Fat Burning Classes?

andygb

Jamopy wrote: »

There's a lot of uninformed advice being given here. Yes there is isn't there?;)

Basically, to lose fat the most important thing is your diet. You can train for hours a day and still stay fat if your diet is bad.

Think of exercise and calorie counting as a set of accounts, because it is really a case of balancing the amout of exercise against the amount you eat.
If you consume 2000 calories a day in food and expend 2000 calories each day in exercise, then your weight will stay the same.
If you burn an extra 1000 calories a day at the gym/running/swimming/cycling/other sports (which I have started to do), then assuming that you exercise every day (which I do), then you will expend an extra 7000 calories, which is about 1 kilo/2 pounds of bodyweight.
If however as a result of more exercise, you are eating more food (for example, consuming the same amount of extra calories as the calories burned by exercise), then your weight is likely to remain the same.
It has very little to do with the type of food, except that a bad diet usually contains less food, but food which is high in fat or sugar content.

heartbreak_star

Aw, I hate having to disagree with someone who I generally think is right!

Sorry andygb, it's not always a case of calorie counting. If you're training, your body will do so much more with 500 calories of protein and veg than with 500 calories of chocolate cake and therefore you'll build better muscle tissue to train with.

Calorie counting only really works if you're not doing hard exercise and really can't give up white carbs . It is, however, pretty easy to do and get results from and that's why lots of people do it.

HBS x

cleggy.

and don't forget, every time you add a pound of muscle onto your body you'll need an extra 50 cals a day just to keep it alive.

stir_crazy

Focusing on calorie counting has never really worked for me. I've been upping my protein and trying to cut down on my carbs by cutting out the bread, pasta, etc this week and so far I've been losing weight and feeling healthier for it.

Also thinking about venturing into the weight room at the gym, but I've noticed that no girls ever go in there :eek:! And I'll need to do a bit of background research as I've not really used weights in my exercises before.:o

heartbreak_star

There is a phrase I love when it comes to venturing into the weights section, and it is "man up and be proud". Just bear in mind all the silly posey boys are looking at themselves in the mirror and not at you! After a while you'll realise that half of them are doing most of their vanity exercises wrong too.

Watch a few instructional videos and ask a trainer at your gym about good technique, especially for deadlifts and squats. And stay away from the Smith machine!

Once again I recommend Nerd Fitness, there's some great weights articles on there. Good luck - I've fallen in love with barbell training and I've never felt better.

HBS x

andygb

heartbreak_star wrote: »

Aw, I hate having to disagree with someone who I generally think is right!

Sorry andygb, it's not always a case of calorie counting. If you're training, your body will do so much more with 500 calories of protein and veg than with 500 calories of chocolate cake and therefore you'll build better muscle tissue to train with.

Calorie counting only really works if you're not doing hard exercise and really can't give up white carbs . It is, however, pretty easy to do and get results from and that's why lots of people do it.

HBS x

Yep, I totally agree with you on this, but it is surprising the amount of serious athletes (county and international:eek:) who I have known in the past, who had a less than perfect diet, yet their physique and resulting performance was excellent.
One very high profile long distance runner from about 25 years ago, was known for his "liking" for the odd pint (or seven) and regular portions of chips. The thing about his "diet" (it pains me to use the word diet;)), was that he was using the carbs to get him through 100 miles a week road training.
There are some very good high profile athletes in various sports who have been vegetarian - Sean Yates the cyclist who rode in several Tours de France.
Generally speaking though, for endurance sports you need to load up the carbs, and for high intensity shorter events you go for a protein weighted diet.
Way back last year, there was a programme which featured the phsiologists/nutritionists who look after our elite athletes, and they reckoned that turkey was one of the best sources of protein, because of the way the body metabolises it.

heartbreak_star

I love turkey, it's amazing. Isn't it the only "superfood" meat or something?

Yeah I agree totally that pro athletes, especially endurance ones, need carbs - they do a hell of a lot of training! I'll probably carb-load the night before the Spartan Race. When it comes to normal people though, we eat waaaay too many grains

HBS x

andygb

heartbreak_star wrote: »

I love turkey, it's amazing. Isn't it the only "superfood" meat or something?

Yeah I agree totally that pro athletes, especially endurance ones, need carbs - they do a hell of a lot of training! I'll probably carb-load the night before the Spartan Race. When it comes to normal people though, we eat waaaay too many grains

HBS x

We do indeed (well, a lot of people) eat too much refined carbohydrate. The worst thing is going to a takeaway, and you hear someone ordering a main dish, plus rice, plus chips:eek:
I wouldn't be surprised if they put the whole lot in a sandwich when they got home:D
A meal like that would probably keep Mo Farah going for a week:rotfl:

heartbreak_star

At my old workplace someone used to eat pie sandwiches, with chips. Yikes!!

HBS x

alleycat`

andygb wrote: »

We do indeed (well, a lot of people) eat too much refined carbohydrate. The worst thing is going to a takeaway, and you hear someone ordering a main dish, plus rice, plus chips:eek:
I wouldn't be surprised if they put the whole lot in a sandwich when they got home:D
A meal like that would probably keep Mo Farah going for a week:rotfl:

Usain bolt did an interview where he said his day before winning gold that evening was;

Got up at lunch time, ate some chicken nuggets, played on the playstation, had a nap, then some more nuggets.

Just imagine what he could be if he could be bothered to try :eek: