IMHO if your aim is to lose weight you will fail. I have done this for 20 years and failed, eventually, everytime. For me, it was to be fit enough to race motorbikes, that became the overriding driver to 'do something'. This time, its to change my body shape and get fit enough to race, hence weights work and cardio combined Obviously along with a balanced diet. FWIW I plateaued at 16'5 for nearly a year, running 30-40 kms per week in the gym 5 days, with c2k cals a day. Gotta mix it up to keep it going
And having loads of injuries from last couple of years doesn't help me, so good luck Dubs and find something that works for you.
tks man. Yeah cardio for me and some weights. I really just want to be more fit than become an athlete - that will never happen :biggrin: But just be a little better trhan I am now. havve a bit of a mid spread, notu too serious but riding the bike id be better off without it. Going to get a training regime from an instructor, 25 sheets is the cost, not too bad at all.
Diet is always my biggest issue. What to eat and when. Tried as I have, I cant live off chicken and brown rice!! Aiming at 30/30/40 pro/fat/carb split but its all reactive, ie I've eaten it, rather than proactive.
I can't run for toffee, but I do a lot of walking (hill walking and roads walking for charity). I completed three marathons in 5 weeks plus 5 half marathons last year. I am now training for a London to Brighton walk (100k ; 62.5 miles) in May. This will include three marathons, a half marathon and a 35-40 miles walk, plus numerous shorter walks. Any advice you can give on the right kind of nutrition, or supplementary exercises that would be appropriate would be most welcome. PS, wtf are glutes, quads and itb? I have not been anywhere near a gym since 1980!
Nice one Tom, thanks for putting the effort in to this thread- I'm in! I need to, i managed to save lots of money last year by not wearing out my bike leathers at all……….something akin to a sausage skin, if i put them on…… got through the summer in textiles - nice….. I have committed to two long term goals - a beach(ish) body for the summer and ski fit for next winter. I don't do running, i will be doing swimming twice weekly and cycling at weekends. I need to save my knees and back for my skiing career, which is going downhill fast.. err, going fast downhill.. err consists of crashing and sliding downhill …fast… you get the picture! done me 35 mins non stop swim tonight, been a few months since i was doing regular lengths- pretty inelegant, but got there. Just one thought, your original notes are silent on where/when one fits in the necessary recovery supplements at weekends - drams of Laphroig Quarter cask…..any ideas?
Can I be that devilish little fucker that pops up every now and then and tells you to stuff that dirty great cake in your pie hole ,in a Danny Dyer type voice. :biggrin:
I will take some pictures in the gym tonight of the stretches you should do so it'll be nice and clear. Your Illiotibial Band (itb) runs from your hip down the side of your leg down to your ankle. It's like a thick strap of leather, it's a real git to stretch but if you look after it you can avoid runners knee injuries. That's a pain down the outside of your knee, caused by your itb rubbing against the bone as your knee tips inwards on your forward step due to a weak arse and an unstable leg. It's a pig to get rid of once you have it. I'll also post up some nutrition notes. The first week will start on Monday! Be mentally ready
NUTRITION When you ask your body to perform physical work for you you need two things - stored energy and oxygen. You can't do anything about your ability to provide more oxygen in the short term, but you can control what you eat. Eating the right things at the right times will maximise your ability to achieve your training goals, whether it is to lose weight, gain size, get faster or just make it to the finish line. Just like each work out needs to be tailored to suit your training goals, so does your food intake. Without wanting to be patronising I will briefly cover the main food groups so everyone can follow what I am talking about. Carbohydrates: These are the foods which form the primary source of your energy (glycogen) that is stored in your muscles and used when you work. It is also the source of the white fat that makes you look over weight if you consume more calories than you need. (as opposed to brown fat which is highly valuable and is used by endurance athletes to provide long term energy - south pole treks etc) Eating high amounts of carbs will make you feel lethargic and sleepy. Examples of Carbohydrates: Rice, Bread, Potatoes, Pasta. Brown or wholegrain varieties are much better than white, processed varieties. Protien: Protein is the Lego which your body will use to repair itself and to grow. You need to eat high quality protein but you will more often than not get enough from a healthy balanced diet without having to resort to supplements, depending on your training goal. You can also use protein as a source of energy. You can only utilise a given amount of protein to build muscle each time you eat so eating 500g of protein will not make you bigger, faster or stronger then eating 32g of protein. Vegetables / Fruits: There is a huge variety of nutritional values in this section, but I will try and make it simple. Vegetable and fruits are in the main a good source of vitamins and fibre, but not very high in calories or protein. Dairy: Dairy is not necessarily bad for you. Milk is an excellent source of protein, fat and calcium. Again it depends on your training goals as it is also contains around 300calories per pint. The bad kind of dairy is the kind that contains lots and lots of sugar. Yoghurt, ice cream, milkshakes etc. GOOD FAT: You need fat in your diet, but you need to eat good fat. Fat from milk, nuts, oily fish etc are good. You can read more about fats here. Bad Stuff:BAD FAT and SUGAR: You can make a healthy food bad by cooking it in the wrong way. Try to avoid saturated fats such as those used in frying. Grill your meat or shallow fry in a healthy oil. Avoid foods high in fat and high in sugar. Chocolate, crisps, cakes, sweets, fizzy drinks, loads of sugar in your tea. If you want to read more about sugar you can go here. As you will see, some sugar is good and lots of sugar is bad. APPLYING YOUR NUTRITION KNOWLEDGE I will give a brief overview of how and when I would eat if I wanted to achieve different training goals. Losing weight. To lose weight you will need to burn more calories than you consume. The average adult male needs 2200 calories a day and females 2000. By exercising your body will need more calories than the average, so if you eat a healthy, balanced, calorie-average diet YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT. You do not need to cut out eating completely or skip meals. If you are missing meals or starving yourself as soon as you finish the diet, having lost a nice bit of weight, your body will immediately start storing all the calories it can from the food you eat as fat in order to prepare for the next time you starve it of food. If you are used to eating large meals and find it difficult to keep to a more calorie-average diet due to hunger then eat less, more often. For example, eat 6 times a day and split your meals. e.g. Breakfast at 7am and 10am, lunch at 12pm and 3pm, dinner at 6pm and 9pm. Don't eat more than you normally would, just eat half now, half later. I should point out though, that you will feel hunger. You are trying to get your body to use fat as fuel instead of the food you eat, so feeling hungry is normal and not an indicator that you should run to the fridge. Keep to your planned meal times and foods and your body will become used to the change in a very short space of time. Gaining Size If you want to grow you need to eat, eat, eat and then eat some more. Plenty of good carbohydrates and a steady intake of protein will see you make gains. You will feel lethargic from eating so many carbs, but luckily sleep is good for growth. Nobody gets big in the gym. They get big while they sleep, recovering from the gym. Don't forget to go to the gym though, or you will just get fat and will need to switch to the losing plan! Get to the finish line Nutrition is important at all times, especially when you know you have an event planned. The night before an endurance event eat big carbs. A huge pizza or lots of pasta will give you plenty of energy ready for the next day. Remember you are trying to give your body the energy it needs though out the event. This means that you should keep your energy supply topped up at all times. If you are going to eat breakfast at 7am and then travel to the event which starts at 10am, eat again before you arrive!!! If you don't, at the start of the event you are already 3 hours in to your energy supply for an event that may only last 2 hours! DRINK PLENTY OF WATER. You will need to replenish your fluid lost through sweat and keep the by-products of anaerobic reactions (lactic acid) in your muscles flushing away. Eat before you get hungry during the event. Anything is good. A sandwich, a cereal bar, just keep the food going in. Don't eat a sandwich all in one go, get a mouthful in every ten minutes or so. Try and break up the food you plan to consume during the event at a regular pace. I will give an example as this is a bit heavy in imperatives. In October 2012 I ran a marathon distance around a 500m perimeter in a small base in Afghanistan. It took a long time, 4hours 30 minutes but I got to the end and my body gave me what I asked of it. The night before the run I ate as heavy a meal as I could manage and drank lots of water, to the point where I woke up in the night to let some of it out. The morning of the run, I ate a big breakfast of porridge, lots of complex carbs to draw on during the event and carried on drinking lots of water. An hour before the run I ate a small meal of rice and 500ml of water. That was it until the start time. Because this was a run around a circuit I was lucky I didn't need to carry all of my food ad water with me, however I ensured there was a stash of cereal bars, water and electrolytic sachets I could access as I ran. During the run I drank every 15 minutes, at least a mouthful but not more than a few sips usually. I started eating after 30 minutes, just one half of a cereal bar every 30 minutes. I would run and chew at the same time, you will be surprised how quickly you get used to eating on the move. Every hour I would sip from a bottle of water that had a sachet added. Like a lucozade sports drink in the uk, the non-fizzy one, not the orange one. That was it. Keep the food and water going in at regular times and start BEFORE you get hungry and you will have the energy to keep going. I hope this has given you a brief overview on how to eat to your goals. If you have any specific questions please ask. Always drink lots of water
Good stuff... I would maybe add something re timing of your protein intake. ~30g of protein every ~3 hours works well for muscle growth. This can be a bit hard going/expensive, this is typically where whey supplements come in. Protien: Protein is the Lego which your body will use to repair itself and to grow. You need to eat high quality protein but you will more often than not get enough from a healthy balanced diet without having to resort to supplements, depending on your training goal. You can also use protein as a source of energy. You can only utilise a given amount of protein to build muscle each time you eat so eating 500g of protein will not make you bigger, faster or stronger then eating 32g of protein.
You're absolutely right about regular food intake but most people here have been talking about losing weight rather than gaining size, so I left the heavy detail out.
Tell you what Tommo I don't exercise , but today ( just finished one job now and heading to another) I have been clambering over a scaffold that isn't very safe , getting from one section to another , and man am I unsupple (if that's a word) , now I'm 48 with a very athletic build , slim , pretty toned for my age but put me back to stoneage times and I'd now be the guy at the back of the herd dragging my spear , the bloke who'd be given the ostrich egg if I was a Kalahari bushman. Anyhow maybe I should do something , after all I realise my lack of suppleness makes me as liability to myself when working on a scaffold or any other construction area. I should get fitter I amateur race my 999 every year, and every year at my age its harder. Reading your latest post above its obvious you know your onions (forgive the pun) and are very enthusiastic so I think it would be rude not to take a little bit (note little bit ) of that enthusiasm and see if I can make myself fitter for 2014. I wont follow your plan to the letter mate but will adapt portions to my own limitations. Those being ........ My back is quite bad , lower, and upper between shoulder blades , in fact so much so that sometimes the between the shoulder blades area problem can lead to such bad headaches I can almost be sick. Asthma , I still suffer from this from when I was a kid , although every time I go to the Doc to get a repeat prescription he gets me to exhale into a tube to measure lung performance and he says the capacity of my lungs is well above average. Knees , years of kneeling in the building trade on concrete floors have taken there toll. Time , this year is the year Im going to get my house finished (by the spring) to sell and renovate another. Motivation , that's going to be my biggest problem. So whats my goal , not too much ,just to get slightly fitter , more supple , and hopefully be able to flick the bike from one side to the other way more aggressive but in control than last year. I think for me the pushbike will be the way to go, with some on road off road training.
Peter, You would probably benefit the most from the kind of plan that Bradders is going to use. A circuit based all over body work out with a couple of days bike riding in between to burn fat and increase CV along with lots and lots of stretching. There is a phrase, I don't know if it is factually true but its good to make the point that 60% of fitness is flexibility. The idea being that if your body moves freely in the ways that you ask it to, then you don't need to fight it so much and you use less energy making it move. With a bit of conditioning through circuits, a little riding for cv and lots of stretching, you should be good in no time. If you PM your email address to me I will make you a program of your own that will better suit your goal than the fat losing one here.
As odd as this may appear. I started in March last year doing 10 press ups and 10 sit ups when i got up each morning. Not a lot you might think. But it helped me tone up my tum and arms. I am not overweight. 10.5st 5'8" but i am 48 and the belly put an inch on the waist. Combined with cutting out crisps and biscuits at home, i feel trimmer. I'm still no looker mind but at least I dont have to think about elasticated waists for a little while longer.
