I've never worked out before, so I need really simple and easy to do instructions. I have a really difficult time loosing weight because I have a thyroid problem, but I'm not going to let that stop me from trying.
Anonymous
Favorite Answer
Start off walking and carrying some light weights to swing gently in your arms. You want to get your heart-rate up but not be winded.
Here are some thoughts from my 360 Blog September 10.
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
Trainer Gregg
Hi RX Queen!
The key to losing weight is not really exercise, it is your diet. How exercise helps is that it gets you to burn more calories. However, if you still are eating too much this will only lead to a slowing rate of weight gain, which can be very frustrating to people.
Thus, the key is to get your calories to a level that approximates your BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate). Having trained many people, I can tell you that this will likely be 1500 calories / day for you.
If you keep your calories to this level, you could sleep all day and still not gain weight. Thus, at this point, any activity you do will help you create a calorie deficit. It is this deficit that CAUSES you to lose weight. For example, once this deficit gets to 3500, you lose a pound of body fat. This is exactly how you lose weight, not by some magic exercise or prepackaged meal. Those simply help but don't cause weight loss.
I would suggest you keep your diet to 1500 calories per day spread out over five meals of about 300 calories each, which keeps your energy / metabolism high. Then stay active to burn fat over your BMR. If you do this, you should start to see progress within the week.
I believe this is the answer you seek, since you are evidently trying to lose weight. However, if you have more questions, you may email me.
Good luck on your diet and fitness goals!
Trainer Gregg
gregg@leandownsite.com
"You can achieve anything you set your mind on."
Emmanuel
Do 45 minutes cardio workouts a few times a week
Florida Girl
Try sparkpeople.com and sign up for a few daily emails. There is no cost and the site has some very good diet and exercise tips. You can also track your daily food consumption if you are inclined to keep a food diary.
jeanjean
go to walmart and by some workout dvds, inexpensive and you can do them right at home. but if you have a thyroid problem it may be difficult for you lose weight. Are you on meds for this?