how much should i do?
- Thread starter becky86
- Start date
Becky...
Any exercise will burn calories and help move you in the direction of weight-loss, better health and improved fitness. Just figure out what you enjoy most and work with it. I find running very high-impact and my knee hurts pretty quickly...so I'm in to biking, spinning, swimming and talking smack on the racquetball court.
Keeping it simple...the benefits of exercise are far and many, BUT more then anything else, it's diet that will make the difference in the amount of fat on your body. The body uses fat to store energy...you simply need to eat less then you need and the results will follow. Exercise will help burn calories & fat...but please know that your body is keenly aware of the burned calories lost in exercise and will drive you, with hunger, to replace/replenish them. In other words, you can go on a grueling 3-hour bike ride and burn 2,100 calories....but your body knows you burned those calories and you'll be hit with a divine and nearly unstoppable hunger which will drive you to eat: the body strives for an equilibrium...almost like a thermostat, it'll tend to keep you maintained at the weight you're at. This, in health-science terms, is referred to as Set-Point Theory.
Anyways...getting to it..start with a solid diet. Millions of people have lost weight with diet alone. I'd suggest some weight-training to help maintain lean-muscle and some cardio to keep you active. It is very hard to do a bunch of hard cardio and then screw it all up and negate your efforts by pounding-down a whole pizza: more often then not the exercise is a mental thing to keep you on track. Diet is EVERYTHING. Hope that helps....
Any exercise will burn calories and help move you in the direction of weight-loss, better health and improved fitness. Just figure out what you enjoy most and work with it. I find running very high-impact and my knee hurts pretty quickly...so I'm in to biking, spinning, swimming and talking smack on the racquetball court.
Keeping it simple...the benefits of exercise are far and many, BUT more then anything else, it's diet that will make the difference in the amount of fat on your body. The body uses fat to store energy...you simply need to eat less then you need and the results will follow. Exercise will help burn calories & fat...but please know that your body is keenly aware of the burned calories lost in exercise and will drive you, with hunger, to replace/replenish them. In other words, you can go on a grueling 3-hour bike ride and burn 2,100 calories....but your body knows you burned those calories and you'll be hit with a divine and nearly unstoppable hunger which will drive you to eat: the body strives for an equilibrium...almost like a thermostat, it'll tend to keep you maintained at the weight you're at. This, in health-science terms, is referred to as Set-Point Theory.
Anyways...getting to it..start with a solid diet. Millions of people have lost weight with diet alone. I'd suggest some weight-training to help maintain lean-muscle and some cardio to keep you active. It is very hard to do a bunch of hard cardio and then screw it all up and negate your efforts by pounding-down a whole pizza: more often then not the exercise is a mental thing to keep you on track. Diet is EVERYTHING. Hope that helps....
Hi Becky,
The previous post is definitely right. It all starts with nutrition. However, cycling is a great sport to lose weight without hurting your joints too much.
The big mistake most people make is biking too fast. If you go fast, your body will use carbs for energy, if you go slower (I can right pages about this but let's just say you still have to be able to have a conversation while biking) your body will burn a higher percentage of fats. Plus, you'll be able to bike longer.
So if you watch your food intake, cycling can be a great way to lose fat!!
Good luck!
Sander aka DefineDefense
The previous post is definitely right. It all starts with nutrition. However, cycling is a great sport to lose weight without hurting your joints too much.
The big mistake most people make is biking too fast. If you go fast, your body will use carbs for energy, if you go slower (I can right pages about this but let's just say you still have to be able to have a conversation while biking) your body will burn a higher percentage of fats. Plus, you'll be able to bike longer.
So if you watch your food intake, cycling can be a great way to lose fat!!
Good luck!
Sander aka DefineDefense
Good enthusiasm....but a bit of convoluted information.
When you bike fast/hard, a greater proportion of energy will come from glycogen and ATP/Creatine-Phosphate relative to fat...but you are still burning fat, and even burning fat at a greater rate then if you went slow. I don't think people will ever get past this misconception. The other benefits of pushing harder is that you'll stimulate your metabolism, increase VO2-max, increase muscle-growth and even after your done with the exercise you'll catch some EPOC.
EPIC is Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption. What this basically represents is how many additional calories your body will burn after the exercise session has been completed in order to return your body to the state it was in before the exercise took place. In other words, bike slow and burn just those calories....bike faster & hard, and you burn those calories AND then some. This, in a sense, sums up the HIIT approach.
Truth is...the body is less efficient when you push hard, so you burn more calories. If I go on my 22.4-mile ride and I do the whole ride slowly...I may burn about 1,670 calories, but if I push myself hard and try to beat my old time, I may burn more like 2,300 calories...and then some afterwards with EPOC.
Best to mix it up, but don't be afraid to push hard and please don't fall into the misconception of thinking you burn more fat when you go slow to keep your heart-rate down to 110-130. You may burn a greater percentage of fat at the lower HR, but you'll burn more overall fat at the higher intensity.
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Everybody gets a . However, there are certain points I'd like to make:
- (some) People who push hard don't recover as fast and therefore perform less workouts per week. In the overall grand scheme of things, it might be better to excercise at an aerobic level in order to recover and workout consistently.
- There are approximately 2000 calories in your glycogen stores and approximately 70000 calories in your fat stores. In a one hour workout, it really doesn't make a difference whether or not your aerobic or anaerobic. Outside of an hour -- let the issues begin. Wiki BONK
- There are 3500 calories in a pound. Burn 3500 calories of any source and you will be one pound lighter. If you burn 3500 calories doing crunches, that one pound will not come off of your belly, it will come off of your body.
- Consistency and patience will enable you to reach your goal.
- (some) People who push hard don't recover as fast and therefore perform less workouts per week. In the overall grand scheme of things, it might be better to excercise at an aerobic level in order to recover and workout consistently.
- There are approximately 2000 calories in your glycogen stores and approximately 70000 calories in your fat stores. In a one hour workout, it really doesn't make a difference whether or not your aerobic or anaerobic. Outside of an hour -- let the issues begin. Wiki BONK
- There are 3500 calories in a pound. Burn 3500 calories of any source and you will be one pound lighter. If you burn 3500 calories doing crunches, that one pound will not come off of your belly, it will come off of your body.
- Consistency and patience will enable you to reach your goal.
FWIW...I'm in it for the discussion, I don't wanna be that know-it-all guy whose pushing ego and trying to out-smart everyone. I work my ass off and in doing so strive to take an educated approach to this stuff...so here's my OCD take on this and shared knowledge of what I know. Please read a friendly & open attitude in this:
People who don't push hard also don't develop more muscle, increase endurance, improve VO2-max or push thresholds for greater performance. When presented with a load/stress, the body responds and adapts....unless you're like 85 years old. Unless you're going to extremes, just about any routine can be re-performed every 2-3 days...and if you don't push yourself, you won't improve or make progress.
That said, it cordially still falls into the category of "Find whatever works for you"....cause the lazy workout in the gym is still better then the best day on the couch.
That's...not quite right. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but last I recall we have a whole lot more glycogen on tap then just 2k-cals. I believe my nutritionist told me I'd have to ride hard for 4 hours before I came near depleting glycogen reserves, and let's not forget that our bodies are also burning fat as we exercise too.
The liver has the capacity to store 100 grams of glycogen. The muscles have the capacity to store between 250-400 grams of glycogen, depending on muscle mass and physical condition. Liver glycogen supplies energy for the entire body. Muscle glycogen only supplies energy to muscles. And incidently; your muscle glycogen storage will increase....but only when you push yourself!
Actually, it does. Anaerobic is high intensity...we're talking HIIT, EPOC and all sorts of stimulation & development which can keep your metabolism elevated for 24-48 hours post-workout. Whereas a mellow aerobics session may only burn the calories of that exercise alone with little or no affects beyond that. If you only have one hour in which to exercise, a higher-intensity HIIT routine will burn much more calories AND results in continued post-workout benefits as well. It really does make a difference.
There goes every claim ever made by those ab-crunch machines!
But it sounds right to me! I often think about this stuff on my long rides. From what I gather, about 35% of the calories burned during exercise is derived from fat, ya know...overall. My 3-hour routine generally burns about 2,100 calories, so I'm burning about 735 calories from fat...or roughly losing about 1/5 a pound of fat. Jeez, doesn't that suck: I have to do 15 hours of exercise to nail a full pound of the white stuff off my body! No fair....
But wait a cardio minute....what about the other 1,365 calories that must have come from glycogen? (during my 2,100 calorie exertion). Well, my nutritionist says that the body can not replenish glycogen from body-fat...so it all has to come from food we eat....perhaps this is why they often say it's optimal to eat right after exercise! Indeed it is. Like a sponge, the body will replenish glycogen storage back to full capacity BEFORE it stores any glucose into fat. Ah HA: this means I can eat 1,365 calories after I exercise without fear of gaining weight...well, yeah, I suppose it does.
From what I've been taught, an hour of cardio can burn 1-1.5 ounces of fat....while reducing calories by 500 per day can result in 2 ounces of fat loss. I was told: it's easier to diet-off the fat then to burn it off...so go figure. True, true...millions of Fatmericans have lost weight by diet alone, but they also lost a lot of lean muscle. Up to 30% of weight lost during a simple diet can be lean muscle! We don't want to just lose weight, we want to lose body-fat.
Anyways, putting this all in a nice package: have a nice breakfast and do your cardio in the morning...hit it as hard as you are comfortable with. Afterwards, consume about 55% the calories you burned to replenish glycogen. Have some nice lean protein with some high-fiber whole carbs...my favorite is the 2-scoops of tuna on a nice salad with thousand island dressing on the side and 2 slices of toasted whole wheat bread...and a bit of avocado to boot, along with some EFA's and multi-vitamin on the side to swallow. Wash it down with some unsweetened ice-tea and finish it all off with one square of dark chocolate high in cacao.
Come dinner time, go lean and catch your calorie deficit for the day.
The longest journey begins with the first step....better get moving cause it's not like you have a choice
People who don't push hard also don't develop more muscle, increase endurance, improve VO2-max or push thresholds for greater performance. When presented with a load/stress, the body responds and adapts....unless you're like 85 years old. Unless you're going to extremes, just about any routine can be re-performed every 2-3 days...and if you don't push yourself, you won't improve or make progress.
That said, it cordially still falls into the category of "Find whatever works for you"....cause the lazy workout in the gym is still better then the best day on the couch.
That's...not quite right. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but last I recall we have a whole lot more glycogen on tap then just 2k-cals. I believe my nutritionist told me I'd have to ride hard for 4 hours before I came near depleting glycogen reserves, and let's not forget that our bodies are also burning fat as we exercise too.
The liver has the capacity to store 100 grams of glycogen. The muscles have the capacity to store between 250-400 grams of glycogen, depending on muscle mass and physical condition. Liver glycogen supplies energy for the entire body. Muscle glycogen only supplies energy to muscles. And incidently; your muscle glycogen storage will increase....but only when you push yourself!
Actually, it does. Anaerobic is high intensity...we're talking HIIT, EPOC and all sorts of stimulation & development which can keep your metabolism elevated for 24-48 hours post-workout. Whereas a mellow aerobics session may only burn the calories of that exercise alone with little or no affects beyond that. If you only have one hour in which to exercise, a higher-intensity HIIT routine will burn much more calories AND results in continued post-workout benefits as well. It really does make a difference.
There goes every claim ever made by those ab-crunch machines!
But it sounds right to me! I often think about this stuff on my long rides. From what I gather, about 35% of the calories burned during exercise is derived from fat, ya know...overall. My 3-hour routine generally burns about 2,100 calories, so I'm burning about 735 calories from fat...or roughly losing about 1/5 a pound of fat. Jeez, doesn't that suck: I have to do 15 hours of exercise to nail a full pound of the white stuff off my body! No fair....
But wait a cardio minute....what about the other 1,365 calories that must have come from glycogen? (during my 2,100 calorie exertion). Well, my nutritionist says that the body can not replenish glycogen from body-fat...so it all has to come from food we eat....perhaps this is why they often say it's optimal to eat right after exercise! Indeed it is. Like a sponge, the body will replenish glycogen storage back to full capacity BEFORE it stores any glucose into fat. Ah HA: this means I can eat 1,365 calories after I exercise without fear of gaining weight...well, yeah, I suppose it does.
From what I've been taught, an hour of cardio can burn 1-1.5 ounces of fat....while reducing calories by 500 per day can result in 2 ounces of fat loss. I was told: it's easier to diet-off the fat then to burn it off...so go figure. True, true...millions of Fatmericans have lost weight by diet alone, but they also lost a lot of lean muscle. Up to 30% of weight lost during a simple diet can be lean muscle! We don't want to just lose weight, we want to lose body-fat.
Anyways, putting this all in a nice package: have a nice breakfast and do your cardio in the morning...hit it as hard as you are comfortable with. Afterwards, consume about 55% the calories you burned to replenish glycogen. Have some nice lean protein with some high-fiber whole carbs...my favorite is the 2-scoops of tuna on a nice salad with thousand island dressing on the side and 2 slices of toasted whole wheat bread...and a bit of avocado to boot, along with some EFA's and multi-vitamin on the side to swallow. Wash it down with some unsweetened ice-tea and finish it all off with one square of dark chocolate high in cacao.
Come dinner time, go lean and catch your calorie deficit for the day.
Amen brother!!! You couldn't be more correct!!!
The longest journey begins with the first step....better get moving cause it's not like you have a choice
I did glance through it though.
Without a doubt. I am totally in this for the education so feel free to debate it. I have been wrong and will continue to be wrong.
I'm pretty sure the glycogen info is correct.
As far as burning fuel is concerned, whether you're low intensity or high intensity, you're going to burn both glycogen and fat. The intensity determines how much of each. The problem is (let's say I am correct) if you only have 2000 calories of glycogen available, and the average person can only "process" 240-280 calories an hour, the average person is going to bonk in 2-3 hours. Btw, that was also my point about aerobic v. anaerobic... if exercise only lasts an hour it's not going to matter.
If you want to think about something... wrap your head around this...
If a 150 pound man has 10% bodyfat that would be 15 pounds worth. Realizing that butter is nearly all fat, stack up 15 pounds of butter. Eeeew.
Dude....
Today I did one spin-class, then ran a couple miles on the treadmill, then did an extra-long second spin-class, then swam a mile in the pool: I think I darn well came near depleting all my glycogen!!! I didn't "eat" my lunch, I absorbed it!!!!
I had some time and called my nutritionist...and if I haven't touted it enough, he's a contributing editor to Men's Health, lectures around the country, writes articles & books and can leap over a building in a single bound (yet I have to keep buying when we go out to lunch, go figure!)
...and, his answer was so complex that my glycogen-deprived mind can't recall it. So let's run with what you wrote and leave it at that. Nahh...seriously, he said it really depends on many factors, most being size of the human and quite a bit their conditioning. Given what you and I do, we have LOADS more glycogen storage/capacity then the average adult desk-jockey, so we're conditioned much differently...but, with a typical person, if they are on a treadmill going straight-out non-stop, you can generally bonk them in 90-140 minutes.
So I said to Alan (my nutritionist, Alan Aragon)...then why'd you tell me I can go about 3.5-4.5 hours on my rides without bonking???? And he said..."because you're a mountain of muscle-mass with huge glycogen reserves that have been developed over time on account of your repeatedly going on long rides....AND you have sections of downhill so you're not exactly hardcore non-stop grinding 100% of the time (as they are in test-subjects on treadmills) AND you drink your accelerade and snack on fruit, nuts and chocolate along the way" And I said "oh"
You wrote: if you only have 2000 calories of glycogen available, and the average person can only "process" 240-280 calories an hour, the average person is going to bonk in 2-3 hours.
I'm not sure that makes sense....if you have 2,000 calories of glycogen and the average person processes 260 per hour...wouldn't that mean they'd bonk in 7.7 hours?...not 2-3 hours.
Let's play this math. My understanding is that, when we exercise at a moderate rate, about 35% of calories comes from fat. And let's figure a bike-ride, jog or solid activity burns about 700 calories per hour (it varies of course, but let's run with it). So as the numbers go, that means an hour of exercise burns 245 calories of fat and 455 of glycogen. Hmmm....that sorta flies in the face of 260 calories per hour that an average person can process. No dude, that can't be right. Plenty of exercise can run as high as 800 calories per hour and if an average person can only extract about 260 calories of glycogen per hour...you can't draw the remaining 540 from fat; fat can't be broken-down and utilized that fast. Stands to reason that we can access, metabolize and burn at least 520 calories of glycogen an hour. Perhaps your "260" number is grams and not calories??? Ughh!!!
Well...one thing you are certainly right about (actually, WE are right about) is that the intensity does rather dictate how much fat & glycogen we use. Can you guess when we are using the greatest percentage of fat? WHEN WE ARE SLEEPING....LOL, yeah: sleep your way to a thinner you! But seriously, when you sleep you use the greatest proportion of fat for fuel.
One other thing worth noting....my HR-monitor projects calories burned and I notice it also shows "percentage from fat"...and it's all based on average heart-rate! When I'm pushing hard and my avg. HR is high, it generally tells me 30% of calories came from fat...and when I'm draggin'-ass (chatting-up cougars in the pool) and I get a low HR-avg, it suggest as much as 40% calories burned came from fat.
So I guess the big perspective is that our bodies burn glycogen....but the glycogen comes from glucose circulating (and maintained) in the blood, glycogen available in the muscle and liver....and for our big gas-tank we use our fat. The ATP/Creatine-Phosphate...that's more of a chemical process that happens on-the-spot anerobically. So in the end, we're burning glucose, but it comes from several storage-sources and your point is correct: if you burn 1,000 calories, you've burned 1,000 calories..albiet from different sources that vary to some degree....but really, not that much, eh?
Gotta run.....dinner time. I'm testing a new theory: I'm gonna eat everything with a small fork, theory being that the bigger calories won't fit on it! Dream HUGE!
Today I did one spin-class, then ran a couple miles on the treadmill, then did an extra-long second spin-class, then swam a mile in the pool: I think I darn well came near depleting all my glycogen!!! I didn't "eat" my lunch, I absorbed it!!!!
I had some time and called my nutritionist...and if I haven't touted it enough, he's a contributing editor to Men's Health, lectures around the country, writes articles & books and can leap over a building in a single bound (yet I have to keep buying when we go out to lunch, go figure!
)...and, his answer was so complex that my glycogen-deprived mind can't recall it. So let's run with what you wrote and leave it at that.
Nahh...seriously, he said it really depends on many factors, most being size of the human and quite a bit their conditioning. Given what you and I do, we have LOADS more glycogen storage/capacity then the average adult desk-jockey, so we're conditioned much differently...but, with a typical person, if they are on a treadmill going straight-out non-stop, you can generally bonk them in 90-140 minutes. So I said to Alan (my nutritionist, Alan Aragon)...then why'd you tell me I can go about 3.5-4.5 hours on my rides without bonking???? And he said..."because you're a mountain of muscle-mass with huge glycogen reserves that have been developed over time on account of your repeatedly going on long rides....AND you have sections of downhill so you're not exactly hardcore non-stop grinding 100% of the time (as they are in test-subjects on treadmills) AND you drink your accelerade and snack on fruit, nuts and chocolate along the way" And I said "oh"
You wrote: if you only have 2000 calories of glycogen available, and the average person can only "process" 240-280 calories an hour, the average person is going to bonk in 2-3 hours.
I'm not sure that makes sense....if you have 2,000 calories of glycogen and the average person processes 260 per hour...wouldn't that mean they'd bonk in 7.7 hours?...not 2-3 hours.
Let's play this math. My understanding is that, when we exercise at a moderate rate, about 35% of calories comes from fat. And let's figure a bike-ride, jog or solid activity burns about 700 calories per hour (it varies of course, but let's run with it). So as the numbers go, that means an hour of exercise burns 245 calories of fat and 455 of glycogen. Hmmm....that sorta flies in the face of 260 calories per hour that an average person can process. No dude, that can't be right. Plenty of exercise can run as high as 800 calories per hour and if an average person can only extract about 260 calories of glycogen per hour...you can't draw the remaining 540 from fat; fat can't be broken-down and utilized that fast. Stands to reason that we can access, metabolize and burn at least 520 calories of glycogen an hour. Perhaps your "260" number is grams and not calories??? Ughh!!!
Well...one thing you are certainly right about (actually, WE are right about) is that the intensity does rather dictate how much fat & glycogen we use. Can you guess when we are using the greatest percentage of fat? WHEN WE ARE SLEEPING....LOL, yeah: sleep your way to a thinner you!
But seriously, when you sleep you use the greatest proportion of fat for fuel. One other thing worth noting....my HR-monitor projects calories burned and I notice it also shows "percentage from fat"...and it's all based on average heart-rate! When I'm pushing hard and my avg. HR is high, it generally tells me 30% of calories came from fat...and when I'm draggin'-ass (chatting-up cougars in the pool) and I get a low HR-avg, it suggest as much as 40% calories burned came from fat.
So I guess the big perspective is that our bodies burn glycogen....but the glycogen comes from glucose circulating (and maintained) in the blood, glycogen available in the muscle and liver....and for our big gas-tank we use our fat. The ATP/Creatine-Phosphate...that's more of a chemical process that happens on-the-spot anerobically. So in the end, we're burning glucose, but it comes from several storage-sources and your point is correct: if you burn 1,000 calories, you've burned 1,000 calories..albiet from different sources that vary to some degree....but really, not that much, eh?
Gotta run.....dinner time. I'm testing a new theory: I'm gonna eat everything with a small fork, theory being that the bigger calories won't fit on it! Dream HUGE!
Too many words... I have a long bike ride to get to. You're not understanding what I'm saying... the average person can "process" as in when they are eating. But it's not that they can only eat 240-280 calories, it's that at the time of exercise, their digestive system can only process that much.
Those who are athletic can "process" more but it is unlikely they will be able to process 1000 calories an hour so at some point they are going to run low on glycogen and bonk.
Ahhhhh...I get it now. You were referring to how fast a person can intake (consume) calories and assimilate for use. I suppose that makes sense....we can only draw so much from our bodies and assimilate so much from what we consume.
Lately, with my diet, I've been exercising too long and not eating quite enough (in an effort to lose weight)...the result is a mild bonking of sorts. It's a fine line to walk, trying to diet and perform...it gets results but the nutrition and balance in sometimes tricky....you really have to plan, anticipate and keep an eye on things. Factor in some weight-training and it's downright challenging!
Uh, what were we discussing again? :confused4:
Lately, with my diet, I've been exercising too long and not eating quite enough (in an effort to lose weight)...the result is a mild bonking of sorts. It's a fine line to walk, trying to diet and perform...it gets results but the nutrition and balance in sometimes tricky....you really have to plan, anticipate and keep an eye on things. Factor in some weight-training and it's downright challenging!
Uh, what were we discussing again? :confused4:
Listen to Sander, she got it right!:action3: