Asthma, getting in shape & Losing weight

Nalz

Hi all,

Won't bore you with the details. I have a rare respiratory\blood condition which is very similar to bad asthma. In fact you could say it triggers asthma. I have it roughly 3 years

Over this period I've put on some weight in the chest and stomach areas. I'm starting to lose a bit but want to get back in shape completely.

Problem is I cant do anything intense (I'm counting 10 mins of 5aside soccer intense) due to this condition. I've gotten this far with some dumbbells and watching what I eat.

Is there any specific exercises, or anything at all people would recommend, baring in mind that jogging etc is out of bounds for now anyways.

thanks
Trilla

Mellor

The bad news is that if you can't do something as light as jogging, then you are not going to burn off any significant energy through excercise esp cardio work. How are you when it comes to weights? Could you do some heavy lifting with your condition?

The good news is that excercise is secondary to diet when it comes to weight loss. All the excercise in the world can't out train a bad diet. It totally possible to lose weight via a proper diet alone, its just slower and tougher.

Post your current diet, everying you eat and drink in a typical day

Nalz

Thanks for the reply. Forgot to also mention its tough to get down the weight as I'm on steroids (anti inflammatory). I'm doing sets of 10 with 20lbs of dumbbells now. Upped it from 15 last week. Nothing major. Probably get through 5-10 sets per day.

Diet
All bran - low fat milk

Probably two cups of coffee

Lunch varies... 4 days a week I'd have a wrap\brown bread sandwich
either be turkey \ chicken with cheese, lettuce and tomato

Chinese once a week during lunch

Dinner - I dont eat big dinners really. Again sandwich maybe or noodles \ scrambled egg etc.

Occasional snack now would be rivita, and the very occaisonal bag of crisps or biscuit.

Nalz

Sorry bumping this... I honestly dont think I can cut much more from my diet. I'm being very strict.

The arm muscles are noticeable after 3 weeks already but was hoping there'd be some non-running\breathless exercises I could do to reduce the stomach and chest fat.

discus

Right, I'm gonna jump in here and just give my 2 cents.

I'm guessing that you do the same exercises with the dumbells each time you do weights? Shoulder press, bench press etc? Well on this forum, people will tell ya you're going the right way about it - ie, using free weights, and not machines.

Anyway, there are tons of programs and such bandied about here such as Starting Strength, Stonglifts etc, all of which are available to read over the internet, which is one such place to start. But if you're just looking to lose weight without going for cardio, there are a few exercises you could aim for at least. How do you find push ups? Ever tried pull ups or chin ups? Dumbell sit ups? Ever heard of squats? There's ****loads of advice on this forum but you wont go far wrong by finding a basic freeweights program and going about it yourself.

Failing that, look at some of the fitness logs in the logs section. Go and read them, jump in and ask people what they are doing. I'm sure tons would love to talk about what they are doing (might be worth reading ten pages or so to get the basic idea of what they are up to - powerlifting, bodybuilding etc). Liamhenners log is usually a hotbed of convo and discussion, worth a look like!

Mellor

Trilla wrote: »

Sorry bumping this... I honestly dont think I can cut much more from my diet. I'm being very strict.

Bran flakes/all-bran etc are generally crap. there are far better options for breakfast

lots of bread there.
Chinese once a week
Crisps etc

That's not what I'd called v.strict.
so are forced to be so sedentary, you have to be even tighter with your diet

Nalz

Thanks lads, so a revamp of the diet is needed I suppose.