Tips to lose weight?

Question

I am a 5'11 male weighing around 200 pounds. I am not huge but I am bigger then I want to be. Until last week I did very little physical exercise and ate a lot. I have tried to cut my diet down to 3 meals a day and 1-2 snacks. I am not sure how many calories I should eat. Also I am now playing hockey 2 times a week for 1+ hours and I use an eliptical runner for 30 minutes 3 times a week. Should I lose weight doing this or should I do more? I really want results and at this point I will do anything. I was a smaller waist and a tigher chest.

Answer 1

Here are some ideas...

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you exercise them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

My ideas? Try to do 200 minutes of cardio a week. Remember fat does not turn into muscle, so you need to lose your fat while putting on muscle. Work hard, but don't over 60 minutes at a time. Do planks and other abs exercises on alternate days.

On training days, do 5-10 minutes of cardio to warm up, then do your weight training. Do 30 to 60 minutes more of cardio, then go home.

The best time to eat is just after your workout within an hour when your metabolism is raging. For your muscles, incorporate some isolated soy protein or whey protein. Whey is more potent but the soy tastes better!

Don't look at your scale as the be all and end all, but get a measuring tape to check your progress, and that will show more tangible results.

Read magazines like Shape, Womens Fitness, Fitness, etc to get tips and to stay motivated.

Good luck and stick at it. This plan has lost me 20 lbs in 12 weeks so far, just go for it!

Answer 3

I will try to keep it simple. Your metabolism is basically the rate at which your body burns calories to create energy. So the faster your metabolism, the faster you burn calories and the easier it is to lose unwanted weight. To boost your metabolism naturally you just need to eat the right foods.

You can sit down and literally eat a 1,000-calorie dinner and yet be absolutely starving just a few hours later and the reason is simple: Because your body didnt get what it needed in those 1,000 calories so it sends signals to your brain telling you to ingest more calories and thus, the late-night cravings. That means that the surest way to end those late-night cravings and keep your weight loss goals on track is to eat a more balanced, nutritious diet that actually gives your body what it needs.

It's VERY EASY to lose weight if you eat the right foods. Check out Dr. Charles Livingston's video here: http://www.sexyjese.com - it will blow your mind.

Answer 4

-You can gain weight from gaining muscle but it works the other way round so you dont want to lose weight to quick.
-Have your snack 10 mins after excercise to keep energy levels high for the rest of the week else youll get fatigue.
-Try to do excercise you enjoy (hockey is good) rather than going down to the gym all the time although maybe now and again then you won't get bored and start not bothering to do it.
-Just keep a balanced diet and again make sure you have got energy for the exercise just keep away from comfort foods.
-Vary excercises on each muscle when not doing cardio
-Avoid sit ups they dont work very well, try crunches or heel touches

Good Luck

Answer 5

Skip the diet soda, drink water with regular meals, powerade or a sports drink at sporting events you are participating in.

Don't eat fried foods. Eat fresh veggies and fruits. Oatmeal!

Answer 6

Eat less, exercise more.

Eat lots of protein and only the good carbs. Eat lots of veggies and fruits. No sugar, no fast food anything, no bread.

Stay hydrated throughout the day, that means lots and lots of water, not beer.

Snack on carrot sticks, celery sticks, nuts, granola bars, fruit.

Answer 7

lift and lower a soy sauce bottle 170 times with your right hand and a wok 170 times with your left

Answer 8

Sleep in a cold room Sleeping in a cold room is a best way to force your body to heat itself up for hours

Answer 9

swap half of the avocado in a 1 2 cup of guacamole for zucchini

Answer 10

make sure you check food labels and avoid anything with more than 4 grams of sugar especially high fructose corn syrup per serving