While I agree that calorie restriction is the key to weight loss, exercise is even MORE IMPORTANT. Albeit, the correct type of exercise. There is aerobic ( running, biking, etc.) and anaerobic ( weight lifting). In order to achieve weight loss, and even more importantly, keep it off, a person must not just focus on one type of exercise over another. First, the reason weight loss occurs is that the body is requiring more calories then you are providing ( eg, calorie restriction or caloric deficit). Now, it would be nice if the body would always take stored fat and use it, but that's not always the case. That is why if you just go on a drastically lower caloric diet, you will NOT see that much, if any weight loss. The reason is that you are literally starving your body. In response your body believes that its in "starvation mode" and it will keep fat on you. Its a basic survival mechanism. So if you opt for the drastically reducing your calories, you will have to walk a fine line. So, there has to be a better way, right? You can start an anaerobic program. This type of program should be centered around "compound exercises". These include the big 3: Deadlifts, Squats, Bench Press. I would center around those as those are the most productive, yet hardest exercises to do. You can also do isolation exercises such as curl, tricep extenstion. But, for the love of God, DO NOT DO CURLS IN THE SQUAT/POWER RACK! When you do this type of lifting, you are literally creating micro-tears in your muscles. The body doesn't like that sort of stress so in order to prevent that from happening again, the body repairs the micro-tears and build new muscle on top ( thus creating larger muscles). Now, you might be thinking that you dont want larger muscles, but hear me out. Think of your body as a furnace. Your body requires a basic amount of calories. ( research BMR to determine how many you require). Now, your body uses these calories for everyday functions. But if you throw in that it has to repair itself, something interesting happens if you are providing enough to the body. You will begin to lose fat, but probably gain weight. Its important to remember that muscle weights more then fat, so be careful of just going by the scale. Now as you progress, ( getting stronger and bigger muscles) your BMR will increase because your body will require more calories. So it becomes your choice: Do you want to restrict your body and only eat the bare min, or work a little harder and actually eat more calories but lose weight. This is just a brief overview. If you have further questions PM me or ask them here.
Yes, it's what you learn in your first year nutrition class in med school; specifically, "Nutrition In Health And Disease". I have no interest in supporting your weak wrists as you type search parms into google. Might want to try thermic & protein. ASU did a white paper on it, IIRC.
Jeez, as if this hasn't been covered before: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1149064&highlight=squats#post1149064 You make some good points. Simply restricting calories is not the way to go.
Arb - your post and 273's post have some different opinions and suggestions; therefore it was not 'covered before'. I completely disagree with your post that you must spend hours in the gym each day. That may be ONE option, but it sure is not the best or only option. You said "Bottom-line: You need to be in the gym for 2 hours a day of you're not going to eat clean." Yes, eating good is very important, but you do not need to spend 2 hours a day in the gym. That's insane.
Ah well Let me kind of bypass this "debate" on how long one has to spend in the gym in this fashion; First, I want you folks to know that I wouldn't offer a comment unless I had some experience here. I don't like the idea of commenting just for the hell of it. Second, I have seen good results for myself, from restricting my calories on a per meal basis to less than 500, to every other day workouts that VARIED each time (different exercises every session), and to significant cardio work (40 minutes to 1 hour a day). Finally, some folks seem to have a hard time losing weight. This is often because the cant or wont be consistent in their approach particularly to eating right. If that is you, or if you are an older person with a slower metabolism, you need to do this little extra bit to get your body to "help out" As mentioned before, the body can (with the proper stimulus) produce enzymatic compounds that speed up the fat burning process. To get your body to do that you have to "show it" that you are likely to put specific demands on it on a regular basis. Treadmill Walk or run at a pace slow enough to have a converstion. Warm up for 10 minutes Increase the pace until you start to get into oxygen debt. Your breathing increases such that you cannot maintain a conversation. Should take about 3 minutes if you ramp up in an orderly fashion. At the end of the 3 minute period, slow down and recover at a walk for 2 minutes. Repeat but decrease the recovery time, giving only 1 minute 30 seconds recovery Repeat and decrease recovery time to 1 minute Repeat and stop. Time your recovery to normal breathing. If you do this you should see result fairly quickly. Problem is this is not fun and will make you a bit uncomfortable in the beginning. Please folks, don't drop dead doing this. Get a check up first. Tell your doctor what you intend to do and get his approval. Steve
Funny, do you know me and what I look like? Didn't think so smarty. Wow, you take constructive feedback very well. The point being - there is in fact more than one way to workout, contrary to what arb may think. But, apparently he knows it all in this area, so what's the point of others posting? Let's just let arb ramble on b/c he apparently loves to see his posts here. :eek:
Constructive feedback involves some debate. Something more than, "you're wrong!" with no counter-point. I don't know it all, but more than some. Keep on eating Le Big Mac and spending 20mins in the gym on the recumbent cycle, setting 2... You're correct; there is no point to your pedantic posts.