up my cardio?

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muffintopteri
muffintopteri Posts: 83
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm pretty new at everything...right now I do the cardio from Body For Life which is only 20 minutes on the treadmill. There are 4 cycles where you do a brisk walk for 4 minutes and then bump it to a jog for a minute and repeat with the last cycle pushing it hard for that last minute. I don't measure my heart rate and I wouldn't know what to do with the number if I did (!) but since I've been at the BFL program for 4 weeks and have seen no results I am wondering if I should up the time on the cardio. Any thoughts?

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  • AggieCass09
    AggieCass09 Posts: 1,867 Member
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    If you are feeling good with the 20 min, maybe just increase it to 25 minutes for a week and see how you feel :-)
  • EDBENAGLIO
    EDBENAGLIO Posts: 424
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    do you use a hrm or does your tm tellit to you
  • muffintopteri
    muffintopteri Posts: 83
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    25 sounds good for a start. Thank you. I need to get a heart rate monitor or just take my pulse halfway through because I really don't know. I just know I need to see results because I am getting disgusted!!
  • paniolo5
    paniolo5 Posts: 186 Member
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    Just catching up from the weekend so I just read this. It sounds like your exercise is good - intervals are a great way to get your heart rate up. I agree with others that maybe adding some time might help.

    If your food diary is accurate, you might want to look at a couple of things: 1) up your water intake (try for at least 8 glasses a day) and 2) re-evaluate some of your food choices. Based on your diary, your overall food choices are probably not doing you a whole lot of favors. You're under your daily intake (but it doesn't look like you're logging your exercise so you're actually under a lot more than you think) but what you're eating is may not the best choices. You've got some good things in there (oatmeal, some fruit) but some more small changes will probably help; if a bagel is easy, find one that's whole grain & only eat half but with a Tbsp of natural peanut butter. Otherwise you're just eating white flour carbs that don't do anything for you. Add some shredded carrots to your salad to get some additional veggies. Stir some chopped zucchini into your spaghetti sauce (trust me, you won't even know it's in there!). I don't know if you are a "picky" eater or don't like veggies or just need things that are easy, but if you experiment with just 1 thing a week, you may find lots of things that will work & make a difference on the scale. Think of your food choices as fuel for your body - you want to put in quality fuel so that you can be your best every day. In my mind, that's not to say that you can't indulge here & there, but over half your calories on one day was 800 calories of Panera coffee & treat.

    From my experience this time (and I've been on this up & down coaster all my life but I'm finally trying to do it right), when I really watch my diet, I see it on the scale & in my body & how I feel during the day. Case in point: I went on vacation a month ago & haven't done as well since (I have eaten cake, chocolate, etc.) and the scale is telling me so. I've still not dropped the entire 5 pounds I put on during vacation and it's been 3 weeks. When I am diligent, I can lose that in less than 2 weeks (it's been 4 wks since vaca). My point here is that it's just not overall calories that you should watch; your food choices definitely play a big part in successful weight loss.

    Hope that helps - I know you can do this!
  • muffintopteri
    muffintopteri Posts: 83
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    Paniola5 I can't thank you enough! I can't believe you would take so much time to help a stranger!! You are right of course. At Panera I usually don't get anything sweet and I get the lowest calories on the menu but I was drinking lots of iced coffee and the half and half was killing me I know. This weekend I went overboard with the free drink and yes the bagels! ahh. I used to eat my oatmeal without a bagel at all that is actually recent but it is the small things that add up. When I have a salad it usually does have lots of good veggies in it I just can never seem to find the right food in the food log to compare it to. I want to eat in such a way that I can eat like this for life and yeah I better get more serious. Thank you so much I thought I was doing so great and you helped me see that I DO need to make some changes. :flowerforyou:

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