brighid

All the advice so far has been very good. I am currently pursuing my personal training certification. I have been a fitness instructor and personal trainer in the past and I am currently accepting the Body for Life Challenge. I have a good 10-12% body fat to loose. I have been diagnosed with a progesterone deficiency and an estrogen dominance, even tough I am not any where near pre-menopause. Talk about packing on some pounds – uuuuugggggggghhhh!!

My first piece of advice is to get a GOOD pair of walking or cross training shoes. They are a MUST! I go through running or cross training shoes about every 3-6months if I am running regularly. When the shoes start to break down I get wicked shin splints and I must pretty much stop running or else suffer some excrutiating pain. Even though shoes can be expensive they are worth the investment. I cannot tell you how I hate to see clients wearing crappy shoes from Walmart of Payless. It pains me to watch them exercise.

I also recommend the Bill Phillips, Body for Life book, as well as his magazine Muscle Media and the accompanying female directed mag, Energy. They are great and for the most part give you very solid advice without all the crap and fluff so many other fitness magazines include. They give great workout ideas, recipes and explain things in terms the average person can understand. The BFL program is very good in my opinion. I have always hated Weight Watchers because there diets are designed to look weight – most often muscle and not fat as muscle weighs more. You need the metabolically active lean muscle mass to burn calories and without lean muscle mass your metabolism is … well it SLOW! You won’t go hungry on BFL program. You eat 6, small meals a day, workout for less then an hour each day and you CAN make a huge change in 12 weeks. But even if you don’t get a fitness models body in 12 weeks you are in a much better position then you were before you started and it’s about changing your life, not temporarily changing your weight. My husband has made GREAT gains on this program If one of us wins, I’ll be sure to let everyone know!

Also, weight training is an absolute must. Aerobic activity like walking is only one part of the equation and without proper nutrition, weight training and proper recovery cycle you will hit a brick wall in your weight loss attempts. Drink LOTS of water! It’s seems difficult at 1st if you aren’t use to it, but with a little discipline it becomes easy. It will help with any swelling you have during or after walking or other exercise.

As a soon to be personal trainer I highly recommend getting one, OR getting a workout buddy. You are much more likely to have success if you are accountable to someone else. Good luck with your weight loss and exercise plan. The hardest part is starting and the rest of it is easy by comparison.

Brighid

Veil of Fire

Wow! Thanks for all the advice!

Weight training would be a great idea, but I'm not sure its feasible right now... well, ok, RIGHT NOW it might be, but not for much longer. Ya see, I'm home for the summer, and my dad has an old weight bench in the basement I can use, but back in school the gym is undergoing rennovations and probably won't open until the spring semester. I'd hate to start something, just begin to see real results, then have to quit and start all over.

Speaking of basements, I found my mom's exercise bike, and it's actually relatively new. I might give that a shot rather than walking; it's way too hot and humid around here for my preference anyway. In the upper 90s the last couple days.

For a bike, which would be a healthier fat-burning workout: 10 minutes at a high resistance level, or 20 minutes at a moderate resistance level? My thighs are in pretty decent shape (old karate class benefits in that area never went away), so the moderate resistance doesn't feel like it's doing anything, but the high resistance tires me out pretty quick. I'm still fiddling with the settings to try and find something high-moderate.

How about swimming? I might be able to do that when I get back to college, depending on whether or not the swimming pool is in the part of the gym being rennovated...

brighid:

My diet at the moment has been mostly focused on just cutting out the extra, unnecessary stuff. Not only am I a grazer (my hunger depends less on how much I eat than on what time it is), food is also anti-boredom, anti-depression, and anti-frustration. At college that's only a slight problem, since the dining hall is only open for so many hours, and I'd have to walk to the ass-end of nowhere to get my car and go buy something, but at home it's a big problem because the house is always well-stocked with food, including junk food.

My eating scheduel was:

1) Pop-Tarts for breakfast
2) Chips/Cookies for a pre-lunch snack while at work
3) Lunch - Either (a) eat out (mongolian Bar-B-Q is wonderful) or (b) eat in (ham sandwhich, lots of chips, Coke, cookies)
4) Get home, have some oreos for a snack
5) Eat dinner, which is usually reasonably healthy and home-cooked
6) Ice Cream with chocolate syrup for dessert
7) Later at night, more oreos (I'm ashamed to admit just how many constituted a 'serving' at this snacktime)
8) And maybe a few more a little later (usually with the excuse "well, I have to take my meds with FOOD....")

Then go to bed.

Now, I'm trying to make it look more like:
1) A Carnation Instant Breakfast shake (almost as much good stuff as Slimfast, and, ironically, less fat!)
2) Lunch (same as above, only attempting to substitute more lamb for beef in the mongolian)
3) Dinner (same as above)
NO dessert
4) Ice cream a bit later in the evening, with meds.

Add that to exercise, and I think I can shed those extra pounds and get back to a healthy weight. Right now, I'm *not* healthy. Not morbidly obese, but not healthy either. My goal weight is still in the "slightly overweight" category, but is about 40-50 pounds lighter than this. I reckon it'll take about a year.

Oh, and water's not a problem; I regularly drink more than a liter a day.

I really don't think I could handle the 'six small meals' thing... it'd be too easy to slip back into the grazing pattern.

The Other Michael

Veil of Fire,

It appears that for an aerobic benefit you need about a 20 minute minimum at your aerobic level (which for me, late 40s male, is about 135-140 pulse rate).

It is easy to over do things and go anerobic on this part of your workout, so you want to get used to checking your pulse (time for 6 seconds and multiply by 10).

You might look at Covert Bailey's "Fit or Fat", and the book he cowrote with Lea Bishop "The Fit or Fat Woman".

He seems to make a lot of sense, and points out that there are no easy shortcuts.

Unfortunately, I'd REALLY like some easy shortcuts!

cheers,
Michael

Veil of Fire

How do I find out what my aerobic level is?

wordsmyth

[quote]Originally posted by Veil of Fire:
<strong>For a bike, which would be a healthier fat-burning workout: 10 minutes at a high resistance level, or 20 minutes at a moderate resistance level? </strong>

This is what I recommend for cardio on an exercise
Bike:
(level 1 being the easiest setting for you and level 10 being an all out everything you got. Level 5 is a moderate pace. Enough to get your heart rate up but not too strenuous).

Level 5 (1 minute)
Level 6 (1 minute)
Level 7 (1 minute)
Level 6 (1 minute)
- end of warmup
Level 7 (1 minute)
Level 8 (1 minute)
Level 9 (1 minute)
Level 8 (1 minute)
Level 9 (1 minute)
Level 10 (1 minute)
- begin cooldown
Level 5 (1 minute)


Swimming is an excellent cardio exercise as it incorporates many different muscle groups.

Actually, "grazing" is about the same as eating 6 small meals and is a good way to boost your metabolism provided you eat the right kinds of food and in the right proportions. It took me awhile to get used to eating 6 small meals a day at regular times and in the beginning I could only manage 5. You just have to make it a habit.

I usually make sunday my "cheat day" in which I can eat things like oreo's and ice-cream, but during the week I stick closely to my diet.

I also reccomend weight-training. Even if you don't have access to a gym you can always do push-ups, pull-ups and crunches.

Push-ups can work more than just your chest simply by changing the position of your hands. Point your fingers towards each other and you will work your tri-ceps, point your fingers away from each other and you will work your bi-ceps, elevate your feet and you will work your upper chest more and if you can manage it, do hand-stand push-ups (possibly against a wall) and you will give your shoulders a killer work-out.

Its even possible to get a total body workout with just a pair of dumbells, so you might consider investing in a pair.

Agnostic Journyman

Veil,

Your goals sound realistic. I embarked upon my weight loss quest in early October of last year, and have lost 30 pounds since. I'd be happy with ten more.

May I suggest a few tweaks to your meals? More fruit and veggies (maybe your home-cooked meals include those), especially at breakfast. A banana, some cantaloupe, or grapes with cold cereal is a good choice.
And don't ever skip breakfast (you apparently don't...this is just bonus info). When you finish your last meal in the evening, go to bed, and then skip breakfast the next day, you could go twelve hours without food. Your body reacts to this, thinking there's a famine on, and instinctively slows its metabolism down. That's not what you want! You want to stoke that metabolism any way you can.

Also, consider having a reduced portion of dessert right after dinner, then toughing it out by not eating right up and into bedtime. Your metabolism inevitably slows during sleep, plus evening for many people is a time of reduced activity (unless you choose to work in a little cardio before turning in...some people find that keeps them awake at bedtime). If you gorge yourself right before sacking out, that food just sits in your stomach, and since there's not much demand for it, your body will store it as fat.

The ongoing key to weight loss is to expend more calories in a day than one consumes. You don't have to be a calorie counter to reduce calories. Just start taking notice of your portion sizes at each meal, and what habit you may have formed over the years concerning what you consider enough food has been eaten. Gorged? Stuffed? Just full? Slightly hungry? Aim for slightly hungry. Twenty minutes later, you won't feel as much hunger. Drinking lots of water helps suppress hunger pangs (leaves less room for food in the stomach, for one thing).

The overall key to fitness success is lifestyle changes. That is what is good about Bill Phillip's program over some others...he's at least preaching lifestyle changes vs. this or that fad diet.
Lifestyle management can be tricky. For you, you're home with your family and have a routine established. When you return to school, things will change, obviously (which you've stated you're aware of).

One last thing, abuot the weight training. Go ahead and start now, even if you might not have access when you return to school. You will probably find just the time you spend now with weights will make your other exercise efforts easier. Enough so that you'll get creative enough to maintain the good benefit of weight training when back at school. Barbell and dumbbell sets are cheap...you don't even need a bench to do basic, beneficial training. If you live in a dorm, you can stand at a mirror and do curls, or lie on the carpet and do chest presses with a barbell. For your abs, crunches are fine. Pushups work wonders for the pectorals. Maybe there's a sturdy pipe or beam down the hall you could knock a few pullups on. It's fun to be creative when you can't get to the good equipment. I've done it when I travel and can't find a gym.

The Other Michael

The Bailey rule of thumb is 80% of your maximum heart rate.

220 minus your age can be used for the max, as your max generally declines with age.

However, they point out that about 14% of people are born with larger or smaller hearts, meaning that their max can be higher or lower than that. You'd probably need a treadmill stress test to determine what yours actually is.

They do mention that you can try starting at a lower rate, then gradually increase over a few days to the standard. If you aren't getting winded (the whole idea as I understand it behind aerobic exercise) then try raising it a bit until you start getting winded, then back down to a more comfortable level.

But they do stress that you can't apply the 220-age rule as a hard and fast thing.

cheers,
Michael

Synaesthesia

I had a lot of knee problems when I started jogging. What I did is go to a physiotherapist. After a couple months of doing the prescribes stretches and exercises, my knees (after about 4 years of hellish unreliability) are fine.

brighid

Well, it seems your diet at this point in time is full of simple carbs and hardly any protein! This is the 1st thing that you need to eliminate! There are a lot of good protein drinks out there and Carnation instant breakfast or anything by Slim Fast isn’t among those. Go to your grocery store, health food store or local GNC and try a sampling of a few different kinds. Most can be bought in individual packets to make sampling easy. My favorite (and I have tried MANY) is Myoplex Cappuccino Lite by EAS (yes a Bill Phillips company product ) I also like Genisoy products, but because of the estrogenic effects of Soy and my estrogen dominance it has been recommended that I eliminate soy from my diet almost entirely. I also like Go Lean shakes. The packets have more protein then the ready-made shakes and they also contain a good amount of fiber, which most don’t have and help fill you up.

I am averaging 5 small meals a day and now that we have pin pointed by hormonal issues the fat is melting off like butter and a hot, summer day! I am working on 6, but I consistently eat 5.

Here is a typical day for me:

5:00 am upper or lower body workout – yoga or Pilates for 20-30 minutes on alternating days

6:15 am – Myoplex Cappuccino Lite Shake w/skim milk
20 oz of water
2 iron man fast burn tablets (no ephedra or white willow bark for me)

9:00-9:15 – egg beaters, vegetable like broccoli, snap peas, or cauliflower cooked to make an omelet, ½ cup cottage cheese, or low fat turkey sausage and cantaloupe or multi grain toast. 20 oz water, vitamin pack and 2 iron man tabs.

12:15-12:30 – tuna, cucumbers, tomatoes, mixed greens ½ tbsp low fat ranch or balsamic vinaigrette dressing, multi grain toast or apple, 20 oz water and 2 iron man tabs

3:15 - Go Lean Shake, ½ cup cottage cheese, small piece of fruit and 20 oz water or Nitro-tech bar and fruit.

On aerobic days I take class at 6:30 so I don’t eat until 1 hour after class – this is the toughest part of the day to NOT snack in order to maximize fat burning. If there are carbs in my system my body will use that instead of stored fat to use as fuel during my workout.

6:30 – 7:30 – step aerobic class with weights (2 days p/week). One day per week I do HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) for 20 minutes. 20-32 oz of water before, during and after class.

8:30 – stuffed peppers made with 5% fat ground turkey, brown rice, onions, garlic, spices in a tomato sauce, 20 oz of water and fruit.

In order to ensure I eat well during the day, bulk of which is spent at work I shop Monday morning before work and get all the things I will need for that week. It saves me a ton of $$$ not going out to eat and not to mention fat and calories. I spend between $25-35 p/week on food for 3-4 of meals at day at work. I probably spend another $10-15 p/week for the meal alternatives like protein shakes and bars. My husband eats a very similar menu, but adds a bit more protein and a few carbs as he is focused more on building muscle and less on losing fat as much. He doesn’t have much body fat to lose (damn that testosterone) and simply wants his size and definition back in his musculature.

I have lost 2% body fat in week 2 of the 12-week plan, part of which I am sure is also some water weight. I have always worked out, but with the hormonal issues and some bad eating choices… I have gotten a bit soft.

Most gyms offer a student discounted rate and a summer membership for a very reasonable amount of money – usually less then $100. It’s worth the investment. If you hit the treadmill 3 times a week and work at a pace that is intense for your fitness level – for 20-30 minutes and add 3 days of weight training you will have made a lot of progress before you get back to school. Pick up a Muscle Media magazine the next time you go into the store. In my opinion, it is the best fitness magazine out there, has lots of sound advice and great workout routines plus it doesn’t have all the fluff or half the raunchy advertisements – although you might enjoy some of them Plus, it’s not aimed at steroid using body builders or presents any truly unrealistic models. I have tried many of the recipes in that magazine and they are really good. I also get Oxygen magazine, but that is aimed at women but my husband enjoys reading it too – although I tease him that he really likes the pictures more then the articles

If you have knee problems running can be very hard on those joints. Swimming is an excellent exercise and if you have joint issues it doesn’t wear on them. I use to hate running, until I got a good pair of shoes and I saw how quickly it was reducing the size of my butt! Alternate between running for one minute and walking for one minute. It will build up your endurance and be a bit easier on your shins and knees. Doing that for 30 minutes I get about 3 miles in! I would also recommend step class. It will be awkward at 1st, but you will one of the ONLY guys in the class, it will make you sweat, burn fat AND it may be a good way to meet some single ladies. Make sure to do at least 5 minutes of warming up and cooling down your muscles. This will help prevent injury and some muscle soreness the next day.

Good Luck!

Brighid

edited to add: Oh, I forgot to add the one day a week TREAT day! We usually pick Sundays as our treat and rest day, but that will depend on the social obligations we may have. This past week we chose the 4th of July as our treat day so we could enjoy a local festival and eat ribs, corn on the cob, funnel cake, ice cream and anything else that sounded yummy. It’s very important to have one day a week to be able to eat what you want, not only psychologically but to also help trick your metabolism. Also, that food that you eat on your treat/cheat day never tasted so good as it does when you discipline yourself well all week! This week we plan on Sunday as our Treat Day and we will be indulging in some fried chicken, mashed potatoes, onion rings and some ice cream. Don't deprive yourself completely but discipline yourself and the rewards will be well worth your efforts.

[ July 09, 2002: Message edited by: brighid ]</p>

The Other Michael

Hi Brighid

That looks like a gallon of water a day to me.

I've often wondered about the benefits of what appears to me to be excessive hydration.

Yes, your body needs fluids, and when exercising you probably need a bit more to replace what is lost in sweat/exhaled, as well as to help flush byproducts from the system.

But a gallon seems like a lot (presuming you aren't out in the hot sun sweating all day), and I'd think that once you were fully hydrated, anything beyond "topping up" for losses is just going straight out of the body.

I can see using the water as a crutch to trick yourself into feeling "full" so you can reduce the food intake a bit. I don't see much sense to all the people I see walking around guzzling their bottles of water all day long.

What am I missing?

BTW, I went to Amazon and was reading some of the reviews on the "Body for Life" book, and it sounds like there is some concern that the before/after photos in the book have been doctored. The majority of reviews do seem positive, but I wonder how much of that is due to those who got results being more likely to write a review?

How much of what he is saying is just common sense that you could pick up from any exercise website?

As with all of these things, I'm reasonably sure that it all boils down to the person deciding to actually DO something and sticking with it.

cheers,
Michael