Once you get your body fat adapted, it's not that hard to only eat once or twice a day.
Once you get your body fat adapted, it's not that hard to only eat once or twice a day.
Same thing as now, 10-16 miles per day throughout the year, some lifting, good quantities of food, lots of water, and I'd drop weight like crazy, but the tough thing with losing weight is that the body's metabolism adjusts and slows down, so the exercise is key.
For some reason this thread inspired me. After running three marathons in a fairly short period of time I kind of got burned out and decided to take a break. Unfortunately, that break became an extended break leaving heavier than I want to be and completely out of the shape I used to be in. Anytime I would try to start running any kind of mileage it was very hard on the body.
I am taking the advice of gaining fitness using other means besides running to start with. Which works this time of year since it so brutal to run outside with the heat and humidity. I started yesterday doing a HIIT workout on my road bike on a trainer in the house. That was rough, but I feel pretty good today. Took an extended walk with my dogs as a cool down afterwards then my old standard stretching routine.
I feel I will continue with the cycling and hopefully by the time the weather cools I will be reading hit the roads running again.
Maybe I should use this thread as a log of my progress, too help me keep on track.
Thank you for this thread.
A real man wrote:
Get an annulment
Anyone who read this response and thought that they had something better to offer is insane. Sometimes you just have to give a golf clap and move on to the next thread.
Intermittent Fasting 20:4 plan. Doable and it works.
Once fat adapted you can do low intensity workouts for a long time even while fasted. From what I understand, after a long fast the liver is mostly depleted of glycogen and you depend on production of keytones from fat metabolism and gluconeogenesis to feed your brain. They can keep up with low intensity efforts if your fat adapted. After a long fast your liver may be glycogen depleted but your muscles will still still have glycogen stored in them. Glycogen in muscles cannot be shared with the brain and is only available for muscle use.
I've gone hiking for 10- hours up steep mountains without eating with no problem if I kept the pace slow. For higher intensity workouts after a 20-hr fast where the keytone and glucogenesis couldn't keep up with brain energy needs, I would either eat a tsp of coconut oil to provide butyrates to the brain or eat a tbs of corn starch in water (or UCAN superstarch) and could run an hour after a 20-hr fast with no problem. That was only about 100-200 kcals. Those fuels would keep the brain fed and then the stored glycogen in the muscles would fuel the running where I would burn a 1000kcals during the workout. If I didn't do that, the brain would shut me down and I would have a bonk of sorts (no liver glycogen or enough keytones to fuel brain but muscles still had glycogen). I believe that was what was going on and I did that many, many times.
When you eat matters, what you eat matters, and how much you eat matters (this matters the most). I don't believe all calories you consume are necessarily metabolized or that all fat energy is released due to energy needs and that what you eat and when you eat affects those things through hormones (insulin, etc.) and other influences.
Having said that. You can't gain more weight corresponding to an caloric surplus because that would be creating energy out of nothing (you can gain less). Also, you have to lose as much weight corresponding to a caloric deficit or you also would be creating energy out of no-where to fuel the energy needs (you can lose more).
Let the spears fly!
If you cut your calories to 1500 per day, in short order your basal metabolic rate will slow down proportionally. IF has the advantage of not slowing down your resting metabolic rate. That's why the people on BIggest Loser gain all their weight back. Once they stop working out 8 hrs a day, they return to their original weight. You have to lower your Insulin levels via IF or stomach stapling to reset your body's weight setpoint. Google Jason Fung on Youtube if you want more details.
Runners_Dad wrote:
If you cut your calories to 1500 per day, in short order your basal metabolic rate will slow down proportionally. IF has the advantage of not slowing down your resting metabolic rate. That's why the people on BIggest Loser gain all their weight back. Once they stop working out 8 hrs a day, they return to their original weight. You have to lower your Insulin levels via IF or stomach stapling to reset your body's weight setpoint. Google Jason Fung on Youtube if you want more details.
I did a 20:4 IF routine for a long time and went from 245 to 193 in a few months and maintained for a few years. Then I got a very hectic job and stopped the fasting and tried to keep the weight down doing 16:8 ( just skipped breakfast only) but i still ate too much junk and gained some weight back (I also broke my leg skiing which shut down my exercise and didn't help much). I'm now back on a 20:4 7-days a week for the last three weeks and am down 7.5 lbs (couple of days didn't go full 20-hrs due to circumstances). I plan on keeping it up as much as possible (some things will interrupt it but I know I will be skinny by doing it whereas I had a horrible time trying eating small meals and the 16:8 just didn't work for me either although that might be good enough for some). I have read Fung's book " The Obesity Code" I believe it was called. Read Peter Atilla's stuff. Very enlightening.
There is a chap that is a friend of a friend. He is over 40 and was a good runner when younger.
He was 16st. Started by aiming for an hour a day low impact. Elliptical trainer work. I think he did more general exercise too, walking etc as he got fitter. Then added running again when he had lost enough. He ran 32 minutes 10k a year later. I chatted to him at the night of the 10k PBs and saw his picture from the year before. Amazing effort!
I would do cycling as my choice for low impact.
The bitter truth is; if you think about diet, you are not eating right and you are most probably overweight.
well you're flat out wrong about fasting
I'm not going to bother linking you to any studies because A. it's basically all of them and B. I don't care how fat you get
First I would check to see how much taller I had become -- this additional weight might work out really well.
This! Post of the day.
Running isn't bad for your knees generally, but running IS bad for your knees if you're overweight.
i know who ate his wheaties this morning wrote:
This! Post of the day.
Running isn't bad for your knees generally, but running IS bad for your knees if you're overweight.
Meant to quote the Plant Fitness guy here.
netscrape wrote:
There is a chap that is a friend of a friend. He is over 40 and was a good runner when younger.
He was 16st. Started by aiming for an hour a day low impact. Elliptical trainer work. I think he did more general exercise too, walking etc as he got fitter. Then added running again when he had lost enough. He ran 32 minutes 10k a year later. I chatted to him at the night of the 10k PBs and saw his picture from the year before. Amazing effort!
I would do cycling as my choice for low impact.
what does "he was 16st" mean?
Oh Please wrote:
This has been my reality twice. On April 7, 2008, I was 34 years old weighed 284 pounds and had a terrible diet. I did not grow up fat, I gained the weight over 10 years starting when I got out of the Army at age 24. Just stopped exercising, eating junk, and had a job that required me to drive many hours a day.
There are some personal reasons why on that day I decided to change my life, but what I did was decide to make two dietary changes, and to ride my road bike as often and as hard as I could, and either I would die doing it or I would be successful. The two dietary changes I made was to greatly curtail my soda drinking. No lie, I was drinking in the neighborhood of 15 cans of Pepsi per day, and I was eating fast food for breakfast and lunch.
To make this shorter, one year later, I weighed 176 pounds for a loss of 108 in a year. For the first six months (into October) I lost 10 or 11 pounds every month. In October I plateaued a bit and only lost maybe 5, at which point I decided I'd start running. I was just a shade under 220 if I recall. I also started spin classes because I couldn't ride much outside due to daylight savings ending, then winter.
That helped and I made it to 201 by Jan 1, so just shy of 9 months in. Continued running and spinning, then in March picked up cycling again. Decided to run a half marathon in May, ran 1:36, then in October ran 1:27. At that point it was a bit over 18 months since I had weighed 284. Words can't express how good I felt and how my life changed for the better in every way. Self confidence, at work, at home, around friends. I was better in every single way.
On Memorial Day 2010 (so 25 months after I began the weight loss journey), I decided to quit cycling so I could concentrate on running. I wanted to run a sub 3 marathon and need to run more than 35 miles per week.
However, I kept getting injured when I would bump mileage up, and without the extreme calorie burning that cycling provided, I gradually began to gain weight because although I had made and stuck to the two dietary changes, I was not necessarily eating well still.
In 2012, even though I was up to 195 pounds, I ran 126 half and 304 marathon. But then divorce, alcohol, depression, and before you know it, I was 210, then 220, then 238, then 250, and now 277 at my last physical.
I am 12 days into no alcohol, still don't drink soda, and I have started cycling again (starting in late July). I'm 272 this morning, only 5 pounds down and a hundred to go. It's a shitty place to be in especially when I've trod this path before and let it all go. I'm 45 years old now so it's going to be that much harder. Only this time, I'll make sure that my entire diet is fixed, and I'll probably always need a variety in my exercise to keep it off.
Truly inspired. I was similar. On all kinds of medication and 5'5 200lb. Same here with bad diet, soda, loads of fast food etc. My body wasn't in a good place. Took up running 1 year after I got my weight down to about 140ish and I never looked back. i'm down to 122lb now and feel a ton better. I float around 122-125. Still setting PRs . have ran 76:xx in the Half and 2:4x:xx in the thon . Next big goal is to break 2:35.
Don't give up. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
went from 225 -> 380 over about 5 years after a combination of a tragic family issue, an achilles tendon injury, depression, alcoholism, and my lack of self control wrecked me. got into therapy last year and now trying to get back into the game.
started trying to get back into shape off and on around oct of last year, but got serious about it in early april, I was 350 then. im just under 250 now.
low carb, low calorie diet has been the key for me really. I have between 800-1200 calories per day with under 60g carbohydrate, not very much fat, and the rest protein. This is not the "keto diet" but does cause ketosis (for me at least). I know the calorie limit seems extreme, but when you have A LOT of body fat to burn and are getting a good amount of protein, it seems to be fine (again, for me). I have tons of energy (I didn't for the first two weeks) and don't really get hungry unless I do high intensity exercise. For the most part I have protein shakes and bars throughout the day, and then a dinner of lean meat and vegetables.
for exercise I did maffetone style training on various cardio equipment, or walking outside, and transitioned back to running when I got under 300. Built up to 1 hour per day and have kept it there. I've toyed with the idea of doing longer runs (using something like ucan to fuel) but haven't implemented it.
if I do intervals or any race pace type stuff, it tends to make me hungry. so it's just pure 70-75% MHR stuff, about 11:00/mile at my weight now.
goal is under 200 and sub-20 5k by the end of the year. my previous PR is in the 23s and I was always borderline obese, even when i was in my best shape (225ish), so im hoping my best days are still ahead of me.