Chit Chat
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Hi all,
I'm hoping that someone on here that's into fitness / nutrition will be able to give me some advice. I've got conflicting advice from mates and the internet is full of confusion and adverts.
About me
I'm 40 years old, 15 stone 1 pound (so about 96kg).
I've been slightly overweight for about 10 years but this is the heaviest I've been.
I want to lose weight and get fit for all the usual reasons - health, self-confidence etc.
I drink too much (binge drinking a couple of times a week, always lager) but love it and it sort of goes with my job
I veer from eating reasonably well to eating rubbish. I definitely eat too much white food and love bread. Eat WAY too much cheese.
I'm ALWAYS dehydrated - just never seem to be thirsty though.
Despite this I've always been reasonably fit. Play squash to quite a high level and go to the gym (although in bursts - tend to be all or nothing). However I'm starting to feel pretty unfit now and feel "heavy"
What I want
I dont want to do anything drastic! Not aiming for a six-pack. Just want to get a little bit healthier and drop a decent amount of weight. Something like 20-25 pounds.
What I'm doing
Cut right down on white bread. Just have a few slices at the weekend.
Trying to cut down on bread / carbs generally. I have low-fat soup or salad for lunch during the week. Weekends are back to normal (ie bad eating) though. Trying to cut right down on cheese.
Now, this is the bit i'd really like some advice on.... I'm going to the gym 3 times a week now. Monday is 1 hour of competitive squash. All cardio. On the other 2 days I do 60-75 mins on the machines. 15-20 mins of cardio to get my heart rate up to c. 130bpm. Then so-called "Fat Burn" work-outs on the running machine / bike, designed to keep my heart rate at a reasonably high level. Mix in some light weight lifting (12kg dumbells in each hand) and a hard 8 minute rowing machine session if i fancy it.
I don't know if i'm wasting time and energy in the gym. I'd rather play more sport but not sure if that's a less effective way of losing the weight.
Thanks for anyone that's bothered to read all this and can respond with any advice. It would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Yeasty
I'm hoping that someone on here that's into fitness / nutrition will be able to give me some advice. I've got conflicting advice from mates and the internet is full of confusion and adverts.
About me
I'm 40 years old, 15 stone 1 pound (so about 96kg).
I've been slightly overweight for about 10 years but this is the heaviest I've been.
I want to lose weight and get fit for all the usual reasons - health, self-confidence etc.
I drink too much (binge drinking a couple of times a week, always lager) but love it and it sort of goes with my job
I veer from eating reasonably well to eating rubbish. I definitely eat too much white food and love bread. Eat WAY too much cheese.
I'm ALWAYS dehydrated - just never seem to be thirsty though.
Despite this I've always been reasonably fit. Play squash to quite a high level and go to the gym (although in bursts - tend to be all or nothing). However I'm starting to feel pretty unfit now and feel "heavy"
What I want
I dont want to do anything drastic! Not aiming for a six-pack. Just want to get a little bit healthier and drop a decent amount of weight. Something like 20-25 pounds.
What I'm doing
Cut right down on white bread. Just have a few slices at the weekend.
Trying to cut down on bread / carbs generally. I have low-fat soup or salad for lunch during the week. Weekends are back to normal (ie bad eating) though. Trying to cut right down on cheese.
Now, this is the bit i'd really like some advice on.... I'm going to the gym 3 times a week now. Monday is 1 hour of competitive squash. All cardio. On the other 2 days I do 60-75 mins on the machines. 15-20 mins of cardio to get my heart rate up to c. 130bpm. Then so-called "Fat Burn" work-outs on the running machine / bike, designed to keep my heart rate at a reasonably high level. Mix in some light weight lifting (12kg dumbells in each hand) and a hard 8 minute rowing machine session if i fancy it.
I don't know if i'm wasting time and energy in the gym. I'd rather play more sport but not sure if that's a less effective way of losing the weight.
Thanks for anyone that's bothered to read all this and can respond with any advice. It would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Yeasty
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Replies: 61
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Yes - not just time and energy wasted in the gym - money too! Just my personal theory. If you want to loose weight - don't eat so much - and walk, walk, walk........................
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Buy some quality dumbells (cast iron) and don't limit yourself to leaving the house to get fit.
Hasfit has some excellent YouTube videos and programmes for fatties to the super-fit https://www.youtube.com/user/KozakSportsPerform/playlists |
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Certainly agree with walking Dewey, making a conscious effort to do that a lot more. Gym membership is v cheap for me so the money's not an issue. Eating less is definitely an issue though - love my food! The only way I can portion control successfully is through eating ready meals and they're pretty dull...
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Poppydog - this might be a stupid question but will doing weights help me lose weight? (Rather than just bulk up muscles)
Thanks both for your responses. |
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1 hour 3 days a week is plenty, but each day should be a mix of cardio and weights. Book yourself 3 sessions with a personal trainer. For that, you will get an assessment of your general fitness, plus a good idea of what exercises you should be doing in a session. And a 130 heart rate seems a bit low for cardio. Boxing for 10 mins will get you up to c180
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Lean meat - low fat - you are what you eat.......
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Thanks Cobblaz. And you're right about cardio. I wasn't clear - I do cardio to get to c. 160/170 and then maintain at around 130.
Was thinking about the personal training option but wasn't sure whether they'd genuinely tailor it to me or whether they'd repeat the same thing to everyone... |
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read somewhere that if you jog for exercise you would have to run a marathon a day to counteract the average calorie intake
its getting the balance right for your metabolism as it slows down as you get older so you have to eat less drink less and exercise more now if you think you can eat the same drink the same but then exercise more that doesnt work you have to find the right balance for you this is what you shouldnt do a mate of mine was getting a bit overweight in his 40's got an office job so got an exercise bike at home he then told me its great its got drink holders on the handlebars which i put my cans of lager in  |
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That's a really good point about metabolism changing. Ridiculously I hadn't really thought about that.
I'll try to resist the Booze Bike! |
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I found the most effective way to lose weight at the gym was by doing interval training on the cross trainer. Do a ten minute session, first minute at a very comfortable pace, second minute high speed, third minute back to comfortable pace, fourth minute high speed and so on. Try and do this as often as you can. I used to step off the machine dripping sweat and feeling sick but it was the most effective way of burning the calories. Eat regular healthy meals too. Good luck.
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When I see old/overweight people jogging along (quite disturbing) - I think they're doing more harm than good - losing weight snd staying healthy is common sense - 'no good shutting the door after the horse has bolted'.....if you know what I mean!
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*and
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Totally agree - that's why I'm saying "enough" now.
Thanks Rodrigo - will give that a try. Used to do loads on the cross trainer. Could easily burn 1000 calories in a lunch hour. Will try intervals instead for a bit. |
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yeasty is yet another new name to chit chat from a long standing member. Hmmm
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Eat zero processed foods.
Cut down on sugar and dairy. Keep exercising. Breathe fresh air. If you can't do that, find some ... it's good for the soul. |
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Drink plenty water - not from plastic bottles!
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Discover fresh turmeric
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Sack white bread TOTALLY (it's full of processed sh1t) and go for wholemeal - with seeds. Organic is not difficult to bake at home.
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Here lies your problem
About me I drink too much (binge drinking a couple of times a week, always lager) but love it and it sort of goes with my job. However I'm starting to feel pretty unfit now and feel "heavy" Yeasty, You sound like a typical dart player  Cut the booze and the rest will fall in line. Good luck |
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I folllow a Ketogenic diet, and only exercise as much as it gives me pleasure. Carbs in all forms raise insulin and drives fat, that's the mechanism. Fat doesn't raise blood sugar so in the absence of carbs you won't get fat eating it. Don't eat low fat, eat good fat.
Wholemeal bread, jesus, two slices of that raises your blood sugar more than 2 white slices, 6 spoons of sugar or a snicker's bar. But then I must admit I am biased. For years I believed the healthy wholegrain bullshit. No one tolerates glutin they just don't know it till they stop. If you can kick grains you can say goodbye to inflammation as well. |
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Yeasty, you don't say how tall you are as that is a consideration.
I would suggest also that you see your doctor, as you may have an under active thyroid. I say this as my team are heavily into fitness and on occasions have felt desperate when still couldn't keep the weight down after many weeks of extreme excersise and zero carb diets. James is on the highest dosage and is training hard again, for peak fitness, ready for "Tough Mudder". |
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increasing veg intake doesn't mean a veg pizza
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swimming is good,less stress on legs
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Two years ago i weighed just over 14stone with a sizeable beer gut. Today i weigh 12-5 and have more or less lost the gut.I drink 10pts of lager a week and don't deprive myself of anything.The only exercise is walking the dog for an hour each day and 2/3 rounds of golf per week.
The answer you are looking for is the 5/2 diet.Two days of eating less than 600 cals and the other 5 days eat and drink whatever you like.It works...honest. |
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Best and quickest way to lose weight is to stop putting so much food in your mouth. You could easily lose 10-15kgs just by doing that without lifting a weight or jogging an inch. I don't mean starve yourself. Just cut it back and it falls off. Not that hard either if you are in the right headspace.
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Regularly drink loads of water. The more you drink, the less your body stores it. It's the simplest way of losing pounds.
Avoid sweets, biscuits, chocolate, particularly cheap chocolate, which is mostly sugar. Most effective way of doing this is by not buying it in the first place, so it's not in the house to scoff when bored. Simplest way of losing a bloated gut in my experience. Rye bread is a good alternative to normal bread made from wheat. Tastes better to imo. Lidl bake fresh rye loaves which are no more expensive than the traditional ones. Binge drinking doesn't sound too good, does it? Walk or cycle to the gym. Then walk or cycle straight back. I don't see the point in going in if you do that. Even better, walk or cycle to an animal sanctuary and get a dog. Then consult the How/why my dog does that thread for Top Tips on picking up women using your new dog and slimline figure. |
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Agree with those saying that diet, not exercise, is the key to losing weight. I lost,and kept off, about 1 and a half stone by cutting out snacks particularly crisps and biscuits at work and reducing the size of chocolate bar I'd eat on an evening. Don't do anything on diet that you can't keep up permanently otherwise the weight will creep back on.
I've had spells going for runs, to the gym and swimming over the past few years as well as periods of doing no exercise. None of them have had a noticeable impact on my weight. I found it was mainly about food intake and it was amazing how easily the weight came off with just a few simple changes to my eating habits. Exercise for enjoyment and good health by all means, but you could achieve your weight loss with sensible diet. |
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Just to add: booze dehydrates you, causing the body to store more water, hence weight gain.
One diet tip is to eat fruit before meals rather than after, so you make use of the enzymes in fruit to promote your metabolism and process the meal quickly and efficiently. |
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crisps are my downfall
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Mine as well..just don't buy the fckers
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dewey
08 Jul 14 23:46 Lean meat - low fat - you are what you eat....... That makes me a coont then. |
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coconuts?
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How on earth did people stay slim before High St Gyms? My nephew is a personal trainer and makes a nice living having people pay him to behave as a P.E teacher. He'll never be out of work because like dieting most of them get bored go back to their old habits.
Its easy to keep the weight off: Eat less Move more. You have to incorporate this into your life style and not have it as a seperate thing like going to a gym. You can eat and drink anything you like its the amount that does the damage. Try and reduce processed food to a minimum and walk whenever possible. I reduced my alcohol intake by drinking water at the same it seems to trick the brain into wanting less booze. |
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Get the free app, 'my fitness pal'. It's a calories in, calories out calc and is really easy to use. I like it because if I know I'm going on a big un, York Races on Saturday, I can earn calories beforehand to keep under my weekly limit by jumping on my bike for a couple of hours or going for a run.
You need to be honest with yourself and put in everything you eat, it also makes you realise just how high in calories some everyday stuff is. You'll stop eating spuds, pasta or bread. It works for me and I'm 41, 6' 0" and started at 200lb exactly, aimed to lose a stone in five weeks and pi55ed it in three. Lastly, just to mix it up, google 'tabata'. It's a full body 4 minute HIIT workout that you can do in your bedroom and gives incredible results. If you can do 5 of those back-to-back, then you're superhuman and shouldn't give a fook about your weight! |
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screaming from beneaththewaves • July 9, 2014 8:19 AM BST
Regularly drink loads of water. The more you drink, the less your body stores it. It's the simplest way of losing pounds. No don't do this unless you are replacing a lot of fluids lost during sweating after regular exercise, if you are just concentrating on diet, then drinking so much water will just result in you regularly pissing out a lot of nutrients in your body, nutrients that your body needs. Eat little and often is the best advice, every 2 hours, it keeps your metabolism busy, if you have three square meals a day, well, it's a bit like putting one big log on the fire, you need to keep the fire burning not put the fire out. Chew gum, chewing increases your metabolic rate and burns calories. Don't bother with machine weight at the gym if you're trying to lose weight, just concentrate purely on cardio, as the more weight in muscle you put on, the more food you will need to fuel your energy level and the more likely that you will end up eating the wrong foods, plus, weight lost in fat and increased in muscle capactity will keep you around the same 15 stone mark anyhow, however at the gym, Spin classes and boxercise classes are worth the while, although if you're 15 stone an hours worth of spin class will probably kill you, imo the gym is a waste of money overall as you could always cycle yourself anyway and buy a punchbag and spend an hour a day with it. Avoid sugars like the plague, sugar is evil, not only does it increase weight but it causes a lot of inflammation in the body AKA diseases. I find when I run, which is a lot, the music will make you run for longer and you will burn more calories, so take your ipod,mp3. Dr Mes. |
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As someone who recently lost 2 stone id agree with desmond orchard about the app. It feels a bit girly but you can really organise your diet to fit in booze and takeaways and still run a calorie defecit to lose weight.
The mistake I always made was assuming that exercise would make me leaner so i could exercise more and become leaner. The reality i found is that while youre losing weight your body is starved of energy and gets really knackered which saps your motivation to exercise. Once you realise you can lose weight by sitting around doing almost nothing instead it seems laughably easy. |
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walk - don't run.
walk 45 minutes every second day. diet - lots of veg, nuts,seeds,fish and olive oil. - If you cannot recognize what you are eating its synthetic crap. Mars bars don't grow on a tree. Bread is a mixture of stuff? cake? avoid dairy. avoid meat, especially red meat. Fat will disappear revealing muscle. Exercising will wear you down to a nub. Walk at brisk pace for 45mins. rest up the next day body rebuilds after damage to muscles. putting on muscle. Better than running. low impact. lose 2 pounds a week - over one year its seven stone. that is all. |
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twizzle22 09 Jul 14 08:13 Joined: 05 Apr 11 | Topic/replies: 1,724 | Blogger: twizzle22's blog
Two years ago i weighed just over 14stone with a sizeable beer gut. Today i weigh 12-5 and have more or less lost the gut.I drink 10pts of lager a week and don't deprive myself of anything.The only exercise is walking the dog for an hour each day and 2/3 rounds of golf per week. The answer you are looking for is the 5/2 diet.Two days of eating less than 600 cals and the other 5 days eat and drink whatever you like.It works...honest. This. Worked for me, lost 20lb at 55 years old. Still get a few pints at the weekend as well. |
