Advice wanted on losing weight / going to the gym to get fit

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........................

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

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...

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.

Jul 8, 2014 -- 11:35PM, dewey wrote:

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........................

It's lose, dave, not loose. HTH

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

Lean meat - low fat - you are what you eat.......

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...

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

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!

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.

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!

*and

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.

yeasty is yet another new name to chit chat from a long standing member. Hmmm

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.

Drink plenty water - not from plastic bottles!

Discover fresh turmeric

Sack white bread TOTALLY (it's full of processed sh1t) and go for wholemeal - with seeds.  Organic is not difficult to bake at home.

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

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.

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".

increasing veg intake doesn't mean a veg pizza

swimming is good,less stress on legs

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

crisps are my downfall

Mine as well..just don't buy the fckers

dewey
08 Jul 14 23:46   
Lean meat - low fat - you are what you eat.......

That makes me a coont then.

coconuts?

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

as others gave said 5/2 to lose weight

exercise at home, push ups, sit ups, weights to give you some tone

Guys - thank you all so much. There's some really good advice here. Some of it slightly conflicting but all of it well put.
This is what I'm going to do:

Concentrate on walking more wherever possible
Still go to the gym but to play squash when possible (because I love it). I'll do some cardio exercising too.
Try the 5 / 2 diet. Will do this on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Try to eat better generally and eat less. I may use MyFitness app - used it before and it was good but i lost interest. More motivated now though.

Will keep you posted intermittently on my march towards 13 stone (ish!)
Thanks again,


Yeasty

When, Oh.....when are people going to realise the only way to loose weight is 'NOT' to eat so much.  Some people eat to live and some peple live to eat.

First a disclaimer. Whilst I'm a former nurse who was in almost exactly this position just after the age you say, have done what you're trying to do with the weight and am now a regular triathlete I can't guarantee I'm not full of shiit:

However:

Knowledge is power. Unless you're a southern shandy queen then let's start with the good session twice a week. You describe it as a binge so let's say 10 pints per session. For arguments sake let's say a pint contains about 200 calories (it's a bit less but rounding up puts us in the ballpark). So you're taking in just shy of 4000 calories a week in alcohol. The average male requires around 2000-2500 calories a day to maintain normal functionality so in essence you're not far off taking in two days worth of your energy requirements just through drink per week. Sounds bad? It gets worse. What is alcohol? In essence your body treats it as a poison and seeks to flush it out. What happens is our kidneys seek to get rid as quick as they can therefore we pi55 a lot when drinking, we become dehydrated leading us to feel rough the next day and we often eat high calorie food like an Indian to compensate. Add that. Then we get up the next day and assuming we aren't puking our ring up the first thing we reach for isn't health conscious food. It's the big fry up or something else which again helps make us feel better. Add that and also add the time it takes to rehydrate yourself.

Now before you start your exercise regime you are already about 6000 calories in deficit. Enjoy.

Beyond that. Diets? I shiit em. They are all a gimmick. Every single one of them. Of course they often work. That's why they call them diets. The question is what happens next? If you can live on the 5/2 diet or any other diet for the rest of your life then fine. Most people can't do such things and then the problems begin. You don't need to diet. You need to alter or tweak your lifestyle and intake in a way you can sustain. There are several things mentioned on the thread which are useful. Eating regular and small helps avoid the peaks and troughs. This makes it less likely you will reach for the cake, chocolate etc because you aren't as likely to get hungry in between bigger meals. Staying hydrated helps your body in a variety of ways. Avoid sugar is a big one as it is incredibly addictive and bad for you and be aware that sugar comes in a variety of forms and food companies try to con you by labelling it under many different names. Try to eat natural foods and avoid processed. There are others but you'll be getting the message. A Ferrari doesn't run on dogshiit. Quality in. Quality inside and if what goes in is less than you are using up you will lose weight and vice versa.

In relation to exercise there are of course metabolic and physiological changes which begin to creep in during your 40's and this can exacerbate the effects of poor diet. However, you can help offset these. As others have mentioned short high intensity workouts tend to be good for raising the base metabolic rate but using a heart monitor to keep the heart rate within safe parameters becomes a good idea as you progress into middle age. Remember though that the ageing process affects joints, cartilage, bone density etc and it's of no use if you start to pick up chronic injuries. So keeping the muscles around major weight bearing joints like the knees and hips strong is essential. Swimming and cycling are tremendous forms of low impact exercise which burn up the calories. Stretching and even things like yoga and pilates can be greatly beneficial.

There are many other things but you are at the start of the journey and only you can undertake it and you have to be willing to look and act.

O........K............!

How to lose weight with little or no exercise? You might find this interesting ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpqbzPj92HU

Eeternaloptimist - That is a quality post!

8 tugs a day is the way forward, ok I'm nearly blind and riddled with arthritic wrists but I'm slim as f***

yeasty
09 Jul 14 20:05

Try the 5 / 2 diet. Will do this on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Having done the 5/2, I Wouldn't recommend doing it on two continuous days. That's pretty hardcore two days in a row. I think you need a respite inbetween. I did tues and thurs.

Some good tips on here - personally I think diet is the key because I've always been pretty fit but sometimes fit and fat.

Would n't dream of preaching but the following works for me.

I do two high intensity gym sessions a week (1 x 1 hour, 1 x 45 mins) - mainly kettle bells but some body weight exercises, never use anything but free weights, only cardio machine I use these days is the rower - I'll occasionally run for an hour outside if the weather is amenable - I've done a few half marathons and would like to do a full marathon but I think the stress on my joints caused by running makes this increasingly unlikely.

I've virtually cut white bread out of my diet, just buy one granary loaf each week from a quality local bakery and that's the only bread I eat really. Just one sweet treat a week (I'm a chocoholic), no snacking to speak of (well,the odd chunk of cheese like the op!) - only drink alcohol if I'm out socially (errrmmm well, apart from a glass of port maybe one night a week as a nightcap), three proper meals a day, will try and avoid sugary cereal for breakfast unless I'm going to the gym immediately afterwards and need the energy boost. Plenty of salad at lunch time 'cos it's summer and a good way to get the vegetables in. Proper dinner every night, balance of red meat,white meat and fish throughout the week, takeaway maybe once a fortnight.

Agree about walking - I admit to silly little things like parking as far away from store entrance as possible in supermarket car parks just to get a little walk in!   

Writing it down it does sound a bit regimented but it works better for me than any crash diet regime, I'm 51 and can't remember feeling better or stronger. Recently met up with some old friends after 10+ years who were convinced I'd lost weight, I actually weigh pretty much the same as I did 10 years ago but it's much better distributed.

I do think it's very individual though and what works for me would n't work for someone else or vice versa - also agree drinking a lot of water helps and probably quality sleep also.

Confucious say "Diets may be rubbish but Diet is not."

Good post RH ^^

Good point about sleep - been doing some research and the consensus seems to be it makes a big difference.

I can relate to the fit and fat bit. Have done 10ks, a few triathlons and a half marathon when only about a stone lighter than now.

Eeternaloptimist's point about needing to make it sustainable is important. I started off looking for a quick fix but i realise that's not the answer. I think bread and cheese will have to take a major backseat from now on. Which will be difficult as I've treated them both as major food groups up to now.

There is a solution of course - give up booze, again as EE says. Had 6 weeks off the booze about 4 years ago. Did nothing else different and lost 15 pounds. But, like so many, my social life is so focussed around booze that i won't give it up long-term. I think i'd rather be fat than that!

Why do you lot need to lose weight and diet?

Are you all office workers who sit on your arse all day?

I don't sit in my office all day.

Quite often I sit in a pub or restaurant.

The robdylan method works thus......

Give up drinking
Do loads and loads of exercise/sport and walk everywhere
Eat whatever you want, and loads of it.

Lost a pound a week using this method.

Sounds like a difficult job to lose weight tbf. Least sitting in an office you can choose to cut down but thats not as easy if a client is sitting in front of you with a beer and a big plate of onion rings. Key will be cutting down as much as possible when you dont NEED to eat badly so youve got cashback when your lifestyle DEMANDS that you drink/eat bad but I know thats stating the bleedin obvious.

To be honest, I can manage it during the week with exercise and healthy / minimal eating when i'm not doing the social thing. It's weekends that kill me. Too much fresh white bread from the bakery and too much cheese. I also drink pints of diluted Ribena which is frankly ridiculous for a grown adult and will be stopped. I may as well mainline sugar into my veins...

You can get no added sugar ribena (which I like) + lower fat cheese - I can't taste the difference. It's the carbs I'd ditch first.

Do you lot eat pies and cakes all day? I'm 12 stone, the same weight as I was playing rugby when I was 18.

yeasty     09 Jul 14 22:14 
Had 6 weeks off the booze about 4 years ago. Did nothing else different and lost 15 pounds. But, like so many, my social life is so focussed around booze that i won't give it up long-term. I think i'd rather be fat than that!

Same as, yeasty. I had an enforced month off the beer a couple of years ago when laid up after a mishap. 4 weeks of loitering on the sofa and nothing much else and lost just over a stone.

Maybe it wasn't the lack of beer and perhaps co-codamol is a secret dietry drug

I am a doctor with a specialist interest in sports and metabolic medicine. I deal with this pretty much most days and I have to say that pretty everything Eeternaloptimist says is spot on and one the best posts I have read on here. I have a few points.

Myfitnesspal is excellent because it educates people about their current diet. Track EVERYTHING that goes in your mouth for a week - you will soon learn more about yourself than any book will teach you. You will also learn that a few simple changes make a huge difference.

A diet is just a temporary restriction of calories, as Eeternaloptimist states the key is looking at your lifestyle - why are you overweight and unfit?

Recent research shows weight loss is about 80% calorific reduction and only 20% exercise. Exercise is amazing for health and well-being but is not very good for weight loss.

Don't try too many changes at once - you will fail.

Don't smoke.

Work - even controlling for other negative lifestyle factors, people who work live for 7 years longer on average.

The good news is that if you can make this lifestyle stick for over two years for most people it becomes permanent.