What do you do to get fit and lose weight?

[JennyB]

Apart from ebiking that is!

I've fallen into bad habits lately and put on a stone of weight when I had hoped to take it off, but now I'm taking myself in hand and making time for exercise. Here's some things that have worked for me in the past:

Shovelglove
Weird name, but basically it's just swinging a 10lb sledgehammer round for 14 minutes. I do this every morning but Sundays as soon as I get out of bed. The nice thing about this is that you can make up your own movements, just so long as you keep that hammer going. Sing along with "The Ballad of John Henry" if you like. I have a set of 5 movements 30 reps each side, the whole repeated twice.

Double Back
If it's a fine morning and I have 20-30 minutes in hand I go out for a brisk walk, turn round and run back. If I get back in less than half the time it took to walk out, I walk a little further next day. If I have more than 30 minutes, I get the bike out. A fine morning is not to be wasted.

The Cavendish
They say high intensity efforts work best at turning fat to muscle. When I'm out on the bike I throw in a few sprints or hard climbs whenever I'm in the mood. When I can't get on the bike I just lean forward on a table or the like, take most of my weight of my arms, and work my legs as fast as I can. Just pretend you're Mark on the Champs Elysee. I can't take more an about 30 seconds of this at a time.

Motivation
Ignore the scales - they can vary in a most disheartening manner. A better indicator of fitness than BMI is for your waist measurement to be less than half your height. I'm about two inches too thick at present. To remind myself I take a cord, tie a couple of knots in it the desired distance apart, and then tie it loosely round my waist with a fisherman's knot soon I can adjust it later.

Think of how far and fast that weight of battery would take you.

Remember that wealthy lycras are willing to pay more than £1 for every gram they remove from their bikes. Think of the money you will have saved!

[pdf]

This probably doesn't make sense, but I swim 3 times a week. I love to swim. I ebike as a commuter and don't care if I get exercise on my bike or not. Usually, I am in my "work" clothes and prefer not to sweat in them. I realize it might seem odd to bike to work and then swim for exercise, but I just like being in the water. I swim around 3/4 of a mile at a stretch.

[Ypedal]

Sold my Wii and got an Xbox Kinect, if i'm going to play games, may as well work up a sweat !

I motor my way to work( i leave home at the last minute and really need to maintain 60 kph to make it at the office on time.. my bike gearing will not allow pedaling at that speed ) .. but on my way home i crank those pedals and when the legs start to burn i use throttle to keep moving while i catch my breath..

Walk the dog daily, year round, only exception is when it's pouring rain.. you really dont want a soaking wet Samoyed !!!.. trust me on that one..

Diet.. well.. that i need to work on..

[Drunkskunk]

Lots of small changes, instead of big ones.

I buy prepackaged salads instead of TV dinners or sandwich meat. If I want a fast meal, its salad or nothing.

If I was fast food, I won't get it with the car, I make myself ride the bike to get it, or walk.

I drink better beer, with higher ABV. Since I'll drink less, I'll snack less while drinking.

I cut out my before bed snack in favor of a snack between meals. Better redistrobution of callorie intake.

I am trying my girlfriend's trick. I go stand on the scale before I get a snack.

I park at the other end of the parking lot, and walk. At work, I walk up the stairs 8 flights to my officce in the morning. I also take the stairs to the washroom 4 floors up. its an old building, the floors are 18.5 feet apart instead of 12.

I got rid of the self propelled mower in favor of a push opower.

I use hand tools instead of power tools for most odd jobs.

I have cut back on my meat portions by 1/3 in meals I cook myself. I try to use 90% lean ground beef instead of 85%.


The philosophy is simple. Although "Eat less, exersize more" is the ultimate formula for weight loss, if thats all I did, I'd be in trouble. A lot of little lifestyle changes are easier to make than a couple big ones. And if I miss, mess up, or skip a few of the minor changes, the damage is far less than if I were to mess up or skip out on a big change.

[BikeFanatic]

Remember that wealthy lycras are willing to pay more than £1 for every gram they remove from their bikes. Think of the money you will have saved!

Ha HA, A Lycra once told me when I was complaining about how heavy my new bike was, he said, " if you loose five pound yourself then you do not need to spend an extra 600 or more on a lighter bike."

The math seems kosher, but I am not sure if 5 less pounds on the body = 5 less pounds on the bike. But i did manage to loose 5 pounds, while I do not feel a difference with the bike I do feel a difference when I run. Big difference.
Mostly I did portion control, less beer, and I set a goal to run the 1/2 marathon . I never ran much before and it did help to have a goal.

[dodjob]

Hi there,
I love to think that a Human body is a "machine" (yeah I'm an Engineer and it helps ^^)
I have loose A LOT of weight last year (about 17Kg) by doing things correctly. And I keep things in scale since then.
First you have discern weight and fitness.
If you want to be "lighter" you will have to reduce your calories ingestion. If you want to be fit you will have to make sport These things are NOT related. The only link that could be made is that if you make some sport you will increase your amount of needed calories/day and so, if you keep a fixed amount of calories you will loose weight faster than without sport.
In order to calculate how many calories you need in order to keep your weight go there: http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/calories-goal.php
Fill the fields and get your calorie's need per day in order to keep your weight. (goal-actual weight should be the same)
Then simply buy a food weighting machine (1g definition) and weight ALL what you are actually eating for one week. Don't cheat, simply look how much calories you currently eat in comparison with what you should.
This has two goals:
-first letting you know how much calories are hidden in some aliments. Your brain will love it ^^ In most of the case, just to know how much calorie are hidden in aliments will helps you to not have the desire to eat them. I know it looks strange but it works.
-letting you find some things you like that you can eat in limitless quantities and others that you won't eat anymore because they simply don't taste as good as they bring you calories. (for me it was carrot salad ^^ seems stupid, but I loved it and I could eat as much as I wanted because of the loooooow calories on the other side was some cheese)
Then If you want to reduce or increase your weight, change the "target weight" and it will give you the amount you should eat in order to reach this weight. If you ingest the right amount of calories you will be on target at the due-date. IT WORKS.
That's so simple
Don't trust your brain, trust numbers... If you do it, it will works. That's as simple and true as reality Also don't be afraid of the weighting thing. You will actually do it at the beginning because you have to learn a lot of things but after two or three weeks, you just have to look on the packet, and you go.
You will hear a lot of myth concerning diet. We are all different, that's true, but trust me, except in case of a few sickness, if you decrease the calories you eat, you will lose weight and this nearly absolutely linearly.
A few hints:
The biggest problem we have today is that we eat too much carbonhydrates. Why are they "bad"? Because they give you a huge amount of sugar which means a hudge amount of calories. Reduce it and things will go smooth. The fact that you will eat less carbohydrate will also allow you to eat more vegetable and more meat, this will increase your vitamins and proteins amount which result in "fitness" and more muscle build as well as not having the "starving" effect.
Concerning sport. Actually the best sport to lose weight is running. It burns A LOT of calories in a very short time. Try to make some "cardio-training" about 3 times a week and you will immediately see the results. (3 weeks) Cardio training are really easy (about 65% of your max pulse), will make you really fit and only needs one hour
Drink a lot! If you are targeting some weight loss you will have to evacuate a lot of things, drinking a lot is the best way to do it!
And finally, the best advice ever, give you a cheat day per week. This is really important, most of diets failed because people's motivation fluctuate. Be strong with yourself, allow you one REAL cheat day, and hold your diet.
Hope it helps .) And if you have any questions feel free to ask I learned all from others and I would be pleased to forward it to others also
Gruß,
H.

[Joseph C.]

Eat full fat food and stay away from low fat food diets.

Stay away from breakfast cereals (processed ones). Contrary to what they claim they are all low in fibre and only screw up the body by not having enough roughage. All fruit, vegetables and meats contain fibre.

Be aware of the fact that some people are non-responders and for them exercise is a vast waste of time in terms of fitness (their VO2 levels can never be improved upon).
There was a programme on the BBC that featured a high intensity exercise of 3 minutes per week yields the best results for health. Three bursts of 20 seconds each a day. However, not everyone can do this type of exercise.

If you really want to lose weight - my advice would be to forget about exercise and change your lifestyle. Dramatically reducing the amount of time spent sitting in chairs and taking stairs instead of lifts will produce the best results with no noticeable effort. In short, move your body as much possible.

Also you should be aware of body types and genetic switches. If you are an endomorph it is impossible to become an ectomorph without doing serious damage to your health apart from genetic switches.

Genetic switches mean that people who were naturally thin throughout their lives can suddenly gain weight and vice versa. The current theory is that their are environmental triggers that cause these genetic changes to occur. Little is understood about the specifics of this changes but stress and lifestyle changes may be factors.

Finally, hormones. The appetite is controlled by two hormones. There is a hormone to tell you when you are full (leptin) and when you are hungry (ghrelin). In healthy people the effects of these hormones are more pronounced. The satiated hormone is produced in large quantities when the body is satisfied. Likewise, when people are hungry normally the ghrelin hormones kicks in strongly and the urge to eat is overwhelming.

While in the obese these hormones are less pronounced and there is an almost constant mild craving for food. The feeling of being full and feeling hungry is less powerful than those experienced by people with normal hormones.

There is a constant feeling of being hungry. Nevertheless, it is much weaker than that of people with normal hormones. Sleeping patterns and stress can cause disruption to this hormone and results in heavier eating.

The effects of these hormones are very powerful and will-power will nearly always lose out until their levels become more normal.

[dogman]

For me it's always been more about burn calories and get the body revved up than the diet. I try to eat a balanced diet, but don't avoid chocolate or sugar per se. I don't drink cokes and such, but not for the diet, they were screwing my teeth up.

Once you get properly revved up metabolisim, you can burn 1000 calories watching TV. Some rev up easy, and I'm like that.

So how do you get revved up? It's gotta be fun. It just must. So it's thrill sport oriented for me, skis, windsurf, trail riding a mt bike. That sort of thing. You get tired of workouts, but if you are doing those squats so you can land a 100' cliff jump on ski's it's motivating.

Now I'm a broken down old fart, and the motivation is to regain just a portion of my youthfull glory. But the goal of a bogus treadmill walk is to really enjoy that outing on the trails. Just focusing on a number on a scale is not gonna motivate me to work. Getting to perform well out having fun is.

[maydaverave]

My favorite exercise is riding bmx. I have one with larger 24" wheels which roll better over more types of terrain. Not the best for tricks but better for comfort. I like it because it builds strength, endurance, burns calories like crazy, uses all your muscles, improves reflexes and balance. People who havent seen me since i started 3months ago all remark on my changed appearance and think i have been living in the gym.

[dogman]

Gym is only for bad weather, getting ready to hit the trails as soon as you can.

Whatever you do, it's just gotta include the fun, or at least the promise of better fun later.

[MadRhino]

I just spend more time in the mountain trails, and less on the terrace of the restaurants. Nice weather to ride keep me best fit, and soon melt the few extra pounds accumulated in the winter.

[iamsofunny]

fitness and weight loss are unrelated
The amount of muscle and body fat are related to your daily routine of weight training, food timing, food portions and resting time per muscle group.

My sample plan for maintaining 5'7 136lbs at 14% body fat (8% would be super lean, like for a bodybuilding show)

exercise: warmup. weights 5x a week, 2-3 muscle groups per workout. slow isolated movements, maybe 4 sets of 8 reps x 6 exercises. stretch after 10 minutes yoga set.
food: 4 meals per day. each meal: 40g protein 30g carbs 10g fat plus vegetables mixed in.
food: preworkout: caffeine. postworkout (within 10 minutes): meal above.
cardio: whenever. low intensity, walking, mtb.
stretching: twice a day yoga sets.
posture: upright.

this is how you get ripped, jacked and chiseled. For a bigger person, add more meals and food. If you aren't getting big, genetics are not on your side so focus on cutting down core size w/ vegetables and fat loss, not size gains.

waiting 3 hours postworkout to eat causes muscle loss.
working out same muscle every day causes muscle loss.
protein less than 1gram/pound of body weight reduces muscle gain potential.
eating lots of carbs adds body fat.
endurance cardio burns other muscles, hair, bones and destroys the skin to send protein and nutrients to muscle during workout.
cardio burns fewer calories than weights.
vegetable matter pushes food through better so you can eat more
lower calories with no vegetables adds body fat and reduces muscle
lifting heavy tears muscle.
changing workout routine works better.

[MikeFairbanks]

I'm down two stone, and part of it is giving up Stone: Stone IPA, my favorite beer.

Really, it's all in your mind. You have to think of hunger as a good feeling, not a bad one. Think of going hungry as holding your breath under water. Obviously you don't want to hold your breath a dangerous amount of time, but push yourself and enjoy the burn. Same with hunger. Enjoy being hungry for a couple hours, toss in a couple small crackers, then push another couple hours.

But the number one way to lose weight is simple math: count calories. It works 100% of the time. If you eat less than your body needs you will lose weight.

Weight Watchers makes a ton of money with their points systems, which is based on calories.

I'm 6 feet, light exercise, 43-year-old male. The charts give me 2400 to maintain weight. If I go above it I gain weight. Below I lose weight.

I pigged out on thanksgiving day and the next day started my plan. I was 212.5 pounds, and today I'm 187. My plan is to hit 180, build my biceps a bit (I have thin arms), and then maintain between 175-180, a healthy weight for a middle aged man at six feet.

I'll eat 2000-2400 calories per day.

1-2 slices of pizza, not 3-5. One Coke per say, not 3-4. 2 beers, not 6.

And if you don't like exercise, just stay on your feet for several hours per day. Avoid sitting too much.

[MikeFairbanks]

Oh, and drink water. You don't have to go nuts with it, and if you don't like water there is a simple solution: change your mind and start to like water. I say the same thing to my students about reading: "If you don't like reading, like reading."

It's kind of like when a parent says, "You'll eat it and you'll like it!"

Well, since you have to do it, might as well enjoy it.

[melodious]

I killed my television. So I'm forced to find stuff to keep me busy and entertained instead of stagnating on a couch. I too, like the OP, swim, 2-3 times a week. I kinda have a bum leg and cannot run or jog without putting alot of strain on my bad leg. In the water, the weight bearing issue takes a backseat .

[Ratking]

Hi there,
I love to think that a Human body is a "machine" (yeah I'm an Engineer and it helps ^^)
I have loose A LOT of weight last year (about 17Kg) by doing things correctly. And I keep things in scale since then.
First you have discern weight and fitness.
If you want to be "lighter" you will have to reduce your calories ingestion. If you want to be fit you will have to make sport These things are NOT related. The only link that could be made is that if you make some sport you will increase your amount of needed calories/day and so, if you keep a fixed amount of calories you will loose weight faster than without sport.
In order to calculate how many calories you need in order to keep your weight go there: http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/calories-goal.php
Fill the fields and get your calorie's need per day in order to keep your weight. (goal-actual weight should be the same)
Then simply buy a food weighting machine (1g definition) and weight ALL what you are actually eating for one week. Don't cheat, simply look how much calories you currently eat in comparison with what you should.
This has two goals:
-first letting you know how much calories are hidden in some aliments. Your brain will love it ^^ In most of the case, just to know how much calorie are hidden in aliments will helps you to not have the desire to eat them. I know it looks strange but it works.
-letting you find some things you like that you can eat in limitless quantities and others that you won't eat anymore because they simply don't taste as good as they bring you calories. (for me it was carrot salad ^^ seems stupid, but I loved it and I could eat as much as I wanted because of the loooooow calories on the other side was some cheese)
Then If you want to reduce or increase your weight, change the "target weight" and it will give you the amount you should eat in order to reach this weight. If you ingest the right amount of calories you will be on target at the due-date. IT WORKS.
That's so simple
Don't trust your brain, trust numbers... If you do it, it will works. That's as simple and true as reality Also don't be afraid of the weighting thing. You will actually do it at the beginning because you have to learn a lot of things but after two or three weeks, you just have to look on the packet, and you go.
You will hear a lot of myth concerning diet. We are all different, that's true, but trust me, except in case of a few sickness, if you decrease the calories you eat, you will lose weight and this nearly absolutely linearly.
A few hints:
The biggest problem we have today is that we eat too much carbonhydrates. Why are they "bad"? Because they give you a huge amount of sugar which means a hudge amount of calories. Reduce it and things will go smooth. The fact that you will eat less carbohydrate will also allow you to eat more vegetable and more meat, this will increase your vitamins and proteins amount which result in "fitness" and more muscle build as well as not having the "starving" effect.
Concerning sport. Actually the best sport to lose weight is running. It burns A LOT of calories in a very short time. Try to make some "cardio-training" about 3 times a week and you will immediately see the results. (3 weeks) Cardio training are really easy (about 65% of your max pulse), will make you really fit and only needs one hour
Drink a lot! If you are targeting some weight loss you will have to evacuate a lot of things, drinking a lot is the best way to do it!
And finally, the best advice ever, give you a cheat day per week. This is really important, most of diets failed because people's motivation fluctuate. Be strong with yourself, allow you one REAL cheat day, and hold your diet.
Hope it helps .) And if you have any questions feel free to ask I learned all from others and I would be pleased to forward it to others also
Gruß,
H.

Solid advice right here. I can't stress this enough: Keep track of your calorie intake, keep protein high and fairly low carb. Sixpack is made in the kitchen, not in the gym. I also prefer intermittent fasting for keeping a low fat percent, I plan on keeping the fat level low year around. And thats without any hassle

[MikeFairbanks]

Speaking of abs, how does one get them firm? I don't want to do the wrong exercises. I don't really care about legs; I just want strong arms and tight abs. The arms I'm working on. I'm not going for size so much as strength and definition in the arms, and in the abs as well.

[dodjob]

If you want to get volume gain (arms) you don't need to train that much actually.
I've learned it this year and it works quite good. Increase the amount of proteins to 1.5g/kg (from your weight) and then train every two or three days with 4 times 8 repetitions starting with big muscles and then more little ones (of course antagonist series).
Lot's of people think that if you train your upper body you will get it bigger. It doesn't work exactly like this. If you want to get such results you will need to increase the amount of testosterone as well as the amount of creatin in your body.
Testosterone = more meat (it's easy)
creatin = more hard workouts on your muscles + failure (not easy) That's why most of bodybuilder makes tons of squats even if they don't really need it. Just because when they do it, it increase the muscle's build SIGNIFICANTLY!
Then abs. if you want real flat and hard abs, go for static exercices, 3 x 1min for example and try to make any exercises slowly with your body extended. For this I would ask a specialist.
but really, you will get nice looking abs if you eat less even without sport, starting 10-12% fat anybody got nice abs
Gruß,
H
PS: concerning how to "hold" you diet/nutrition's plan. Just remember that you are the guy who is giving orders, your body gives you information. As soon as you have explained it to him everything will be allright ^^

[silverrich1]

There is one exercise that beats the rest on weight loss...

Turn your head to the left.
Turn your head to the right.

When faced with food.

[heliolatrix]

Live with out a motor....even if it is hard on the legs. Also eat lots of beans and other simple foods like rolled oats.

[julesa]

Speaking of abs, how does one get them firm? I don't want to do the wrong exercises. I don't really care about legs; I just want strong arms and tight abs. The arms I'm working on. I'm not going for size so much as strength and definition in the arms, and in the abs as well.

It's better to aim for overall health and strength, and let the details like definition and size sort themselves out. They're mostly determined by your genetics anyway, unless you're spending a huge amount of time & effort working on your body.

Best way to have good-looking abs is to reduce the thickness of the fat sitting on top of them. A very helpful aid in reducing that fat is to do some heavy lifting with the biggest muscles in your body (your hams, quads, and glutes) in compound exercises three days a week. You want the compound exercises to keep your body looking balanced, and for overall health. Do a little cardio on non-lifting days, and try to watch your diet most of the time. A little effort goes a long way over time. Don't overdo it with dietary changes or exercise -- work on making small, easy, low-impact habitual changes that you can easily live with for the rest of your life. If you go too hard, you won't stick with it.

Best overall diet and fitness guide ever, IMHO:
http://www.liamrosen.com/fitness.html
Takes less than an hour to read, shoots down a lot of diet & exercise myths, has almost everything you need in one place. The only thing it's missing is stretching. Here's a link to a good, simple & relatively speedy stretch routine for the lower body:
http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/staying-healthy/the-rw-complete-guide-to-stretching/484.html

For the lifting, as suggested in the guide above, buy a barbell, bench, and chinup bar off Craigslist or your local want ads.
Dead simple whole-body balanced weight lifting routine:
http://newbie-fitness.blogspot.com/2007/01/stripped-5x5.html

[dsullivan]

Well it might be cruel but lately my activity has been taking my semi-sleeper mountain bike fitted with a crystalyte 3540 and 36v 14ah of battery and I go down to the local walking/biking park. There is a dirt road that winds through the woods around the outside of a preserved nature park and the lycra guys love to get out there and do some riding. So I pedal around slowly without power until one flies by or stops to talk. I tell them that I am fairly new and I enjoy riding. eventually they say well have a good day and take off. I proceed to follow them. Pedaling as much as I can, I use the throttle just enough to keep up. Eventually they realize the fat man that is totally out of shape is keeping up with them. They always take off and push themselves harder so I chase them. Usually it looks real good because I get tired and sweaty and winded. Usually they start cheering me on and sometimes they get down right competitive.

If they are nice and having fun at the end I will tell them about the motor. If they are jerks I tend to just pedal hard and pass them on the last monster hill and leave them while I roll the top of the hill and power home laughing all the way!

A friend of mine wants me to start video taping the rides with two hero cams on my helmet. He has a production company and believes we could have a ton of fun and maybe even get some footage on a comedy channel.

This has afforded me plenty of exercise and laughs.

[Njay]

According to the latest research, stop sugar intake (including any processed food, with lots of corn syrup), drastically reduce hydrocarbon intake, increase fat intake. That's all. And it comes with greatly reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and probably Alzheimer.

Some resources:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com
http://www.waroninsulin.com

There are others.

[dodjob]

If you like to know a little more about wheat and it's side effects/history:

and

This will definitively helps you to reduce carbonhydrate
Gruß,
H.

[julesa]

According to the latest research, stop sugar intake (including any processed food, with lots of corn syrup), drastically reduce hydrocarbon intake, increase fat intake. That's all. And it comes with greatly reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and probably Alzheimer.

Makes sense that drastically reducing hydrocarbon intake reduces your risk of cancer. Huffing is very bad for you. Which ones are you overindulging in? Propane? Benzene? Methane? Or maybe a blend like gasoline?