Off-Topic Personal Health & Fitness HELP Thread

IndayArtHauz

Knoxville Baby Maker
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I know we have multiple people who are professionals in this area, dozens more who are knowledgeable, and probably a majority who are like me: looking for better results. I’ve been kicking around the idea of submitting my situation, seeing if it sparks a greater conversation, and hopefully helping some people improve their body and life.

Here goes nothing.

Im in the 35-45 year old range. For most of my life I’ve had a pretty light build and have been in and out of gyms on and off throughout adulthood. During my 30-35 years I let myself go, took on a lot of fat and decreased muscle mass, coinciding with the expected drop in metabolism.

In the last 2 years I’ve changed several things to counteract this trend. 1) Intermittent fasting for 16 hours a day (I’ll come back to this in a second). 2) Diet changes (same) 3) Workout consistency. On the whole these changes have produced real results, which has been wonderful, but I’ve hit a wall and that’s where I need helpful direction. My current irritation is that build is the best it’s been in years, it’s just hiding under a layer of fat around my sides and gut that is smaller but still not gone entirely or moving in that direction.

Here’s a more in depth breakdown of each of the three changes I’ve made:

Fasting: I’m keeping to this at least 5 days a week, eating only between 12pm-8pm. The benefits of this is it definitely took fat off and gave me a “consistent maximum” to where I am. It also had multiple side benefits, i have virtually no reflux or gas, and I sleep much better because my stomach isn’t working all night long. However, after 2 years I feel as though it has reached its maximum output for change. I will probably keep it up for the rest of my life because the benefits are so good.

Diet: I have never enjoyed sodas, sweet teas or energy drinks. I like water, coffee alternatives, occasional red wine, tea, and maybe orange juice a couple glasses a month. I don’t often eat sweets, I’ve cut out all “Starbucks drinks”, started eating almonds instead of chips and snacks, etc. One area I can improve on is fast food, it’s a side effect of my profession being on the road nearly every day. Bread I eat probably 3-5 times a week, starches like noodles maybe a little less often.

Workout: I stopped going to the gym but I do a lot of stuff at home. I like body workouts more than weights, so I’m daily doing squats, various push-ups, sit ups, dips, planks, and so forth. My body has responded very well to this regimen, even better than a weight training program I was on prior.

I am not trying to become Mr. Universe. I am a middle aged dad who wants to shave off the last tire around his belly and continue to work hard at keeping myself in good shape into the next phase of my life. Any strategy or thoughts to improve any or all of these areas would help me (and I assume others) tremendously.

Thanks to anyone who reads and responds!

80S Reaction GIF
 
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I know we have multiple people who are professionals in this area, dozens more who are knowledgeable, and probably a majority who are like me: looking for better results. I’ve been kicking around the idea of submitting my situation, seeing if it sparks a greater conversation, and hopefully helping some people improve their body and life.

Here goes nothing.

Im in the 35-45 year old range. For most of my life I’ve had a pretty light build and have been in and out of gyms on and off throughout adulthood. During my 30-35 years I let myself go, took on a lot of fat and decreased muscle mass, coinciding with the expected drop in metabolism.

In the last 2 years I’ve changed several things to counteract this trend. 1) Intermittent fasting for 16 hours a day (I’ll come back to this in a second). 2) Diet changes (same) 3) Workout consistency. On the whole these changes have produced real results, which has been wonderful, but I’ve hit a wall and that’s where I need helpful direction. My current irritation is that build is the best it’s been in years, it’s just hiding under a layer of fat around my sides and gut that is smaller but still not gone entirely or moving in that direction.

Here’s a more in depth breakdown of each of the three changes I’ve made:

Fasting: I’m keeping to this at least 5 days a week, eating only between 12pm-8pm. The benefits of this is it definitely took fat off and gave me a “consistent maximum” to where I am. It also had multiple side benefits, i have virtually no reflux or gas, and I sleep much better because my stomach isn’t working all night long. However, after 2 years I feel as though it has reached its maximum output for change. I will probably keep it up for the rest of my life because the benefits are so good.

Diet: I have never enjoyed sodas, sweet teas or energy drinks. I like water, coffee alternatives, occasional red wine, tea, and maybe orange juice a couple glasses a month. I don’t often eat sweets, I’ve cut out all “Starbucks drinks”, started eating almonds instead of chips and snacks, etc. One area I can improve on is fast food, it’s a side effect of my profession being on the road nearly every day. Bread I eat probably 3-5 times a week, starches like noodles maybe a little less often.

Workout: I stopped going to the gym but I do a lot of stuff at home. I like body workouts more than weights, so I’m daily doing squats, various push-ups, sit ups, dips, planks, and so forth. My body has responded very well to this regimen, even better than a weight training program I was on prior.

I am not trying to become Mr. Universe. I am a middle aged dad who wants to shave off the last tire around his belly and continue to work hard at keeping myself in good shape into the next phase of my life. Any strategy or thoughts to improve any or all of these areas would help me (and I assume others) tremendously.

Thanks to anyone who reads and responds!

80S Reaction GIF

Are any competitive sports you can play now? Or that you would enjoy playing? Something like racquetball maybe? Do you like to run? Basketball? Soccer?
 
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Are any competitive sports you can play now? Or that you would enjoy playing? Something like racquetball maybe? Do you like to run? Basketball? Soccer?
Sports are difficult right now because of limited time. I do not like running, but if it helps I’d be willing to try it. How often? How long, would you recommend to start with? Anything is better than nothing, I assume, and the goal is to get my heart rate up, yes?
 
Start counting your calories or at least portioning them out. You can cut out all the grains you want, but if they get replaced with similar calorie foods you won't lost a single pound. If you want to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you intake. The only way to really know if you are doing that is tracking them.

As far as working out goes. Do you just throw together random BW exercises? Or do you have an actual routine? How many days a week do you workout? What does the routine look like?
 
Start counting your calories or at least portioning them out. You can cut out all the grains you want, but if they get replaced with similar calorie foods you won't lost a single pound. If you want to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you intake. The only way to really know if you are doing that is tracking them.
Thanks! I have never done this so I’ll give it a try. Great place to start.

As far as working out goes. Do you just throw together random BW exercises? Or do you have an actual routine? How many days a week do you workout? What does the routine look like?

Mostly random, which is why I’m surprised it’s been so effective at building muscle and increasing strength/stamina.

Every day I’m doing 2-4 sets of 3-4 reps of push-ups, pulls ups, sit ups, planking, dips, squats and so forth. Hard to call it a routine, but it is daily.
 
Thanks! I have never done this so I’ll give it a try. Great place to start.



Mostly random, which is why I’m surprised it’s been so effective at building muscle and increasing strength/stamina.

Every day I’m doing 2-4 sets of 3-4 reps of push-ups, pulls ups, sit ups, planking, dips, squats and so forth. Hard to call it a routine, but it is daily.
Ya its honestly the only way you can truly lose weight. For instance if your daily caloric expenditure is 2500 calories(just for example purposes). and you were to eat nothing but cookies and only ate 2000 calories a day. You would lose weight(you would also be ridiculously unhealthy, but that is not the point).

If you are 3000 calories worth of broccoli. You would also gain weight. Now there also is the matter of thermogenic properties of the foods which would increase or decrease the calories expended, etc. but the basic principal is if you eat to much, even its health foods you will gain weight.

The reason your fasting worked so well is because you naturally cut out a lot of calories, since your eating window shrunk. It wasn't because the fast sped up your metabolism or anything.

Now that you hit a wall you need to do another thing to lower your calories. Fast food is easy since you can just go to their website and they will tell you the estimated calories in the meal.

Now since you aren't trying to be Mr Olympia, you don't need to carry a scale with you everywhere you go and weigh your foods, but you want to find a general idea how how many calories you are eating right now. Just count your calories for a week. Then once you find that number cut it down by 100-300 calories a day. Stick with that amount until you stop losing weight, or when weight loss has significantly slowed. Then cut another 100-300. If you cut the calories and don't lose weight, that means you are tracking them incorrectly and at that point it may be better to actually buy a scale to start weighting your food, at least for a short period of time until you actually get the hang of tracking your calories without one.

Generally speaking veggies are very low calorie while being highly satiating. So eating a lot of veggies is a great way to fill up. However, just make sure you aren't dousing them in oils since those are very calorie dense.

I just want to confirm by reps you mean, for say pushups. chest down to floor then up is 1 rep? So you are doing the same amount of pushups and squats as you can do pullups?
 
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Can you give more specifics on what grains to cut out? Thanks!
All of them.

Wheat
Corn
Oats
Etc

Forget about counting calories. Just remove sugar and grains from your diet and you will see the last of the spare tire. That means no bread, no pasta, no cereal, no bagels. Also, replace white potatoes with sweet potatoes.
 
All of them.

Wheat
Corn
Oats
Etc

Forget about counting calories. Just remove sugar and grains from your diet and you will see the last of the spare tire. That means no bread, no pasta, no cereal, no bagels. Also, replace white potatoes with sweet potatoes.
As per usual you are wrong. Please provide me with some studies that show that, while being in a calorie surplus you will lose weight, just by removing grains from your diet. I can provide you with hundreds of studies showing that cutting calories will result in weight loss.
 
Just…stop.

We are trying to help a fellow Cane. This is not an opinion thread. The science of losing weight is just that, a science. The most effective ways have already been proven. If you have some science to support your claims then great. If not, you can stop and let the people that actually understand what we are talking about give him advice.
 
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Sports are difficult right now because of limited time. I do not like running, but if it helps I’d be willing to try it. How often? How long, would you recommend to start with? Anything is better than nothing, I assume, and the goal is to get my heart rate up, yes?

Yes. To answer simply, because what you want to do is not only lose weight but improve your cardiovascular endurance to delay or allay future heart disease. Not just that but you should you already know that there’s all kinds of other diseases that are associated with unhealthy weight, like cancer, diabetes and so forth.

As far as losing weight dietetically, yes it is thermodynamics. In other words calories by mouth minus calories expended. There are formulas for this that you can Google. Different types of diet plans and a lot of people have had success with Atkins type diets or South Beach type diets, kind of keto type diets, where you’re reducing significantly the number of carbohydrates consumed and increasing the proportion of protein and fat. But it’s important that you limit your calories even when doing this. Just can’t be eating three porterhouse steaks a day and think you’re going to lose weight.

Just to give a general example, if you’re 5‘10“ and let’s say you weigh 220, if you were to reduce your calories to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1400 to 1800 cal a day, you’d lose somewhere between 1 - 2 pounds a week. Those are wide ranges, I’m just giving you a general example you can look this stuff up.

Both Medscape and Mayo Clinic have medically sound sections on their websites that will give you a general idea of what it takes to lose that weight you need to lose.

But please make no mistake, I’m not an expert, far from it, but one thing I’ll tell you, is get a check up ASAP. Are you getting a yearly check up? A full work up, with labs? If not start right away. Make sure they run a metabolic panel, including fasting blood sugar, A1C, cholesterol panel, and asked for a cardio CRP. Also once you start getting close to 50, insurance doesn’t cover this but it’s worth it, get your calcium score. It’ll cost about $100, and it’ll give you an idea what’s going on in terms of calcium build up in your heart.

The most important thing isn’t how you look, it’s how to get to a healthy weight that will increase your longevity. The bonus is you’ll feel better and look better.

I kind of rambled a little bit but I wanted to just give you a few things I could think of. But I can’t stress enough how important it is to first sort of get a baseline of your health status via a check up.
 
Read up on what body builders do to get cut before a competition. Part of it is to eat more often to keep the metabolism furnace cranked. You don’t have to go whole hog with it to see some results. Regular fasting might get the body thinking it needs to slow down the furnace to avoid starving.

Fasting one whole day a week did well for me before I threw in the towel.
Eating more times a day has only shown negligible benefits for losing weight. Bodybuilders do it because for them the negligible benefits are worth it. If Inday likes eating only a couple times a day and it allows him to keep his calories under control easier than eating 6-7x per day. He should continue doing so. The absolute most important thing all bodybuilders do, is control the amount of calories they eat per day.
 
Obviously, genetics play a huge role in how someone’s body responds to everything. Everyone has a different genetic make up so what works for one person, won’t necessarily translate to another. For example I retain a lot of fluid no matter what I drink. My mother did. My sister does. And I sweat like a stuffed pig.

Sure, there a basic guidelines someone can follow, but ultimately you need to discover what works best for you. Easier said than done.

A real eye opener for me was having my DNA tested. I used 23andme. . Very detailed and in-depth and delves into more than just ancestry. It delves into predispositions for diseases such as cancer of which I have none. It determines your your muscularity of which mine was determined to be that of an elite athlete.

If nothing else, having your DNA tested provides you with a lot of information that could help you in your quest to get rid of your spare tire.
 
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A few simple suggestions, Inday.

Tighten up your feeding window. The next logical step is a 6 hour window. Are you training during your feeding window? If not, you "should" be.

Introduce a kettlebell routine to supplement what I assume is bodyweight work. It'll be a minimal investment. A few hundred bucks will get you enough to last you a long time (most kettlebell guys recommend starting with 16kg and 24kg...I'd add in a 30kg too, you'll find that you'll want one sooner rather than later) Start with turkish getups, swings, and adding them to your squats and as you get more comfortable with the form and technique, you can add snatches, cleans, etc. These will help you focus on long-term gainz and focus less on the short term because...

...because, you know you gotta tighten up on the diet and that is probably one of the reasons you've plateau'd a bit.

Random...but don't be afraid to add some yoga to your routine, too. Not every day, but a few times a week. Start with like 30 minutes and over time you'll get to 45...60.

Overall, start thinking long term with the training and not the short term. As you get older diversify and work on mobility, flexibility, functional strength and the rest will take care of itself.
 
I have found that the more process food you can cut out of your diet helps with weight loss and just feeling a lot better.

I understand that it might be hard for you with your schedule and work, but if you can take food with you sometimes I think that you will see more results and help you with what you are trying to accomplish.
 
I would recommend you actually cut down on fasting. Fasting is great but if you fast excessively you’ll actually retain fat. Try finishing the day on a caloric deficit instead. Focus on core strength exercises.
 
We are trying to help a fellow Cane. This is not an opinion thread. The science of losing weight is just that, a science. The most effective ways have already been proven. If you have some science to support your claims then great. If not, you can stop and let the people that actually understand what we are talking about give him advice.
The advice I offered works.

My advice for you, on the other hand, is to learn how to communicate without constantly insulting and talking down to others.
 
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