I'm 2nd fattest: new HEALTH and FITNESS

[milly balgeary]

Seriously, think about about a real human life for a second. Who is this imaginary woman who is somehow building muscles so big they bulge, while continuing to eat so poorly and remain so sedentary that she's got a big layer of fat that gets pushed out by it, such that she looks fatter -- and now imagine telling her she's somehow worse off because now she's built muscle, as opposed to having been sedentary with a bad diet before? Why create this completely unreal situation?

I'm not saying weighted oblique work specifically is a must, but the idea that you are going push your fat out with your huge muscles, and especially your obliques! Do you have any idea what women have to go through to get big obliques! That just sit there like a lump under a pile of fat and magically don't do anything else? That's like saying you switch hands when you jerk off so you don't wind up with one Arnold Schwarzenegger arm and fall over because you're so huge on one side.

I never even noticed that part of his thing, about weird muscle, making you wider! I just agree about the can't beat running for calorie burning and I think it makes more sense to run than do a bunch of weight training if you're trying to lose weight.

[jess]

Isn't the theory behind weight lifting for weight loss vs intense cardio that intense cardio works while you are doing it only, but increasing your lean muscle mass means you are burning more calories all the time? Seems like a balance of both would be important for maximum weight loss.

[RoyBiggins]

That is my general understanding of it, too.

[RoyBiggins]

That's like saying you switch hands when you jerk off so you don't wind up with one Arnold Schwarzenegger arm and fall over because you're so huge on one side.

 I know a guy who died from that.

[dieblucasdie]

I'm not quite sure what bluc and the millster mean, either. From looking at various sources, it seems like running at 8mph will burn maybe 20-30% more calories per hour than an elliptical trainer, more or less. Though I guess if you're an experienced runner maybe you're getting a better workout in other ways? Personally my knees are kind of gimp, so if I ran on concrete for 30 min I'd probably break down crying. Today when I got off the elliptical my legs and thighs felt rubbery and good.

Yeah, I ain't hatin if the elliptical works for you, just expressing a personal preference. But it definitely takes me an hour on the elliptical to get as much peak-heartrate time as a 36 min 5 mile run on the treadmill. Again, part of that might be that my height makes it awkward for me to really get chugging on the elliptical.

xpost, Yeah, you definitely need to do both strength training and cardio. Along with the stuff you mentioned, lifting will strengthen your joints and make you much less likely to get injured while doing all that intense cardio.  Also, though "cardio works only while you're doing it" isn't quite true; you're burning calories over the next 4-6 hours if you're doing intense cardio >30min.

[Greg Nog]

Or high-intesity interval training for less time!  Which is why I continue sweating for hours after I've finished a run, which makes me ever so attractive on the subway.

[RoyBiggins]

If you saw yourself, you'd be your own 'awesome person of the day':

"sweaty bearded guy with Anime hair reading PG Wodehouse on the L train."

[FreddyKnuckles]

Seriously, think about about a real human life for a second. Who is this imaginary woman who is somehow building muscles so big they bulge, while continuing to eat so poorly and remain so sedentary that she's got a big layer of fat that gets pushed out by it, such that she looks fatter -- and now imagine telling her she's somehow worse off because now she's built muscle, as opposed to having been sedentary with a bad diet before? Why create this completely unreal situation?

I'm not saying weighted oblique work specifically is a must, but the idea that you are going push your fat out with your huge muscles, and especially your obliques! Do you have any idea what women have to go through to get big obliques! That just sit there like a lump under a pile of fat and magically don't do anything else? That's like saying you switch hands when you jerk off so you don't wind up with one Arnold Schwarzenegger arm and fall over because you're so huge on one side.

I never even noticed that part of his thing, about weird muscle, making you wider! I just agree about the can't beat running for calorie burning and I think it makes more sense to run than do a bunch of weight training if you're trying to lose weight.

Everybody carries fat in their sides unless they are a body builder.  Building muscle there only pushes your love handles out further.  Do situps, etc, and include some oblique crunches where your legs are flopped to either side.  But doing weighted oblique exercises makes zero sense for women. 

[elpollodiablo]

If I wanted to work in a bit of strength training, where would be a good place for me to start?

[Bernard]

If you saw yourself, you'd be your own 'awesome person of the day':

"sweaty bearded guy with Anime hair reading PG Wodehouse on the L train."

True!

[FreddyKnuckles]

If I wanted to work in a bit of strength training, where would be a good place for me to start?

Do you have a gym?  I would say pushups are a good place to start because they work a lot of different areas, arms, chest, a little back.  Start with girl pushups where you're on your knees and just do as many as you can until you wear out... Do some planking, and some crunches, and some leg lifts.

these guys are going to be better on leg strength exercises but a good routine of burpees, squats, and lunges will really wear you out and start building muscle.  Oh mountain climbers are good too.

[RoyBiggins]

I know some of those things are real, but reading that list, I can't help but feel like about 1/3 of them are the equivalent of telling some dudes "yeah man.  Then, she wanted me to falcon punch her, but I thought that was a little too freaky, so I gave her a joey gladstone instead.  It was awesome."

[jess]

I'm not quite sure what bluc and the millster mean, either. From looking at various sources, it seems like running at 8mph will burn maybe 20-30% more calories per hour than an elliptical trainer, more or less. Though I guess if you're an experienced runner maybe you're getting a better workout in other ways? Personally my knees are kind of gimp, so if I ran on concrete for 30 min I'd probably break down crying. Today when I got off the elliptical my legs and thighs felt rubbery and good.

Yeah, I ain't hatin if the elliptical works for you, just expressing a personal preference. But it definitely takes me an hour on the elliptical to get as much peak-heartrate time as a 36 min 5 mile run on the treadmill. Again, part of that might be that my height makes it awkward for me to really get chugging on the elliptical.

xpost, Yeah, you definitely need to do both strength training and cardio. Along with the stuff you mentioned, lifting will strengthen your joints and make you much less likely to get injured while doing all that intense cardio.  Also, though "cardio works only while you're doing it" isn't quite true; you're burning calories over the next 4-6 hours if you're doing intense cardio >30min.

That makes a ton of sense—I know I'm at increased risk of low blood sugar at least 12 hrs after extended exercise (although at risk for high blood sugar sometimes during exercise, since the liver likes to dump glucose if exercise is intense). It's really common for diabetics to experienced overnight low blood sugars after more active than usual days if we don't correctly adjust our long acting insulin doses, since the body continues to use glucose more efficiently. It's actually pretty similar to the superficial effects of drinking for me, except that the low blood sugars with drinking occur b/c your liver stops releasing extra glucose (so non-diabetic people probably burn fewer calories following alcohol consumption too, since your liver is conserving glucose while it breaks down alcohol, which is also why you may wake up really hungry and tired after drinking, because normally you'd be metabolizing stored glucose for energy in the early morning), whereas during and after exercise, your body is taking up the glucose that is there more efficiently (so non-diabetics burn more calories without needing to put out extra insulin, and diabetics do too, unless we screw up and have to eat to correct low blood sugars, which is part of why it's harder to lose weight as a diabetic).

[Greg Nog]

Everybody carries fat in their sides unless they are a body builder.  Building muscle there only pushes your love handles out further.  Do situps, etc, and include some oblique crunches where your legs are flopped to either side.  But doing weighted oblique exercises makes zero sense for women.  

I think you're vastly overestimating the amount of muscle any woman is going to be able to gain on her obliques, as well as what the actual aesthetic effect of that small amount of muscle under one's lovehandles is.  Much like Bernard, I'm not saying that weighted obliques are some awesome exercise, but doing weighted oblique exercises are absolutely not going to have any kind of deleterious widening effect.

If I wanted to work in a bit of strength training, where would be a good place for me to start?

Stronglifts 5x5 is a very good, basic program, and basically a modification of Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength, which is a classic program involving a small number of exercises that each use a bunch of different muscles.  

There are two workouts, alternated, with at least one rest day in between; so each week you could do Workout A on Monday, then Workout B on Wednesday.  The exercises (with youtube links!) are:

Workout A:
Squats - 5 sets of 5 repetitions each
Bench Press - 5 sets of 5 repetitions each
Barbell Rows - 5 sets of 5 repetitions each

Workout B:
Squats - 5 sets of 5 repetitions each
Overhead Press - 5 sets of 5 repetitions each
Deadlifts - 1 set of 5 repetitions each

EDIT: Looking for other squat things, I came across this article, which has a good video demonstrating bodyweight squats.

[RoyBiggins]

How come the copy on that page makes it sound like I'm going to look like wren after he had stimpy's assmuscles transplanted into his pecs?  It makes me not want to believe them.   I would like to try it, though.

[Ignatius]

Do they mean Hulk Hogan or the mythical Hulk. v. important pls let me know

[Greg Nog]

smh if u think the incredible hulk is only a myth, i have photos i would show to PROVE he exists but the illuminati would come down on me HARD if they ever got out

[RoyBiggins]

Those aren't photos, they're vintage lunchboxes.

[Greg Nog]

That's what the freemasons WANT you to believe.

[Ignatius]

Many cultures have oral traditions of a hulk like being who is mad and inexpressive but tho pants have been found that were ripped to become a kind of shorts conclusive evidence like bones or whatnot have not

[RoyBiggins]

I heard they found some pants, but never purple ones. they were chinos. they're in a government lab now being tested for gamma radiation shit.

[milly balgeary]

I guess, for my part, weight training is great if you do it in addition to cardio, but for dropping weight (which is what I think most people wanna do), cardio is king. Now this is just my opinion, based on what's worked for me. But diet and cardio have done me well. Body weight exercises are great for making sure I can continue to do cardio. Hopefully my new shoes that I bought today will clear up some feet soreness


nike pegasus!

[milly balgeary]

Also, I went into work today to finish some stuff up, and I decided to raise my desk up. I now have a standing desk! No more sitting there all day. Con. My feet hurt after standing there for 30 minutes.

[mountmccabe]

I am a bit late to the discussion but I am another one on the 'won't run, my knees are too fucked up' train. I tore my ACL a decade ago and did not have surgery.

But not running doesn't mean you can't do interval training; at the gym I went to in Phoenix I spent a lot of time on Arc machines (which are some sort/brand of elliptical; they claim the motion is better/cleaner but who knows and, as noted, i am sure it is different for different bodies) and I would generally program it to alternate resistance levels and inclinations to work different muscles.

I'd warm up 10-12 minutes on a bike, move through a mix of weight machines and then finish off with ~35 minutes on the Arc machine.

Also I should note that my main goal was not weight loss but cardiovascular health.

[peacocks]

feel 1st fattest today tbh even though I have been very physical and non eat-y this week/weekend!