[quote]bananaphone wrote:
I’m guessing you don’t want to have the definition of a bodybuilder if you just want to return to your previous ideal weight. While adding muscle will speed up your metabolism, diet will change everything the most.
Drinking plenty of cold water keeps you hydrated, makes you slimmer, and burns calories when your body regulates it to room temperature. I’ve also heard that eating like a baby is a good way to manage weight. Babies don’t eat anything they don’t really want, they only eat when they’re hungry, and they stop when they’ve had enough because they don’t care about not finishing a meal. Following the food pyramid and not taking in calories from liquids is a given.
Any sort of cardio is the best option you have exercise wise. The optimal effort range for loosing fat is working out at 70% of your max heart rate. Your max heart rate is probably 220 minus your age. Before you can burn fat as fuel your body needs to burn off other sources of energy. So fat burning really only starts after 20 minutes of activity.
Crunches and ab work won’t make you slimmer in the mid section. But I’ve heard healthy abs improves digestion.
Oh, and drink green tea. And chew gum to repress snack attacks [/quote]
NO. I’m sorry if I seem like a dick, but NO. You yourself are a newbie here, and obviously you have not availed yourself of the phenomenal amount of information here. I’m sorry, but this post makes me dumber every time I read it. In order to give sound advice, it is usually good for one to use their brain first and do some self-educating, followed by self-application.
I do agree with the following things, however: green tea is very good for you, chewing gum can work in a pinch if you have no other option for suppressing hunger/cravings, and nutrition/diet changes things the most.
However, the rest of your post is, well, crappy. In fact, just some reading of the last two weeks of articles should have pointed that out to you (particularly on the cardio). Do some reading for yourself first, get some more experience, try giving advice to people once you yourself have passed the newbie stage, ok?
I know this post will be construed as a personal attack, even though it was not meant as such, but I frankly don’t care. I have spent the last 6 years of my life researching both nutrition and exercise, and there are many people here (not to mention the contributing authors) that are more experienced than I am. You should listen to them.
I am getting very frustrated with people posting ill-conceived advice to newbies, who are among the most easily confused and most gullible people out there. And yes, I can give you specific reasons your post is off-base, but I don’t want to write a novel here.
“The ideal body cannot be created in 3 easy steps. Hard work and critical thinking are required.”
end rant.
To the original poster–
Listen to eengrams and Phill, also some of the forum vets here. I have a lot of things to say, but it’s late and I’m tired, so I will try to get back to this thread later. Just remember this–consistency and hard work is key. Diet is the next key, and finally educating yourself is the last key to success.
DO NOT “diet”. “Dieting” leads only to failure because it entails a mentality that believes in temporary fixes and this mentality leads easily to the “magic pill/quick fix/infomercial” mentality, which ultimately leads to failure.
It also carries the connotation of moderate to severe calorie restriction, which is counter-productive when trying to keep muscle mass/“tone” (shudder) or keep a revved up metabolism. Think “nutrition”. Think “lifestyle change”. Think “fat loss” not “weight loss”.
Throw away the scale. Why? Well, because I’ve seen absolutely foxy women weighing in at 160-170lb or more, as well as foxy women weighing in at 110-115lb. The only thing in common with all the women is that they look amazing. Muscle weighs more than fat per the same amount of volume it takes up, so you end up taking up less space and looking tighter, sexier, and slimmer, but possibly weighing the same or more.
Besides, you need your muscle to rev up your metabolism. It’s what drives further fat loss. I’ll let others talk about the exercise for now.
Finally, I suggest you look up the T-vixen sorority forum. Those girls are sharp, sexy, and know their stuff. You’ll be in good hands, not that there aren’t good people capable of giving advice here.
