Fat folk at the gym

thunderbird

I don't know if this has already been mentioned - but if you don't have the money for a gym at the moment you can always start exercising at home. There are plenty of workout videos (see youtube if you don't want actually buy them!).

Given your medical issues, you should check with gp or whoever you get advice from on what exercise is approriate (again apologies if this has already been mentioned!)

SandC

There's a lot of dismissal about exercise and weight loss on here. But bear in mind people that someone who is overweight by a few stone doesn't necessarily spend the day stuffing their faces - if they did they would be probably be in a whole different category of size.

Most people got to their size over a long period of time, a stone a year for 4 years does not indicate massive overeating but does indicate someone who didn't do something about it when they first started putting a few pounds on. Perhaps a sedentary job and lack of other general exercise coupled with a few chocolate bars a week and alcohol is really all it takes. The 'slim' people never get past a certain point before they cut back or move their butts to sort it out. That's the mentality we're all looking for.

But before we get that mentality we have to get down to the size/weight we want to be.

And you can do that by finding an exercise you like and being consistent with it. To burn 1lb of fat, without over eating, you need to use up 3500 cals. That's 7 hours of quite intensive exercise. But 3.5 hours per week and that's 1/2lb per week.

This is only achievable if you are honestly not overeating, ie. you are overweight but staying pretty much the same. It takes patience and you won't see results quickly but it is very doable. Changes in diet happen along the way also because the exercise and meeting others who are leading healthy lifestyles helps you to learn about what you are putting in your body and how it makes you feel.

My change has been gradual and is still ongoing over the past 3 years. It's actually only now I'm starting to look more closely at my diet but then I was never a takeaway etc. fiend anyway. But I have been absolutely consistent and work hard with no excuses.

claire16c

andygb wrote: »

Is that the Ghurka Challenge Claire, because a 100K walk/run is a real feat of endurance. I have done four marathons in the past, but cannot imagine doing the equivalent of two and a half marathons in one go.

Nope but he did used to be in the army

It was for charity, took 11 hours!

claire16c

VestanPance wrote: »

Ultra running just requires a slower tempo than you'd normally run, a good running efficiency style and to work out a refuelling strategy that your stomach can handle. Pretty much like any endurance event the training is the real effort in the task.

On the calories vs exercise thing what you have to remember is that in this instance calories is energy that your body will use to fuel your effort. Your body can't store these for quick use when you need them (which is why carb loading doesn't work). If you don't use them at that time they'll be converted to fat.

You have a limited amount of energy that your body can convert efficiently and only when that is depleted will it start to burn fat. Using fat for energy in exercise is very inefficient and would lead to severe performance drop. This is commonly referred to as 'The Wall' by endurance runners or 'bonking' by cyclists. Marathon runners often experience this in the final few miles if they get their fuelling wrong. This is why they often eat quick energy release goods while running, such as energy gels or the old favourite of many jelly beans/babies.

If any person used 3000 calories of energy over a short period of time they'd hit a brick wall, unless they had prepared a very good refuelling strategy.

Yeah DH had to do training of running 50 miles in one go at the weekends to train for the 100km. Hes done it so often now Ive badly started to become quite blase about it and forget hes running almost 2 marathons on a saturday!

When he did the 100km he had a lot of lucozade type sport drinks and gels and food.

Years ago he hit 'the wall' in a marathon and had to walk the last few miles pretty much limping. He said it was a horrible feeling.

Stephb1986_2

SandC wrote: »

There's a lot of dismissal about exercise and weight loss on here. But bear in mind people that someone who is overweight by a few stone doesn't necessarily spend the day stuffing their faces - if they did they would be probably be in a whole different category of size.

Most people got to their size over a long period of time, a stone a year for 4 years does not indicate massive overeating but does indicate someone who didn't do something about it when they first started putting a few pounds on. Perhaps a sedentary job and lack of other general exercise coupled with a few chocolate bars a week and alcohol is really all it takes. The 'slim' people never get past a certain point before they cut back or move their butts to sort it out. That's the mentality we're all looking for.

You summed up what happened to me here, I have a sedentary job (ironing) so I'm on my feet all day so the last thing I want to do is run on down to the gym lol. I don't stuff my face all day (I wish I did) I do have domino's Friday then no exercise it soon takes it's toll, since October I've become more active in the sense of I've took a volunteering job at the weekends with a pyrotechnics company so a lot of moving around displays etc obviously things are a little quiet now until the firework season starts again.

That's why I've started at the gym been twice already this week for a hour and a half each time, I did have 1 finger of a twix last night because it was there staring at me

But I'm stepping in the right direction hopefully.

Steph xx

VestanPance

SandC wrote: »

There's a lot of dismissal about exercise and weight loss on here. But bear in mind people that someone who is overweight by a few stone doesn't necessarily spend the day stuffing their faces - if they did they would be probably be in a whole different category of size.

That's why changing diet habits for life is every bit as important as exercise. Nobody is dismissing exercise, what they are correctly noting is that diet plays a greater role. That includes bad diet choices of snacking of crisps or a couple of chocolate bars a week.

I tend to mention diet despite being a bit of a self confessed cardio exercise freak, as I've seen too many people make the same classic mistakes.

They go to the gym, or out on the bike, or for a run for 30 minutes to an hour and then "reward" themselves for that effort with junk food. A takeaway or chocolate/crisps etc. Add to that many over estimate how much they need to eat in order to fuel the exercise and also over estimate how many calories that exercise burns up. I've seen too many people do something that at best burnt up about 300 calories and then "rewarded" themselves with treats that would be double what they just used up in addition to what they normally eat anyway. They then get disillusioned as the exercise "isn't working" for weight loss!

Exercise will make you fit and healthy. It does need to be said than thin is not equal to being fit. You can be thin and very unfit and unhealthy. A good balance between diet and exercise is what is required.

Main thing is find something you enjoy. You have a far better chance of something becoming part of your life if you enjoy it.

scooby088

There are also times of day to eat, I as a general rule never eat anything heavy after 7pm, if you say eat dinner after then the calories are converted to fat as you sleep even though you do burn calories whilst sleeping it's not enough to counter act the intake of calories before sleep.

SandC

I disagree, it's overall intake that matters not when you eat. Although eating a heavy meal shortly before bedtime might make for an uncomfortable night as the body tries to digest it lying down.

andygb

scooby088 wrote: »

There are also times of day to eat, I as a general rule never eat anything heavy after 7pm, if you say eat dinner after then the calories are converted to fat as you sleep even though you do burn calories whilst sleeping it's not enough to counter act the intake of calories before sleep.

I reckon that this is true (we hardly ever eat after 1800), and a further bit of advice is to cut down on carbohydrates later in the day, as the body will burn carbs efficiently as fuel for breakfast/lunch. If you go to the gym in the evening then only have a light snack after, and be careful about rehydrating on alcohol - wine or beer, because you will probably drink too much, and this will be converted into sugar, then fat.

1886

I'm not overweight, slightly underweight for my height but I still did'nt like going to the gym with all of those mirrors everywhere and I also did'nt like going too much until I'd worked out how to use the machines after the very brief introduction.

I liked to go about 90 minutes before it closed as it was really quiet and I could pretty much use anything I wanted.