OT: Fitness and Nutrition XII

[Lafleurs Guy]

If fitness has been left as far behind as this thread, we're in trouble. Found it on page-5.

I'm still soldiering on with the outdoor running, though not as far or as often. Some days are fine, others, like today, are brutal. It's -11c out there, not counting the windchill. Brutal on my face. Did 4.5k, though I stopped timing myself, since there's no point when part of it's on ice and snow. Man, it feels good to be finished for the day.

With so many people having bought home equipment, I wonder what the gym business will look like when things reopen.

My job has taken over everything. There's a bit of a lull in the action now so I can actually take a bit of a break but it really is crazy. Managing to barely do a workout per week but at least it's something. I'm determined to go back to my 3 per week routine coming soon.

 

[Kriss E]

This is a great idea. An At-Home Fitness Regime that doesn't require equipment. Your example is pretty basic; how much can you scale it up? Can you come up with something for intermediate and advanced levels?

I'd suggest resisting scaling up because the challenge is to do it for 30 days, so take the easier days while they're there. Once you get into day 16..17..18...it'll add up.
The worst thing is to overdo it early, get sore, and then have to skip. Let yourself slowly start. Some days are going to be easier than others too.

 

[Lshap]

I'd suggest resisting scaling up because the challenge is to do it for 30 days, so take the easier days while they're there. Once you get into day 16..17..18...it'll add up.
The worst thing is to overdo it early, get sore, and then have to skip. Let yourself slowly start. Some days are going to be easier than others too.

Makes sense, but in all honesty, I'm way beyond 5 pushups and 10 situps. But this isn't about me -- I think it's a really strong business idea. The catch with video instruction is it takes time to market and build followers, but you can produce these things with almost zero cost.

 

[Kriss E]

Makes sense, but in all honesty, I'm way beyond 5 pushups and 10 situps. But this isn't about me -- I think it's a really strong business idea. The catch with video instruction is it takes time to market and build followers, but you can produce these things with almost zero cost.

Don't forget the 15 squats! And it's 5 rounds...but that's Day 1. I obviously don't just do that. I use it more of a warm up now, then I do weights. But I know it'll get more difficult as we go along.

There's already millions of these out unfortunately so ya, it would take a long time to build a following.
Just doing this one for fun..let's see how it goes.

 

[Pacciosoftie]

Makes sense, but in all honesty, I'm way beyond 5 pushups and 10 situps. But this isn't about me -- I think it's a really strong business idea. The catch with video instruction is it takes time to market and build followers, but you can produce these things with almost zero cost.

Yup. I know of someone who’s a trainer and he has his own personal training videos that he sells for $40 for 2 months. He has live sessions too. Also comes with nutrition plan. He’s making a killing so far during Covid. Over a thousand people been signing up every 2 months.

 

[Kriss E]

Makes sense, but in all honesty, I'm way beyond 5 pushups and 10 situps. But this isn't about me -- I think it's a really strong business idea. The catch with video instruction is it takes time to market and build followers, but you can produce these things with almost zero cost.

Today would be
5 rounds
25 jumping jacks
6 burpees
30 sec plank

 

[CrAzYNiNe]

@Mrb1p im waiting for you to teach me a lesson about weight loss and cardio!

 

[Lshap]

Today would be
5 rounds
25 jumping jacks
6 burpees
30 sec plank

Challenge accepted. Chances are I won't be running today. Too much snow and ice.

(I already did one set of 50 pushups, followed by another set of 20).

 

[Mrb1p]

@Mrb1p im waiting for you to teach me a lesson about weight loss and cardio!

Your comment was about cardio actually not helping at losing weight/fat, thats false under all angles. Im not big on cardio myself and i remain relatively lean all year (15ish %, Id say.) but whenever I want to look less pudgy, or when I feel like Im getting fat, I get some cardio in.

Aerobic activity is just another tool to manipulate the body, at the end of the day it plays into the calorie in/out concept you mentionned because it allows for more calories to come out, it is still the best and most efficient way to burn excess calories.

Think of it as a tool to lose weight/fat, just like dieting/calorie counting, lifting weights, supplements, sleep, etc.

 

[waffledave]

I am feeling a lot better now, like lightyears better, since stopping the meds I was on. I am gearing up to return to activity once I can ensure I am able to keep enough food down (I lost about 8 lbs over the last 2 weeks).

I have always done a 5x5 kind of program and I have really enjoyed it, but once I start getting into heavier lifts, doing 5 sets starts to become a real grind. I usually will go with progressive overload up until it becomes too hard and my form suffers, and then I'll deload a start over with a focus on form. I was able to get my squat up to 3 plates, deadlift to 4 plates, bench stalled at 1 plate + 15 lbs, OHP stalled at around 95 lbs and rows at almost 2 plates. Always start to get injuries at this point due to bad form, so I deload and start over.

My workouts at higher weights tends to drag into the 1.5h range which is a bit long for me due to home life. So I am thinking of changing it to 3 sets, maybe 8 reps. So 3x8 instead of 5x5. Do you think I should slow down the pace of adding weight with this change? I add 5 lbs every workout (10 for deadlift). Going to start over from scratch so it won't matter at first, but will later on. I have no idea where my strength is at after losing weight and being sick for so long, so unable to do much activity besides cardio.

 

[Kriss E]

Your comment was about cardio actually not helping at losing weight/fat, thats false under all angles. Im not big on cardio myself and i remain relatively lean all year (15ish %, Id say.) but whenever I want to look less pudgy, or when I feel like Im getting fat, I get some cardio in.

Aerobic activity is just another tool to manipulate the body, at the end of the day it plays into the calorie in/out concept you mentionned because it allows for more calories to come out, it is still the best and most efficient way to burn excess calories.

Think of it as a tool to lose weight/fat, just like dieting/calorie counting, lifting weights, supplements, sleep, etc.

I think it's more that while it does indeed help a bit...really the big focus needs to be on the nutrition.
No different than how hypertrophy training is generally meant to be the most efficient way of adding mass but really, you won't grow if you don't increase your nutrition.

 

[Bushfire31]

Today would be
5 rounds
25 jumping jacks
6 burpees
30 sec plank

I appreciate this dude, thanks.

 

[Kriss E]

I appreciate this dude, thanks.

My pleasure buddy..I'll post some daily over next few weeks.

 

[CrAzYNiNe]

Your comment was about cardio actually not helping at losing weight/fat, thats false under all angles. Im not big on cardio myself and i remain relatively lean all year (15ish %, Id say.) but whenever I want to look less pudgy, or when I feel like Im getting fat, I get some cardio in.

Aerobic activity is just another tool to manipulate the body, at the end of the day it plays into the calorie in/out concept you mentionned because it allows for more calories to come out, it is still the best and most efficient way to burn excess calories.

Think of it as a tool to lose weight/fat, just like dieting/calorie counting, lifting weights, supplements, sleep, etc.

Cardio can help lose weight, but unless done properly, it will not burn fat. Fat is the bodies way of storing extra glucose. Burning fat and burning calories is not the same thing. To burn calories, you burn readily available sugars in an effort to turn that work into muscle gains. However if you are exerting maximum effort, your body does not look at the fat storage and see readily available glucose. Your metabolism doesn't burn fat the same way it burns sugars.

We both generalize our understanding based on our life experience. You talk about feeling pudgy... Well if that's the case your fat may not be stored as lipids and may still be a glycogen. I won't get into too much biological talk, as it is not my field of expertise either. What I am experienced with is losing fat stored as lipids that have sat on my body for at least a decade that I wanted to lose. Getting on the cardio machine and doing HIIT will not burn fat, per se. Sure you will burn calories and in turn even burn some fat given that your body may be able to tap into the storage, but it's not the most effective way. I was going an hour on level 20 doing HIIT and my body wasn't losing any fat until I started reading about the "fat zone". Once I was able to put the two together, I figure out what worked for me. It also made me be very aware of my heart rate and I was able to bring it down from 190 BPM to 125 BPM in about a minute during my interval training. I started to focus more and more on my heart rate and the energy I exerted during the time that I knew what my heart rate was. I still did HIIT for performance, breathing benefits, but I stopped thinking if I go on the cardio machine and burn 1000 calories, that I was going to burn the fat in my spare tire.

You want to lose fat? It's all about diet. The body will not use fat to burn energy when you are stressing it. In fact if you stress the body with little to no energy, the likelihood that your body stores fat the next time you eat is high given your body is in defense mode given you just starved it. But this scenario is for a fat person, not for the regular person. We are all creatures of habit and my body is the same. If it is used to over eating and storing fat, if I starve my body, it will store fat to avoid starving. The way to burn the fat is to eat less, not starve, while doing exercise that allows the body to dig into that fat storage (fat zone heart rate).

I have read a lot of medical journals on the subject. I am not the expert in all this, but this is what I have understood and practiced. Again this is for someone who is EXTREMELY overweight, like I was. I do not know what works for the body of someone who should be 180 lbs and is at 190 lbs trying to lose 10 lbs. I know that for me as a 300 lbs 16 year old, by the time I was 22, I was 215 lbs. Changing eating habits, regular workouts with cardio and weight training. It always depends on the focus of the person.

 

[CrAzYNiNe]

I think it's more that while it does indeed help a bit...really the big focus needs to be on the nutrition.
No different than how hypertrophy training is generally meant to be the most efficient way of adding mass but really, you won't grow if you don't increase your nutrition.

I was specifically talking to him about training to burn fat. It's a common misconception, that I myself believed, that burning calories, fat, sugars, etc. was all the same burning. When I dug down, I recognized a lot of fallacies in my own understanding of how to burn fat. I explained it above in my reply to mrb1p. If you have anything to add, I would appreciate it.

 

[Mrb1p]

Cardio can help lose weight, but unless done properly, it will not burn fat. Fat is the bodies way of storing extra glucose. Burning fat and burning calories is not the same thing. To burn calories, you burn readily available sugars in an effort to turn that work into muscle gains. However if you are exerting maximum effort, your body does not look at the fat storage and see readily available glucose. Your metabolism doesn't burn fat the same way it burns sugars.

We both generalize our understanding based on our life experience. You talk about feeling pudgy... Well if that's the case your fat may not be stored as lipids and may still be a glycogen. I won't get into too much biological talk, as it is not my field of expertise either. What I am experienced with is losing fat stored as lipids that have sat on my body for at least a decade that I wanted to lose. Getting on the cardio machine and doing HIIT will not burn fat, per se. Sure you will burn calories and in turn even burn some fat given that your body may be able to tap into the storage, but it's not the most effective way. I was going an hour on level 20 doing HIIT and my body wasn't losing any fat until I started reading about the "fat zone". Once I was able to put the two together, I figure out what worked for me. It also made me be very aware of my heart rate and I was able to bring it down from 190 BPM to 125 BPM in about a minute during my interval training. I started to focus more and more on my heart rate and the energy I exerted during the time that I knew what my heart rate was. I still did HIIT for performance, breathing benefits, but I stopped thinking if I go on the cardio machine and burn 1000 calories, that I was going to burn the fat in my spare tire.

You want to lose fat? It's all about diet. The body will not use fat to burn energy when you are stressing it. In fact if you stress the body with little to no energy, the likelihood that your body stores fat the next time you eat is high given your body is in defense mode given you just starved it. But this scenario is for a fat person, not for the regular person. We are all creatures of habit and my body is the same. If it is used to over eating and storing fat, if I starve my body, it will store fat to avoid starving. The way to burn the fat is to eat less, not starve, while doing exercise that allows the body to dig into that fat storage (fat zone heart rate).

I have read a lot of medical journals on the subject. I am not the expert in all this, but this is what I have understood and practiced. Again this is for someone who is EXTREMELY overweight, like I was. I do not know what works for the body of someone who should be 180 lbs and is at 190 lbs trying to lose 10 lbs. I know that for me as a 300 lbs 16 year old, by the time I was 22, I was 215 lbs. Changing eating habits, regular workouts with cardio and weight training. It always depends on the focus of the person.

I wish I wasn't swamped with work right now because thats a load to take in, Id read into that fat zone you talk about if I were you, its not something that Id say is actually a serious application for fat loss. I mean, can it work ? Obviously, its exercise and all exercise works towards the same goal, but it doesn't seem to work the way that I think you understand.

Bottom line is right, its all about eating less calories than you need to maintain your weight and it is all that matters, no cardio doesn't burn fat, neither does HIIT, neither does lifting weights. Well, it might, but its not a reliable source. What burns fat is a caloric deficit, those things are tools to get you to a caloric deficit.

I also highly doubt your body goes in extended bouts of low activity on the fat burning front if you keep your exercise up, calories down and sleep to a decent level.

 

[CrAzYNiNe]

I wish I wasn't swamped with work right now because thats a load to take in, Id read into that fat zone you talk about if I were you, its not something that Id say is actually a serious application for fat loss. I mean, can it work ? Obviously, its exercise and all exercise works towards the same goal, but it doesn't seem to work the way that I think you understand.

Bottom line is right, its all about eating less calories than you need to maintain your weight and it is all that matters, no cardio doesn't burn fat, neither does HIIT, neither does lifting weights. Well, it might, but its not a reliable source. What burns fat is a caloric deficit, those things are tools to get you to a caloric deficit.

I also highly doubt your body goes in extended bouts of low activity on the fat burning front if you keep your exercise up, calories down and sleep to a decent level.

So you don't understand what I said, you haven't read about it, and yet you think you're going to tell me I don't know what I am talking about?

The fact of the matter is simple: If you exercise with a high heart rate, your body is burning readily available sugars to sustain that level of effort. Your body does not have the time to breakdown your fat stored as lipids to be made available for exercise routine. Fat does not burn like sugar. It's basic chemistry. This is why experts talk about fat burning zone, where the body isn't suffocating to burn energy looking for readily available sugar.

You are not looking at this situation from the point of view of a fat person. You are looking at this from the point of view of a person who exercises regularly and had a moment of inactivity. It's very important to recognize the difference as the way the body transforms sugars into fat is different.

 

[Suzuki x 14]

I need the gyms to open!!!
I am out of control

I cannot work out at home, ive tried numerous times, its just not the same for me.

In April 2019 i was 433lbs, started a strict diet and training, in March 2020 i was down to 327lbs and feeling the best ive felt in 20 years.

Enter covid, no gym, no motivation, locked in my house for months. Today im 440lbs and have never felt worse in my life. Its a struggle every day just to start my day (and they start early)

 

[DAChampion]

So you don't understand what I said, you haven't read about it, and yet you think you're going to tell me I don't know what I am talking about?

The fact of the matter is simple: If you exercise with a high heart rate, your body is burning readily available sugars to sustain that level of effort. Your body does not have the time to breakdown your fat stored as lipids to be made available for exercise routine. Fat does not burn like sugar. It's basic chemistry. This is why experts talk about fat burning zone, where the body isn't suffocating to burn energy looking for readily available sugar.

You are not looking at this situation from the point of view of a fat person. You are looking at this from the point of view of a person who exercises regularly and had a moment of inactivity. It's very important to recognize the difference as the way the body transforms sugars into fat is different.

This stuff about fat burning zones was painted on cardio machines in the 1990s. It doesn't seem to have held up to scrutiny.

You need a caloric deficit to burn energy, and you need low insulin to make sure that energy is fat.

 

[CrAzYNiNe]

This stuff about fat burning zones was painted on cardio machines in the 1990s. It doesn't seem to have held up to scrutiny.

You need a caloric deficit to burn energy, and you need low insulin to make sure that energy is fat.

I have started to do intermittent fasting, in an effort to lower my insulin levels. It has been working but the eating to much during the 8 hours I eat is still a problem. It's a work in progress. I don't have a day where I exert myself much, so this method seems functional as my biggest problem has always been late night snacking.

As for the heart rate, has it been completely debunked? I really felt like it made sense and I felt I had results (placebo?). For me, when I exerted myself 100%, having heart rates of 180/190, I felt like my fat mass wouldn't change even if I was doing it 3-4 times a week. It was only when I changed things up, using cardio more as a warm up, spending a lot more time doing powersets to keep my heart rate in the 120/130 zone and finishing with cardio, that's when my pant size started going down. I must admit that this is research I had done over 10 years ago and I have not kept up with the new trends.

 

[DAChampion]

I have started to do intermittent fasting, in an effort to lower my insulin levels. It has been working but the eating to much during the 8 hours I eat is still a problem. It's a work in progress. I don't have a day where I exert myself much, so this method seems functional as my biggest problem has always been late night snacking.

As for the heart rate, has it been completely debunked? I really felt like it made sense and I felt I had results (placebo?). For me, when I exerted myself 100%, having heart rates of 180/190, I felt like my fat mass wouldn't change even if I was doing it 3-4 times a week. It was only when I changed things up, using cardio more as a warm up, spending a lot more time doing powersets to keep my heart rate in the 120/130 zone and finishing with cardio, that's when my pant size started going down. I must admit that this is research I had done over 10 years ago and I have not kept up with the new trends.

How long could you maintain a heart rate of 190? That doesn't sound sustainable.

 

[CrAzYNiNe]

How long could you maintain a heart rate of 190? That doesn't sound sustainable.

I was in my early 20s and for only a few seconds, maybe 10 at the end of a really high resistance interval. I have no idea what my heart is capable of these days.

 

[DAChampion]

I was in my early 20s and for only a few seconds, maybe 10 at the end of a really high resistance interval. I have no idea what my heart is capable of these days.

That's probably not a fair comparison

 

[CrAzYNiNe]

That's probably not a fair comparison

what’s not a fair comparison?

 

[FrankMTL]

I've become a HIIT cardio and bodyweight strength training machine during this pandemic. For those who like to exercise at home I would suggest the following two that have been extremely beneficial to me.

BullyJuice- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9JEqf7LBBx3tkrPx2xvbQ

I would suggest starting with the 10 minute or 20 minute full body workout. This is the one I started with.



For those that are a little more advanced, I really enjoy this one.



Jordan Yeoh- https://www.youtube.com/user/jordanyeohfitness

Again, for those that are just starting, try the easier sessions at first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6yv8Ag-PHg

For those that are more advanced, this one is pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLYxY8ZbRAQ



There's also Funk Roberts who's pretty good. There's 1 particular workout that I enjoy very much and try to do once every week or every two weeks. The last set of ab exercises are great. I like that he's in his 40's like me (I'm 41) so sometimes he has specific exercises for men in that age range.

Funk Roberts-

I tend to do at least 30 minutes sessions, so sometimes I will do a 20 minute full body workout and then add on a 10 minute session for a specific body part (lets say lower back or legs or chest).

Now these exercises won't get you huge gains in muscle size, but they're great for lean muscle and sculpting your body. Now's a great time to start too as we're 3-4 months away from summer where people are wearing less clothes, so you want to feel confident about yourself. It's also good to get started just for your health.

To those who have started, don't give up! You'll feel great when you get to your goals!