I'm fat now

[Rabbitthekitten]

Basically I've just started back doing martial arts because I went a bit mental and stopped doing things I like and went to the pub and lay around in bed instead.

Now I've managed to overcome my mind telling me not to do stuff because there is no point, I've turned into a bit of a porker.

Now how would people suggest I shift the gut? My diet isn't massively bad when I remove the beer. When I remove the beer I remove the cravings for pizza after beer.

Not that I was drinking a massive amount but it was almost every day and it adds up.

Should I just do as much training as possible? Shall I do a bit of gym work? Start an extra art or two to get my body moving in different ways? Should I just not go to the pub again ever? I don't do running. But apart from that I'm open to anything.

 

[drop bear]

 

[Gweilo]

The best way is to moderate what you do, start a sensible exercise regime, martial arts, and swimming is a good start. Rather than start a dieting fad, eat sensibly for 6 days of the week, where you are strict, and have 1 day where you treat yourself, drink and eat what you like, within reason, don't go and drink what you drink in a week in one day. As the weight comes off, and your fitness and health improve, you can increase the amount of training, make sure you include cardiovascular vascular exercise like swimming or running, and try to drink 3 litres of water every day. Don't give yourself unrealistic goals like lose 2 stone in a fortnight, give yore a few months. The weight will fall off.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Eat less, exercise more. There is no secret. Walking is a good start, and healthy. When you feel up to it, jump rope is one of the best cardiovascular exercises out there.

 

[Rabbitthekitten]

I'm currently on route to my taekwondo class. I'm going to have an hour in the gym before.

 

[Headhunter]

You start training to much you'll over do it end up hating it then quit then get even more fat. Cut out the booze and do a regular amount of exercise at the very least you won't get fatter

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Start in gradually to make sure you don't overdo it and delay your training. But mostly, yeah, get a sensible diet (err on the side of being "too sensible" - we tend to lie to ourselves about how much we eat, especially of the worst stuff) and get some regular exercise. Step up the exercise as soon as you're confident you're not overdoing it. Exercise often, and make sure some of that exercise is pretty intense.

Of course, be reasonable with yourself. If you go in too hard, you create new risk.

 

[Rabbitthekitten]

Did 45 mins walking fast on the treadmill then an hour of taekwondo, working through patterns and stances. I don't feel too bad. It was all fairly low impact stuff.

 

[jobo]

Did 45 mins walking fast on the treadmill then an hour of taekwondo, working through patterns and stances. I don't feel too bad. It was all fairly low impact stuff.

the walking has probably burn through a couple of hundred calories, the tkd about the same( maybe less if your only doing patters and stances?) so about a chocolate bars worth of exercise, its lot w more efficient use of time to just eat a chocolate bar less.

what I'm saying is its extremely difficult to exercise weight off, unless your extremely fit, tour de france riders go through 6000, calories a day going up and down the the mountains of france

it's easy to lose weigh with dieting if you go extreme, but you tend to lose more muscle than fat, so your lbs lost column doesn't reflect pounds of fat lost, even a more sensible diet tends to bite into your muscle mass, so such exercise as you do, needs to focus on replenishing lost muscle, rather than heavy cardio, as cardio also burns muscle, if your operating on reduced carbs,

your body dy sees muscle as a fuel source that it would rather use than fat, as its a lot easier/ quicker to metabolise than fat

 

[Rabbitthekitten]

the walking has probably burn through a couple of hundred calories, the tkd about the same( maybe less if your only doing patters and stances?) so about a chocolate bars worth of exercise, its lot w more efficient use of time to just eat a chocolate bar less.

what I'm saying is its extremely difficult to exercise weight off, unless your extremely fit, tour de france riders go through 6000, calories a day going up and down the the mountains of france

it's easy to lose weigh with dieting if you go extreme, but you tend to lose more muscle than fat, so your lbs lost column doesn't reflect pounds of fat lost, even a more sensible diet tends to bite into your muscle mass, so such exercise as you do, needs to focus on replenishing lost muscle, rather than heavy cardio, as cardio also burns muscle, if your operating on reduced carbs,

your body dy sees muscle as a fuel source that it would rather use than fat, as its a lot easier/ quicker to metabolise than fat

So I'm going to be fat forever?

 

[jobo]

So I'm going to be fat forever?

no, you can be thin very quickly, just not very healthy ,you can be thinner, in the foreseeable future by cutting out the **** and eating a diet of nutritious things, and mixing that with an all round exercise program, that includes exercise intense enough to build muscle rather than being entirely cardio focused

 

[Rabbitthekitten]

no, you can be thin very quickly, just not very healthy ,you can be thinner, in the foreseeable future by cutting out the **** and eating a diet of nutritious things, and mixing that with an all round exercise program, that includes exercise intense enough to build muscle rather than being entirely cardio focused

Ok deal.

 

[Headhunter]

Ok deal.

Look this kind of thing you shouldn't just be taking any random persons advice. Go to a nutritionist or a personal trainer or go to a doctor and get advice from people you know are legit. You've got to do what works for you as well and work on the balance. Internets good for some stuff it's also good for getting any random persons opinions on everything. Whether they know about it or not. Talk to the pros that's the best option

 

[jobo]

Look this kind of thing you shouldn't just be taking any random persons advice. Go to a nutritionist or a personal trainer or go to a doctor and get advice from people you know are legit. You've got to do what works for you as well and work on the balance. Internets good for some stuff it's also good for getting any random persons opinions on everything. Whether they know about it or not. Talk to the pros that's the best option

I've advised him to cut out junk, eat nutricous food, have a reasons ble expectation of how quickly he can lose weight and remain healthy and to under take a balanced exercise program, do you think any professional is going to disagree with any of that ?

 

[skyeisonfire]

Everything you do counts...walking is the easiest. That's how I started years ago and still do it today. I walk an average of 4-6 miles almost everyday, if I don't walk, I go to the gym and sometimes do 3 different sets of cardio 10 minutes each, elliptical machine, cycle, and treadmill. At work, I usually do and average of 10,000 steps a shift. Walking is great for fat burning because its low intensity. There are many, many opinions on that statement but everyone's body responds differently. But if you combine all that with any kind of strength training, it will help with the process. Diet is key......for me, it's 90% of it all. Without the diet on par, working out is just working out for the sake of working out. Choose a plan that you can stick with. Eating sensible is left to each person's own idea of what is "sensible" . I would prefer to say choose a diet plan that is easiest for you. In my years of experience in successful dieting....I've tried almost all of them. Guess what? They all worked, in the short term. Most of them were too extreme to stick with. Just stick to one for the long haul, just don't do the extreme stuff unless you know what you're getting into. Some of these diets can cause dysfunction, both mentally and physically.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

So I'm going to be fat forever?

No. Lean mass (the result of exercise) burns more calories per pound than fat does, so exercise does help - just not as much in the short term. Decreasing intake reasonably (which you've partly already decided to do, by eliminating the beer and related pizza) is a faster approach than exercise. Both together is the more sustainable approach.

 

[Rabbitthekitten]

Look this kind of thing you shouldn't just be taking any random persons advice. Go to a nutritionist or a personal trainer or go to a doctor and get advice from people you know are legit. You've got to do what works for you as well and work on the balance. Internets good for some stuff it's also good for getting any random persons opinions on everything. Whether they know about it or not. Talk to the pros that's the best option

To be fair I used to do a lot of weights. I was thin then.

 

[MetalBoar]

Look this kind of thing you shouldn't just be taking any random persons advice. Go to a nutritionist or a personal trainer or go to a doctor and get advice from people you know are legit. You've got to do what works for you as well and work on the balance. Internets good for some stuff it's also good for getting any random persons opinions on everything. Whether they know about it or not. Talk to the pros that's the best option

I like the general idea behind what you're saying here but the problem is figuring out who the "pros" really are when you aren't one already yourself. I'm a strength trainer (among other things) and have been for just under 20 years, own a gym, have managed gyms for other people and have worked with a lot of "professional" personal trainers. I'll be honest, the fitness discussions on this board are pretty much what you'll get if you put 30 random personal trainers in a room together except MT has a little bit more complete ignorance thrown in around the edges. I've also worked (directly and indirectly) with a lot of nutritionists. A good nutritionist can really streamline the process of fat loss and give you a safe and effective road map to your goals. The problem is a lot of nutritionists are working with outdated models or simply aren't very good at their job and you're going to pay money to get something that is about as useful as Jobo's "cut out junk, eat nutricous food, have a reasons ble expectation of how quickly he can lose weight and remain healthy". Finally, most doctors (at least in the US) aren't required to do much formal education on diet or exercise but a lot of them sure feel they're experts or that they have to represent themselves as such. So again, unless you get a good referral from someone who's gotten good results you may have to shop around and experiment until you find a doctor who's actually knowledgeable about these subjects and who's willing and able to spend the time it takes to talk to you about them.

One professional you missed in your list is one that I think might be most helpful for a lot of people and that's some sort of therapist or counselor. The OP mentions that it was mental health issues that really started the weight gain in the first place. I know that I put on a lot more fat than I was comfortable with during my last tech contract because I was alternating between stress and boredom eating while at work. I knew what I was doing wrong but I did it anyway because I was super stressed and didn't have the brain power to focus on anything but the job. A lot of people do emotional eating, or get depressed or stressed out and stop working out. I think that finding a good professional to help develop healthier coping mechanisms would be a lot more effective over the long run than talking to even your better than average personal trainer. Please note that finding a good counselor will probably be at least as hard and quite likely harder than finding a qualified member of any of the other aforementioned professions.

EDIT: I guess what I'm really saying is that I don't think asking a martial arts forum how to lose fat and get in shape is a much different starting place than asking a single random personal trainer or doctor except it doesn't cost anything but a little time. You're still going to have to exercise critical thinking, do some research and then experiment to see what really works for your goals. If you already know of a good, proven effective professional that you can afford you probably aren't bothering to post your questions here. If this were a discussion about an eating disorder or something that could have similar serious consequences I would have a different opinion. If people were suggesting really extreme exercise routines that were likely to lead to rhabdomyolysis or something similarly dangerous, again that would be a different situation.

 

[Buka]

Basically I've just started back doing martial arts because I went a bit mental and stopped doing things I like and went to the pub and lay around in bed instead.

Now I've managed to overcome my mind telling me not to do stuff because there is no point, I've turned into a bit of a porker.

Now how would people suggest I shift the gut? My diet isn't massively bad when I remove the beer. When I remove the beer I remove the cravings for pizza after beer.

Not that I was drinking a massive amount but it was almost every day and it adds up.

Should I just do as much training as possible? Shall I do a bit of gym work? Start an extra art or two to get my body moving in different ways? Should I just not go to the pub again ever? I don't do running. But apart from that I'm open to anything.

You can do this, bro. You have the desire and the know how, you really do. Already fast walking that treadmill says a lot.

Just make sure you eat right, don't let yourself get too hungry. And you already know what eating right is. And should you slip up, no big deal, just climb back on. We got your back.

Go gettum', brother.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

You need to have a "short" term goal. For example, you decide to run 3 miles daily for the next 6 months. Most of the long term goal is hard to achieve.