so i started running...

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

one of my friends who works out a lot said if i just did sprints back and forth (maybe 30 yards) i would loose the fat and tone up nicely.

Doing that will make you lose weight, but without proper exercise in the form of weight training, a lot of it will be muscle, not fat. Leaving you a lighter, skinny-fat person with a slow metabolism who can't keep the weight off. I hate saying this in every single topic about weight loss, but it needs to be said. Cardio's great, but if you really want to "tone up" (which is really just low body fat percentage with enough muscle mass to show), then lifting weights will make it a whole hell of a lot easier.

Concentrate on diet first, then weight training, then cardio last. Cardio only creates a small calorie defecit, but it can help to add more flexibility to your diet and is great for overall health. Diet should be where the real calorie deficit comes from.

Any proper exercise routine needs all three - resistance training, cardio training, and proper nutrition. This is well documented, and there's a reason doctors constantly recommend it.

As for sprinting to burn fat - no. Sorry, sprinting (or any exercise bout lasting less than 5 minutes really) does not burn more than a tiny amount of fat for fuel. Metabolism just doesn't work that way. You're primarily using carbs for this type of activity.

 

[Journer]

ok, what you all are saying makes sense. just stuff i've never known.

as far as the diet: it sucks, because honestly, in a normal day, i have no time for breakfast, about 20-30mins to prepare and eat lunch, and if i'm not eating out with friends then that is the only time i can really prepare something healthy. money is also a bit of a factor. raman and rice are cheap as hell. and for the previous poster, i'm sorry, but i cannot bring myself to eat brown rice. i know it is better, but i freaking hate it. i've tried washing it, adding seasonings, etc. i just can't stand it. i would like to try more seafood but it is usually a bit more time consuming to prepare, more expensive, and in general just more difficult. i hate it when meals are not fun, eating should aways be fun and tasty as far as i'm concerned. but i could prolly whip up some chicken quickly like a previous poster said. do you guys recommend any sites on cooking quick, healthy, meals. I'm not a good cook but i can bam things up a little bit and if i know what to buy i can make it.as of now...i've been making the following modifications to my diet:
1) minimalistic sodas and sugar drinks
2) reduce sweet foods to just one dessert per week (a friend of mine does this)
3) try to eat less i suppose, straches, like mashed potatoes, fries, and bread (maybe ill have to go with bun-less burgers :cry; )

anything else you guys recommend that is easy to cut out?

as far as the exercising. i liked the previous posters comments about body workouts like sit ups and whatnot. now, ill be honest, i'm too damn fat to do a pull-up, i dont think i could do one. lol. but i can do push-ups if i have something to hold my feet down. i'll be honest, the main reason i hate lifting weights is because it is impossible to lift weights without a bunch of people around you. I like to exercise alone. I hate it when people run with me at the park, swim together, anything. I just dont like it. it is more of a time where i like to be by myself. I'm also not willing to spend money on weights, so thats kind of out of the questions. My university has a nice ass workout complex but you go in there and everyone in there is buff and knows how to use the equipment. It is kind of discouraging. I have not fucking clue how to use any of it and know nothing about workout ethics (towels, sweat, weight placement, etc.) My apartment complex supposedly has a workout room but i think it is just a treadmill and maybe a spinning bike. I could join a gym and have one of those trainers help, but i dont have the time or money, and it just isnt a big enough deal. So, that being said, is there anything i can do at the park or somewhere by myself? I kind of like the idea of wearing weights while running and what not as i used to do this back in the day when i played soccer, but i don't know if that helps build muscle.

btw, thanks for the help everyone

 

[Journer]

hey, i did that fitday website and this is what i got for todays meals:
totals:
cal: 2522
fat: 84
carb: 349
prot: 94

%ages:
fat: 30
carbs: 54
pro: 15

i also inputted my activities for the day (basically nothing) and it says i'm burning more than 1000 cals compared to what i'm eating


what gives? this is like a normal day for me...actually had some ceral, fast food for lunch, out to eat for dinner...wtf?

 

[KoolDrew]

You need way more protein.

 

[Journer]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
You need way more protein.

how? this is just one day though. i usually eat a lot more red meats and whatnot

 

[apac]

Originally posted by: Journer
ok, what you all are saying makes sense. just stuff i've never known.

<snip>

Hi Journer! I'd like to make a few suggestions, if I may, that would probably help you reach your goals. Mostly since I used to be a lot like you .

- Do your best to be stronger than the self-consciousness of it all. In the end, all it takes is feeling good about yourself to go from dreading the workout schedule to relishing in it. Being the opposite (very skinny and very weak) it took me a LONG time to get to the gym and start lifting. And boy, I agree that it is tough to bench 65 lbs next to guys pushing 150 lbs. It took a bad breakup to realize that I didn't really give a shit as long as I was happy with the improvements.

So ask people at the gym for pointers, if they give you a dirty look then just try someone else, or ask an employee to show you the ropes. In a couple months you'll look back and grin at how silly it was to feel so uncomfortable at the gym.

- Look for results. It's a lot harder to notice improvements without some baseline data, so take a few pictures of yourself now. Even if you don't want to look at them now, stick them in some folder and take a few more every few months. It's amazing how your brain can forget about what you looked like, but self-image improvement is probably the best motivator there is. See the pics in the "Dullard gets into Shape" thread for what I mean.

- Live, breath and eat protein! It's a very healthy, low calorie, high energy food. My roommate just got diagnosed with Type I diabetes a couple months ago so I've been learning all about nutrition. For diabetics protein is nearly a "free" food since it has almost no carbohydrates that spike blood sugar levels. As I understand, the more consistent you keep your blood sugar levels, the less fat is stored. Make sure you're eating lean proteins like chicken, turkey and fish.

- Finally, there's a lot of hard work in keeping your diet healthy and productive. When you say you don't have time, is there a way for you to change your daily routines to accommodate a better diet? "eating should aways be fun and tasty as far as i'm concerned" ...It seems like anyone can always make excuses to not improve your diet. Would it be possible to take whatever you buy for lunch, and eat half at noon and then the rest at 3? Can you eat a banana or apple for breakfast? Can you replace some of those carbs with cheap protein sources, like eggs and tuna, or even chicken?

What I found is that the dietary changes almost immediately gave me more day-to-day energy, better sleep patterns, and actually made me want to get off the couch and do something. In essence, a good workout makes you crave food that replenishes that energy, i.e. proteins and complex carbs, and a healthy diet gives you enough energy to want to hit the gym and get some of that excess energy out of your system. They go hand in hand.

I hope this helps.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

some of you say that cardio makes you loose muscle and fat? how so?

Basically, when dieting your body is going to try and lower energy requirements. Since fat takes very little energy to sustain, that's not the most optimal way to do it. The most optimal is to get rid of muscle mass, as it requires quite a bit of energy to sustain. Lowered muscle mass = lower energy requirements = slower metabolism. Add that to the fact that without weight training, your muscles aren't really being used much, why wouldn't your body get rid of the muscle first? Yes, you need a bit of muscle to get around, but as far as your body is concerned any more than that is unnecessary and just brings energy requirements much higher. So of course your bodys going to want to get rid of it when the supply of energy is lower.

Either way, even with weight training its hard to diet and not lose any muscle mass. However, weight training is important to keep muscle loss to a mininum. I don't care that you don't care how you look. You don't want to be skinny-fat with a slow metabolism, do you? That's why so many people go on diets and run, end up losing weight, but then stop and end up even fatter than they were before.

Cardio won't necessarily make you lose muscle mass. In fact, it will not do so unless you have excess muscle mass to lose in the first place, i.e. you are a body builder or have work ed out a lot in the past. If you have lots of fat to lose it will go and with running your leg and core muscles will strengthen if not increase much in physical size. I took up training for a marathon and ran 600 miles over the summer and lost only a couple of pounds; granted I didn't have much fat to begin with but what there was shaved away and was supplanted by muscle mass leaving only a small net loss.

 

[Wonderful Pork]

Originally posted by: bobsmith1492

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

some of you say that cardio makes you loose muscle and fat? how so?

Basically, when dieting your body is going to try and lower energy requirements. Since fat takes very little energy to sustain, that's not the most optimal way to do it. The most optimal is to get rid of muscle mass, as it requires quite a bit of energy to sustain. Lowered muscle mass = lower energy requirements = slower metabolism. Add that to the fact that without weight training, your muscles aren't really being used much, why wouldn't your body get rid of the muscle first? Yes, you need a bit of muscle to get around, but as far as your body is concerned any more than that is unnecessary and just brings energy requirements much higher. So of course your bodys going to want to get rid of it when the supply of energy is lower.

Either way, even with weight training its hard to diet and not lose any muscle mass. However, weight training is important to keep muscle loss to a mininum. I don't care that you don't care how you look. You don't want to be skinny-fat with a slow metabolism, do you? That's why so many people go on diets and run, end up losing weight, but then stop and end up even fatter than they were before.

Cardio won't necessarily make you lose muscle mass. In fact, it will not do so unless you have excess muscle mass to lose in the first place, i.e. you are a body builder or have work ed out a lot in the past. If you have lots of fat to lose it will go and with running your leg and core muscles will strengthen if not increase much in physical size. I took up training for a marathon and ran 600 miles over the summer and lost only a couple of pounds; granted I didn't have much fat to begin with but what there was shaved away and was supplanted by muscle mass leaving only a small net loss.

I would agree with you, you won't drop muscle mass in most cases. However, since the OP is going to be on a reduced calorie diet it changes the situation.

On a reduced calorie diet the body begins to think its starving (which is why you should have a "overfeed" day once a week atleast) and will do whatever it can to hold onto fat. If you continue to just run, you'll end up burning muscle since the energy will have to come from burning something and the body will hold onto fat for dear life.

Now, if you were training hard enough and ate enough then you could keep the muscle and burn the fat. Again, think of an olympic sprinter versus an olympic marathon runner. The marathon runners are generally very slim, the sprinters are very muscular/defined.

 

[Journer]

wait, so are you saying that if i dont eat ENOUGH during the day ill gain fat and loose muscle? that doesn't make sense...

according to yesterdays fitday results i exerted 1000 more cals than i consumed. today, i'm monitoring everything VERY closely to see how accurate it really is. AFAIK my biggest problem is not enough protein and way too many carbs.

 

[KoolDrew]

wait, so are you saying that if i dont eat ENOUGH during the day ill gain fat and loose muscle? that doesn't make sense...

No, he's saying you're body would rather get rid of muscle than fat. Just lift weights and eat slightly below maintenance and don't worry about it.

 

[Wonderful Pork]

Originally posted by: Journer
wait, so are you saying that if i dont eat ENOUGH during the day ill gain fat and loose muscle? that doesn't make sense...

according to yesterdays fitday results i exerted 1000 more cals than i consumed. today, i'm monitoring everything VERY closely to see how accurate it really is. AFAIK my biggest problem is not enough protein and way too many carbs.

no, i never said you would GAIN fat, I said you would RETAIN (ie not lose) fat.

When the body thinks its starving (which is what happens when you have a caloric deficit) it makes itself as efficient as possible and stores away as much energy as it can as fat. It thinks its starving! It doesn't know when the next food will come (think hunter-gatherer and a drought or something). To survive tomorrow it will store away today.

That said, you want to burn fat immediately. You can't quote me on this, but I believe the body normally goes for energy in the form of glycogen (carbs) then muscle, and THEN fat. You want it to go directly for fat. In order to do this you need to eat ALL the time. The body wont store anything much as fat if it knows its going to be fed again in 3 hours.

Anyway, back to the issue posted, doing even basic resistance training (as mentioned above, bodyweight only is OK to start) will help keep whatever muscle and burn fat. Also, muscle requires calories to survive, so you'll actually burn MORE calories with additional muscle mass. Two 200lb people, 1 at 20% bodyfat, 1 at 10% bodyfat have different maintenance calorie levels.

 

[Journer]

well i watched my food and activities very closely today and this is what fit day says:

intake:
cals: 2090
carbs: 57% , fat: 23%, pro: 21%

burned:
4236 total
basal: 2660
lifestyle: 1160
activities: 416

i dont think this can be right. i just dont see how ive burned twice the amount ive eat...and again, this is a normal day. i think that basal average is off. as far as lifestyle, that was computed by telling the system that my work is mostly sitting all day doing tech support on the phone. anyone have some real ideas on how much i'm burning?

today i worked from 8-5...tech support. i sit on ass and answer phones.
i walked/jogged a bit under 4 miles.
i'm 6'1~2" and weigh around 290

ideas? obviously i need to cut down the carbs a lot. ill start doing some research on that when i'm bored out of my mind at work @_@

 

[Journer]

man, i just took a quick run through the pantry. i cant believe that raman has 26 damn grams of carbs per server. lol...no damn wonder i'm a fatty. looks like i might have to say good bye to my beloveds :'( well, i did manage to find an interesting little snack. pork rinds. i'm sure it isnt too good, but it has no carbs and not too much fat...more protein than anything... thoughts?

 

[KoolDrew]

Personally I'd ignore the the calories burned on fitday. Just use it for tracking calories and macronutrients. The real calorie deficit should be coming from adjusting your diet anyway.

 

[bobsmith1492]

1. I'm sure the base line is way too high - as a tall, skinny guy at 6'1", 160 (before my bike trip anyway) I calculated about 1900 baseline and that's very high. I believe thinner people have higher baseline metabolism rates (someone correct me?) so yours is probably below 2k.

2. There's nothing wrong with carbs. Simple sugars are easily absorbed by your body and help boost your metabolism since the energy is readily available. Then again, fats take more energy to process than carbs but I'm not sure if 100 calories of fat will provide less net energy to your body than 100 calories of carbs. It's really the net calories that are important as long as things are relatively balanced. You don't want to go Atkins, it will just mess your body up until you stop.

3. It's very possible to burn many more calories than you eat on any one day especially if you do some exercise. You'll notice it in the next day or two, though, as increased appetite to replenish energy stores in your liver particularly.

4. 2090 calories is fine for any one day, particularly if you went almost four miles. You're body will have no choice but to trim down if you keep doing that but watch out because I'm sure you'll get pretty hungry the next day or two.

What you need to do is to get your body burning fat away as you exercise as opposed to using stored carbs from your liver. When you move, energy is first used from that stored directly in your muscles, ATP I believe. It runs out after just a few minutes of sustained activity, though. As that depletes, complex carbohydrates stored in your liver start moving through your bloodstream to replenish your muscles. This supply lasts around half an hour if you are running. Then, your body begins to break down fats which takes more energy that you won't be used to expending without practice. Trained runners' bodies can break down fats very easily and use them for energy. One thing you can do to get to that point is to go for longer runs or walks. Walking is fine, too; to get the distance it doesn't particularly matter if you are walking or running as you will use a similar amount of energy. Running is beneficial, though, since it doesn't take as long to go the same distance and your cardiovascular system develops more. It also works different muscles.

Some things to think about, hopefully useful?

 

[Journer]

bob: thanks, very helpful. i'll keep it all in mind.

 

[spamsk8r]

Originally posted by: bobsmith1492
1. I'm sure the base line is way too high - as a tall, skinny guy at 6'1", 160 (before my bike trip anyway) I calculated about 1900 baseline and that's very high. I believe thinner people have higher baseline metabolism rates (someone correct me?) so yours is probably below 2k.

2. There's nothing wrong with carbs. Simple sugars are easily absorbed by your body and help boost your metabolism since the energy is readily available. Then again, fats take more energy to process than carbs but I'm not sure if 100 calories of fat will provide less net energy to your body than 100 calories of carbs. It's really the net calories that are important as long as things are relatively balanced. You don't want to go Atkins, it will just mess your body up until you stop.

3. It's very possible to burn many more calories than you eat on any one day especially if you do some exercise. You'll notice it in the next day or two, though, as increased appetite to replenish energy stores in your liver particularly.

4. 2090 calories is fine for any one day, particularly if you went almost four miles. You're body will have no choice but to trim down if you keep doing that but watch out because I'm sure you'll get pretty hungry the next day or two.

What you need to do is to get your body burning fat away as you exercise as opposed to using stored carbs from your liver. When you move, energy is first used from that stored directly in your muscles, ATP I believe. It runs out after just a few minutes of sustained activity, though. As that depletes, complex carbohydrates stored in your liver start moving through your bloodstream to replenish your muscles. This supply lasts around half an hour if you are running. Then, your body begins to break down fats which takes more energy that you won't be used to expending without practice. Trained runners' bodies can break down fats very easily and use them for energy. One thing you can do to get to that point is to go for longer runs or walks. Walking is fine, too; to get the distance it doesn't particularly matter if you are walking or running as you will use a similar amount of energy. Running is beneficial, though, since it doesn't take as long to go the same distance and your cardiovascular system develops more. It also works different muscles.

Some things to think about, hopefully useful?

I will take issue with point #2. Simple sugars (and other easily digested carbs, such as starch and white rice) cause a wave of insulin to be released by the pancreas, which tells the body "Store this glucose as fat." Complex carbs and fibrous carbs do provoke an insulin response, but it is done more slowly, and thus keeps your body in an energetic state without a hypogycemic crash. Sugar should be limited (optimally it should be cut out completely, but that's a bit much to ask for someone who refuses to even eat brown rice). Also, Atkins (or any ketogenic diet) will not mess you up if you do it correctly. You need to maintain a ketogenic state, though, and that means almost no carbs (less than 20 grams a day is recommended). Once you are in ketosis your body will mobilize fat to be used as energy, so it works very well for cutting. The problem is that it is hard to stick to, and when you start eating a more balanced diet you have to bring the carbs back in gradually. Many people go back to their old diets after they lose a few pounds. How the heck are you supposed to maintain weight loss if you just go back to your old eating habits? That's why people gain the weight back. Plus with keto diets when you add the carbs back in your body will begin to retain more water again, so you'll see an increase in scale weight (but not in actual fat). It's not dangerous to be in a ketogenic state (but it will make you feel unpleasant for the first couple of days until your body goes into gluconeogenesis).