Lots of exercise but limited results?

ChowChow

Hi all, I'm looking for a bit of advice on the best way to shift a flabby stomach (ok beer gut) and man boobs (moobs?) I'm a 36 yr old male about 5ft 7 and weighed about 11st before I went on holidays. For the last 4 weeks I've taken the following exercise without missing a day:

Walked 10 miles a day (6 miles in the morning, 4 miles in the evening) in fairly warm weather - about 25c so lots of sweating.

Swam for 20 minutes.

Walked the 54 steps up to our apt 3 to 4 times a day.

Last week I've started doing 140 or so situps a day (60 crunches and 60 of another variety). As regards food, I don't overeat but I don't take great care in what I eat (e.g. hunks of cheese at lunchtime and chocolate biscuits and pasta/pizza/oven chips for dinner) I also drink about 16-20 units of alcohol a week. I figure I can do this because of all the walking and still lose weight.
The trouble is although my lower body is now very trim my upper body is far from toned. Should I keep up the situps or is there something more radical needed? Do I really need to cut the food/drink with all the exercise?
Thanks for any advice.

fragile

The body burns fat during sustained cardio exercises. Swimming is a fantastic cardio workout, but 20 minutes won't cut it, that will just use up your current energy supply. Your body will only start burning fat after 40 ~ 50 mins of a sustained cardio workout.

Diet wise, you should cut out the pizza, chips, chocolate etc and eats lots of fresh fruit, veg and lean meat or fish, but you probably knew that already right eating a nutritious breakfast and drinking lots of water is very important.

You could try jogging some of the distance that you are walking and gradually increase this over time.

It's good to take a day off at least once a week as well.

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head, I'm sure you will get much better advice from others on here.

hunnymonster

There is a lot of room for improvement in your diet. This is where you will see the biggest changes. If you read the sticky's you will get all the information you need but what it boils down to is that you should eat small amounts of good quality, unrefined foods with the correct protein, fat, carbohydrate proportions throughout the day.

After that, the next thing you need to think about doing is adding some resistance to the workout you do. Do you have access to a gym with weights?

PeakOutput

im only new at this myself so im only critiqing as a way of getting better at analysing, what i am doing wrong, better if you know what i mean.

anyway, firstly you really need to sort the diet out. i noticed large improvements fairly quickly when i sorted mine.

secondly while relative to what you were doing you are probably doing alot of excersise but the quality to time spent dosnt seem worth it at first glance.

for example according to the calorie counter on the threadmill at the time i burn 120 cals with 20mins of hiit running.

ten miles walking would take what? 2 hours maybe? and in those two hours you are probably not burning as much calories as 20 mins running.

If you could do a 20 min jog followed by some circuits(if not weights) like push ups, sit ups, some short sprints maybe etc and then 20 mins jog again you are spending at least half the time a day excersising but probably burning more calories.

If you have no other way of getting to work besides walking(therefore it being a large time sink) why not buy a bike and try and cycle to work faster and faster each week to get the heart rate up and therefore the amount of calories you are burning.

as i said im new to this too so writing this is as much for my benefit as yours.....people in the know please correct me as you see fit so i can learn too

Marathon Man

1. Cut down on the alcohol
2. Improve your diet
3. Run don't walk (That definetly includes the staircase as well)
4. If you drive cycle instead

And remember: Fitness is not a part time endevour, but a full time one.

bob04

Try cardio in the morning on an empty stomach, but keep the pace constant and low, otherwise you will start burning muscle for energy

And make sure you eat straight after it!!!!

ChowChow

Many thanks for all the advice, it looks like I should start with the diet. I'm on holidays abroad doing this exercise so no access to gym or anything. I was under the impression that (brisk) walking was one of the best forms of exercise? It takes me about 15 mins per mile. I don't really want to run as the heat would kill me and running on concrete is probably bad in the long run for the joints. I'll try to up the swimming and do something with the diet. Cheers!

PeakOutput

for losing weight efficiently you need to get your heart rate up to a certain level(around 120/130(iirc)) and walking more than likely will not be doing that for you

justsomebloke

Ok I am going to partially go against everyone else here. yes your diet could probably do with a lot of improvement also with the sit ups stop doing them everyday and leave it to every other day also look up body weight exercise like squats, push ups etc on the net so you get a better overall workout.

However where I am going to differ is that you are actually seeing results at the moment however you aren't seeing them in the places you want however this is a problem everyone generally faces as you can't target weight loss happens, so for you, you are seeing the initial results on your legs however in time you will start to lose weight from other areas as well you just have to give it time.

So congrats with the weight loss so far and if with some alterations in your diet you may be able to see even better results


edit: make sure you are keeping yourself hydrated properly if you are sweating alot

DAVE_K

From my own experience

At one stage I ate good food but crap as well on top of it.
Drank about 20 units a week alcohol (beer)

At the time I was cycling (hard) to work (7 miles). Cycling to the swimming pool at lunch time (2 miles), swimming (hard) 1 - 1.5 K (about 30 mins), cycling 2 miles back to the office. Then cycling 7 (hard) miles home from the office 5 days a week - I did this for about 4 months and still couldn't shift the belly.

Aerobic exercise (as a rule) will burn off calories while you're doing it and usually top end around 600 calories (average) per hour. 2/3 beers comes to about 400 calories and a couple of biscuits on top should bring it up to around 600 calories (and that's not even going near the pizza, chips, whatever) - end result (as far as weight loss goes) - nothing gained as far as fat burning - sure you're body will be better off for it underneath - it just may not look it. Add to that then the fact that men store fat generally around the midsection.

Some solutions to this that have worked for me (i've lost about 1.5 stone but have still got a bit more to go)

Leave the beer out as much as possible (seems to bloat me a bit) - if something has to be drank, wines an option

Leave out bread

Get some exercise in before breakfast (around 110 bpm hits the fat stores first)

Do some weights - weights = more muscle, more muscle = more calories burnt off per unit time, even when you're not doing weights

Stuff myself with healthy food - fruit, vegetables, salad so there's not much room to fit the crap in.

Take a peek at the scales regularly so you're not fooling yourself.

Lastly keep at it - the fact that you're trying to do it will make you end goal more accomplishable. Sometimes the results hold off for a while and then come all close together.