Fitness

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Stop eating more calories than you are consuming? Do you mean bulimia? That's bad for your health. It would be better to burn the calories through exercise to lose weight.

Food is fuel (glycogen from food converted to blood glucose in the liver). Without an adequate readily available fuel source your muscles (and brain) won't work effectively, but it's a balance. If you put in more fuel than you need on a regular basis the body will store it as fat. If you give yourself less fuel than you need from food but burn more energy that extra energy is provided by your fat reserves. Fat reserves in general provide a slower release of energy so there is a maximum sustainable exercise level at which the body will function on fat reserves alone.

The problem for some is that they exercise and then treat themselves with a cake or a takeaway. The simple way to remember it is that the cake hole is bigger than the arsehole, so you have to shift the extra calories by means of burning more than you eat. That could mean eating slightly less and increasing your activity levels a bit, or it could mean massively increasing your exercise output and increasing your food intake to compensate (marathon training)

There are ways you can trick your body into regularly burning fat as fuel such as intermittent fasting, but that takes dedication and a complete lifestyle change and it isn't a quick fix. The best solution for losing weigh for most people is an increased exercise output (to increase CV capacity and muscular efficiency) and a small calorie deficit at the end of every day. Also, trying to stay away from refined sugars and generally heavily processed foods such as white flour.

You don't have to be anal about the precise number of calories, just a general awareness of how much you are putting in and how many calories you are outputting. A fitness tracker is really useful here. It only has to be a small amount of calories less, maybe 250-300 (even as much as 500, but absolutely no more than that) so we are not talking 1000+ because that's just unhealthy.

 

[BlueMoonday]

Cheers pal. The first day at swimming was torture. I won't say how many lengths I swam because there's always some twat on here who, if you go to Tenerife - went to Elevenerife. I went to badminton the day after, then returned to swimming.

I've gone swimming Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week and more than doubled what I swam on that first night. I lost 6lb over the course of the last week. Not snacking on a night is the most difficult part but I've managed to resist about on all but one night and even then I had two of the smallest biscuits known to man.

Swimming and sauna is fast becoming a part of my day.

Good man! That's a great effort and keep it up. It gets easier and more addictive or at least part of your routine and feels odd not doing it (if that makes sense).

Giving up the snacking is hard so well done, great effort.

You are allowed a treat at some point or cheat day so make sure you enjoy a nice meal or snacks at some point. Some on here will argue against it but it won't harm your weight being 1 day a week (if that) and it also reduces risk of relapse and giving the whole campaign up. Gives you something to look forward to in the week.

 

[Cellarite]

Good man! That's a great effort and keep it up. It gets easier and more addictive or at least part of your routine and feels odd not doing it (if that makes sense).

Giving up the snacking is hard so well done, great effort.

You are allowed a treat at some point or cheat day so make sure you enjoy a nice meal or snacks at some point. Some on here will argue against it but it won't harm your weight being 1 day a week (if that) and it also reduces risk of relapse and giving the whole campaign up. Gives you something to look forward to in the week.

Too right. Today is sausage sarnie day for breakfast at work instead of the weetabix and banana that I have Monday to Thursday. It's written in stone so won't be changing. Tonight, me and the missus will be having a curry but it won't be a mountain of chips with a fatty curry, it'll be half a portion of chips, loads of rice and a slimming world curry. I'll be drinking lager as well but my New Year resolution is not to drink midweek and so far, I've kept to it. There's the double thing going on here of 1 - the obvious health side of not drinking on a school night and 2 - looking forward to a beer on Fridays.

Last Saturday, I went out and drank for 9 hours and got a pizza on the way home. That is a rare occurrence so this weekend will be infinitely healthier than last.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Stop eating more calories than you are consuming? Do you mean bulimia? That's bad for your health. It would be better to burn the calories through exercise to lose weight.

Disingenuous rubbish!

 

[mancityscot]

I’ve walked 6 miles a day minimum from 1st Jan, 17 miles on Monday and! although I’ve lost some shape from the belly! not a pound has been removed! Bit demoralised!

It is largely down to calories mate. Consume less than your body burns naturally and you will lose weight over time.

There are calorie requirement calculators online that determine your calorie needs to lose/gain weight. Try this one https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

It is largely down to calories mate. Consume less than your body burns naturally and you will lose weight over time.

There are calorie requirement calculators online that determine your calorie needs to lose/gain weight. Try this one https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

If I remember correctly around -ve 500 calories a day roughly equates to about 1lb per week weight loss, but bear in mind that could be muscle mass as opposed to fat loss if you just stop eating as much and don't do any exercise.

 

[Mr. Wednesday]

I’ve walked 6 miles a day minimum from 1st Jan, 17 miles on Monday and! although I’ve lost some shape from the belly! not a pound has been removed! Bit demoralised!

Think someone else has mentioned it but don’t worry about the weight, it’s all about your physical health and how you look and feel.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say don’t even bother weighing yourself. At all. It’s just something that can drag you down when you’re not hitting targets you’ve set yourself.

Before the pandemic hit I was going great guns and got myself into good shape. I noted my progress from how I looked in the mirror and the changes I had to make to my clothes sizes etc etc. Some people commented, saying “You’re looking like you’ve lost a bit of weight. How much do you think?”
I’d say I didn’t have a fucking clue. It wasn’t important to me. I planned to get to the way I ideally wanted to look then weigh myself, just so I’d then know what my perfect weight should be.

So don’t think about the weight, be secure in the knowledge that your body is changing for the better. And keep it going.

 

[Manchester33]

I’ve started swimming this week and played badminton on Wednesday. I hate the early part when you feel like you’re trying your best but can’t see any benefits.

How long before I can see progress?

You need to define what your 'progress' is.

If it's losing weight: Exercise is a really inefficient way to do that. Losing weight is 99% diet. Basically, eat fewer calories than you require to maintain your current weight. It's that simple. All different diets (keto, vegan, slimming world, intermittent fasting etc) are, at a core level, nonsense. The only way they work is if you consume fewer calories than you burn. Any diet would have to be sustainable though. You can't drop from eating 2k calories a day to 500 and expect to sustain a healthy lifestyle.

If you achieve this quickly it's probably not sustainable, so bear that in mind.

If it's increasing cardio fitness: Keep doing what you're doing. Record your exercises and compare them. Set targets. Strava is a good, free app for recording your swimming. If you have a smartwatch (Apple/Fitbit etc) you can record your work rate while playing badminton.

If it's improving strength: Get in the gym and start lifting weights. Again, record workouts/set targets.

Steer clear of setting 'appearance' goals (The worst one is people who target 'getting a six-pack'). Set targets (like swim X lengths, beat my PB, Lose X amount of weight). If you can measure them you can achieve them.

Just try and enjoy what you're doing though. Lifestyle trumps everything. If it's a slog to diet and exercise then you aren't going to stick to it - so make it fun.

 

[Fat Chance]

If youve got any sort of derby then you dont need to eat, not for 48hrs anyway.

Alcohol decides who you friends are gonna be...to think it will allow you a fitness campaign is naive

 

[Hayley Croppers chopper]

You need to define what your 'progress' is.

If it's losing weight: Exercise is a really inefficient way to do that. Losing weight is 99% diet. Basically, eat fewer calories than you require to maintain your current weight. It's that simple. All different diets (keto, vegan, slimming world, intermittent fasting etc) are, at a core level, nonsense. The only way they work is if you consume fewer calories than you burn. Any diet would have to be sustainable though. You can't drop from eating 2k calories a day to 500 and expect to sustain a healthy lifestyle.

If you achieve this quickly it's probably not sustainable, so bear that in mind.

If it's increasing cardio fitness: Keep doing what you're doing. Record your exercises and compare them. Set targets. Strava is a good, free app for recording your swimming. If you have a smartwatch (Apple/Fitbit etc) you can record your work rate while playing badminton.

If it's improving strength: Get in the gym and start lifting weights. Again, record workouts/set targets.

Steer clear of setting 'appearance' goals (The worst one is people who target 'getting a six-pack'). Set targets (like swim X lengths, beat my PB, Lose X amount of weight). If you can measure them you can achieve them.

Just try and enjoy what you're doing though. Lifestyle trumps everything. If it's a slog to diet and exercise then you aren't going to stick to it - so make it fun.

That last bit make it fun is spot on.
I have started doing some exercise in VR.
My job is sedentary and working from home so now I only venture to put the bins out for outdoor exercise and a trip to the fridge for indoor.
I realised thats not good for me, mid 50s so started with Beat Saber on the Oculus Quest.
Beat Saber is fun and you can work up a sweat with it but I wanted something more with some structure to it.
So I started doing Supernatural.


The boxing workout is excellent as is the flow workout.
I come off it drenched.
It doesn’t feel like conventional exercise as it is fun.

Another good one is the thrill of the fight.
It is a boxing match in virtual reality.
I am unbeaten on that, it is A HIIT workout, 5 x 3 minute rounds up against a virtual boxer.