What to add to my routine for better weight loss?

annsummers20

I've been doing walking and weekend hikes for the past year and I'm down from 178 to 162 lbs (goal is 145). The weight loss has been steady but I feel like it's slowing down and I want to add something more to my routine.

My current routine is walking to work when weather allows and longer hikes on weekends in Gatineau Park. I have a gym membership but mostly use the treadmill and elliptical. Work schedule can be unpredictable so I need something I can fit into 30-45 minutes.

What would you add to boost weight loss? More cardio variety? Different types of workouts? I'm open to suggestions!

Alatariel75

There's a hundred answers to this question, and "whatever you will enjoy" is my favourite, but I'm much like you, I was walking a lot and hiking, and then I also started running, and now I've mixed them all together and have started trail running. It's challenging and I just love it. It combines some of my favourite hikes with the cardio from running, and running on trails requires more dexterity. It's also bled into my gym workouts, because now I'm starting to focus on some strength workouts which will support my knees, and build my stamina for longer trail runs.

Retroguy2000

Have you lowered calories? About 10% lower bw means lower maintenance calories. You should run the MFP setup again to reset your target calories to your new bw.

Lifting weights is good for body comp and other things, but won't burn many calories.

I'd say check your calorie intake, and just carry on what you're doing. You'll get diminishing returns from doing lots more cardio, and higher return from consuming a bit less.

gvverma

start doing two to three cycle of "seven minute workout". youtube "seven minute workout."

AnnPT77

Personal take: Faster weight loss isn't necessarily better weight loss. Easier weight loss, and longer-term weight management (loss followed by happy nearly-autopilot maintenance) are better weight loss. It's a little different mindset from "faster".

Beyond that, if you're focused on "faster": Well, I like rowing. Boats. 😉 Machines if I have to.

Running, cycling and swimming also have pretty good per-minute calorie burn, but it's counter-productive for either of weight loss or fitness improvement to overdo exercise, so build up gradually if you want to go that route. A common rule of thumb is no more than about 10% increase in total load per week, where "total load" is some rough combination of duration, frequency, intensity and type of exercise.

Why can it be counter-productive to overdo? Fatigue makes us drag through the day, resting more, doing less, bleeding calorie burn out of our non-exercise time. Non-exercise activity is a bigger number of calories for most people than exercise is. On the fitness front, overdoing implies under-recovery, and recovery - the times between exercise stimulus - is where the magic happens, our bodies rebuilding better than before.

If you can add exercise and still have good overall life balance, then sure, do that. By "good life balance", I mean enough time and energy for job, family, home chores, non-exercise hobbies, and anything else important to you.

Cutting calorie intake, as suggested above, is more direct for most people. I can not-eat 200 calories in an instant. 😆 It'll probably take half an hour or more to burn that many calories via exercise.

Another option, one that can potential take less time out of the day, is to intentionally increase daily life activity, i.e. non-exercise activity, a.k.a. NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Doing so can be surprisingly helpful. Many MFP-ers share their ideas about that in this thread:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss

Since routine habits are a power tool for weight loss and maintenance, increasing daily life movement - making movement more of a habit - can be a good thing to practice during loss, so it's just habitual when we reach maintenance.

Best wishes!

rsccore

I did a mix of walking, inclined walking, and HIIT, and did appreciablly speed up the weight loss. But I was also getting into shape and mending my knees, so there was more motivation than just "faster" loss. While HIIT does burn a lot of calories, it was neck and neck with my inclined (12%) walking and the inclined walking was less stressful and I could do it every day, while HIIT I only did 2 to 3 days a week. All that being said, the most valuable take away from the whole experience was a routine of walking and inclined walking that became part of my life long after the diet. I still do HIIT a couple days a week for the conditioning, but the "fix" to this was walking and inclined walking. And of course 2 or 3 days of resistance training.

But as the other poster stated, it is the ROUTINE that you are after and that the routine adds sufficient calories to your day going forward. If you get to that point during the diet, your rate of loss will be fast enough.

But directly to your question, a simply rule is vigorous = twice as fast as moderate. 30 minutes of vigorous will generally leave you drenched with sweat and breathing hard. Moderate would be brisk walking or most resistance training, while vigorous would be jogging, high inclined walking, running, rowing, biking (10 mph+), etc.

Given your circumstances, the best bang for the buck for a free 30 minutes would be that inclined treadmill at the gym that you have access to. I get about 300 calories in 30 minutes at 12%. But you should still be focused on developing a reliable routine for the long term. Given that you are dropping 30 lbs or so, you would be looking at 45 minutes to 60 minutes of brisk walking, or 30 minutes of something vigorous, or a mix. Such as start your mornings with 20 minutes of vigorous, and just walk more during the day (after lunch or after dinner).

annsummers20

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48664214#Comment_48664214

I haven't updated my MFP settings since I started, so my calorie target is probably still set for 178 lbs. That makes so much sense, no wonder the deficit feels smaller now. I'll run through the setup again tonight. Thanks for the reality check on the lifting too. I keep thinking I need to add more and more exercise, but you're right that the calorie side is probably more straightforward to adjust.

annsummers20

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48664310#Comment_48664310

I admit, I definitely get caught up in wanting faster results sometimes, especially when I see other people's progress posts. But you're right, the "easier" approach has been working for me over the past year and a half, and I don't feel miserable or like I'm white-knuckling through it.

My work actually gives me lots of opportunities for this, like I could take stairs instead of elevators during court visits, park further away during home visits, or even pace while I'm on phone calls with clients. Those little bits throughout the day could really add up without requiring me to carve out more gym time when my schedule gets crazy.

The life balance point really resonates too. Between the emotional demands of child welfare work and everything else, I need to make sure I'm not burning myself out with too much exercise on top of everything else. I'll be sure to check out that NEAT thread, thanks!

annsummers20

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48663858#Comment_48663858

Trail running is something that I haven't tried. I'm already so familiar with the Gatineau Park trails from hiking, so that would be a perfect next step. I love that it combines the outdoor time I already enjoy with more cardio intensity. Plus it would definitely fit into my 30-45 minute windows better than driving to the gym.

I'm actually working on couch to 5K right now (one of my goals for this year), so maybe I could start transitioning some of those runs to trails once I build up more running endurance. The idea of mixing hiking and running together sounds so much more appealing than just doing more treadmill time. Thanks for the inspiration!

annsummers20

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48668563#Comment_48668563

I like your approach of mixing moderate and vigorous too. Maybe I could do inclined treadmill 2-3 times a week and keep my regular walks and weekend hikes as the foundation. That way I'm not completely changing everything that's been working, just adding some intensity. My biggest challenge has been finding things I can stick with through Ottawa winters and my unpredictable work schedule in child welfare.

Thanks for breaking down the moderate vs vigorous, that 300 calories in 30 minutes at 12% incline sounds like great bang for the buck.

annsummers20

Thanks everyone for your insightful comments and suggestions, I will take it everything to heart🤗. I'm so hyped for my new routine!

age_is_just_a_number

The old saying ‘muscle burns fat’. It isn’t wrong but isn’t completely true either.
having said that, if you add some resistance training, you’ll maintain and potentially gain some muscle.

DesertDuck68

Hauled myself down from 100+ Kg to maintaining 75-76kg, which is where I want to be @ 5' 10.5" / 179cm.

When I was in the initial calorie deficit/hard cardio "cutting" phase several years ago now, remember hitting plateaus at every 5kg mark. For example finally got down to 85kg, and then stalled out there. So my usual brainfart thinking was "more is better", so I got even more brutal with the daily calorie deficits and kept up the vigorous running/biking sessions every day to enhance the process. About 3 maybe 4 days of being stalled out at 85, the needle FINALLY dropped below it. Hooray! This happened at every 5kg mark along the way from 100 to 75kg.

What I read from various fitness/dietary folks, Dr. Mike on Youtube, etc., was our bodies will/may react to hard cutting and cardio output by trying to preserve its fat stores…… like hardwired into our caveman brain for self-preservation in lean times. I'm no expert, just stuff I read/picked up along the way, and a lot of trial and error.

Oh, and adding some light weight lifting to your program, will indirectly enhance the weight/fat loss and have other benefits. That's what I did after a while, and still do now in Maintenance Mode, balancing the dietary intake to not get fat again, with cardio and weight lifting. Not body building trying to be Arnold or anything. Just build and maintain muscle mass to enhance the fit and trim appearance, as well as upsides for agility/mobility/strength as I slip and slide into my 60s here in a few years. 😮😄