75% of Americans Too Fat or Dumb to Join Army

[Coito ergo sum]

... Here is a good article for anyone that is interested: http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7 ... -0,00.html

Thanks for that. It explained the 'muscle uses more calories than fat' advice, and how it's not that useful for weight control anyway. More aerobic exercise gives the best bang for the effort. We all know that, we just don't want to admit it.

In my view, the best use of workout time for someone who wants "fat loss" is to bang it out hard on the treadmill. If you have a half hour, and want to burn calories -- run -- and work up a sweat.

I HIGHLY recommend a calorie measuring watch, like a good Polar sports watch which reads heart rate from the band strap around your chest. Very useful. Start exercising - anywhere - outside, inside, the gym, whatever - and knock out 500 calories. Then stop. The rest is portion control, and you'll do good.

Also advisable is to eat good food. Veggies - some fruit -- lean meat/chicken/fish. Chicken - fish - brocolli - some lean steak - yams or sweet potatoes. All good stuff.

Don't waste your money on "protein shakes" and that sort of thing, The latest studies show that drinking a protein shake after workouts gives no measurable difference in results than drinking a glass of milk. Save the money you'd spend on expensive protein shakes and eat better food.

[amused]

... Here is a good article for anyone that is interested: http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7 ... -0,00.html

Thanks for that. It explained the 'muscle uses more calories than fat' advice, and how it's not that useful for weight control anyway. More aerobic exercise gives the best bang for the effort. We all know that, we just don't want to admit it.

In my view, the best use of workout time for someone who wants "fat loss" is to bang it out hard on the treadmill. If you have a half hour, and want to burn calories -- run -- and work up a sweat.

I HIGHLY recommend a calorie measuring watch, like a good Polar sports watch which reads heart rate from the band strap around your chest. Very useful. Start exercising - anywhere - outside, inside, the gym, whatever - and knock out 500 calories. Then stop. The rest is portion control, and you'll do good.

Also advisable is to eat good food. Veggies - some fruit -- lean meat/chicken/fish. Chicken - fish - brocolli - some lean steak - yams or sweet potatoes. All good stuff.

Don't waste your money on "protein shakes" and that sort of thing, The latest studies show that drinking a protein shake after workouts gives no measurable difference in results than drinking a glass of milk. Save the money you'd spend on expensive protein shakes and eat better food.

Yup, except replace the treadmill with the elliptical if your knees won't take the impact. The elliptical here has heartrate sensors built into the handles. If you set the rate high enough, the machine will increase the resistance until you hit the target heartrate. Evil, but effective. It also counts calories, using your heartrate, age and weight.

[Coito ergo sum]

My numbers were rough estimates. I don't think I'm really hitting them because my weight loss doesn't reflect them. For me it's a shoot for the stars to hit the moon sort of thing.

Well, you can do some things to get better at estimating caloric intake. It's not feasible for most people to measure everything before eating, etc. But, if you're fairly mindful of what you eat for a while, and keep looking things up on websites like calorieking.com and take care to know roughly the weight/mass of food you're eating, then you can start easily understanding when you're reaching 1500 and then 2000 per day.


An easy way to roughly gauge your calories burned per day is to wear a Polar heart monitor watch all day for a day or two. If you wear it for 24 hours on a day you don't work out -- just your normal activities - then you get a fair baseline. Let's say that comes out to 2000 per day. Add a 500 calorie per day workout, and subtract 500 calories from that and limit your caloric intake to 1500 calories, and you have 1000 calorie per day caloric deficit. If you're pretty accurate on food consumption quantities, you'll start losing weight. Be good 80% of the time, and you'll do fine.

[Coito ergo sum]

And, they're getting fatter --- http://www.gallup.com/poll/153143/Obese ... Areas.aspx

In the Mission, texas area...38.8% are OBESE!!!

Stop eating! Criminy, folks!

[JimC]

No one has mentioned the neat gin and vitamin pill diet yet!

For shame!

[amused]

I tried the Jackie Gleason diet for a while: bourbon and steak.

I never did lose any weight...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Has this become another Gawd-less thread?

[Coito ergo sum]

42% of Americans projected to be obese by 2030.... http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/sto ... 54791430/1

Jeez... whatever happened to the stigma about being overweight? We need more magazines with rail thin models....

[Ian]

Has this become another Gawd-less thread?

This seems to have become a Gawd-less forum.

I'm happy to take some credit for that.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Has this become another Gawd-less thread?

This seems to have become a Gawd-less forum.

I'm happy to take some credit for that.

[amused]

42% of Americans projected to be obese by 2030.... http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/sto ... 54791430/1

Jeez... whatever happened to the stigma about being overweight? We need more magazines with rail thin models....

I'm closing in on having burned off 50 pounds in 17 months, 10 of which were burned off twice because I relapsed halfway through, so 60 pounds. It's hard as hell to do and I'm thankful that I'm still healthy enough to be able to expend the effort. Once that weight is on you, it's a major challenge to work it off. About the only way to work off those calories is to work the big muscles in your legs and butt.

I'm lucky enough to live in Austin where we have a three mile veloway that loops back on itself and is open only to bicycles and skates. There are no other facilities like it in the entire US, which is a scandal. Every major city should have several, IMO.





Mt. Everest - I can skate up it!





The easy part:

[Coito ergo sum]

That is a cool track. And, congrats on the 50 lbs. Good job!

The recipe for weight loss: eat less; exercise more.

[Pappa]

Has this become another Gawd-less thread?

This seems to have become a Gawd-less forum.

I'm happy to take some credit for that.

Why/how?

[Woodbutcher]

[amused]

I went to my first rollerderby bout last night. The vibe of rollerderby is a lot of fun, with roots in punk and do it yourself costuming. Lots of showmanship from the teams, refs, and especially Chip Queso, the announcer. I didn't realize that the current resurgence of rollerderby had its start right here in Austin.

The crowd was....interesting. I know I'm being judgmental, but damn, people, when you already weigh 250+ pounds, is it really a good idea to eat a mountain of cheesy-looking-stuff covered chips and beer? Huge salted pretzels, and beer? And then sit for several hours watching other people who are in good shape being physically active.