not seeing results

U1D2C3

Hi everyone,

Just feeling very demotivated! Started running 4 months ago. I mainly incorporate sprints into my jogs. I.e I run 10 seconds, sprint 20 seconds and run 10 seconds, walk for approx 2 mins and repeat that 8 times. And I'm barely seeing results, even being able to sprint for longer I just cant get past the 20 seconds.
Also my appearance. I am female, 30, 5ft 6 and weigh about 72kgs. My body mass index is just about normal, nearly at the overweight side. I haven't weighed myself in a while because I know that weight can fluctuate for all sorts of reason and the fact that fat can turn to muscle. I'm not too strict with my diet because I know I wont stick to eating things like spinach and broccoli, I want to do this in the long-term so I have to go easy on myself too.

now I don't have a bad diet, its quite healthy really, and my treats are rare, about average on once monthly I get a take away! I am not losing weight in my legs, I have quite big thighs and nothing is shifting in that area! makes me want to give up.

I'm in college at the mo as a mature student so money is scarce, so gyms are out of the question and never really liked them anyway, prefer more outdoorsy stuff! But I'm getting fed up of not seeing proper results. 4 months may not sound like a long time but it definitely feels like it! I'm still extremely self conscious! I eat my fruit and drink plenty of water. Can anyone offer any advice on keeping myself motivated and any reasons that could possibly explain why I'm not seeing results? Sorry if this topic has been asked a thousand times already but any help will be greatly appreciated!

I do try to mix up my runs and change my route often, and some days I just jog. I do these on average of 3-5 times a week! Have been slipping tho with only going out twice since last monday the 26th. Thanks for taking time to read!

reklamos

It's your diet.
People are very bad in estimating. You need to measure what and how much you eat instead of guesstimating. There are plenty apps to do that.
When you do it right you'll see biggest change in first month.
Eat 20% less calories than you use and you should be dropping at least pound a week.
Also watch those fruits as many of them are high in carbs. Try to replace them with vegetables.

vinegar_zombie

I don't think I ever saw in this post what you mean by results. Is it weight loss or being better at running? If its weight loss then it is definitely the diet. I would recommend 'myfitnesspal'for calculating your daily intake. I would also recommend some heavy weigh training barbel or dumbbell squats, lunges etc. Maybe even try the 5x5 routine.

syklops

I run 10 seconds, sprint 20 seconds and run 10 seconds, walk for approx 2 mins and repeat that 8 times

What happens once youve done that 8 times? Are you dead on your feet? If you are not, then there is room for more. Maybe its walking for another 5 minutes.

As for diet, why don't you post up what a typical day would be like for you and you can get advice. Going on a diet doesnt mean you have to just start eating brocoli and lettuce, it just means reducing what you consume and maybe you are over eating some things. You mention "I eat my fruit and drink lots of water". Yes fruit is healthy but how much are you eating?

ejabrod

U1D2C3 wrote: »

... the fact that fat can turn to muscle..

Fair play to you for even starting, that's the biggest obstacle for most people.

Not nitpicking but, fat cannot be turned into muscle. You can increase muscle mass which, in turn, will help burn fat.

As has been said already, if it is weight loss you are wanting to achieve your diet needs to be modified. Also, for weight loss (imo) walking at a brisk pace for 5 or 6 Km daily will be more effective at achieving weigh loss goals.

If you want to increase muscle you will have to consider weights.

If you want to improve your cardio fitness you will (again imo) push yourself a little more each week.

There are a lot of variables that we don't know so most of (my) advice is general.

Might be worth your while speaking to a PT and/or a dietitian.

Again, well done for starting and persevering

U1D2C3

syklops wrote: »

What happens once youve done that 8 times? Are you dead on your feet? If you are not, then there is room for more. Maybe its walking for another 5 minutes.

As for diet, why don't you post up what a typical day would be like for you and you can get advice. Going on a diet doesnt mean you have to just start eating brocoli and lettuce, it just means reducing what you consume and maybe you are over eating some things. You mention "I eat my fruit and drink lots of water". Yes fruit is healthy but how much are you eating?

Well I walk to where I go running which is about 10 mins from my house (depending on the route, but always do try to get a walk in before I start running).

When I finish the 8 sets at the bottom of the road I run the most, then I try just jog back up the road. There is a lovely long uphill slope so its very difficult. But there's no way I could do the sprints up the hill! Haha! After the 8th one, I would be wrecked. I wouldn't need to sit down or anything, but feel a kind of dizziness (not anything to worry tho). After a few mins I get my breath back and try to keep my posture up straight and go on up the hill. And then walk home when I cant jog anymore.

As for diet, I would typically eat a banana, an orange and a few grapes in the morning before run, then have bran flakes after a run.
Lunch would usually be a sandwich, on brown bread, never really eat white anything. Usually egg mayonaise and a slice of ham (not a deli sambo, make it myself).
Dinners would usually be a salad, but I do add lots of feta cheese and French dressing. I am a sucker for breaded cod, would have that once or twice a week. Don't eat too much pasta or spuds or rice, not a big fan. My vegetable intake is very low tho, would mainly eat carrots but not much else.

I do get my dinner in my mothers house on a Sunday, a big feed, and would be the usual roast spuds and chicken. Ill definitely have to tell her to make less for me haha. And would have oranges and bananas a lot, I would have frozen berries and fat free peach yoghurt for something sweet too if I feel like it. My dinners are quite late because I usually finish college around 6 and don't get home till 6.30 or so. So dinner would be usually about 7 or 7.30. I would have chips (oven) once or twice a week, or if I could be bothered making it a lasagne. I would have a lot of mayonaise in a sambo. I drink lots of tea (regular) and rarely have fizzy drinks. Cant think of much else now!

Its not the best diet, but not the worst, but writing it down I do see there's a lot of changes to me made (like chips, breaded cod etc). I would try eat a lot of chick peas and kidney beans too, but that depends on what I'm making. I don't like the taste of chicken, but when I do make it it would be in the oven.

Thanks for all of your replies. hope I've given enough info (and its not too long haha)

U1D2C3

ejabrod wrote: »

Fair play to you for even starting, that's the biggest obstacle for most people.

Not nitpicking but, fat cannot be turned into muscle. You can increase muscle mass which, in turn, will help burn fat.

As has been said already, if it is weight loss you are wanting to achieve your diet needs to be modified. Also, for weight loss (imo) walking at a brisk pace for 5 or 6 Km daily will be more effective at achieving weigh loss goals.

If you want to increase muscle you will have to consider weights.

If you want to improve your cardio fitness you will (again imo) push yourself a little more each week.

There are a lot of variables that we don't know so most of (my) advice is general.

Might be worth your while speaking to a PT and/or a dietitian.

Again, well done for starting and persevering

Thanks very much! Unfortunately I wouldn't have time to walk for 5-6kms really. Or money for a dietitian or PT. But definitely going to try an app to take note of my calorie intake. Apologies I cant quote all the different replies in one post, using my phone ha!

Another thing that it could be is just my genetics? I have the exact same shape as my mam. I do have a long torso, which I'm not unproud of, it does look good but its my bottom half. I've these short little legs and wide hips.

And to add to my last post too, I very rarely drink alcohol. Also about once every six weeks or so, if even. I did on Friday, due to a special occasion. But the time before I drank would have been the end of August!

Alf Veedersane

You don't have to have an unhealthy diet, per se. Most people are pretty bad at assessing what they eat and it's calorific value. Even with an app as good as MyFitnessPal, you need to be brutally honest with how much you're having and noting everything you eat and drink.

You mention you makew a lot of it yourself, which lends itself to apps like MyFitnessPal. I'd suggest getting a small digital kitchen scales to weight your food. Especially for things like feta cheese, egg mayo etc etc. They can be quite calorie dense and while there isn't anything wrong with a lot of the food you're eating, there could be quite a difference between what you think the calorie content might be and what it is.

Probably just need to tweak a few things to be honest but start using the app. If you're not assessing you're guessing and we're all guilty of underestimating what we eat and overestimating what we do

reklamos

As Alf already mentioned get kitchen scales and weigh your food as counting slices or pieces is not accurate.
The food that you take looks fine but the problem usually is not what we eat but how much we eat.
I really do not think it's your genes.

Cuddlesworth

To give an example of what others have said. None of these figures are exact, they are rough guidelines.

U1D2C3 wrote: »

As for diet, I would typically eat a banana, an orange and a few grapes in the morning before run, then have bran flakes after a run.

Banana 100cal
orange 60cal
Grapes, 50 grams, 35 cal
1 cup of Bran with milk roughly 300cal

Breakfast: Pretty much 500 Cal

U1D2C3 wrote: »

Lunch would usually be a sandwich, on brown bread, never really eat white anything. Usually egg mayonaise and a slice of ham (not a deli sambo, make it myself).

Egg Mayo and ham sandwich, roughly about 600 calories

U1D2C3 wrote: »

Dinners would usually be a salad, but I do add lots of feta cheese and French dressing. I am a sucker for breaded cod, would have that once or twice a week. Don't eat too much pasta or spuds or rice, not a big fan. My vegetable intake is very low tho, would mainly eat carrots but not much else.

Salad with feta and dressing - 400 Cal
Breaded cod with? 200 cal

U1D2C3 wrote: »

And would have oranges and bananas a lot, I would have frozen berries and fat free peach yoghurt for something sweet too if I feel like it. My dinners are quite late because I usually finish college around 6 and don't get home till 6.30 or so. So dinner would be usually about 7 or 7.30. I would have chips (oven) once or twice a week, or if I could be bothered making it a lasagne. I would have a lot of mayonaise in a sambo. I drink lots of tea (regular) and rarely have fizzy drinks. Cant think of much else now!

"Low Fat"Peach yogurt - depends, probably around 100 cal a container
Frozen Berries - 50 Cal

Lasagne/Chips - 600 Cal

Lets take a bad day, with lasagne and chips and some yogurt, maybe some extra fruit.

Breakfast:500
Lunch:600
Dinner:600
Treats:350

A good guess of the average day is 2050 Cal a day. There would undoubtedly be other entries not listed here. Everybody I know snacks to some degree. Sugar/Milk in the tea for a obvious example?

As a female with your stats you would need roughly 1700Cal to maintain weight with pretty much no exercise, 1200 to lose 2 kilos a month.

The reason everybody says this, is because it's really hard to burn through excess calories. If you tried to out-train your current diet, you would need to put in over a hour every day of balls to the wall exercise and it would barely make a dent in your current weight.

eamonnb1

Hello!

Kudos for getting started but also for asking for help. A lot of people just give up when they don't see the results they want.

Let me start by explaining that weight loss (in theory) is extremely simple. To lose weight, you have to burn more calories than you take in. This is called a calorie deficit. Likewise the only way to gain weight is to have a calorie surplus. That's it at a very simple level.

So what you need to do is find out how many calories your body needs to maintain its current weight. I think you can use MyFitnessPall for this, but there are much better videos on YouTube for this (check out Michael Kory fitness among many others). Once you have your maintenance calories, you just need to take in ~10 - 20% less than this per day. You should lose weight at a steady rate. If you stop losing weight, reduce the cals by another 5%. Do this and you are guaranteed to lose weight.

The only way to know that your below this, is to track every single thing that you eat throughout the day. Every piece of food, every sauce, every oil. It all adds up. As suggested above a digital scales is very important. Avoid estimating, and measure everything.

That said, reducing your cals alone isn't ideal. While you will lose weight, your body composition won't be great. That's where your diet and training comes in. To be honest, your diet needs work. It's good that you don't eat white bread/rice etc. You can make tweaks to your diet, and swap in healthier alternatives. Swap out the chips for sweet potato chips and you've got a much better food, delicious too. Likewise with the breaded cod, swap it for non-breaded cod, but salmon is also v healthy. A typical meal should be balanced with a good source of protein (usually meat, chicken, turkey, steak, salmon), some complex carbs (such as brown rice/sweet potato/kidney beans) and some veg.

Fruits are good, but like everything, it has to be in moderation. Just a few pieces per day.

Oh, and eggs. Always eggs. They're one of the best foods around. Great source of protein and healthy fats. The eggs are v high in protein, so I'd usually have 5 egg white, and maybe 2 yokes,
However you like them.
Again, healthy fats are good, but in moderation.

As a general rule of thumb, just cut out heavily processed foods and never microwave/pre made meals! They're full of salt and preservatives. Stick to fresh meat and veg. I'd cut out the lasagne too. Cheese is high in fat, as is most mince meet and sauces. Try to not use sauces on your food. As pointed out above, they're often v high in calories. So while having a salad might be considered low cal, the sauce bumps it way back up. Tbh, you don't really need to eat salads anyway. Losing weight should still taste great

To help keep your motivation, it widely accepted in the fitness industry that you should have 1 cheat meal per week (not a cheat DAY!). Use this to keep your cravings in check! It also helps regulate your metabolism. If you only ate healthy food all the time, your body would adjust and it'd lose its effectiveness.

Another tip for your motivation is to make clearly defined goals. I want to be at X point by Y date. Never vague goals like 'I want to look great/lose weight'. Exactly how much weight do you want to lose? Make mini-milestones along the way, to make sure you know if you're on track or behind.

I've also read about finding pics of your goal online and looking at them daily, to keep you focuses on what you want to achieve. I haven't done this yet, but will do it soon.


Some donts for dieting:
No juice dieting
No fad diets (WW, Atkins etc).
Almost nothing endorsed by some celeb (unless they're a bodybuilder or something)
If you ever see something like 'Lose X pounds in X Days/weeks, just laugh and ignore.

Like you say, this has to be a lifestyle change. What's the point in going on a strict diet, then once you stop this diet, you'll just put it straight back on and then some.

Aside from diet, the other area where you'll work on is your training. Your sprinting is good. Much better than just jogging. You're tethering on what's called High Intesity Interval Training (HIIT). It's fantastic for burning fat, even 24-48 hrs after you're done. Look it up and read more in depth on how to do it and finding a routine.

For your running, it's really important to track your progress somehow. You need to be sure that you're getting stronger, faster or fitter (depending on your goal) each week. This might mean do more sprints, or running for longer, but as you progress, so should your workout. If you do the same workout without progression, you'll hit a plateau and stop seeing results. For example, you should aim to be sprinting up that hill soon. Week by week, get closer to it. Maybe one sprint up it this week, then two next time. It obviously won't be as fast as running on flat ground, Just make sure it's 100% of the speed you can do. When you read about HIIT, you'll see its sprinting for short time, small break and go again. So its all in bite size pieces. Believe me, it can be done and your legs will be sore for the next few days, which is a sign of building muscle (huzzah!).

I have to disagree with the suggestion above about 5/6km walking per day. Walking is a really bad ineffective way to lose weight. Your heart rate isn't elevated like when sprinting or lifting weights. Your body never leaves it's comfort zone, and as a result, it doesn't burn many calories at all. There is lots of research to show this. Also, it's so time consuming. Your HIIT working takes a fraction of the time and will be burning fat for up to 48 hours afterwards. However, some people might prefer it, so each to their own!

Ideally you'd be able to do a weight training based routine too. Building muscle is key. This will give you more strength and will help you look great. As I mentioned, Losing weight alone won't give you great body composition. When you build muscle it also means that your body will burn more calories throughout the day just to maintain that muscle.

It'll also REALLY help with your stubborn legs. Doing squats and deadlifts should be the cornerstone of a good leg workout. Perhaps a little advanced for now though.

You hear a lot of girls say things like 'I don't want to be too muscley'. It takes years, maybe decades to get into the shape that people consider 'too muscley'. It's a bit like not taking up driving, for fear that you might accidentally turn into a formula 1 driver

I'm not sure about your situation, so it's up to you whether you can afford to go to gym. Places like Flyefit are available on a monthly plan for around €29. They're 24/7 too which is great for fitting your schedule.

You don't drink much, but maybe there is other luxuries that you could give up to pay for a gym. Things like buying coffee/tea in a coffee shop most days, or cutting back on unhealthy foods. Or maybe as an xmas present from family? It's up to you to see if there's a way.

If not, you should look into a bodyweight exercise routine that you can do at home. Meaning that it mainly focuses on using your own body, rather than weights. But a basic set of home dumbells wouod help. Still though, the gym is definitely the ideal choice.

It might not seem like it, I've barely touched the surface here. There's so much info online (especially YouTube and books) that can explain things in a lot mor detail. Tracking your macros would be the next step. I'd encourage you to look in to it in more detail, and your goals will become much more achievable.

P.S Sorry for the length, it got away from me

ejabrod

U1D2C3 wrote: »

.... I.e I run 10 seconds, sprint 20 seconds and run 10 seconds, walk for approx 2 mins and repeat that 8 times.......

The total time you are exercising for is approx 16 minutes.

My earlier suggestion for 5 or 6 Km wouldn't be comparable BUT you could walk at a brisk pace for 20 minutes along with the 10 minutes it takes you to get to the location you are training at (plus the 10 minutes back) which is a total of 40 minutes! If you can manage to walk at 6 km/h for the 40 minutes you would reach 4km! As you progress you could increase your pace in turn reducing the time spent.

Another thing you could do is set targets/goals. I.E. (in my example) 40 mins a day three days a week for 3 weeks, reducing the time to 37 mins (maintaining the same distance) for 2 weeks and reduce the time further to 35 mins etc, etc.

As mentioned by other posters your diet, while not terrible, needs to be looked at and modified (there has been some good advice )

Oh, and, don't give up

Mellor

ejabrod wrote: »

The total time you are exercising for is approx 16 minutes.

Why are you only counting the walking and not the running and sprinting?

The total us about 22 minutes. And intensity and effort is more important that minutes. The anout would be a lot better than walking 4km imo.

ejabrod

Mellor wrote: »

Why are you only counting the walking and not the running and sprinting?

The total us about 22 minutes. And intensity and effort is more important that minutes. The anout would be a lot better than walking 4km imo.

Actually you are correct. In reality I should discard the walking as we do no know what the pace is - it could be the recuperation time between sets.

Mellor wrote: »

And intensity and effort is more important that minutes. The anout would be a lot better than walking 4km imo.

I agree with you about intensity and effort but disagree about it being better than walking X km's.

If the OP can maintain 6 km/h for 4, 5 or 6 KM (I believe, from my own experience) that she will see better results but then again everybody is different and some things will work for some and not for others.

What you have said (in essence) that what the OP is doing now is better than what I suggested.

What I am suggesting is an alternative to her current routine, to try out. If no results are being achieved with the current routine it needs to change.

Tar.Aldarion

Nothing wrong with the exercise, definitely what you are eating. Tracking it like Alf said would be recommended since you don't know how much calories are in what you are eating, portion sizes etc. While you don't have to stick to spinach and broccoli I would suggest eating vegetables, find some way to incorporate them into your diet in a way you like.

Mellor

ejabrod wrote: »

Actually you are correct. In reality I should discard the walking as we do no know what the pace is - it could be the recuperation time between sets.

It's very strange to suggest discarding the walking, when your suggestion consists entirely of walking.
anyway, regardless of pace, time spent walking (or standing still) recovering has a higher calorie load as your heart and lungs are still firing at a high rate.

I agree with you about intensity and effort but disagree about it being better than walking X km's.

If the OP can maintain 6 km/h for 4, 5 or 6 KM (I believe, from my own experience) that she will see better results but then again everybody is different and some things will work for some and not for others.

I said 4km not Xkm. Why are you casually trying to bump that up to 6km??

What you have said (in essence) that what the OP is doing now is better than what I suggested.

Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying.

OP is current doing 10 mins there and back, with a 22mins mix of walking and running.
You suggested the same 10 mins there and back, with 20 mins of walking, lets call it 22mins for arguments sake.

With all other things being equal, I believe the option with varying intensity, tempos, intervals etc to be the better option. For obvious reasons.

What I am suggesting is an alternative to her current routine, to try out. If no results are being achieved with the current routine it needs to change.

Results, in terms of body comp are much more dependent on diet an routine

ejabrod

Mellor wrote: »

It's very strange to suggest discarding the walking, when your suggestion consists entirely of walking.
anyway, regardless of pace, time spent walking (or standing still) recovering has a higher calorie load as your heart and lungs are still firing at a high rate.

Yes, the routine I am suggesting IS completely walking at an increasing pace.

Mellor wrote: »

I said 4km not Xkm. Why are you casually trying to bump that up to 6km??

If you look back at my original post I said 5km , 'X' is simply a designation which can be replaced with whatever distance you like, it is the pace at which the distance is covered is the point I was making

Mellor wrote: »

Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying.

You're wrong.

Mellor wrote: »

OP is current doing 10 mins there and back, with a 22mins mix of walking and running.
You suggested the same 10 mins there and back, with 20 mins of walking, lets call it 22mins for arguments sake.

With all other things being equal, I believe the option with varying intensity, tempos, intervals etc to be the better option. For obvious reasons.

It's clearly not working for the OP, so instead of arguing with me, why not offer an alternative to the OP.

Mellor wrote: »

Results, in terms of body comp are much more dependent on diet an routine

You clearly are far more knowledgeable than I am :rolleyes:

To the OP, the best of luck in achieving your goals.

Alf Veedersane

To be fair, the diet aspect is more important than the whether the exercise involves interval runs or walking at this point.

Mellor

ejabrod wrote: »

Yes, the routine I am suggesting IS completely walking at an increasing pace.

The pace can increase as they get fitter, that applies to all options. again its equal.

If you look back at my original post I said 5km,

Not in the post I was refering to;

ejabrod wrote: »

If you can manage to walk at 6 km/h for the 40 minutes you would reach 4km!

You're wrong.

If you say so.
Running/walking intervals burns more energy compared to walking for a given time.

It's clearly not working for the OP, so instead of arguing with me, why not offer an alternative to the OP.

My alternative would be to pay more attention to diet. 40mins of low intensity cardio a few times a week is a tiny fraction of your total energy needs.

You clearly are far more knowledgeable than I am :rolleyes:

:rolleyes: because I think diet is most important. Eh, ok then.
Best of luck with the walking.

eamonnb1

There are plenty of studies done into high Intesity vs low intensity steady state, and high intensity is proven to be far more effective.

If you sprint/jog for a workout, and walk for another...One will push your body hard and leave you drenched in sweat. The other will barely break a sweat (walking). It's not even close in terms of effectiveness.
But if you prefer walking and find that enjoyable, then go for it. Particularly easier if you have any injuries etc.

Cardio alone is not ideal, and integrating weight training is far more effective. All your workout effort will be wasted though if you're diet isn't right.

Tar.Aldarion

This has been all over the news today and yesterday
http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/brisk-walk-better-than-gym-to-keep-weight-down-362980.html

vinegar_zombie

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

This has been all over the news today and yesterday

A bit of pseudoscience tbh. It could be better than going to gym , but it depends what are you doing there. I personal, always have much better cardio in gym , were i can monitor my time and distance, so its easier for me to monitor my HIIT trainings.

Alf Veedersane

They asked people on the number of times they did a specific level of activity for 30 minutes. Then measured the BMI and waist circumference of those people.

That was it. Nothing else was examined, no other possible factors.

Pinch of salt.

U1D2C3

Thanks again everyone for all your replies!! Have taken yeer advice and since Monday Ive been using myfitnesspal and Runtastic! getting used to keeping track of how many grams of everything im eating, been weighing everything, my housemate thinks i'm gone mad and the runtastic gives me good motivation when i see what distance and speed when i'm out. Very handy! Also have stocked up on lots of healthy food, no more egg mayo and lessening my portions.

I've my goal set to lose half a kg a week and try get to 58-60 kgs over time, i've no limit anyway set for when it has to be lost. Still trying to go easy on myself! i have to take in 1270 calories a day (according to myfitnesspal) and havent gone over it yet BUT also taking into account calories I gain from exercising, i would never be in the red zone.

I have been getting cravings for sweet things and learning to try and get used to eating smaller more often. It's a total lifestyle change and it has been a fairly tough week but definitely not as bad as i ever expected it to be. You see people on these diets and it looks miserable, haha, but no its not at all! i always had the idea that i can eat whatever as long as i exercise, ha in a perfect world!

Lots of great advice in this thread and much appreciated!! I definitely don't feel as demotivated !! And you hear and read so much about whats good for you and whats bad, and then a week later what WAS good for you is not TERRIBLE for you! haha! I tend not to listen tho!

Brian?

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

They asked people on the number of times they did a specific level of activity for 30 minutes. Then measured the BMI and waist circumference of those people.

That was it. Nothing else was examined, no other possible factors.

Pinch of salt.

I wouldn't even take it with a pinch of salt, I'd dismiss it out of hand.

Andrew Laeddis

What is 2 hours a day on an exercise bike likely to do for me? In conjunction with a healthy diet? (6'1 height, 13st 4lbs)

Alf Veedersane

It will burn you some calories. How many depends on intensity etc.

ford2600

Andrew Laeddis wrote: »

What is 2 hours a day on an exercise bike likely to do for me?

Bore you senseless? Two hrs will feel like a long time indoors.

Look up sufferfest or similar videos to put a structure on some more concentrated pain ☺

Bike with lights is my preferred way of training during winter evenings

Andrew Laeddis

ford2600 wrote: »

Bore you senseless? Two hrs will feel like a long time indoors.

Look up sufferfest or similar videos to put a structure on some more concentrated pain ☺

Bike with lights is my preferred way of training during winter evenings

I tend to just stick on a boxset and cycle til I'm dripping sweat?

Is this not productive?

Looking to lose a small gut

Alf Veedersane

Andrew Laeddis wrote: »

I tend to just stick on a boxset and cycle til I'm dripping sweat?

Is this not productive?

Looking to lose a small gut

If you like it, then that's fine.

It is better than not doing it, in terms of burning calories.

Brian?

Andrew Laeddis wrote: »

I tend to just stick on a boxset and cycle til I'm dripping sweat?

Is this not productive?

Looking to lose a small gut

It's better than doing nothing, but sweating is a poor guide to how hard you're working. Get a heart rate monitor and do some intervals.