Weight Loss Thread

Buy a good rice cooker too, those cheap 20 dollar ones are worse than using a pot imo. A good one let's you make a batch of rice and keep it warm for days so you always have rice on hand.

Noodlemod_sl said:

If you can do any push-ups, they'll be better for you at your weight unless they cause physical pain. They'll supplement the bench on chest days. You could do bitch push-ups too, if you can't do standard ones. If you can't do any, the bench is fine.

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I can do them, just hate it compared to pushing hard to failure on a bench. Need to work my core I imagine for sure, planks or whatnot? Seeing as I hate pushups/situps. When I said never great, meaning for example I could in my "prime" do the like 42 in 2 minutes for Army. Several years ago applying for state patrol they wanted something crazy like 45 in 60 seconds. Basically that extremely fast paced bam bam bam pushup vs I was always the slower methodical type.

Cad_sl said:

Go to the gym because unless you really invest there's lots of shit you can't really do at home effectively.

Also just cook up 5lbs of chicken each weekend, boil some broccoli and pre-portion it out in tupperware for the week. Buy a rice cooker:

And make rice each day to eat with your chicken. If it's just you, 1 cup is enough.

Make eggs for breakfast. 3-4 fried or scrambled is enough. Eat your chicken/rice/broccoli for lunch. Toss some low-calorie BBQ sauce on it if you want. Go workout after work. Have a protein shake made with almond milk for dinner.

If you actually follow that the weight will fall off of you like a disease.

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Similiar to that without any exercise is kinda what I was able to do to drop weight before. I'll work on not being lazy and do the lunch thing. The breakfast is sometimes tough with my oddball hours, 12 hour shifts and getting up at 4am and I dont function well not on sleep. So Have to wake up earlier than fight falling asleep driving home. Goal is to do the 3x ish a week workouts where I can hopefully do them mostly days off and maybe one work day.

Like I said, fell off the decent diet bandwagon just catering to wifes ultra picky tastes. I dont think our dinners so bad, seeing as she's dropped 20 in 3 months. (The lean burger + veggy) But I know no way I'm getting her on a protein shake and she gets pissy if I dont eat with her. One sucess was she does like almond milk, at the start of her progress she was having banana berry smoothies but suddenly refuses to have them anymore...

Great core workout that I do every day involves:

8 center crunches -> place right leg straight into the air (about a few inches from the ground) and do 8 more crunches -> right leg goes up 90 degrees and do 8 crunches -> left leg goes straight into air (few inches from ground) and do 8 crunches -> left leg goes up 90 degrees and do 8 crunches -> reverse it down

Then put a weight on your crotch/belly (start low) and do a pelvic thrust into the air. Do about 8-15 of them.

Grab a medicine ball or a weight now and put both legs 90 degrees in air with the arms holding the weight -- reach for the sky and do crunches. 8 of them.

Repeat the entire thing 2-3 times. You can finish at the end with a weighted plank for 30 seconds.


edit: I don't agree with replacing a full meal with a protein shake. If you're overly concerned about consuming a lot of calories, then eat fish or legumes.

Rezz_sl said:

Not to be that guy (But since I was one of the people saying walking wasn't really useful as a weight loss mechanic, hey!) If you were cutting 500-800 calories a day, you would have lost between 28-44.8 bls without walking regardless, due to how calories work. Now, I don't know if you were eating 500-800 calories on top of what your maintenance was and were steadily gaining 1-1.5lbs every week prior to starting to walk, but this is pretty much explaining exactly why it has more of a placebo effect hah. You'll notice (if you maintain your current routine) much better gains with those 1.5 mile runs than walking 6-7 miles, and spend substantially less time doing so. Granted, since it appears you're using it as a time killer, hey, more power to ya. But as a weight loss mechanic, walking is slightly above changing literally nothing in a diet/routine when it comes to losing mass.

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Ya, I'm gradually coming around to the walking having a very minor effect compared to eating better. I'm going to keep walking for now, mainly because I do find it relaxing, but I will do weights or running/biking as my "real" workout.

I did "Workout A" last night (with 3x8 push-ups instead of bench press, but I know I should outgrow push-ups pretty fast). I never enjoyed the gym when I did go (except for the lap pool), so I'm going to see how long I can last with my very basic home bench and weights.

From reading a (very) little, it seems that combining resistance and cardio on the same day (or even the same workout) is OK, is there any thought on what would the best cardio schedule if I did thebeginner workout weight training routine?

My wife always wants to walk to lose weight and I keep thinking about how I'm going to burn like 30 calories and how shitty that is for the time spent.

Noodlemod_sl said:

My wife always wants to walk to lose weight and I keep thinking about how I'm going to burn like 30 calories and how shitty that is for the time spent.

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Exercising isn't just about the calorie burn

Noodle, as Tenks mentioned, exercise isn't just about calorie burn. It's getting your heart rate above a certain BPM and maintaining it. Most people that is around 120-140. If you're worried about how boring walking is, then go walk up a hill or something, haha.

Pioneer89_sl said:

I did "Workout A" last night (with 3x8 push-ups instead of bench press, but I know I should outgrow push-ups pretty fast).

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You can always make pushups harder. Not enough to fully replace weights I imagine, but you can definitely keep progressing Check out some of the bodyweight routines if you are in a pinch. Startbodyweight.com has some good progressions that I look to in general.

Startbodyweight.com Progressions

Kuriin_sl said:

Noodle, as Tenks mentioned, exercise isn't just about calorie burn. It's getting your heart rate above a certain BPM and maintaining it. Most people that is around 120-140. If you're worried about how boring walking is, then go walk up a hill or something, haha.

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Get a heart rate monitor and haul ass until you're in the 60-80% range for your BPM (according to height/weight/gender). If your wife is making you stroll at 1mph try running circles around her until she gets pissed enough to walk faster.

You can do -a lot- with body weight exercises, which still falls into the category of "weight lifting." I would recommend getting one of those Iron Gym Pullup bars if you don't have something you can easily do over/underhand pullups on, and then you can honestly get away with lots of bodyweight stuff (in the interest of losing weight, specifically) without getting crazy or having to go to the gym. I have a bench/power-rack combo in my apartment, so I haven't seen a gym in years. But it is a -sizable- initial cost, and you have to buy the rubber floor pads and all sorts of shit, not to mention that even at a discount, weights are just generally kind of expensive to purchase. Especially the coated ones for doing deadlifts etc.

What I do, at the end of every workout day (I do 3x a week for an hour solid, with like 30s max between sets/exercises. I'm half-assedly german volume training on top of supersets, with one rotating "heavy" day a week where instead I do a big push for numbers to check my progress) Is do a plank for as long as I can hold it (up to 4 minutes, used to be 7 but I got fat in the last 5 years) and then do Oblique Raises (elbow on ground, legs straight, lift so that those are the only two points of contact. Push opposite hip as close to the ceiling as you can get it, and hold for as long as you feel is good. I'm up to 45s on each side, because I have shit for core) and repeat 3x. I'm not a huge fan of crunch movements, because of the lower back strain, but they are definitely something you can do if you don't do full "situps" which are shit.

I'm not a fan of cardio, but if you must do cardio, I recommend either HIIT (which is most definitely not for everyone/beginners) or cycling at a solid pace. Depending on my mood, I might mix in a day or two of 15mph cycling over lightly hilly terrain. But I would definitely not recommend doing cardio on the same days you are doing lots of lifting type exercises. That's just a sure way to fuck up your mentality because you -will- not be as good lifting if you do cardio before, and your cardio after will seem slow and shitty because of the lifting.

I'm sure it's been covered 8 million times so far in this thread, but diet is like 90% of losing weight. If you can't keep your caloric intake below your usage, you won't lose weight. It's that simple. No matter how hard you work out, if you eat like a Body-Positive Advocate, you're going to be big. And not in a good way. The Chicken/Rice/Broccoli thing is a solid starting place, and just do some research either using google or the fda food website to try and incorporate other light meals into your day.

Skipping a meal for a shake requires that the shake supplies everything that a meal could, which is difficult if you aren't supplementing the shit out of your shakes. I skip breakfast but I have a hefty fucking shake with protein powder, peanut butter, oats, ginger, and a banana in it each time. Then I generally go salad/fish/chicken/whatever light for lunch, then I'm usually set for whatever I want for dinner unless it's something ridiculous like pasta alfredo or anything that involves cheese. I gotta do some pretty gnarly lifting during the day to get to cheese-centric land, even though I love it =|

Rezz_sl said:

You can do -a lot- with body weight exercises, which still falls into the category of "weight lifting." I would recommend getting one of those Iron Gym Pullup bars if you don't have something you can easily do over/underhand pullups on, and then you can honestly get away with lots of bodyweight stuff (in the interest of losing weight, specifically) without getting crazy or having to go to the gym.

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I would also recommend getting a set of rings to hang from said pull up bar as well. I have this set up at home and the addition of rings brought a whole new level of fun to my body weight routine. Doing Ring support holds and Ring dips are some of the only times my top four abs make a solid appearance. Of course, test the bar / door frame. My setup handles me pretty well at around 165 - 175 lbs, but the last thing you want is bringing the bar down on top of your head.

Tenks_sl said:

Exercising isn't just about the calorie burn

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I'm an engineer, I look to maximize my efficiency at all times.

IT IS A CURSE!!

Wait someone recommend me a rice cooker. I'm old school cuban and fucking cook it in a pot EVERY GOD DAMN DAY.

If you don't want to buy Cad's lawyer level rice cooker, this one is $30 and has 5000 reviews

Amazon.com: Aroma 8-Cup (Cooked) (4-Cup UNCOOKED) Digital Rice Cooker / Food Steamer, Stainless Steel Exterior (ARC-914SBD): Kitchen Dining

Cad you're telling overweight people to drink their dinner? You serious man? Protein shakes are ridiculous for anyone and everyone in my opinion but especially for someone trying to lose weight. "Clearly your fat ass isn't eating enough protein so supplement it with a drink that sure as shit isn't gonna make you feel full. You'll definitely not fail at this weight loss thing."