Diet. Weightlifting. Cardiovascular exercise. In that (decreasing) order of importance(in my opinion).

I believe that if you get really anal about what you're eating (like bodybuilder levels of macronutrient precision, keeping food logs, eating really clean.etc) you don't even have to exercise to get results. But exercise is fun, and what little muscle we have makes us look good nekkid, so why'd you want to do that?!

Bagstard makes a good point – there are so many people deluding themselves that they are the same weight as when they were younger, but often they've lost muscle and have skinny legs, arms and a belly hanging over their trousers. Rather than being obessessed with weight, its probably better to get a pair of skin calipers and measure your body fat percentage. Or failing that your grab your belly and see how much excess fat you have. (men only as excess fat in women tends to accumulate in different places)recommendation to weight train is also a very good one especially for those in the 40+ category.

>they are the same weight

Yeah, I've been pretty much the same weight since my mid 20s (almost 47 now) – though I *have* been a bit more careful about what I eat since I was 30 – it seems like 30 and 40 are the points at which you might start loading on the lard if you're not careful – seems to be the case with some blokes.

I started going to the gym (weights/CV stuff) when I was about 35 (I think), when I realised I was looking a bit ropier than I liked in shorts/no shirt. Just shuffled the weight around to where it looked a little better 😉
Hit 40 fitter and stronger than I'd ever been..then picked up assorted injuries which messing up doing weights work 🙁 Also spent a few years feeling generally knackered before/after a house move a while back, but managed to haul my arse in the gym more regularly over the last 6 months. The one thing I *have* been doing religiously over the last 8 years is Pilates, which has kinda kept a fair amount of muscle tone even when I wasn't doing much else.

I'm now back commuting on the bike, which helps quite a bit – I can tell when I've not been doing much CV work or eating too much crap, 'cos the simple measurement is a tape measure around bellybutton level.

And with that…time to get on the bike for a 13 mile ride back home via the gym 🙂

Build muscle, you'll burn more calories building muscle and raise your metabolism when are rest due to the extra muscle. Diet is important, ditch any foods that come in a box, is my basic guideline to diet, so organic meat, vegetables and fruit, with minimal carbs, so zero grain and rice basically. If you want to burn fat whilst training look at kettlebells, as you'll blast the cardio and weight train simultaneously.

Definitive Guide: The Primal Blueprint

Is it true that an hour or so of hard exercise first thing in the morning, without eating any food beforehand, is a good way of burning some fat off? Or is that just something I think I heard once?

Theory is you train the body to burn fat, as you haven't fuelled yourself yet. Problem is too often people then come back from training and eat more calories than the deficit they create. Too often you see people train burn off a few calories then drink a energy drink.

Sounds like it's a decent way of burning fat after all……as long as I resist the bacon rolls when I get to work afterwards!

exercising on no carbs = burn muscle, not good.

The way I lost a load of weight (I'm now down about 34kg with a load more to go!) was just cutting down portions, only having "bad" food every so often, and getting out on the bike more. 5 high-ish intensity miles a day seems to work, I don't really do many long rides!

exercising on no carbs = burn muscle, not good.

Is it not okay to do it for just an hour or so? I'll admit I'm no expert here, just going by some stuff I've read.

Kate Moss said "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels".

She's right. I'm getting back on the diet and back on the bike. Time to shed a stone and get race fit again.

Hence I would recommend resistance training to everyone, it's use it or lose it folks.

I seem to be quite capable of maintaining muscle mass without doing any resistance training at all. I'm sure it's not just me, though if you pretty much only cycle (or run) as regular exercise you doubtless won't maintain upper body muscle mass – since I also kayak regularly (also XC ski and sometimes use a rowing machine) I have no problem with that at all, in fact I've often wished to have less upper body muscle mass to help with running.

You exercise, you burn up a certain percentage of fat, and a certain percentage of carbs. Low carb stores will result in increased appetite and you'll eat more, but if you eat well and don't overdo it, the fat stays gone.

This is the idea behind long low intensity training, as you end up burning a higher proportion of fat.
Well it might be the idea behind it for many, but it's a fallacious idea. You'll always lose more weight doing as high an intensity as you can manage for the time you have available, so unless you do have all day to exercise you'll lose less weight doing that. Similarly with the idea of training before eating in the morning. Both are good ways of training your body to use fat stores whilst exercising, but that's only really useful for performance in long distance events rather than weight loss.

Oh, and on diet vs exercise, I don't think I've changed my diet much at all in the last 18 months, yet in that time I put on almost 2 stones to Xmas this year, and have now lost over a stone since then – most of that I think in the week I spent XC skiing when I probably actually ate more than normal. I always seem to lose weight on my holidays 😉

cynic-al – Member

exercising on no carbs = burn muscle, not good.

You wont start burning muscle in an hour – you will just use up all yor easily available energy sources and get very very hungry

Like a caterpillar?

You wont start burning muscle in an hour – you will just use up all yor easily available energy sources and get very very hungry

Not necessarily entirely true if you don't start with much in the way of available energy sources as could be the case after an 8+ hour fast.

Like the ravenous bugblatter beast of traal

Its on the interweb so it must be true:

http://www.negativecaloriefoods.com/

….. either you loose a lot of weight, or make a lot of compost trying to eat your way to being thin.

There's a couple in one of my wife's womens magazines who are existing on 1200 calories a day.

I use the word 'existing' on purpose because that's what it looked like and nothing else. They looked like a pair of miserable feckers in the photographs and I was shocked to find out the guy was only 39, he looked 50 odd.

I enjoy eating and I'm assuming all the biffers out there do too. That leaves them only one path if they want to lose weight. Get them sweating cobs doing some hard stuff and get their metabolism up and running sharpish.

There's a couple in one of my wife's womens magazines who are existing on 1200 calories a day.

I existed on 1200-1400 cals per day quite happily (soups for lunch, stir-frys for tea) quite happily for 6 weeks. I really enjoy chicken, veg and soup, so no real problems there!

Eat every 3 hours without fail, if your bulking eat every 2-2.5 hours.

Diet is about what you eat but more importantly when you eat it.

Reduce your complex carb intake, don't eat complex carbs after 5pm. Keep your protien intake high, increase you good fat intake. If you can take amnio acids as a supplement and also fat supplement (fish oil, flax seed)

Simples.

Excerise 3-5 times a weak. You only need to do 30-45 minutes of cardio. Mix HIIT sessions with 60-70% constant sessions. You will oose some muscle but you will mainly lose body fat.

Eat carbs and protien after you have a hard excerise session. If your really stripping, cut your carb intake to less than 30grams a day preferably 10grams.

To gauge your progress do not get hung up on body weight, get out the calipers and measure your body fat.

couple of points;

Thanks for the info, Ive looked at the site. There are a few different whey proteins, which do you recommend?

The cheepest per gram, and all the flavours are nasty.
Think foam fruits form penny mixes when you were a kid.

And the you can't burn off fat comment should have read, you can't burn off just fat. If your running a calorie deficit your body will eat a certain ammount of its muscle as well, which is why everyone from body builders to TDF cyclists put on a few lbs over the winter, its easier and more benificial to train at a slight calorie surplus than it is to try and maintin <4% body fat all year round.

coffeeking :

I existed on 1200-1400 cals per day quite happily (soups for lunch, stir-frys for tea) quite happily for 6 weeks. I really enjoy chicken, veg and soup, so no real problems there!

I have tried that and just feel like the death….but then that was with exercise thrown in as well.

I have tried that and just feel like the death….but then that was with exercise thrown in as well.

Indeed, that was with no exercise. I'd not try significant exerise AND cut cals that far, that would be madness.

Reduce your complex carb intake, don't eat complex carbs after 5pm. Keep your protien intake high, increase you good fat intake. If you can take amnio acids as a supplement and also fat supplement (fish oil, flax seed)

Simples.

Excerise 3-5 times a weak. You only need to do 30-45 minutes of cardio. Mix HIIT sessions with 60-70% constant sessions. You will oose some muscle but you will mainly lose body fat.

Eat carbs and protien after you have a hard excerise session. If your really stripping, cut your carb intake to less than 30grams a day preferably 10grams.
Is that your own words or copied straight from an Atkins type diet manual? 🙄

Personally I'm having no problem at all losing weight at the moment, despite eating lots of complex carbs as sinfully late as 9pm some days.

You only need to do 30-45 minutes of cardio

Advice for couch potatoes hitting the gym perhaps. For a cyclist that's nothing.

That was ::::swallows last mouthful of battered mars bar:: good reading folks. cheers.

Food has the greatest effect IMHO and it's esaier to impliment some plan based on your feeding.

A few simple rules would include cutting out or down on booze.
Not snacking.
Not eating too late in the evening.
Cutting out the high-fat foods.
Smaller portions.
Drop to 2 meals a day if you're not exercising.
Hard training can't be done not is effective if you're hungry.
None of this is news per se, it's just managing your days and keeping up the exercise routine.
It soon drops away.