So ill start off with a hi. lol



any how since I am already making a post ill ask what I need to ask

I played High School Football this senior year and that's about the first time I ever worked out and ran that much..ect It ended back in Early November and I stopped going to the gym and everything.( I go to LA Fitness if any one wants to know)

I am 6'2 and currently 250 pounds at the start of working out back in May of 08 I was 240 and as soon as Football ended I was 234 ish in November.

Since then I gained more weight then when I started with in May and I want to go back and start loosing some of those pounds, I want to be around 200 pounds how ever fast I can possibly do it in with out killing my self. I know I cant do it in 4 months or so it will have to be much longer thats fine as long as I am heading in that direction I am cool.

I have read the Sticky lots of info there.

When I did go to the gym its usually for an Hour and I do 30 min weight lifting and 30 min cardio.

Weight lifting I do is on machines not free weights. So I do legs one day, then upper body, arms/shoulders on the other days. Then I go and run on a treadmill most of the time but I never pushed my self like I should so it was a bit faster then walking but not fast enough for jogging.

I recently just went to the gym did some leg exercises on the machines then 20 min on an elliptical machine at between 6-8 speed. Then I did 5 min of 5.5 on a treadmill and after about 2 min I kept pushing my self and at 4 min it was getting to be a bit much but I hit 5 min and then slowed down to a easy pace for 30 sec or so then I finished my workout.

I hate half taste food because its low fat or low carb or what not and I hate whole wheat bread most of the time because its usually very dry. I usually go for the normal mayo or normal cream cheese if there's a half fat one next to it.

So theirs my backround

- I want to start seriously trying to loose weight and gain muscle.

- can any one help me on exactly what exercises to do how many reps of what..ect I am probably not doing the right stuff at the gym if someone could help me

- I never took any protein supplements and or any of that stuff

- I am not eating as much as I did before I try to have 3 meals a day if I skip one it would be breakfast. But so far I eat a bagel with cream cheese/scrambled (2)eggs and cheese for breakfast a turkey sandwich with mayo and lettuces and or pasta for lunch. For dinner its home cooking which I am betting is my highest calorie intake of the day.

hope you all can read that and understand it ill try to reexplain anything if needed I just through in alot of info.


thank you for reading and any help I might get!

 

[brikis98]

Seriously, you need to re-read the sticky. Go through it line by line, take notes if you have to. Everyone of your questions is answered there.

 

[conorvansmack]

Is there anyone from football that you could work out with? Having someone there to push you (or for you to push) really helps for accountability.

Scrabbled eggs? Don't you get splinters from the little wooden tiles?

 

[KingGheedora]

Originally posted by: brikis98
Seriously, you need to re-read the sticky. Go through it line by line, take notes if you have to. Everyone of your questions is answered there.

This. Basically, you will pick one of the existing strength training routines, which tell you exactly what exercises, how many reps and sets, etc. You will probably lift 3x times a week, and do cardio 2x a week (look up HIIT).

Change your eating habits. If you aren't willing to give up cream cheese, eat whole wheat, etc, you aren't willing to do what it takes to lose weight. Simple as that. Whole wheat is so much better than white bread, i've been eating it since I was a kid and white bread pretty much is never even an option to me. Even as a kid I thought of it as nutritionless garbage.

I get the sense that you really did not read the sticky. You skimmed over it didn't you? If you had read it you would know that diet is the most important thing you need to tend to, and that you should track what you eat so you know how many calories you are consuming.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: KingGheedora

Change your eating habits. If you aren't willing to give up cream cheese, eat whole wheat, etc, you aren't willing to do what it takes to lose weight. Simple as that. Whole wheat is so much better than white bread, i've been eating it since I was a kid and white bread pretty much is never even an option to me. Even as a kid I thought of it as nutritionless garbage.

Nonsense. "Changing" eating habits has nothing to do with giving up foods. This is precisely the problem with diets in this country, and exactly the reason why diets ALWAYS fail. The key is portion control and moderation. Just like alcoholics are unable to control their consumption of alcohol, people with bad eating habits are unable to control their desire to eat X, Y, or Z "unhealthy" food. Why? More than often, food behaviors are tied up with responses to stress, emotional issues, etc. It's not simply a lack of willpower. And as any parent knows, trying to restrict X only increases X's desirability, and sets up the person for failure. It's basic human nature. Instead, re-evaluating one's relationship with that particular food, becoming cognizant of what role that food serves in a person's life, and better learning to control those impulses (rather than suppress them) as well as indulge in them is the key to changing eating behaviors.

That said, go ahead and eat cream cheese and white bread - but where YOU control the food and the portion sizes, not the other way around. The success of a diet is always contingent on learning to strike a balance (certainly easier said than done). If you are eating 90% of your meals perfectly, there is no problem with going out and eating a cheeseburger. For example, I just went out and had three beers and a skirt steak sandwich with fries. Calorific? You betcha. Probably about 1,000 calories, give or take. However, I generally eat about 80% of my meals vegetarian or vegetable-centric. Ergo, the beer and the skirt steak sandwich, as somewhat of an anomaly (maybe once a week or two?) they don't really matter in the big picture.

Besides, why give up cream cheese? Lox, cream cheese and a bagel is delicious, and there is nothing wrong with indulging in such pleasures. Have you ever had fat-free cream cheese, low-fat cheese, or low-fat dressing? It's disgusting. If you are going to eat something, you might as well make it worthwhile. Otherwise, what's the point? Once again, balance, balance, balance. Sometimes I worry that nutrition-focused are too fixated on nutrients to think about the cultural, emotional, and biological aspects.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Kipper
Nonsense. "Changing" eating habits has nothing to do with giving up foods. This is precisely the problem with diets in this country, and exactly the reason why diets ALWAYS fail. The key is portion control and moderation.

I agree with a lot of your post, but not the part in bold. Yes, moderation and portion control - that is, the quantity of food eaten - is an important part of the diet. But so is the type of food eaten. There are just some foods most humans should not be eating. For example, some obvious ones are things like trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils. However, many people would significantly benefit by avoiding highly processed products and sticking with whole foods instead. Even if the average person doesn't make a conscious efforts to modify their caloric intake, but simply modifies the source of calories - for example, by eating only whole foods - I'd wager the health benefits (including weight loss) would be enormous. In fact, often modifying the type of food will lead to a spontaneous change in the quantity people eat (as in this study). The CF message boards have a good discussion on this topic in the thread Paleo prevents Western Diseases?. It's long, but a good read.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: brikis98

I agree with a lot of your post, but not the part in bold. Yes, moderation and portion control - that is, the quantity of food eaten - is an important part of the diet. But so is the type of food eaten. There are just some foods most humans should not be eating. For example, some obvious ones are things like trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils. However, many people would significantly benefit by avoiding highly processed products and sticking with whole foods instead. Even if the average person doesn't make a conscious efforts to modify their caloric intake, but simply modifies the source of calories - for example, by eating only whole foods - I'd wager the health benefits (including weight loss) would be enormous. In fact, often modifying the type of food will lead to a spontaneous change in the quantity people eat (as in this study). The CF message boards have a good discussion on this topic in the thread Paleo prevents Western Diseases?. It's long, but a good read.

You're living a pipe dream. There's the ideal la-la land world, where people would eat nothing but kale, brown rice, and salmon, and then there is reality: where people are going to eat unhealthier processed foods. Believe me, I deal with these very people on a regular basis. Once again, I'm going to go back to the key concept of learning to control intake. This is the key - not abandoning foods entirely and "going on a diet." A trans-fat heavy processed food, if it happens to be among your favorites, is not going to kill you if you are able to control the intake. Nutritionists eat cheeseburgers, doughnuts, ice cream, and cannolis, too.

I realize we're arguing semantics here you really do not need to give up foods if you're changing eating habits. You just have to learn to manage them as part of your diet. Easier said than done, but it's far easier than: "Well, I can never eat [insert food here] again."

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Kipper
You're living a pipe dream. There's the ideal la-la land world, where people would eat nothing but kale, brown rice, and salmon, and then there is reality: where people are going to eat unhealthier processed foods. Believe me, I deal with these very people on a regular basis. Once again, I'm going to go back to the key concept of learning to control intake.

Well, given that 1/3 of the country is obese, and this number is climbing at an alarming rate, I think it's you who is living the pipe dream. Most people are UNABLE to successfully restrict their caloric intake to lose weight and maintain it. Is it because they are weak willed? After millions of years of living fairly obesity free, did people suddenly lose all will power in the 1980's, when the rates of obesity started to grow suddenly? Not likely.

The type of food we eat has changed and the result is that people eat more. There are numerous theories of why this happened. For example, the "carbohydrate hypothesis" argues that eating a ton of highly processed carbs causes various hormonal imbalances (especially with glucose) that lead to increased hunger and ultimately, an increased caloric intake. The "fat hypothesis" is based around the fact that fat is very calorie dense and makes it easy to overeat. Whatever the real explanation is, the key point is that it's the type of food we eat that has ruined our ability to control intake and not some psychological/behavioral problem that suddenly appeared in the 80's. If we only try to limit caloric intake, we are ignoring the cause of overeating in the first place, and are gauranteed to fail. The last 30 years of growing waistlines and numerous diet studies have been a testament to this.

Originally posted by: Kipper
This is the key - not abandoning foods entirely and "going on a diet."

I'm not talking about a fad, short term crash diet that you do briefly and then go back to your old eating habits. Obviously, that won't work. I'm talking about a permanent lifestyle change that involves a commitment to eating more whole foods and less processed foods. Yes, this means abandoning certain foods entirely. The vast majority of people, for example, would benefit from abandoning white bread for whole grain bread, white rice for brown rice, fruit loops for oatmeal, and so on. I'd bet that the health improvements from these types of changes would be much more significant, and much more maintainable, than from simply trying to limit calories and artificially impose portion control.

Originally posted by: Kipper
A trans-fat heavy processed food, if it happens to be among your favorites, is not going to kill you if you are able to control the intake. Nutritionists eat cheeseburgers, doughnuts, ice cream, and cannolis, too.

If your diet is solid 90% of the time, the other 10% of the time aren't going to be much of a problem. However, for most people the proportions are flipped: they are eating cheeseburgers, doughnuts, ice cream and cannolis 90% of the time and fruits and veggies only 10% of the time.

Originally posted by: Kipper
I realize we're arguing semantics here you really do not need to give up foods if you're changing eating habits. You just have to learn to manage them as part of your diet. Easier said than done, but it's far easier than: "Well, I can never eat [insert food here] again."

We're not arguing semantics, we're arguing the very core of the issue. Simply telling people to "eat less" has failed miserably. And it will continue to do so until we find the reason people eat more to begin with. Now don't think I'm blindly preaching: I used to think the same way as you, assuming that caloric intake was really all that mattered. Unfortunately, the situation is a lot more complicated than that and the type of calories cannot be ignored. Please take the time to read the articles: What if it's all been a big fat lie? by Gary Taubes and Unhappy Meals by Michael Pollan. They are very well written and researched articles that do a much better job than I ever could of explaining that what you eat is just as important as how much you eat. If you like those, also consider picking up the books "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and "In Defense of Food" by the same two authors, respectively.

 

[gramboh]

I'm with brikis here, it's not that hard to eat whole foods and avoid processed crap. I'm nowhere near perfect, but my GF and I only eat whole foods at home, we do go out and you can't avoid eating junk once in a while and that is fine, but everyone should be striving toward eating only whole foods mostly prepared by themselves. No one is perfect, but people should strive to, it's so important for a healthy functioning body throughout your life.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: gramboh
I'm with brikis here, it's not that hard to eat whole foods and avoid processed crap. I'm nowhere near perfect, but my GF and I only eat whole foods at home, we do go out and you can't avoid eating junk once in a while and that is fine, but everyone should be striving toward eating only whole foods mostly prepared by themselves. No one is perfect, but people should strive to, it's so important for a healthy functioning body throughout your life.

Oh PLEASE don't get me started. This "eating whole foods is easier" nonsense oversimplifies the issue entirely. If it was that easy, everybody would do it. The fact remains that a variety of factors, least of all which does not include cost, familiarity, cultural appropriateness, other prevailing concerns, and definitely not least of all education, contribute to unhealthy eating. While I cannot say for certain how to fix this problem (I don't think anybody has the magic bullet answer - partially because there is none) I do know that it is not a matter of "simply" eating heathy like many people make it out to be.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Well, given that 1/3 of the country is obese, and this number is climbing at an alarming rate, I think it's you who is living the pipe dream. Most people are UNABLE to successfully restrict their caloric intake to lose weight and maintain it. Is it because they are weak willed? After millions of years of living fairly obesity free, did people suddenly lose all will power in the 1980's, when the rates of obesity started to grow suddenly? Not likely. [/b]

I don't think you have quite understood my posts and we are arguing in circles here because you're misunderstanding exactly what I'm saying. We essentially agree. The last post I wrote was essentially arguing that your idea that abandoning consumption of certain foods is likely to lead to failure - based on a simple assessment of human nature. Nothing more. Unfortunately, I appear to have caused you for some reason to go off on a completely unrelated rant. Obviously, basic foods need to be part of the solution. However, the point remains that expecting a sudden en-masse shift to whole foods and a complete abandonment of junk food is unrealistic, especially in a generation which has grown up eating junk food and fast food. Nor is it realistic to expect people to completely, 100%, permanently abstain from processed foods. I am a firm believer that we have to work with what we have, and yes, that includes Doritos and Cheeze-its - like it or not. Obviously, more basic foodstuffs are part of this repertoire.

The type of food we eat has changed and the result is that people eat more. There are numerous theories of why this happened. For example, the "carbohydrate hypothesis" argues that eating a ton of highly processed carbs causes various hormonal imbalances (especially with glucose) that lead to increased hunger and ultimately, an increased caloric intake. The "fat hypothesis" is based around the fact that fat is very calorie dense and makes it easy to overeat. Whatever the real explanation is, the key point is that it's the type of food we eat that has ruined our ability to control intake and not some psychological/behavioral problem that suddenly appeared in the 80's. If we only try to limit caloric intake, we are ignoring the cause of overeating in the first place, and are gauranteed to fail. The last 30 years of growing waistlines and numerous diet studies have been a testament to this.

I NEVER said that a psychological issue was the underlying etiology of obesity - wherever did you get that idea? For crying out loud, I'm not an idiot. 2/3rds of the American population has not suddenly come under a psychological malaise. What I HAVE said is that psychological and/or sociological issues have always and will always underlie consumption of food (obviously). In other words, they contribute to the problem. For example, people eat to relieve psychological stress. When a cornucopia of calorie-dense food is readily available, this obviously sets up people to gain weight. Part of the solution is to learn to moderate intake, either by re-evaluating the person's relationship with food, combined with some education, media literacy, and amelioration of other problematic stressors in the person's life.

[/quote]
I'm not talking about a fad, short term crash diet that you do briefly and then go back to your old eating habits. Obviously, that won't work. I'm talking about a permanent lifestyle change that involves a commitment to eating more whole foods and less processed foods. Yes, this means abandoning certain foods entirely. The vast majority of people, for example, would benefit from abandoning white bread for whole grain bread, white rice for brown rice, fruit loops for oatmeal, and so on. I'd bet that the health improvements from these types of changes would be much more significant, and much more maintainable, than from simply trying to limit calories and artificially impose portion control.[/quote]

Whaddaya know, we both agree (again). I have never disagreed with the whole foods-based diet. However, it's an incredibly tough shift to make and a shift that is made all the more harder if you choose to completely abandon certain foods. It is no more a "cure" for a person to become so obsessive over eating healthy that they strike any perceived "unhealthy" food from their diet. This health obsession is as dysfunctional a relationship with food than loading up your plate with processed foods. Like I said before, balance, balance, balance.

If your diet is solid 90% of the time, the other 10% of the time aren't going to be much of a problem. However, for most people the proportions are flipped: they are eating cheeseburgers, doughnuts, ice cream and cannolis 90% of the time and fruits and veggies only 10% of the time.

Obviously. So, as I've said (again), the key is to learn to strike a balance between the two. We agree. What is with the disagreement?

We're not arguing semantics, we're arguing the very core of the issue. Simply telling people to "eat less" has failed miserably. And it will continue to do so until we find the reason people eat more to begin with. Now don't think I'm blindly preaching: I used to think the same way as you, assuming that caloric intake was really all that mattered. Unfortunately, the situation is a lot more complicated than that and the type of calories cannot be ignored. Please take the time to read the articles: What if it's all been a big fat lie? by Gary Taubes and Unhappy Meals by Michael Pollan. They are very well written and researched articles that do a much better job than I ever could of explaining that what you eat is just as important as how much you eat. If you like those, also consider picking up the books "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and "In Defense of Food" by the same two authors, respectively.

We ARE arguing semantics. You think that "eating healthy" means to strike all "unhealthy" foods from the diet and I think it means to essentially draw a balance between the "healthy and unhealthy". We essentially agree. I've never said that we need to just tell people to eat less and leave it at that. Obviously, it's failed. We have been telling people to stop smoking and using drugs for the past two generations and go figure, people still smoke and use drugs. Even the smartest, most knowledgeable people smoke/used to smoke (e.g. physicians, the President). If you implied that was what I meant by "strike a balance," I'm afraid you are mistaken. There are MANY ways to learn to strike this balance, some methods will work for others and others will not. For some, it's a simple matter of correcting a knowledge deficit. For others, like the obese teens I work with on a weekly basis, it's a more complicated beast - and the odds that everybody will go from a processed-food-eating couch potato to a fitness buff consuming nothing but whole foods is just that - a pipe dream. At the very least, I do not expect that we will experience such a broad shift in the opposite direction in my lifetime.

Incidentally, Marion Nestle's Food Politics, What to Eat and a number of other books (Kelly Brownell's Food Fight, Michelle Simon's Appetite for Profit) are related to the rise of obesity and cheap processed foods.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Kipper
Oh PLEASE don't get me started. This "eating whole foods is easier" nonsense oversimplifies the issue entirely. If it was that easy, everybody would do it. The fact remains that a variety of factors, least of all which does not include cost, familiarity, cultural appropriateness, other prevailing concerns, and definitely not least of all education, contribute to unhealthy eating. While I cannot say for certain how to fix this problem (I don't think anybody has the magic bullet answer - partially because there is none) I do know that it is not a matter of "simply" eating heathy like many people make it out to be.

No one said that eating healthy would be easy. There is no question that our economy is setup to make the most highly processed (and least healthy) foods the cheapest. The lack of education, the amount of misinformation out there, and cultural issues are certainly problematic too. But if getting healthy is really the desire, then these are just excuses. People love to jump up and down and talk about how "it's hard", but that's not because it's the wrong approach, but rather that real life isn't easy.

Originally posted by: Kipper
I don't think you have quite understood my posts and we are arguing in circles here because you're misunderstanding exactly what I'm saying. We essentially agree. The last post I wrote was essentially arguing that your idea that abandoning consumption of certain foods is likely to lead to failure - based on a simple assessment of human nature. Nothing more. Unfortunately, I appear to have caused you for some reason to go off on a completely unrelated rant.

Although we agree on a lot of points, you seem to be of the opinion that the key is "learning to control intake" and "portion control". Now, perhaps I'm misinterpreting you, but to me this sounds like you are arguing that the key is to teach people to "eat less". This is my central disagreement with you: as I explained in the previous post, simply saying "eat less" is ignoring the cause of overeating and therefore doomed to failure. Of course, if you mean something totally different by "learning to control intake", then I apologize and hope you can clarify.

Originally posted by: Kipper
However, the point remains that expecting a sudden en-masse shift to whole foods and a complete abandonment of junk food is unrealistic, especially in a generation which has grown up eating junk food and fast food. Nor is it realistic to expect people to completely, 100%, permanently abstain from processed foods. I am a firm believer that we have to work with what we have, and yes, that includes Doritos and Cheeze-its - like it or not. Obviously, more basic foodstuffs are part of this repertoire.

Virtually every culture that has adopted the western diet almost immediately develops all the symptoms of "syndrome X": obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc. Scientists, unfortunately, don't know the exact reason the western diet causes these diseases, but there is no question that it does. And until the researchers can come up with an exact solution - which is not likely to happen for a LONG time given how complicated and difficult diet research is - the only solution that will truly work long term is to abandon the western diet. It may not be realistic for everyone, especially the poor, but it is definitely something everyone can work towards. The explosion of CSA's, farmers markets and similar ventures in the last few years are a testament to the fact that people are certainly trying. And again, avoiding this as a solution because "it's hard" is nothing more than an excuse for most people.

Originally posted by: Kipper
What I HAVE said is that psychological and/or sociological issues have always and will always underlie consumption of food (obviously). In other words, they contribute to the problem. For example, people eat to relieve psychological stress. When a cornucopia of calorie-dense food is readily available, this obviously sets up people to gain weight. Part of the solution is to learn to moderate intake, either by re-evaluating the person's relationship with food, combined with some education, media literacy, and amelioration of other problematic stressors in the person's life.

People have always had psychological stress. But this obesity epidemic is a recent thing. This suggests that some other factor - namely, the type of food available - is the actual cause of obesity and not the stress itself. If we want to solve this epidemic, then our efforts are much better spent dealing with the actual cause than the various symptoms that spring up around it.

Originally posted by: Kipper
However, it's an incredibly tough shift to make and a shift that is made all the more harder if you choose to completely abandon certain foods. It is no more a "cure" for a person to become so obsessive over eating healthy that they strike any perceived "unhealthy" food from their diet. This health obsession is as dysfunctional a relationship with food than loading up your plate with processed foods. Like I said before, balance, balance, balance.

Tons of people have done it. Look up the paleo diet (aka caveman/primal diet) and its numerous followers. Moreover, trying to eat whole foods and avoiding processed foods doesn't seem dysfunctional to me. It's no more dysfunctional than anything else we do to try to improve our health, such as trying to exercise instead of being sedentary. In fact, it's no more dysfunctional than trying to implement your "portion control" suggestion. However, IMO, it's far more likely to succeed. Obviously, if you actually become obsessed with it, you may have issues, but that's true of any obsession (including people obsessed w/ portion control).

 

[thescreensavers]

Originally posted by: Kipper


Besides, why give up cream cheese? Lox, cream cheese and a bagel is delicious, and there is nothing wrong with indulging in such pleasures. Have you ever had fat-free cream cheese, low-fat cheese, or low-fat dressing? It's disgusting. If you are going to eat something, you might as well make it worthwhile. Otherwise, what's the point? Once again, balance, balance, balance. Sometimes I worry that nutrition-focused are too fixated on nutrients to think about the cultural, emotional, and biological aspects.

Thats my logic exactly!




and lots of arguing hehe, any how I am trying to limit portions and I don't really eat fast food. I eat Kosher in and out of my house , I am kosher to a point were I only eat dairy and veggies out. So I cant eat big macs but I could eat the french fires and shakes if I wanted to. The only thing I eat at fast food type place now would be Subway but I can only order tuna there. I been at the exact same weight for a good while now so I don't think I am overeating or eating that many bad foods, I could be wrong.

I have re read the sticky and I want to try HIIT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...sity_interval_training

Begin with a five minute warm up jog at about a 4-5 followed by a couple of minutes of stretching

Then start with a jog at about a 5-6 intensity level for 60 seconds and then sprint at an 8-9 intensity level for 30 seconds

Repeat this cycle 6-8 times depending on how fit you are

Any how I guess I could do this in the AM and go lift after school. My only question is what if after the first full speed sprint of 30 sec I need to slow down even slower then the medium speed jog? Should I walk till I am ok to go again or is this work out to intense for me? I am going to try it out tomorrow 6 cycles, I might do only 3 but ill see how I do.