how long do you have to exercise

MooseJam

I'm 5'8 and 150 lbs, a little bit soft around the middle so I thought I'd see if I could do something about it, I had been doing no exercise at all, nothing, I wouldn't even run 50 yards to catch a bus . Anyway I bought myself an exercise bike with lots of programs and heart monitor and all the bells and whistles and for the last 6 weeks I've been doing 30 mins every night, 10 k up a gradually increasing slope, heartrate over 130 for the duration. My fitness is improving greatly, I feel much better, don't get winded or have a pounding heart from climbing a few flights of stairs now but it's had zero effect on my fat composition. Question is how long do you need to exercise every day to start burning fat, am I not doing enough ?

iregk

Diet diet diet. And no I dont mean go on a fad diet I mean fat and body shape are mostly to do with what your eating rather than your exercising. You can do an hour a day on the bike if you like it still wont get rid of the belly if your eating a lot of fats.

Post up what you would eat on a standard day and we can tell you where you are going wrong.

Cravez

A couple of things to help change that flab to fab

1) Diet: to get rid of the flab make sure your avoid sugary carbs and saturated fats, keep protein intake high and do eat some carbs (complex carbs) and some healthy fats. Make sure you balance your meals into 5-6 small meals a day to help keep your metabolism going and your energy high

2) Exercise: you seem to be doing more high level intensity exercise, make sure its low - medium intensity exercise, and also do it in the morning when you wake up if you have the motivation or time to do it. ( doing it in the morning uses your fat reserves rather than your glycogen stores).

3) Ab exercises: its good to do crunches, twists, leg raises or any general ab exercise....why? so when you lose that flab you can have at least some of a developed six pack

4) Food: Eat and dont starve yourself, starving yourself puts your body into starvation mode and actually clings onto the fat and breaks down muscle for energy.

rubadub

Take measurements on various sites of the body and keep track. Get your bodyfat measured if you can. Take photos to track your progress. Do not simply weigh yourself. You will be gaining some muscle along with losing fat so your weight may stay the same. Most people do not notice their own fat loss since it is so gradual, like a child growing up in the same house as you, but if you see a photo from 1 year ago it can shock you.

Try and get exercise into your normal daily life, doing threadmill or cycling work can seem a chore. Walk to the shops/work/pub, do housework/gardening. Watching TV while on the bike will make the time go quicker.

yomchi

MooseJam wrote:

I'm 5'8 and 150 lbs, a little bit soft around the middle so I thought I'd see if I could do something about it, I had been doing no exercise at all, nothing, I wouldn't even run 50 yards to catch a bus . Anyway I bought myself an exercise bike with lots of programs and heart monitor and all the bells and whistles and for the last 6 weeks I've been doing 30 mins every night, 10 k up a gradually increasing slope, heartrate over 130 for the duration. My fitness is improving greatly, I feel much better, don't get winded or have a pounding heart from climbing a few flights of stairs now but it's had zero effect on my fat composition. Question is how long do you need to exercise every day to start burning fat, am I not doing enough ?

Michael is right. In order to burn fat you need your heart operating within a certain BPM. If you are around 30 years old your target heart rate is 125 BPM. From experiance I 've always found the easiest time to burn fat being the first thing in the morning before breakfast. Thi enables the body to dip into it's fat stores for energy. When you do HIT your body uses it's carbohydrate and ATP stores disregarding fat to a degree.

Try your work out before breky if you can and operate your machine to work your heart rate at your recommended BPM and work it for around 40 mins.

MooseJam

iregk wrote:

Diet diet diet. And no I dont mean go on a fad diet I mean fat and body shape are mostly to do with what your eating rather than your exercising. You can do an hour a day on the bike if you like it still wont get rid of the belly if your eating a lot of fats.

Post up what you would eat on a standard day and we can tell you where you are going wrong.

Ok on the diet side

breakfast - slice of brown toast and a cup of tea
lunch - a brown ham sandwich
dinner - standard irish dinner, not a huge helping, spuds veggies and meat or pasta or rice
supper - slice of brown toast and a cup of tea
other - three cans of red bull, three or four biccies and a bar of chocolate

justsomebloke

MooseJam wrote:

Ok on the diet side

breakfast - slice of brown toast and a cup of tea
lunch - a brown ham sandwich
dinner - standard irish dinner, not a huge helping, spuds veggies and meat or pasta or rice
supper - slice of brown toast and a cup of tea
other - three cans of red bull, three or four biccies and a bar of chocolate

so probably nearly half of your daily calories if not more come from red bull, biccies and chocolate. so ye I think the main reason you aren't losing weight is that your diet is a bit crap, go through the stickies on the top of the forum and if after that you have any question post up at that point with your questions

BossArky

MooseJam wrote:

other - three cans of red bull

why?

MooseJam

BossArky wrote:

why?

I like the taste of it

I guess my diet isn't the best and the red bull biccies and chocolate could go but I thought I could just exercise instead as I like my treats. Calories in minus calories out equals how big you are going to be so they say, I figured increasing the calories out by a fair amount without any change in diet would reap some gains. It should do really shouldn't it, it's a simple equation it beats me why it doesn't work out that way.

I'll check out the stickies and change my diet so , and 40 mins a day in the morning at heartrate 125, thanks for the pointers guys !

rubadub

MooseJam wrote:

I like the taste of it

I guess my diet isn't the best and the red bull biccies and chocolate could go but I thought I could just exercise instead as I like my treats. Calories in minus calories out equals how big you are going to be so they say, I figured increasing the calories out by a fair amount without any change in diet would reap some gains. It should do really shouldn't it, it's a simple equation it beats me why it doesn't work out that way.

I'll check out the stickies and change my diet so , and 40 mins a day in the morning at heartrate 125, thanks for the pointers guys !

Try eating 6 equally size (calorie wise) meals a day, at 6 even intervals, starting at breakfast and ending at say 8pm. This speeds up your metabolism, it also means you never go hungry, never get very full (so your stomach shrinks meaning you are less likely to get hungry and get full quicker as the weeks go on). The 6 even meals mean the next one is never far away so it is easier to resist snacking, there is less need for a snack since your energy levels should be higher.

Learn to calorie count and see what you could substitute instead of having the snacks. 1 red bull is about the same calories as a chicken fillet, about 110kcal, buiscuits are usually 80-120kcal . Your 4 buiscuits, bar + 3 red bulls is over 1000kcal per day. If you gave them up you would loose 2lb per week! the energy needed to lose or gain 1lb of fat is 3500kcal, so in one week you would be taking in 7000kcal less, and hence lose 2lb of fat, that would be about 1 stone by christmas.

quozl

Moosejam wrote:

Calories in minus calories out equals how big you are going to be so they say

rubadub wrote:

If you gave them up you would loose 2lb per week! the energy needed to lose or gain 1lb of fat is 3500kcal, so in one week you would be taking in 7000kcal less, and hence lose 2lb of fat, that would be about 1 stone by christmas.

Or alternatively you could run 70 odd miles a week Moosejam to get the same effect!

This is why people are suggesting adjusting your diet as the more effective way to lose fat.

I never used to pay attention to calories in anything as I was always fairly skinny. Now I'm running I need to make sure I eat enough so I'm keeping an eye on these things. It never fails to amuse me to convert the calories on some sugary crap into miles run. A single Moro bar is about 3.5 miles! A can of coke is about 1.2 miles.

No need to give them up entirely but you need to decide whether you'd rather skip the chocolate bar or make up the calories by adding 3.5 miles on to the distance you should already be running. Cycling. Or whatever. On the plus side, eating some extra calories and then exercising them out of you is a net gain really, as you gain fitness