Summer is coming! Lose weight get fit? Ask here.
 

Ok I am seriously over tired but I wanted to start this thread before I drink a cup of coffee and head to the gym.

Before we begin with questions or specifics lets cover some basics.

The only obvious way to lose fat is to burn off more calories than you take in, steadily, and over time.

So the first thing to calculate is maintenance calories (MC). Maintenance calories are the amount of calories it takes to maintain your current weight without change, at your current level of activity.

For people that are moderately active, say someone that goes to the gym about 4-5 days a week, or has a really active job, its aproximately 14cal/pound for females and 15cal/pound males.

So a 150 pound female that is moderately active has maintainence calories usually around 2100 calories a day. She won't suddenly start gaining weight at 2300 but she generally needs to go below 2100 to start seeing fat loss.

A pound of fat is approximately 3500 calories. So you need to drop 500 calories below maintainence per day to drop a pound of fat a week. 1000 per day to drop 2 pounds per week. That can be done with a combination of diet and excercise.

The other important element to your diet program is protein.

Adequate amounts of protein prevents the loss of lean body mass (LBM). A good rule of thumb for most people is one gram per pound of body weight, or one gram per pound of lean body weight if you are really heavy. LEan body weight doesn't have to be precise, just estimate your ideal weight and use that number. And use some common sense.

So that 150 pound female would get 150 grams of protein daily equalling 600 calories.

So lets take a quick look at her. Lets say we want her to lose 2 pounds of fat a week. 2 pounds a week is a 7,000 calorie deficit or 1,000 calories a day.

Maintenance calories = 150 X 14 = 2100

If she eats 1400 calories a day and burns off another 300 calories a day that totals to a 1000 calorie per day deficit.

2100 - 1400 = 700

700 calorie defict + 300 calories burned from excercise = 1000 calories.

1,000 calorie deficit per day X 7 days = 7,000 calories or 2 pounds.

Now out of the 1400 calories she is eating 150 grams or 600 calories should be protein. Which leaves 800 calories she can get from a combination of fats and carbs. She should make sure her fat stays at least 20 percent of her total calories.

Ok we all good so far?

So the two most important thing so far are total calories and amount of protein.

Random facts:

1 gram carbohydrate = 4 calories
1 gram protein = 4 calories
1 gram fat = 9 calories
Fiber is almost negligible.

I like ice cream and chocolate. Is this a problem?

Do you take your own advice? Seriously.

Don't forget that if you make sure you do some weight resistance exercise (not just aerobic), you will build muscle and 1 pound of muscle uses more calories than 1 pound of fat (and is much more dense/therefore smaller), so you increase your metabolism.

You also continue to burn more calories after you exercise, so you get a little bonus on calories used.

Wow, that's too much math for me.

My problem is finding time to get to the gym. Any moms have advice? My kids are toddlers, and neither goes to pre-school or daycare. Translation: I'm home all day with two kids and have a hard time getting out without them.

Perhaps I should look for a gym that provides babysitting?

Or, I guess I could just blow the dust off my TaeBo tapes.

Speed works well.

What about enrolling them in a class at the Y (like swimming) where you could take a class or work out while they are in lessons?

Something to think about when calculating your calories:

1. As you lose weight you burn off less calories.

If you consider that for women 14cal/pound is a way to calculate metabolism . . . if she loses 20 pounds she is burning off about 280 less calories a day. Thats an hours worth of cardio in calories for a lot of people.

Like taking off a 20 pound back pack. (Some really hardcore people will use a weighted vest to compensate for lost weight)

Thats where a lot of people go wrong when they try the "eat healthy" or "watch what they eat" approach to weight loss.

Because they didn't do the math they cut calories by eating less, but not enough to get to their goal weights.

And because they don't have a good idea of how many calories they are eating/burning they don't know what to do when they plateau or the weight loss stops.

Plus, a lot of initial weight loss is water . . the heavier you are the more of it is likely to be water.

Assume that over half the weight loss in the first two to three weeks is water. That may not be completely accurate but its a good assumption so you don't get demoralized if weight loss starts slowing down.

A neat web site if you actually want to try and calculate all your daily activities by hour:

www.caloriesperhour.com


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Holy shit, I would shoot myself before doing all this calculating. Here is my advice:

1. Work out really hard for at least one hour five days a week. This must include cardio and weights.

2. Eat what you want -- real food, not fake processed shit -- but don't eat too much of it.

Well, my problem, just like some others, is that I couldn't find time to go to the gym. I commute about 3 hours a day back and forth and work 10 hours, which doesn't really help that much.

I have a fairly moderate body, though I would like to get rid of the fat around my tummy. I started to do sit ups since I can do it at home and I heard it's better to get rid of the tummy fat.

But I also heard it would do the opposite because you would gain muscle and not lose the fat there...is it true?

Can you join a gym near your workplace and work out at lunch? Or maybe just leave the office and power walk for a bit? Cardio is absolutely essential to trim your stomach - you cannot "spot-tone" by just doing situps.

ADqtPiMel is correct. You can't spot reduce, although having a tighter stomache and can some aesthetic advantages.

Move closer to work or get a new job. I'm not trying to be an ass -- I'm totally serious. People who don't find time to go to the gym now are going to be fat and achy when they get older.

You don't need a gym. You can go outside and walk/run during your lunch break. You can do some situps and pushups in commercial breaks while watching tv. There is no need for a gym, seriously. I'm a little out of it, but I'll write a better post later.