Weight Loss Topic

[Trickster]

Thought I'd start a topic about weight loss and general tips about how to lose weight, especially given my experience with weight loss in general. At one point I weighed about 200 pounds on a 6 ft frame - while not obese, I was certainly overweight. Being overweight affected my confidence by making me feel fat and generally lazy and worthless, but I was also addicted to my fast food and heavy drinking lifestyle.

I tried to work off the weight by working out alone, and I did a lot of weight lifting and cardio. Surprisingly, while I felt healthier, I also lost almost no weight after a month of working out essentially every day. I then read some articles about weight loss in which researchers found that, basically, people didn't lose weight from exercise. Rather, they lost weight almost exclusively from a dietary change. Exercise was effective at keeping lost weight off, but it isn't the way to actually lose weight.

Just like in dating, there aren't any easy solutions. Exercise is good, but you need to change your core habits too. This includes eating right, cutting down on junk food, and increasing your whole grains, lean meats, vegetables, and protein. Thankfully, it's easy for guys to shed the pounds because we naturally have more muscle. And what it takes is discipline. I ended up losing around 35 pounds in 4 months and got myself down to a much healthier and leaner 165.

A few rules I abided by:

- Always eat breakfast first thing. Always. I read in an article that people who have lost weight and kept it off all had three common qualities. 1) they were hyper-vigilant about their diet 2) they worked out regularly and 3) they always ALWAYS ate breakfast. Breakfast gets your metabolism going in the morning and gets the engine started for the rest of the day. Obviously you want to eat something healthy - no McGriddle sandwiches. I stuck with whole wheat cereal and fruit, along with skim milk.

- More meals rather than less. Metabolism is big in burning weight off, so it's important to keep eating rather than starve yourself. The key is to space it out and eat right - so it's better to eat around 6 smallish meals as opposed to 2 huge ones. I ate a lot of fruit to placate hunger pangs, but also had lean turkey sandwiches.
- Get rid of soda, even diet soda. Also bad - fruit juices and other sugary drinks. Gatorade too. Just get rid of it. Drink water. Simple is better.
- Weight lifting over Cardio - Cardio is good, but muscle is an inherent source of metabolism. The more muscle you have the easier it is to burn off fat, so going to the gym should focus on weight lifting over cardio.
- Give yourself a meal where you can eat whatever you want. This is a good reward for being disciplined, and it wont make a difference in the long run. Really, go crazy - I've eaten all you can eat korean bbq, giant burgers, and all that. Once a week, this is fine.

if you have problems being disciplined about your diet, weight loss programs like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers are known to be effective, even if they are geared towards women. Honestly, while there might be a degree of shame in joining up with a program like this, the ends justify the means.

[NakedAndFamous]

Yeah im going to cut down in 2/3 months aswell. Atm i'm in that 14-16% bodyfat region which sucks kinda.

I'll add two things:

avoid carbs after 6pm
&
always try to eat 200 to 500 kcal less than you need. But as you've already pointed out, don't starve yourself to death.

[IdEngager]

I'm a smallish person who used to have have a body fat % around 20% in HS and college (I was around 5-8 160s at my heaviest). Down to 140s and 13% body fat now, which isn't perfect or anything, but what can I say, I really like beer and tacos still. I pretty much agree with you, like they say at the gym, abs are made in the kitchen. A lot of how you look and how your body reacts to the gym and diet is genetics (you have your freaks like Allen Iverson who can pretty much eat and drink anything they want and will be skinny ripped and successful athletes, then you have your folks who pretty much have to be salad eaters just to maintain a decent weight), but good habits are an all the time thing. Personally I find that simply not having bad foods around is a huge step in the right direction. I never keep soda or deserts at home, so there's no real temptation to eat it. But if someone offers me cookies or ice cream, I'd be damned not to indulge once in a while (I try to keep this to once a week really).

I've found that joining a sport is also a huge help as far as working out to be healthy. I know not everyone's the sporting type, but I never quite understood the going to the gym for vanity thing. It's such a movable goal, your body and metabolism changes as you get older, it's hard to keep it up if your only goal is to stay pretty and ripped. I know personally my fitness levels jumped up when I joined a league frisbee team and then up again on a club one that goes to tournaments once in a while, as opposed to just lifting and running a few times a week, and I look and feel better for it. Maybe it's just my competitive side but I get a whole other level of motivation when I'm trying not to suck and trying to play well and win (also, not to get hurt) at a sport than just look good. Seeing older folks like my dad (55 and still playing in basketball leagues) and other older folks I know who still like to compete (watching my 40 year old coworker drop over 100 pounds so he could race in 5 and 10Ks was pretty inspiring) still get at it is good enough case for me.

[Tim]

Hey man I know this is your first post, and it's awesome that you lost so much weight, so I'm not honestly not trying to make you feel bad, but a lot of this is just straight up wrong.

Firstly, the whole breakfast thing? There has been no causation shown between not eating breakfast and gaining weight, only correlation. The basic explanation for this is that people who are skipping breakfast have really unhealthy eating habits otherwise, and it's because of that. I personally, and plenty of other people I know, skip breakfast yet remain lean. And even if I didn't, I'd still have to trust the science.

Same deal with the 'stoking the metabolic fire' idea. I used to believe this one pretty strongly and ate regularly through-out the day. Again, the science disproves this. You could eat one large meal only a day, and as long as you got the same nutritional intake as what you would otherwise, you would be no worse off for it, and potentially even better. This concept sounds really logical in theory, but it's actually ridiculous. The human body isn't designed to perform at a peak with regular feeding at all; think of our hunter-gatherer ancestors who would often go hours or days hungry before they ate. Now that's not optimal either, but the idea that you need to eat every couple of hours is laughable once you look at the science. There's just no proof for it. In fact this myth has been so clearly disproven that the mainstream media have openly debunked it themselves. The reason that it remains an accepted idea in a large part of the body-building/weight loss community is because of the tendency of that subculture to believe in bro-science.

Soda and diet soda? Actually, they're you're totally right. Both of these are terrible for you, and in fact diet soda has been proven to actually be LESS effective in causing weight loss than normal soda, so the only people who should ever really be drinking it are those who can't have sugar for whatever reason. Not to mention the artificial sweeteners that diet sodas contain are even worse for your body than sugar, and that aspartame has proven to be carcinogenic... Soft drinks, sweetened juices, and sugary alcoholic mixers (not just the girly stuff but the bottled Rum/Whiskey and Cola) are probably the single biggest factors in the obesity epidemic in America and many other first world countries.

Weight lifting over cardio. Both of these are fine for losing weight. You'll hear athletic types claim cardio because it burns more calories in a session, you'll hear bodybuilders claim bodybuilding because (like you said) muscle uses more energy than fat and working out increases your Basal Metabolic Rate. In truth they both work fine for just losing weight. The problem is that many in the former group don't like working out/are afraid to step in a gym so they only see the huge muscly guys and think that's all weight lifting does for you. In truth there are many lean and muscular bodybuilders. And many from the latter group are obsessed with getting bigger muscles and know that cardio causes little to no muscle hypertrophy, whereas it can burn muscle, so they see cardio as evil. And just having more muscle won't keep you lean if you don't follow a relatively strict diet. The less body fat % you are at, the stricter that diet needs to be (law of diminishing returns).

I agree with the big reward meal. People set themselves up to fail when they think that they need to go 100% on their diet all the time. The fact is, it's better to fail 20% of the time but stick with that for months, than go 100% for a couple of weeks and then fall off the wagon. The leaner you get the stricter you have to be about this, but just knowing that once in a while you can pig out helps take off the pressure, which is in fact the biggest reason people don't achieve their goals (once properly informed).

Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers effective? No idea where you got that from man. Those programs have like a 97% fail rate, if I remember correctly. They're set up to keep you as a member for as long as possible, so that they can sell their specially branded products to you as long as possible. You getting fit and no longer needing them is the last thing they want.

@NakedandFamous.

-Totally disagree about the whole 'carbs after six thing'. Check the link below for why.

-200-500 kcals a day less then you need is probably too wide a range. You need something to aim for, and then allow yourself a margin of error either side of about 100 kcals. I recommend using this calculator to figure out your needs, whether you want to maintain, lose weight, lean mass or whatever: http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/

Two things to note about it though:
1. It says it's designed for people who follow an intermittent fasting diet, but I see no reason why it shouldn't be used by anyone else. If anyone has a a good objection, let me know.
2. I strongly disagree with the requirements for protein that this calculator, and most of the body-building community, will give you. I've been a big skeptic of the idea that you need literally hundreds of grams of protein based on 1 g protein/pound body weight or 1.5 g protein/pound of lean body mass, etc, and I've been reading the science to get a more accurate idea of what your body will actually use. Last night I finished reading and analyzing three World Health Organization reports on nutritional needs of the body, including the macro-nutrients, and the amino acids specifically. The conclusion I have finally come to is that twice the daily requirements that the WHO recommends for an average adult are about the limits of your body's potential to utilize that protein. For me, weighing in at 81 kg, this is exactly 99 grams (0.66 X body weight=49.5 grams protein X 2= 99). I'm about to try and lose about 6-7% body fat while maintaining and slightly growing my overall lean body mass, so this is the guideline I'll be operating under. If I fail to maintain muscle, I'll be sure to let you know.

Everything in here that I've disagreed with you on I've had at least a brief glance at the science behind it. If you're not convinced by it because I haven't linked to any of it, fair enough I couldn't be bothered spending the time going back to look for the links right now. I will do that soon if you're unconvinced though.

On the other hand, this post below by a guy I follow regularly for nutritional and fitness advice is where I was forced to confront the truth and do my own research in the first place. He thoroughly debunks ten common fitness myths, including a few that you propagated here. And he does link to a fair bit of science for them all, so have a look at that first if you're unsure.

http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten...bunked.htm

[Trickster]

Tim,

Thanks for the feedback. Here are some responses. I realize that in my original post, I mentioned some good habits I adapted but did not fully explain the logic behind them.

- As for Breakfast, I said breakfast is important, but the mean in and of itself isn't as important as the habits it fosters. Generally people who don't eat breakfast end up being hungrier later in the day, and end up gorging themselves by overeating or eating fast food for either lunch or dinner. Having a healthy breakfast is effective at keeping these bad habits at bay.

I refer to this article for some scientific background:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/lose-...-breakfast

Eating breakfast is a daily habit for the "successful losers" who belong to The National Weight Control Registry. These people have maintained a 30-pound (or more) weight loss for at least a year, and some as long as six years.

"Most -- 78% -- reported eating breakfast every day, and almost 90% reported eating breakfast at least five days a week - which suggests that starting the day with breakfast is an important strategy to lose weight and keep it off," says James O. Hill, PhD, the Registry's co-founder and director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

- The same thing with smaller meals - a lot of what gets people overweight in this country is not only the kinds of food being consumed - it's also extremely bad portion control. The idea behind eating many meals a day is still sound, even if the metabolism thing is bunk (which I don't think it is). It helps to keep one from overeating during their main meals, which is something we often do.

- In regards to "weight loss" programs - it depends on your definition of "fail rate". These programs are effective at losing the weight, if stuck to, I don't think that's in doubt. But if you define "failure" as gaining that weight back, well that's not because of program failure but rather because people often will return to bad dietary and exercise habits after having lost the weight, but this is also no different than if you were to lose the weight on your own and gain it back on your own too. If your goal is to lose the weight first and foremost, these programs are effective at doing that.

[Tim]

Good response, and I agree with you a bit more overall now.

You're right that simply adapting the habit of eating breakfast will create further habits and patterns that will create weight loss for many overweight people. However, I thought that it was a bit too comprehensive to say something like "Always.", and I think that's misleading. On the other hand, if you're speaking only for what works for you to stay thin, then that's fair enough. Clearly it's also a good strategy for other people who want to lose weight or keep it off, it should just be noted that the reasons for this mean it isn't applicable to everyone, and that not only is it possible to not eat breakfast and not gain weight, if you follow an intermittent fasting strategy, it is in fact potentially more effective for losing it/keeping it off.

Portion control is definitely an issue, but I don't think that small regular meals are a necessary quick fix. Learning to eat more slowly, taking smaller portions, and being more conscious of satiety is the real solution there. It's pretty much the same as above; if it works then that's good, but it's not necessarily optimal.

I don't think they are that effective at losing weight in the first place. I think a change in diet and lifestyle will often lead to small temporary gains, which is usually what occurs when someone starts a program like that. I'll concede that the success rate for people originally losing the weight is definitely higher than 3%, but I'm sure that the vast majority of people who take them never reach anywhere near their goal weight, let alone stay at it. And staying at it is the hard part. Programs like those should have the expectations that they assist you in creating good habits, not just dropping the pounds and then leaving you to figure it out by yourself. But they don't want that because then even the success stories have to stay on the program to make sure they don't slip back. They create a dependency and then don't do anything about weaning you off it.

[Halo Effect]

I've never been fat myself (I have more trouble with gaining weight than losing it), but I have read a fair amount about this subject. I wanted to write the post Tim did in response to the OP, but Tim did it much better than I could have.

I still think you're both beating around the bush. The crux of the matter is simply: less calories GOOD, more calories BAD. Number of meals or carbs/fat/proteins and all that stuff is secondary. All the myths and diets and books about losing weight have become so complicated and contradictary that people think losing weight almost requires a PhD in itself. But for the most part, just eat less calories than you use and you're good.

Once you accept this, your practical advice becomes useful, because good habits and routines and knowledge can help you limit calories. But it should be clear that limiting calory intake is the end-goal.

Seriously, I say I have trouble gaining weight, but I often have days like this (especially when I'm studying for exams): All day long, do not drink anything except for water. No snacks. Skip breakfast. Eat normal satisfying lunch. Eat normal dinner. The end.

I don't care who you are, if you do that and stay off the extreme fatty foods and fast foods and don't stuff yourself, then you will lose weight. On normal days I have three meals obviously, and I try to drink whole milk and eat some snacks in between to stay on the same weight or gain weight. But calory intake is still not high. I guess that's obvious: if you don't eat unhealthy high-calory snacks all the time and keep your meals healthy and don't have high-calory drinks, then you will lose weight. But that's how simple it is. It's not rocket science.

[Mark]

There's a post on bodybuilding.com called like "THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO LOSING WEIGHT, GETTING THIN AND BURNING FAT." It's stickied and the entire post is this:

1. Eat fewer calories than you burn.
2. Get enough protein each day.
3. Lift weights

That's the entire post. Because at the end of the day, that's all that really matters. If you get less calories by giving up carbs or giving up fat or whatever, it's a personal preference. I personally lost weight much quicker by going low carb. But that doesn't mean it's necessary for everyone.

[Trickster]

With all due respect, I think you guys are missing the point. I think it's easy to say "oh you just need to consume less calories than you burn" but that's like filling an Ikea instruction manual with "JUST PUT IT TOGETHER". The point of a lot of the dieting tips (eating breakfast, more meals, no soda, etc) is to try to foster good habits that will lead you to eating less calories throughout the day. Yes, theoretically, you can just eat 2 meals a day and lose weight. But a lot of people often end up gorging themselves for those two meals a day. I know I did, and when I started eating more throughout the day, I found that I was less likely to eat 2 double double cheeseburgers for dinner.

[NakedAndFamous]

And where are we missing the point again? If you do what Mark states in his Post you will loose weight. Point.
There's just not much more that non-professional-Bodybuilders need. If you want to take up some good habits like eating breakfast and eating more than 3 meals a day thats perfectly fine. Its just not necessary for the sole purpose of loosing weight. If it makes it easier for you to stay disciplined, by all means.

I mean, Bodybuilding is kinda like Dating Advice. Inform yourself about the Basics, take action, and learn the rest by experience and situational advice.

[Tim]

Trickster Wrote:With all due respect, I think you guys are missing the point. I think it's easy to say "oh you just need to consume less calories than you burn" but that's like filling an Ikea instruction manual with "JUST PUT IT TOGETHER". The point of a lot of the dieting tips (eating breakfast, more meals, no soda, etc) is to try to foster good habits that will lead you to eating less calories throughout the day. Yes, theoretically, you can just eat 2 meals a day and lose weight. But a lot of people often end up gorging themselves for those two meals a day. I know I did, and when I started eating more throughout the day, I found that I was less likely to eat 2 double double cheeseburgers for dinner.

Yeah I agree. It's not that simple guys, if it were everyone would be thin.

Trickster's right when he says it's about creating good habits that add up to eating less calories. I think the real challenge with dieting and fitness is not to know what works for others but to know what works for you. So you learn your own weaknesses for certain foods, when and why you binge eat, what excuses you give for not going to the gym, etc, and then you learn what works for you to overcome those.

I know for me, I hate having to go out of my way to get to my gym. As I've changed cities in the last few years I've been a member of four gyms. There is a huge correlation between how often I went to each one and how close I lived/worked to it. Now I work right next door to my gym and I leave all my gym clothes at work, and I haven't missed one single day since I started going to it 3 months ago. I'm very proud of that, but I also know it wouldn't be the case if I lived further away.

Oh, and the idea that it's more important to focus on calories than macros? Totally disagree. You can pay attention to your macros and not your calories and still lose weight (which is something pretty much all us Leangainers do), but you can't count only calories and not macros at all and still lose weight. What I mean is that if I make sure I get 150 grams protein every day, 300 grams carbs and 50 grams fat (and no more than that for any of the three) I literally do not have to worry about the calories those go into. I will lose weight. Fact. Whereas on the other hand if I take in 2500 calories a day but the majority is from sugary drinks, high-GI foods, and saturated fats, I will not lose weight. Guarantee it. And that's not because 2500 is more than I need; for me that is a calorie deficit. It's because if I'm getting too much fat and loads of sugar, my body is going to end up converting that to fat instead of me burning it off. So I have to make sure that enough of that is going towards my daily requirements for macros, and that I'm not overdosing on sugar and high-GI foods that cause insulin spikes.

Under the logic of create a calorie deficit, eat protein, lift weights and you'll lose weight I could do the following:

1. Eat high protein foods to get to my protein goal.
2. Have those be incredibly fatty, salty foods, such as beef jerky, salami, egg yolks, etc.
3. Be so far below my calorie deficit I'm actually below my TDEE as well, in which case I could do two things:

1. Not eat any more. I've reached my protein goal, so why not? Well, because I haven't even reached my TDEE; the bare minimum calories I need for my body to maintain itself, and then there's the extra calories I would need for doing any physical activity.

2. Get my calories only from soft drinks or alcohol to reach my TDEE. Ok, so now I still have a calorie deficit, yet my insulin is constantly spiking through-out the day. Or with the alcohol anything I eat at the same time is going to be synthesized to fat.

Under your 3 rule strategy this is an acceptable diet. And yes it's true, I would lose weight this way. Unfortunately it'd mainly be my muscle converting to fat. You can argue that it's ridiculous to put forth a hypothetical scenario like that, because no-one thinks they can be that lax with their macros, but that's the point. You can't be completely lax with your macros and just worry about calories, whereas you can be completely lax with your calories if you have your macros totally sorted. And as ridiculous as my hypothetical scenario is, it's the exception that proves that the rule doesn't work.

[Trickster]

NakedAndFamous Wrote:And where are we missing the point again? If you do what Mark states in his Post you will loose weight. Point.
There's just not much more that non-professional-Bodybuilders need. If you want to take up some good habits like eating breakfast and eating more than 3 meals a day thats perfectly fine. Its just not necessary for the sole purpose of loosing weight. If it makes it easier for you to stay disciplined, by all means.

I mean, Bodybuilding is kinda like Dating Advice. Inform yourself about the Basics, take action, and learn the rest by experience and situational advice.

The point is, we all know what technically goes into weight loss. But if it were easy for people to lose weight, people wouldn't have such a hard time. Lets parallel this with dating, for instance. We all know that getting better with women is actually pretty damn simple - be more confident. But if you go around telling everybody to just "be confident" that isn't actually a method for getting to where you want to go. The point of all these dieting tips is to foster good habits that will get you to where you're going, just like how in a lot of dating advice the point is to foster positive habits (being more aggressive, developing a stronger personality, eliminating fear) that will also get you to where you're going.

[Mark]

The issue with weight loss is exactly the same as it is with dating advice: it's simple to understand and hard to do. So most people convince themselves that they'll be able to do it if they just learn more crap, which then makes it seem even harder and then makes them even less likely to succeed.

When you say, "If it was easy then everybody would be thin." Well, yeah. It's easy to UNDERSTAND, but it's fucking hard to do. Stop any person on the street and ask them how to lose weight and they'll all say the same thing: eat less and exercise. Which is correct. Ta-da!

The fact is, that it requires discipline and forming new habits. Something most people aren't capable of.

[Tim]

Mark Wrote:The issue with weight loss is exactly the same as it is with dating advice: it's simple to understand and hard to do. So most people convince themselves that they'll be able to do it if they just learn more crap, which then makes it seem even harder and then makes them even less likely to succeed.

I agree and disagree. I think you need to be more informed, and the more informed I've gotten the more progress I've made. I frequently read about people who talk about x or y theory (most of it bro-science) they used to believe for ages, and it was only when they read up more on it and educated themselves that they realised what actually works, and that's when they started to really make gains. That has definitely been the case for me.

It's similar to dating advice in that the number one thing to do is go out there and take action. Intellectualizing is going to do nothing or move you backwards if you don't do that.

But it's different in that there is a lot of nutrition and fitness knowledge that you should be constantly informing yourself about and adjusting your routine accordingly. And I think for most people getting to that level involves going through a whole heap of bullshit to get there, including many things that have come up in this thread, such as calorie deficit is your primary concern, eat frequently to stoke the metabolic fire, hundreds of grams of protein are key, etc.

At the end of the day, nutrition+fitness is a science, whereas dating is not. There are studies that provide us with 99% certainty on most of our knowledge. And if you go through those studies, do your best to reconcile the facts with one another and not misread them, you will find out the reality of it.

If you're not going to the gym because you're too busy trying to figure out the best way to go to the gym, then yes it's the same as dating; you're allowing your over thinking to get in the way. Time to simplify. But if you're past that initial stage, then informing yourself in order to make going to the gym more effective is very important. Either way you should be going in with 100%, but you should be learning how to direct that 100% in more effective ways.

[FirstAidKit]

I actually disagree with 'It's not that simple, or everyone would be thin'. It is really, in the right environments.

If you look at mainland Europe (sadly not Britain), especially once you get out of the cities, most people, especially young people, just aren't fat. I'm originally from way out in the sticks in France and hitting the gym isn't really a done thing. The main differences I've noted in the diet is people eat WAY smaller portions than here, no one really snacks, and sugary drinks/processed foods aren't really consumed. butter and cheese? fine, pasta and bread? fine (but not loads in a meal) and shitloads of vegetables with your meals. Probably less meat too, or meat often used as a small part of a meal.

Whenever I've overindulged I try and eat 'French' to take off a few pounds. Now the only issue I'd have with it is that it doesn't really promote fitness or muscle growth, but if you are just trying to keep an eye on your weight it's easy.

I think the problem for the US and for a slightly less extent the UK is that the ability to easily get hold of cheap fresh food is not as prioritised as it is in Europe, and we have less of a 'good food' culture overall.

[SeXyBaCk]

I'm no expert, for i was never heavy, but i did incidentally lose weight through exericing regularly. I don't believe in radical diet changes, unless there's a medical indication for it (say diabetes), all this low fat, no carb, this that, you can do it for a while with results, but it will also eat away all your motivation, one day you will just wake up and wonder why you're doing all of it, when a burger is quality of life.

Lets assume you want to lose some weight. Say 10 kgs or 22 lbs. This is pretty much the amount I lost without intending to. I'm now a ridiculous 60kgs trying to gain weight, but unwilling to stop exercising so I don't see it happening any time soon. Rather than forbidding certain foods limit yourself. Start with fast food and processed stuff. Have it once a week. Pizza, burgers and so on, on saturday or sunday evening. Coffee? Once a day. Alcohol, once a week. If you go out that much, have one night you drink on and go sober the others. Chocolate? once a day with your coffee. Crisps and salty stuff, once a week when your watching your favourite sport or whatever. One beer here won't hurt either, outside of your drinking night. Apart form that eat healthy, eat cereal for breakfast, decent lunch and dinner, which you'll need because you're exercising on high intensity, every single day of the year for half an hour after work. And t really needs to be 30 minutes of profuse sweating activity. Not 15, not I'm stopping at 20 today, 30 minutes. Just do it. I'm no weight lifter, but if that's what you're doing you will need to take your time cause you take breaks. Half an hour of cardio, spinning, elyptical, fast jogging will do the trick. Aim is to burn 500-600 calories doing this each day. Everyone needs to find their favourite type of exercising, I can't advise you on this. The goal is to be sweating so much after, you're drenched, there's sweat pouring off your forehead, big stains on the front and back of your tshirt. I do elyptical most of the time because i can do it from home or even at work, lately often it's running for me though because i have an athletic dog that needs exercise. I also do some weights and otherwise exercise before bed just to keep in shape. That is just for vanity though.

Also only can second what's in the OP. What you're drinking makes all the difference, just stick to water, if you can't stand water, do tonic water, or add lemon or some light flavour, no more soft drinks. have one tall glass of fresh juice after you exercise as a reward. Just stop drinking coke and sprite and so on. They're a waste of money as well.

It's really not that hard. Just force yourself to do it for a month, after that your body will need the exercise and crave it. You will get restless at 5 pm and look forward to your daily exercise after work. You will feel better about yourself and the endorphin buzz will make you a more relaxed balanced person and really add to your quality of life.

Finally feeling better about yourself because you're doing something for your health and appearance will make you feel more attractive and ultimately make you more attractive to women (added motivation?). Good luck.

[Matt T]

While we're talking about fitness keyboard jockeys...

"Clean Bulking" is the worst example of keyboard jockeying I've seen. Basically a bunch of genetically gifted dudes perpetrated a myth that you can gain muscle mass with minimal fat gain. Maybe you can if you have god genetics. Or if you get half your calories from your protein supplement.

Or maybe that was the plan all along! Protein companies constructed the myth to sell more supplement to people.

I dunno, when I've tried clean bulking it was a waste of time. I've only got decent gains from bulking really dirty.

[Brian]

Honestly, if you're looking to lose a tiny bit of fat left, like 10-15lb, then the original poster advice is good. If you're looking to lose 40-50+lb of fat, then you should watch the movie fat sick and nearly dead. That dude just go into a spinach smoothie diet for 2 months and lost 80lb of fat. Fuck weight lifting and all these calories count bullshit. Just eat your micronutrient and melt away the fat imo!

[SeXyBaCk]

The question is what is your goal? Be a bodybuilder? Be more attractive to girls? Have a healthier lifestyle? Lose a lot of weight? All of those, while losing some weight without being a total meathead?

I'm no bodybuilder, but from my understanding of physiology you need to bulk up with those protein shakes before bed for a month or two and then go into a rather extreme regime of lifting. Who wants that though? I can't get my head around that...body image desire.

I'm always in favour of doing things within reason. So 'going to have a healthier lifestyle in 2012 and exercise a lot, regularly' seems like a reasonable goal to have. You'll continuously decrease your body fat % doing that, without putting your body through extreme changes.

[crazyhorse]

SeXyBaCk Wrote:The question is what is your goal? Be a bodybuilder? Be more attractive to girls? Have a healthier lifestyle? Lose a lot of weight? All of those, while losing some weight without being a total meathead?

I'm no bodybuilder, but from my understanding of physiology you need to bulk up with those protein shakes before bed for a month or two and then go into a rather extreme regime of lifting. Who wants that though? I can't get my head around that...body image desire.

I'm always in favour of doing things within reason. So 'going to have a healthier lifestyle in 2012 and exercise a lot, regularly' seems like a reasonable goal to have. You'll continuously decrease your body fat % doing that, without putting your body through extreme changes.

lol. The guy who told you that is messing with you. First, nobody needs protein shakes. It's so easy to get 150 grams of protein a day from natural food sources. Second, protein shakes are only necessary when in an emergency. Even then, they get digested by the body so quickly, that you might as well eat something.

I find your second argument to be a bit weird, cause we're all doing it for a reason.

Having a healthier lifestyle and excercising a lot, isn't a goal either. How much excercise? 1-5 times a week? What do you mean by healthier? More vegetables? No more trans fat?

I'll illustrate what I mean by giving my own example:
concerning excercise: 3 times weight lifting per week + 1 cardio session. I might switch these and decide to do three cardio session a week. But I want to remain in the 3-4 times per week range.
concerning nutrition: For me I eat around 2500 kcal, this is enough for me to gain muscle and lose fat (sorry Matt T ). Right now I'm adding 300 grams of "forest fruit mix" as my daily portion of fruit. Next on the list is my daily ammount of vegetables, I would like to get 200 grams or so.

I agree with Tim, reading up is very important! If I wouldn't have done that, I would still be stuck in the 5-7 meals a day. That's probably the most annoying nutrition habbit every invented.

small tip: write down your lifting results. This is an easy way to check whether your making progress and to see whether your diet is sufficient. I always pity people who tell me "oh I don't need to write down my own results, I can remember that", only to five seconds later complain that they havn't made much progress at all.

best nutrition website: http://www.leangains.com
good website for form and excercises (his youtube videos): http://www.scoobyworkshop.com

[SeXyBaCk]

What I posted was aimed at someone with the same build and metabolism as myself. I find it very hard to gain weight. I've tried to measure my body fat % on a hospital grade device and it only gives me <5%. So if I wanted to bulk up without eating tons of eggs and meat all day I probably would need some kind of high intensity additive. I don't claim they work or are effective, I just know my own body. If you're a 24 stone lardass, artificially adding foods is probably not needed right? Again, for myself, I don't have enough appetite to eat enough to gain weight, granted i did exercise about 360 times last year.

My second point wasn't an argument just an observation. Healthier lifestyle is a subjective term imo, it comes down to you looking at yourself in the mirror feeling good about yourself, your body and feeling good about your lifestyle, concluding it's healthy. If you can't do that ask your friends, do you feel I live healthily?

The measures you have to take to get fit are ultimately determined on what your starting conditions are. So I want to add that any advice I've given is for someone of normal weight and fitness and just wants to feel a bit healthier and generally better about himself.

[crazyhorse]

SeXyBaCk Wrote:What I posted was aimed at someone with the same build and metabolism as myself. I find it very hard to gain weight. I've tried to measure my body fat % on a hospital grade device and it only gives me <5%. So if I wanted to bulk up without eating tons of eggs and meat all day I probably would need some kind of high intensity additive. I don't claim they work or are effective, I just know my own body. If you're a 24 stone lardass, artificially adding foods is probably not needed right? Again, for myself, I don't have enough appetite to eat enough to gain weight, granted i did exercise about 360 times last year.

My second point wasn't an argument just an observation. Healthier lifestyle is a subjective term imo, it comes down to you looking at yourself in the mirror feeling good about yourself, your body and feeling good about your lifestyle, concluding it's healthy. If you can't do that ask your friends, do you feel I live healthily?

The measures you have to take to get fit are ultimately determined on what your starting conditions are. So I want to add that any advice I've given is for someone of normal weight and fitness and just wants to feel a bit healthier and generally better about himself.

Do you know how many calories you eat during the day? The reason I'm saying this, is because only then you can know how much you have to eat more. Right now it's still a wild guess. It's the same with bulking, people vastly overrate how much calories they need. The best you can do is see how much you eat today, start eating more and see how your body adjusts.

If you don't enjoy eating a lot, you can always pick sports such as swimming. You can get an amazing build from swimming and i think your diet has to be less strict then with bodybuilding. Since you burn off so many calories anyway.

[Brian]

Sexyback doesnt do enough research but rather just go in full blast giving advices without knowing what the fuck he's talking about. Seem like a trend for all his posts.

[Matt T]

Ugh, I've cut out a lot of extra carbs from my diet, and am about a week into my cut. Energy feels a bit lower. But today I was completely exhausted (over 8 hrs of class), and couldn't help it. Gorged myself on carby snacks to try to keep from falling asleep.

[SeXyBaCk]

Quote:Do you know how many calories you eat during the day? The reason I'm saying this, is because only then you can know how much you have to eat more. Right now it's still a wild guess. It's the same with bulking, people vastly overrate how much calories they need. The best you can do is see how much you eat today, start eating more and see how your body adjusts.

If you don't enjoy eating a lot, you can always pick sports such as swimming. You can get an amazing build from swimming and i think your diet has to be less strict then with bodybuilding. Since you burn off so many calories anyway.

I've never attempted to count calories, I eat whenever I'm hungry and can physically sit down and eat. Probably 1500-2000 kcal depending on the day. My BMI atm is.... 19,3. Just to make it clear, I'm not making any conscious effort to gain weight, I'm content with my shape and physique. I just noticed no matter what I do, if I drink more or eat, what i perceive as, more fat or sugar for a period of time it doesn't add on. It's down to an individuals metabolism. I do however exercise till i'm drenched in sweat and pretty tired out.

I can only echo your sentiment on swimming. I wish my exercise was swimming, but I simply cannot make the time for it. My GF swims six times a week and has fastastic physique, without the exercise completely draining her. But again, an hour of swimming takes up 2.5 hours of your day, time I choose to spend on other stuff. So half an hour of cardio it is for me. Swimming is though probably by far the healthiest form of physical exercise, especially for the joints.

Brian (chill a little man?), I was not giving advice on how to bulk up, I'm not a weight lifter if that's not become apparent. Again, I was describing my own experience, how over years of regular exercise and healthy diet I've slowly replaced body fat with muscle. And since it's happened to me without actual intention or motivation I find it's a doable way to go about it. I'm no fitness or nutrion expert, I do however have an understanding of human physiology through my line of work in anaesthesiology (intensive care medicine has to feed its patients as well).

The topic is weight loss, is it not? The common opinion amongst physicians at this moment in time (and this might of course change) is that radical diet and lifestyle changes are very hard to maintain mentally. Seems plausible to me. You want to lose some weight? You gotta sit down and look at your lifestyle and write down all the things you do that aren't helping, then start negotiating with yourself what you can consciously cross out without subjecting yourself to a labour camp mentality. This you can sustain if you're a normal perosn without incredible willpower and determination. Subtle permanent changes will yield better results than a radical 4 week crash diet.

Now, if your BMI is >35/m2 and you're having trouble climbing a flight of stairs without panting it's a whole different matter. You better seek some specialist advice.