keeping fit.. lossing the 'podge'

[Snow-Munki]

Hi,

want to get fitter and also loose some of my 'podge' around my stomach...

i undestand i can't just make one bit go and need to exercise fully by running or something...

my routine recently is on a treadmill every other day if possible and consist of:

walking at incline of '3' ? at 3mph for about 5 mins

then jog for about 15-20mins at 5mph

then walk for another 5 and then finish...

is this good enough ? i'm slowly building up the time of the running period... and worked out at 5mph i can do a mile in 12 mins, is that good ?

so what should i do as i was told i should run for at least 30-40 mins... i can barely run for 20 mins at the moment...

any tips / advice ?

thanks

[Zathras]

You need to exercise for at least 40 mins to start shifting any fat. Make sure you're not completely killing yourself, anything that raises your heart rate to about twice resting rate and above is good exercise. You can't do half an hour or less every other day and expect it to have any serious effect on podge. Long times (60mins ideally) at medium intensity will be far more effective than 10 mins of killing-yourself effort for your goals.

[TiG]

If anything i can say building up slowly is important, your body isn't going to appreciate being put through too much stress too soon.

If you feel like you want to do more, i'd suggest maybe working your arms as well?, this can burn off some additional exercise without overdoing your legs.

What you are doing sounds great, slowly increase and keep building the time and you'll do great.

Good luck
TiG

[Knoxville]

I don't do any running/walking other than what i normally do a day but i'd reccomend working on your arms aswell, been back on my old weight training set-up over the last 2 weeks as i decided it wouldn't hurt me to build em up a bit more, 3 sets of 120 reps on each arm in various different ways spread over the course of the day normally one set in the morning one in the afternoon and one at night plus 40 sit ups in a morning and 20 before bed n i've lost just over half a stone the last ten or so days with very little change to any of my eating/drinking/smoking habits

[Zathras]

If you are going to do weights do as Knox is doing and do lots of reps at a relatively low weight. Big weights or low sets of reps will not burn fat. Sure, it'll give you some tone to any muscles but shifting fat's where it's at to start off with. No matter how heavy a weight you can pull you won't look toned if there's 25% body fat surrounding the muscle. Try to introduce some more exercise across your daily routine rather than having set times or sessions: walking for half an hour further than normal every day for a month will shift far more fat than two sessions of press-ups, sit-ups and weight machines a week down the gym over the same month. Combining extra walking with cutting out the last pint on Friday night or the mars bar at lunch time will work far better than a gym membership and a session every blue moon or expensive home exercise equipment that just ends up gathering dust for pretty much 95% of overweight people.

[Punky]

i've lost about 1/2 a stone in about a month mate. i just eat less and what i do eat is healthy-ish. i also cut down on snacks a hell of a lot, just eating fruit etc..
i also do 25 sit-ups and 10 press-ups in the morning and 30 sit-ups and 15 press-ups before bed. it all helps.

[Kezzer]

I go on the treadmill, i usually do 3 mins warmup then 45 minutes running at a fast pace and then 5 minutes cool down. Also, i haven't bothered to get on the roads so i just walk everywhere. I don't have snacks (well i try but lately with the summer here and nothing to do food always seems good). I eat healthy meals too.

I need to shift a tiny tiny bit of fat around my stomach but nothing will really do it for me as i just can't be bothered. I've only got like 1cm to lose and then there will be pure 6 pack. I don't think it matters if you have a small amount of fat around the stomach.

[Swafe]

today ive only eaten a bag of crisps

been up for a good 8 or so hours, not sure if its healthy or not, seing as im probably not eating enuff, but im losing weight and im im still alive, so go figure

[Snow-Munki]

thanks for all the advice..

i'll try to start to eat more healthy aswell

i'll try to do sits ups and pressups aswell... and se how it goes, will begin slowly and just build up

[Iain]

I have to disagree with Zathras, weight training is the best method to shift fat according to my personal trainer. The reasons being that the muscles continue to burn fat even after you have finished exercising whereas if you do a cardio workout such as jogging, cycling etc then the fat burn stops as soon as your heart rate returns to normal.

[Kezzer]

What Az says was true, i don't mention weight training since i can't do it anymore

[RVF500]

I put about 6 kilos back on after I changed jobs and stopped excercising/eating properly. So now I'm back in the gym and combining that with a low fat diet. The weight is coming off steadily. I have done low carb diets whilst training in the past and the results have come stunningly quickly but the pounds pile back on when I stop the eating regime.

Personally I combine cardio with a weight regime. Building up slowly on both fronts. Then changing things as I go along so that my body doesn't adapt to my regime. The body being a particularly efficient tool will do this. Light weights and high repetitions (say 3 lots of 15 per excercise) will tone you. Toned active muscle will increase your metabolism and burn off excess fat.

My own approach would be to join a good gym. Not cheap but there is an added incentive of money being spent to keep you going plus you can get advice on a routine to achieve your goals and can get the staff to monitor you and suggest changes as you go. From your first post I'd say you are a bit in the dark as to how to go about a training routine (apologies if I'm wrong) so some help in that direction might be an idea. Also keep a record of what you do. You can see how hard you are working and where you are improving even if it doesn't show. A routine you enjoy doing is important. If it's a chore and you don't enjoy it; you will quit. A training buddy can help there.

That's my two penn'orth Best of luck. I know how I feel when I'm out of shape. Makes me miserable, so you have my empathy.

[Stu]

Gawd there is some shocking advice/information in this thread !

As you rightly said, your body chooses which fat stores it want to use as fuel, if you get lucky it will be your gut first. Generally the gut goes before the love handles and lower back fat on males. (The legs and arms start to look leaner throughout obviously)

If you are serious abotu losing the podge, this is how you should do it.

Work out your weight in lbs, times that by 10-12 (probably works out about 1800-2200 cals)... thats how many calories you should be eating a day. I have found that 10x works best for me.

By doing the above you should have created about a -500 calorie value for that day, ie... the average human being going about there business would normally use 13-15x... or perhaps even more.

The figure of -3500 calories (ie. 7 days at -500 a day) per lb weight loss is thrown around alot, however it's far from set in stone, but can help you get a ballpark idea. Ie... doing the above you should lose about a lb a week.

However, eat say 2000 cals a day of pure cack, ie mars bars / crisps / bread etc... and you won't get very far. All that sugar will just tell you body to hang on to that fat as its got all this lovely fuel to use first.

I would suggest when you first start out, try sticking to a 40/40/20 carbs/protein/fat split... you will probably find this very hard at first, as the average UK diet is sky high in carbs already. Good sources of protein are tuna/fish/eggs(dont go over board because of the fats in there)/protein shakes. However I would have no more than one protein shake a day if your just trying to lose weight, it's high quality protein, but not as good as "real" protein as found in tuna etc.

Btw, tuna is good Did I mention I liked tuna ?

Once you have got your diet sorted, start looking at moving more .

The best time to do cardio (for fat loss) is first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach... you body will wet itself as it hasn't seen a friendly sugar in over 12 hours, and will start to look for other ways of fueling itself. Ie. your belly

You may lose abit of lean mass doing the above, but the fat loss gains out weight this 10 fold... and you can prevent this to a certain extent by lifting weights once or twice a week (combined with that high protein diet you have already sorted.

For cardio don't go above 75% max heart rate (probably about 150bpm for you). Doing so will risk losing muscle. 65-75% is the fat burning zone as it were. Running on a treadmill often pushes you over this, try the exercise cycle instead. 45mins-60mins a day, as many days a week as you can.

A big part of weight loss is learning about your body, and making a lifestyle change rather than just a "losing the podge" phase, because it will come back.

Oh, and if you can, cut out alcohol full stop, not only are pints of lager virtually fizzy carb shakes... alcohol also slows your metabolism down.

Anyway, best of luck mate.

Edit, oh, and you can't tone a muscle!!!

A muscle either gets bigger if you lift weights and eat alot, or gets smaller if you don't eat enough, or stays the same size. They don't stay the same size/weight, and change shape to become "toned". To get that "toned" looked, you need to have a low body fat percentage.

Forget about high reps of low weights for cardio, its pretty useless compared to how many cals you would burn doing proper cardio. Actually lifting heavy weights can increase your metabolism for hours after you finish, in effect, a free mini, effortless cardio session

[Moonshade]

Last summer when I really wanted to loose weight I started slowly, which I so much recommend. As the guys above said, you're body isn't going to appreciate that you're killing yourself. So I did something like Punky did..some push-ups and sit-ups in the morning and then before I got to bed. That worked very well, do as many as you dare..do not over work! That really helped, and I started to eat healthier food!

You see now I can do 500 sit-ups in one row, just because I stared slowly. Though I'm still practicing on my arms.

But hey, one important thing! Do things that you like! Do not think, "oh, I must do this, just because I wanna loose weight" That's not good, the most effective way to loose some pounds is to enjoy the exrecises so that you feel good/happy about it everytime.
So do stuff that you enjoy. I like to swim, jogging, cycling.. .
Find something that's not killing you, find something you enjoy

Hm, but one good advice don't do as I did before, stop eating..It got me into even worse problems etc. Although can't say much cos I still have problems with that, but it's just an advice, cos all of a sudden things got so much worse than it was before.

Good Luck mate! I know you can do it! .

[daniel_owen_uk]

Ok pretty simple advice but pretty serious too, warm up properly when u excersice, do about 5 minutes walking then STRETCH, if you pull something you will be out for a couple of weeks and that will ruin the whole scheme.

Seriously!!!

I pulled my thigh playing football last year, not only did it hurt like hell but I couldn't play for 2 months (luckly did it just before christmas so didn't miss too many games).

[Snow-Munki]

thanks again very much for all the helpful advice.

firstly and probably very stupid but what are / where are love handles, think i know where ish but don't think i have them...

so should try to eat a lot more protein, any other examples ? i don't ind fish but don't like tuna eggs are cool though, anything else..

also lower my carb count.. hmm like what again, i do eat a lot of rice which i assume is bad ?

what is good to have for breakfast then, as recently been having 2 slices of toast with butter and jam...

my heart rate when running is around 170 - 180 so will try to run slower and go for longer as that seems to be better, and i thought it be bad to run every day and best to do it every other day?

thanks again