I'm new and need help

JLPadron86

Hi, my name is Jessica and I just turned 31 on the 14th. I have 4 kids. They are 9, 7, 15 months and 3 months. I'm the biggest I have ever been. I have been with my current boyfriend for almost 7 years. I want to be more fit and active as a family. I have a couple of questions.

1. Why does my fitness pal add more available calories when you add exercise? It just seems counter productive to eat more it's like that calories you burned are wasted if you eat that same amount more in food.
2. I want to start working out. I just don't how much how often? My main problem areas are my stomach, thighs and arms. How many times a week should I aim to workout and for how long? Should I have certain days to target certain parts of my body?

Starting weight 215
height 5'5"
goal weight 140-145

tinkerbellang83

1. It's not counter-productive the calorie allowance given already includes your deficit, so if you do more exercise you eat more (you need to fuel your work outs) failing to do so can put you in too large a deficit and can cause health problems. See below the way it is calculated. You should look at exercise for health, not weight loss, a calorie deficit is all you need for weight loss.

2. You can't spot reduce fat so there is no way of specifically making your stomach, thighs and arms smaller. What you can do is do some form of strength training whilst you're losing weight, because as you lose weight you can lose muscle as well as fat and strength training can help prevent losing muscle, you don't need to do split days (work on different parts different days), you can do full body workouts. It's up to you how often you want to do it. There are some great free strength training workouts on Youtube that you can do at home without any equipment of just with some dumbells, check out HASFIT and The Body Coach TV.

JLPadron86

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

1. It's not counter-productive the calorie allowance given already includes your deficit, so if you do more exercise you eat more (you need to fuel your work outs) failing to do so can put you in too large a deficit and can cause health problems. See below the way it is calculated. You should look at exercise for health, not weight loss, a calorie deficit is all you need for weight loss.

2. You can't spot reduce fat so there is no way of specifically making your stomach, thighs and arms smaller. What you can do is do some form of strength training whilst you're losing weight, because as you lose weight you can lose muscle as well as fat and strength training can help prevent losing muscle, you don't need to do split days (work on different parts different days), you can do full body workouts. It's up to you how often you want to do it. There are some great free strength training workouts on Youtube that you can do at home without any equipment of just with some dumbells, check out HASFIT and The Body Coach TV.

Thank You.