The thing that turns dreams into reality is effort (gym!)

[trekka]

Hi folks,

I'm looking to join a gym (the one at work is apparently really good - subsidised at £16 a year!), but as I haven't been to a gym in about 3 years, I thought I would call on the good bods of VT.

I'm not huge but I want to shift a few pounds. Any techniques? What is your routine? I'll only do cardio for a while and avoid the weight stuff for now but what are your tips?

Ta everso.

[b23avfc]

Change your diet. Especially the last few hours before bed.

[TheDon]

I'll only do cardio for a while and avoid the weight stuff for now but what are your tips?

First tip, don't avoid the weight stuff.

Lift heavy things, get stronger. That should be the plan. Resistance training is far better for you than just doing straight cardio. If you have to choose between them it should always be weights over cardio.

The weight you'll lose from doing cardio is negligible in the grand scheme of things, especially when compared to the weight you'll lose from increasing muscle mass and increasing your BMR through resistance training.

[CI]

Change your diet. Especially the last few hours before bed.

What on earth is wrong with a Large Takeaway Pizza and a Bottle of Rum for supper? Followed next morning by a full fry up ;-)

[maqroll]

A good balance between weights, cardio and diet will do the trick.

If you're serious about losing some flab quickly, cut out booze and as much carbs as possible, stick to low fat protein sources, fruits and veggies and water.

It's amazing what you can get done in just 3 months.

[briggaman]

Is it alright to cut out carbs? Or is there a way to just lower them to a healthy level? If so then what would that healthy level be?

I'm not one for dieting but I keep hearing about people cutting out carbs. I don't want to cut them out entirely, yet if there is a particular limit that would be good for me (per week) then I would like to try to stick to that.

On the gym front, I recently joined one. I can only use the likes of the bikes, running machines and step machine right now though due to my transplant. I feel great though since I have been going to the gym and a little bit of effort really does go a long way.

[TheDon]

Is it alright to cut out carbs? Or is there a way to just lower them to a healthy level? If so then what would that healthy level be?

I'm not one for dieting but I keep hearing about people cutting out carbs. I don't want to cut them out entirely, yet if there is a particular limit that would be good for me (per week) then I would like to try to stick to that.

On the gym front, I recently joined one. I can only use the likes of the bikes, running machines and step machine right now though due to my transplant. I feel great though since I have been going to the gym and a little bit of effort really does go a long way.

As low as possible.

If you're aiming for fat loss then <50g is what you want, ideally <20g.

If you just want to not get fat then 150g is a decent limit that still allows you to eat a fair amount.

The problem is with people getting 70%+ of their intake through carbs (mostly because this is what the guidelines have been suggesting) it just causes insulin resistance and gets people into a cycle where they're constantly hungry, constantly eating and constantly storing fat due to the ridiculous amounts of insulin their bodies end up producing.

Carbs are sugar, our bodies don't deal well with sugar, it stores it as soon as possible because having it circulating in our body is dangerous. That means if you don't burn off the energy from high carb foods pretty quickly it gets turned into fat.

If you want to suppress hunger your best bet is a higher intake of fats. They aren't anywhere near as bad for you as people think they are.

[JulieB]

Loads more stuff coming out backing up exactly what The Don says about carbs turning into

Sugars & being turned into fat because our bodies just can't handle it all.

Was reading the other day how fructose filled drinks like Pepsi are a major factor of obesity in the US

Walking briskly & up hills is supposedly one of the best forms of exercise for losing weight.

Must do more now my knee is healing!

[ME]

It's a shame you aren't in Jacksonville. There's a gym in my building. Then when you are in pain you can get a massage. *no jokes about happy endings please*

[villaajax]

It's a shame you aren't in Jacksonville. There's a gym in my building. Then when you are in pain you can get a massage. *no jokes about happy endings please*

I hear the massages there are terrible!

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Low carb diets fail.

Carbohydrates don't make you fat, not if you use them. They're your go to energy source. Eating lots of fat will make you fat. Keep up with the carbs, cut down on the fat and keep going. Not only will your energy levels spike so you can build strength (even if it's only leg strength through cardio) but you WILL burn fat. It might not be as quick as crash dieting, but since when did that shite ever work?

No two human beings are the same. Our metabolism rates vary wildly and though they can be trained it takes time. I've gone from bench pressing 40kg to 80kg (3 x 6) in 6 months. Clearly I've had to pack on muscle mass to achieve this which has involved high protein, high carbs at specific times and lots and lots of consistency. For example, a carb rich breakfast will kick start your metabolism and allow you to eat little and often throughout the day to maintain energy, rather than reaching lunch time and being so consumed with hunger you eat everything in sight.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

As for my gym routine, weights before cardio. I won't bore you to death with the finer detail but a typical day will be 4/5 heavy weight lifts then 30-40 minutes cardio and a shake and a banana to aid recovery. Some days will just be weights and since I signed up for the mountain I have at least one dedicated cardio day each week. Say a 20k bike ride followed by a 4k run.

The second you finish working out your aim should be to help your body recover. There's no point shedding a few pounds if you've no energy to show it off right?

[TheDon]

Low carb diets fail.

Carbohydrates don't make you fat, not if you use them. They're your go to energy source. Eating lots of fat will make you fat. Keep up with the carbs, cut down on the fat and keep going. Not only will your energy levels spike so you can build strength (even if it's only leg strength through cardio) but you WILL burn fat. It might not be as quick as crash dieting, but since when did that shite ever work?

Rubbish.

Carbohydrates make you fat because your bodies natural instinct is to store them.

Eating fat will not make you fat any more than eating protein will make you muscular. It takes more than just putting them in your body to get an effect from them. To get fat from eating fat you have to eat more than your body needs to burn. This is not the case with carbohydrates. It's perfectly possible to eat less than your body requires of carbs, and put on weight, because your body will store them, and rather than release them it will slow down your metabolism. Because get this, eating carbs triggers insulin!

Shall we have a look at what wikipedia has to say about insulin?

Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle.

Insulin stops the use of fat as an energy source by inhibiting the release of glucagon.

Whoah, what's that? Insulin STOPS THE USE OF FAT AS AN ENERGY SOURCE? Well boy, that sure as hell looks like something we want to avoid if we want to burn fat doesn't it?

Crash dieting doesn't work. Eating properly does.

The entire low fat high carb diet is baseless, completely without scientific merit, and was mostly pushed by the grain industry in the US. Go look at who wrote the food pyramid, you'll see it was sponsored by the grain industry.

It's no surprise that obesity has sky rocketed since it's introduction, because it's a one way ticket to weight gain.

Everyone knows cakes make you fat. Everyone knows crisps make you fat. Everyone knows chips make you fat. You know what they all have in common? Carbohydrates.

The nutrition industry has failed to control obesity with their high carb advice, and rather than admit they're wrong and push a moderate carb, higher in fat diet they just keep pushing lower and lower fat and claiming people aren't listening, despite countless studies showing people are listening, and are consuming less fat than 30 years ago, despite getting bigger.

High carb is the biggest fad diet going. It was introduced with no scientific backing, and numerous studies since have shown it to have a detrimental effect on health, with a good deal of them showing links between high carb and cancer as cancer cells love insulin.

The "carbs are your go to energy source" is a cop out, just because they're used first doesn't mean they're the best energy source.

You know what beats carbs in the "your body will burn it first" race?

Alcohol.

Should we all drink large amounts of alcohol as our body will burn it for energy before anything else in our bodies? Because that's the argument people use with carbs.

Surely if you look at it logically our bodies ideal energy source is the one that it keeps around for later, the one that it wants there when it needs it, not the one it gets rid of as soon as it possibly can?

No two human beings are the same. Our metabolism rates vary wildly and though they can be trained it takes time. I've gone from bench pressing 40kg to 80kg (3 x 6) in 6 months. Clearly I've had to pack on muscle mass to achieve this which has involved high protein, high carbs at specific times and lots and lots of consistency. For example, a carb rich breakfast will kick start your metabolism and allow you to eat little and often throughout the day to maintain energy, rather than reaching lunch time and being so consumed with hunger you eat everything in sight.

"No two humans are the same" does situations like this a huge disservice. We are fundamentally the same. Insulin has the same effect on everyone. Eating different nutrients has the same effect on everyone. What differs is our bodies ability to cope with varying amounts, and the amount our bodies react. Some people might be extremely carb sensitive and just looking at a slice of bread will trigger an insulin response, some people might be able to eat more carbs than others before their insulin spikes up too high. But fundamentally the same thing happens to all of us.

Carb rich breakfast is the worst way to start the day. Carbs do not suppress hunger, carbs are quickly taken up into energy stores, leaving you hungry again because the energy you ate, well, it's not available for use any more.

The last thing you want to do is "kick start your metabolism" (which I'm reading as actually meaning spike insulin, if you're breathing your metabolism is already doing just fine), you want to remain in a fat burning state as long as possible, which means avoiding anything which will prevent fat release (and what did we just learn prevents fat release?) the best breakfasts are high protein high fat.

Carbohydrates should be limited to around workouts, because this is where we want insulin because one of insulins uses is in increasing protein synthesis, which means you get more muscle for you buck from your workout. Other than around workouts and where you need immediate energy your main job should be burning fat.

Sure if you're skinny and working out you can eat little and often and eat all carbs if you want, but then you have to eat little and often. This is where the whole "eat 8 meals a day" thing comes from, because if you concentrate your carbs into 3 meals a day, you're gonna get fat. Instead you have to spread them out to avoid the higher insulin spikes which prevent you from burning fat.

Or, you could eat 3 times a day, one carby meal near your workout, and 2 high fat and protein meals and stay full all day (because get this, fat satiates your appetite far better than carbohydrates do!)

You're arguing against science here. Your body treats carbohydrates like poison, it gets rid of them as quickly as possible, by that by using them, or for the vast majority of people (as they eat too many to use immediately) storing them up as fat.

As for my gym routine, weights before cardio. I won't bore you to death with the finer detail but a typical day will be 4/5 heavy weight lifts then 30-40 minutes cardio

Cardio straight after weights is bad.

You want to have time between them to replenish glycogen stores else you'll end up burning muscle.

[regular_john]

Low carb diets fail.

Carbohydrates don't make you fat, not if you use them. They're your go to energy source. Eating lots of fat will make you fat. Keep up with the carbs, cut down on the fat and keep going. Not only will your energy levels spike so you can build strength (even if it's only leg strength through cardio) but you WILL burn fat. It might not be as quick as crash dieting, but since when did that shite ever work?

Nonsense. Carbs cause a rapid spike in insulin levels, which causes the deposition of fat via lipogenesis. If you're taking in a large quantity of fat at the same time (high carb and high fat meal) you'll store a lot of fat and hence get fat. If you have a low carb diet, however, you won't get that insulin spike and so your insulin levels remain low and consistent, perfect conditions for lipolysis!

Fat isn't harmful unless it's in the presence of carbs.

Low carb diets fail for a number of reasons, but none of them have anything to do with what our body requires. Typically, low carb diets fail because:

1. The first few days of a low carb diet are hard as hell, particularly around day 4 when your body is so carb depleted it's completely drained of energy. Your body will eventually turn to its fat stores for energy, but this takes a couple more days of fatigue and discomfort. People tend to give up when they start to feel like crap, not realising that if they tough it out their body will adjust and they'll feel fine again.

2. Low carb diets are expensive

3. People confuse 'low carb' with 'low calorie' and end up starving themselves

4. People are too strict on themselves (a fault of all diets) and don't give themselves a 'treat day' to indulge in whatever they want.

If the above can be managed effectively, low carb diets have been proven to be the most beneficial to health over and over again.

[tonyh29]

Everyone knows cakes make you fat. Everyone knows crisps make you fat. Everyone knows chips make you fat. You know what they all have in common? Carbohydrates.

it would also depends on metabolism and on the amount you eat of course ...

the easiest way to look at any diet in simple terms is that if you eat more calories than you burn you will put on weight and if you burn more calories than you eat you will lose weight

but taking your initial statement that carbs make you fat ....salad is carbohydrate , does it make you fat ? ...that would be a no really wouldn't it ... so I suspect what you really mean is Processed carbs ( and stuff like trans fats , salt and hidden extras )

i.e even your average glass of Tropicana despite being pure OJ is made in such a way that it is dense calories and over twice the calories of the equivalent amount of OJ should you press one yourself )

the problem with diet is there is no one size fits all and thus there is no definitive answer on what people should or shouldn't do ..personally when i was a runner I functioned better on a higher protein diet than I did on a balanced diet ..mainly as I'm a blood group O and that is backed up by "some" scientific research that kinda backed up what my body was telling me

low carb diets will make you hungry , probably restless and essentially you will mainly lose weight through water and muscle loss .. they should be avoided at all cost ..unless you are obese and then maybe as a drastic kick start short term measure

weights with cardo is a good balance but it also depends on your goals .. a lot of your average body-builders may look great , big muscles and no fat but they can't run 100m in 11 seconds .. read up about Beckham when he had a slight loss of form when he first joined Madrid ..they put him on a weights program and his fantastic engine suffered as a result of it ..he ditched the weights and regained his form .. I used to run the 100m, 200m and 400m ..the problem with that was that for the 100m I needed more explosive training for fast twitch muscle , where as the 400m ( and my football) required a program more around slow twitch .... i was a decent at all 3 events but my coaches kept advising me to drop the football and also focus on one event if I wanted to move onto the next level ..in the end some clogger at football took that decision out of my hands :-(

low carb diets have been proven to be the most beneficial to health over and over again

have to disagree ... apart from the stuff i mentioned above , they cause other issues with the body ... ITV ran a show called worlds best diet recently ..the low carb diet lost the most weight but her LDL levels and Triglyceride went through the roof whilst her HDL levels dropped and her overall health suffered lack of energy ,restlessness ,and made her irritable .

Darren Gough lost 2lb less on the Mediterranean diet and his LDL levels dropped , he felt fantastic and his overall health levels improved .. he had more energy , slept better and so on

[tonyh29]

interestingly I read that the obesity level in America dropped last year , first time in ages ... don't think they gave a reason as to why but maybe it was down to a lot of schools removing sweetened drinks, and unhealthy snack foods ?

[Wainy316]

Gym advice always conflicts from person to person. I have recently joined a gym and am trying to add a little bulk, but everything I read online conflicts with each other.

[tonyh29]

Pick any subject and there is always a difference of opinion ...

Thatcher ... Evil witch v greatest post war PM

Mandela .... Terrorist v subject of the best song special AkA ever made

Prescott ... Fat useless tosser v fat hypercritical money grabbing useless tosser

And so on

[TheDon]

Everyone knows cakes make you fat. Everyone knows crisps make you fat. Everyone knows chips make you fat. You know what they all have in common? Carbohydrates.

it would also depends on metabolism and on the amount you eat of course ...

the easiest way to look at any diet in simple terms is that if you eat more calories than you burn you will put on weight and if you burn more calories than you eat you will lose weight

This is also one of the biggest problems with the nutrition industry. Surely on a basic level calories in - calories out = change in weight, but it's not at all as simple as people make it out to be. For a start if calories in drop, your body is more likely to use less of them, it'll slow down to account for the reduction in intake. If you've still got insulin spiking you're not going to lose much weight because insulin prevents you from burning fat.

Calories out also never accounts for unused calories. On a low carb ketogenic diet you end up literally pissing out large quantities of acetone. Are people going to claim acetone has no energy? It's something that has to be accounted for in calories in vs calories out never is.

That's without saying that calories have no bearing on what our body actually uses for energy, the amount of energy needed to heat water by 1c means nothing to our bodies.

"A calorie is a calorie" is the biggest myth going, it takes our body different amounts of energy to process different energy sources, proteins have to be broken down into many different components, which means it takes more energy for our body to digest protein than carbs, yet 1 calorie of protein is the same as 1 calorie of carbs? I don't think so.

A basic grasp of chemistry is enough to see that the whole concept of calories is deeply flawed and their irrelevant to what our bodies actually need. Calories would have you believe our bodies can break things down with zero energy loss. Which anyone with even a gcse understanding in chemistry can say is complete rubbish, there's always energy lost in transformations, but calories don't account for them.

but taking your initial statement that carbs make you fat ....salad is carbohydrate , does it make you fat ? ...that would be a no really wouldn't it ... so I suspect what you really mean is Processed carbs ( and stuff like trans fats , salt and hidden extras )

i.e even your average glass of Tropicana despite being pure OJ is made in such a way that it is dense calories and over twice the calories of the equivalent amount of OJ should you press one yourself )

If you ate enough salad in a short enough time frame to spike insulin, then yes it would. The problem being it's pretty damn hard to eat enough salad to do that, seeing as it's pretty much 95% water.

low carb diets will make you hungry , probably restless and essentially you will mainly lose weight through water and muscle loss .. they should be avoided at all cost ..unless you are obese and then maybe as a drastic kick start short term measure

Rubbish.

Carbs trigger hunger cravings due to their spiking insulin. You eat them, you feel full, your body goes "eek, glucose on the blood stream!" produces insulin which gets rid of it all, and then your body goes "damn, where did all that glucose go? Must have used it already, best get them to eat some more!" and the hunger cravings start up again.

Fats and protein satiate you FAR better than carbs due to not having this effect and due to them being harder for your bodies to break down.

Sure on the first few days of low carb you'll go through a bit of hell trying to avoid eating carbs, your body will crave them, but after the initial period you'll feel far fuller on a higher fat and protein diet than a high carb one.

As for muscle loss, low carb diets are higher in protein that low fat, you'll be breaking down the protein in your diet before your body even thinks about touching your muscles. Sure if you eat low carb, low protein, high fat, you'll quickly burn through your muscles, but the goal of low carb is higher protein so that doesn't happen. If it does, you're doing it wrong.

weights with cardo is a good balance but it also depends on your goals .. a lot of your average body-builders may look great , big muscles and no fat but they can't run 100m in 11 seconds .. read up about Beckham when he had a slight loss of form when he first joined Madrid ..they put him on a weights program and his fantastic engine suffered as a result of it ..he ditched the weights and regained his form .. I used to run the 100m, 200m and 400m ..the problem with that was that for the 100m I needed more explosive training for fast twitch muscle , where as the 400m ( and my football) required a program more around slow twitch .... i was a decent at all 3 events but my coaches kept advising me to drop the football and also focus on one event if I wanted to move onto the next level ..in the end some clogger at football took that decision out of my hands :-(

Cardio is opposed to muscle gain (and so the opposite is also true). Cardio burns muscle. It's an unavoidable side effect. It's why marathon runners are skinny as hell despite spending a hell of a long time training.

If you want to build muscle mass then you need to keep cardio down to a maximum of 30 minutes, and spaced as far away from your weight training as possible.

low carb diets have been proven to be the most beneficial to health over and over again

have to disagree ... apart from the stuff i mentioned above , they cause other issues with the body ... ITV ran a show called worlds best diet recently ..the low carb diet lost the most weight but her LDL levels and Triglyceride went through the roof whilst her HDL levels dropped and her overall health suffered lack of energy ,restlessness ,and made her irritable .

Darren Gough lost 2lb less on the Mediterranean diet and his LDL levels dropped , he felt fantastic and his overall health levels improved .. he had more energy , slept better and so on

Sorry, I find that really hard to believe.

Low carb has been shown time and time again to improve the profile of cholesterol.

I'd put money on them not doing a full VAP test and instead doing a basic one that estimates LDL, which has been shown to provide consistently wrong results.

Google low carb cholesterol, you'll find a huge amount of studies (scientific lab based ones, not ones on ITV) that show the exact opposite of what you've just said.

There's plenty of studies showing high carb diets have detrimental effects on cholesterol and increase the risks of heart disease.

[regular_john]

The (incredibly well respected) cardiovascular consultant I've shadowed for the past month seems to think that low carb diets are by far the most beneficial for short term and long term health. Given that it's his job to teach other doctors, as well as attend international conferences to determine healthcare practices worldwide, I would think that his opinion is rather valuable!