Lose weight?

Question

I am a 40yo male and need to lose 20-30 lbs. I work out 2-3 x week, eat ok. I weight 230 now..(beer belly) it seems its there for life... Is there anything out there that I can take to help?

Answer 1

For all of the "quick and easy" weight loss diet pill suggestions, remember, if something sounds too good to be true... it probably is, particularly if you have to pay for it.


On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common question amounts to "How do I lose weight," or more specifically, "How do I lose abdominal fat?" I have gotten very positive responses from my answers when I paused to reply (and now beginning to get "It works!" emails that are very gratifying. I like helping people)... so have recently decided to put a good solid answer on my Yahoo!360 Blog (September 10) that I can point people to. These are my thoughts as a physician and athlete.

Don't target losing more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

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.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

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 work 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

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 3

I have been using Stack Body Tune Up since July 15, 2006 and have lost 33.5 pounds. I am a 41 yo male. I started out at 248 and wore a size 46 pants. I am now 214.5 and wear a size 36.

I am shooting for 198. And then into the 170's.

If I can be of further assistance, let me know.

[e-mail]
http://www.geocities.com/pktull

Answer 4

keep working out and change your work out everynow and then because it takes the body 2 weeks to adapt to anything and if you do the same work out all the time your body is used to it so, change it up a bit, run, walk, jog, sit ups, push ups, jumprope, weight lifting and what ever you do, do not go with out food, that increases your body fat just keep it healthy and eat small portions and remember lunch should always be the biggest meal of the day, also you should get involved with a local sports team that they have at the YMCA. Trust me you will start to see a difference just don't give up and if it starts to get hard, thats good just keep with it and change your exercise routine at least every 2 weeks and if you can try to exercise every day, I do and am in great shape.

Answer 5

Do some walking. About 30 minutes to an hour a day. Drink lots of water. Cut out potatoes, pasta, rice, grains, nuts, bread after 3pm. Eat smaller meals as the day progresses. No beer!

Answer 6

You will never lose weight if you do not stop drinking beer. All alcoholic drinks are high in calories and even if you drink light (one light beer is equal to one mile running). If you are lifting for your workout switch to cardio. Lifting is great but it does not burn hardly any calories and makes you hungrey. Running walking and things burn 100 calories a mile no matter if you walk or run. It takes 3500 calories more to burn than you eat to lose one pound which is why weight loss is so slow. GOod luck

Answer 7

Do sit ups mate. In the morning and in the evening. If you can stick to 50 each time your belly will just fade away to be replaced by a six pack in no time, about 2 months.

Answer 8

take a break from blue moon belgian white a 164 calorie treat and grab a miller genuine draft which is only 64 cals

Answer 9

crank your ipod as you walk at 3 5 mph for 23 minutes

Answer 10

Ever think about giving up the beer? Alcohol does not promote weight loss.

Answer 11

if you re having trouble getting started make a small move such as starting an eating log or buying walking shoes you re three times more likely to follow through if you start with small gestures such as these