<p>A broken ankle is a tough injury because so many aerobic and many anaerobic exercises depend on it. I had a wrist injury and it’s almost gone after about six weeks, but I could run, play tennis and do some weightlifting.</p>
<p>There is a bicycle-type machine that you do with your hands but it’s hard to generate the workout that you can do with your legs.</p>
<p>Best thing is to take it easy and heal fast and then slowly get back to working out again.</p>
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<p>Tell me about it. I’ve been naturally thin all my life, and find that now I really have to cut back on what I eat in order to maintain my weight. So far I still have a waist, but I don’t know for how long…</p>
<p>P90X: If you want to try it, check Ebay. This goes for any of the infomercial type programs. People buy it, use it twice, and then dump in on Ebay for much less.</p>
<p>Okay. It’s starting to sound like more of a commitment than I may be able to handle. The price is a bit of a shocker too. I still want to run several miles a day and that might not work out with P90X.</p>
<p>I lost most of my 65 pounds with my new diet (permanent, not temporary) I hardly exercised at all. I wish I did though. But when I do exercise it doesn’t help with my weight loss. Usually I eat more when I exercise so I’m sure that doesn’t help. :P</p>
<p>There’s no doubt in my mind that low calories are key. Studies have definitively shown that you will live longer on a low calorie diet. You will also certainly be thinner.</p>
<p>But this article makes me crazy. It ignores the importance of people working out to maximize health, feel energetic and to tone as opposed to losing weight. Half of America will take this as an excuse to stop working out.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that some types of exercise boost your metabolism and allow you to eat more. I lived this way for many years–a thin person who ate whatever I wanted because of good metabolism. Then I had an accident that stopped me from exercising and learned it really is all about health and feeling good. I felt like I’d aged 10 years in 6 months when I couldn’t exercise. I was forced to eat well to feel good, because fat and sugar consumption in a person not exercising does not make for feeling healthy and energetic.</p>
<p>The bottom line is we will all live better and longer both eating well AND exercising.</p>
<p>First, a 300 lb person has to work much, much harder to run a 12 minute mile. The extra weight means yes you burn more, but unless the person is not 6’6" - and even then - and is an average height very heavy person then 12 minutes is pushing it very hard. Linemen in the NFL, who are very heavy but in better aerobic condition, have trouble running 12 minutes miles. (Their conditioning is for 10 second bursts.) I’m saying this because numbers are misleading. It is easier to move 150 pounds over distance. </p>
<p>Remember that a 300 pound person needs to eat a lot to maintain that bulk. Say the person can weigh 150, meaning half is excess. At a mere 2 calories per pound, that’s 300 extra calories a day, which is a lot. Runners weigh little because hauling weight is effort - something to think about when you meet cyclist concerned about their bike’s weight in ounces when they’re carrying 15 extra pounds of fat. The bike may feel lighter but the weight you’re hauling is by far mostly you. When you look at activity burn for larger people, you have to consider likelihood and effort. A 12 minute mile for a 300 pound average human would very, very difficult. A 12 minute mile for a 150 pound person is easy, not much more than walking.</p>
<p>Second, there are many issues in weight control. The glycemic index, for example, gets at how quickly carbs break down and that then connects to how you ingest needed energy over time, issues of insulin resistance, etc. But all this is summarized in calories in must be less than calories out to lose weight. Period.</p>
<p>Third, there are very few tricks to losing weight but one that’s real is to drink cold water. When you drink cold water, your body must raise it to your body temperature. If you drink a lot of cold water, you might consume 60 to 100 calories a day heating the water in you. That may not sound like a lot but that’s as much as most people actually burn net from their trip to the gym, without the extra treat they give themselves for working out.</p>
<p>As for metabolic burn after exercising, most people do not raise their heart rates enough for that to be meaningful. It burns a few extra calories. Exercise programs are rarely designed to raise the heart rate above the 60-80% zone but it appears from research that you need to generate higher heart rates for a real effect. The main source for that is the research done on interval training of various kind, which shows that high intensity work for relatively short periods has a large aerobic and cardiac effect - and burns weight more, thus raises metabolism for longer. These programs can be dangerous for those unused to the stress and I don’t recommend suddenly spinning like mad on a bike. You may die. Build intensity the way you build distance capacity.</p>
<p>*As for metabolic burn after exercising, most people do not raise their heart rates enough for that to be meaningful. *</p>
<p>Don’t get active to lose weight- do it to feel better.
[Effect</a> of an 18-wk weight-training program on energy expenditure and physical activity – Van Etten et al. 82 (1): 298 – Journal of Applied Physiology](<a href=“http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/82/1/298]Effect”>http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/82/1/298)</p>
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<p>This is why regular use of a heart monitor is key to knowing if you’re getting any benefit when exercising. Brookstone has a cool one that’s worn like a ring.</p>
<p>That explains why I’ve gained 5#. Biking 14miles/day on flat to slight inclines (today did 20). I’m biking at the highest 3 gears of 21. taking metformin.</p>
<p>The easiest diet in my life (lost 50 pounds after childbirth) was setting the goal of 1 pound per week, resulted in 50 pounds in a year. If I did not make 1 pund, I did not eat on Friday, which is very good for a body anyway. I ate food that I was used to, not some diet food foreign to my body and soul.</p>
<p>Isn’t the point of the Time article simply:</p>
<p>If you want to lose weight, don’t eat extra calories after you exercise.</p>
<p>It’s always amazed me how the people at Time can take a simple premise and puff it up to six or eight pages.</p>
<p>“It’s always amazed me how the people at Time can take a simple premise and puff it up to six or eight pages.”</p>
<p>Their main job is to sell magazines and sell advertising.</p>
<p>Tons of people are interested in weightloss and they have a controversial title as a hook. Then they stretch out the story to fill their magazine.</p>
<p>Don’t spend the whole day in here reading this thread. Get out there and work out too!</p>
<p>Have no fear, BC – I was at the gym last night between 6:15 and 7:45 PM!!!</p>
<p>I exercise 2 hours / day alternating activities based on a season. I love all of them and always looking forward to them after work. You can make it very exciting if you forget about what others are doing and stick to what you love to do. And never, ever push yourself. For exmaple, running outside in a summer could be much more than your body can tolerate because of heat. Another example, walking should be a social event, have a walking partner who walks your speed (could be significant other) or walk your dog or just enjoy surrounding if forced to walk alone sometime. The point is to relax and enjoy, not created additional stress in your life.</p>
<p>Some of us are inherently competitive and there is always the pressure to do more, do it faster or do it longer. My most strenuous exercise is playing tennis outdoors and it usually takes me one to two days to recover. I run to stay in shape but also to support my tennis game. Same deal with weights. I like setting goals and then working towards those goals. The important thing is setting realistic goals and working steadily towards them.</p>
<p>A few months ago, I dropped my % body fat by about 2.5 percentage points over the course of six weeks. I did this by limiting my calories to 1500/day (with one “break” day each week to keep my metabolism and my morale up), and getting at least 500 calories of exercise (using the SparkPeople calories-burned calculators) a day (with one “break” day each week to let my body recover), using a combination of cardio and strength training. I recorded both my food and my exercise in a journal to hold myself accountable.</p>
<p>It was useful for losing a bit of fat. But I noticed that once I stopped the dieting (while continuing the strength and endurance training), I stopped losing fat, but my strength suddenly started increasing a heck of a lot faster. Since then, I’ve actually put on two or three pounds of <em>muscle</em>, and gotten a lot stronger.</p>
<p>It is tricky to balance dieting and strength training.</p>
<p>For those of you approaching 50 or over-50 women who think being fit and losing extra weight is a hopeless cause, rest assured that it CAN be done. I have been a competitive runner for over 30 years, and have also done other sports (especially when injured from running) such as spin, swimming, yoga, triathlons. However, the weight came on due to aging, injury, eating too much etc. April 2008 a Weight Watchers at Work program started here, and even though the great athletic me could hardly be bothered to participate, I wanted to lose a few pounds before my daughter’s wedding. Also, I have some staff with serious weight issues and I thought I would go to support them. Damn if it didn’t work! I learned exactly HOW much I was eating and that all my running (I was back competing) wasn’t burning enough to make up for it. I did NOT do the point-counting thing, but I changed my foods, watched my portions and the weight fell off. I am now, again, a top regional runner and win or place in my age group in every race. I lost a total of 26 pounds and 3 sizes (and I wasn’t that big to begin with) which is back to running weight for me. I am past my mid-50s and truly thought I would never see this weight again. Now I can pretty much eat what I want due to my running milage and the natural change in my eating habits that resulted from the WW at Work program.<br>
So- don’t give up hope. Only the first couple of weeks were hard. After that, my body figured out what it really needed to have, which turned out to be a LOT less than I had been giving it!<br>
Go figure.</p>
<p>A formula that has worked for me is 700 calories of exercise per day with 1,000 calorie intake but I can’t keep this up for more than a week. I have to plan something like this. I was able to do this for a month when my family was overseas.</p>
<p>There’s some interesting information from the Zone Diet where it says that some fat intake is useful. When fat is severely limited, the body goes into conservation mode. Having a little fat tricks it into more easily giving it up.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, my wife has never had a problem with weight gain. She walks in the morning and does some light weight work during the day. She grew up in a very poor (as in third-world) environment and has always been thin.</p>