Q&A session - live right now!

stroutman81

I'm trying something new here. I receive tons of questions on my wall and via private message here on MFP. I sometimes share these interactions on my blog so others can benefit from them. In the interest of reaching more people though, I thought it'd be cool to do a live Q&A right here on the board.

I have about 2 hours to spare. If nobody participates, so be it...

If you do have questions though, try to keep them general. Specific questions should be reserved for another thread or private message. "How much cardio do you typically suggest for fat loss?" would be a better question for this than "I'm 5'5, 35 years old, 175 lbs and just coming off my second pregnancy and train... blah blah blah."

Think of this more as a rapid fire round than anything else.

If questions aren't asked during this 2 hour window, I'll try my best to get to them later. However, I'd like to keep these blocks pretty rigid in order to give people incentive to participate. Scarcity drives action sometimes.

Best,

Steve

uclown2002

Nice one.

Can you do too much cardio?

I aim for 10 hrs a week, mainly cycling outside, but often go over, as somewhat addicted! I do however aim for 3000 calories per day on average as I'm in maintenance mode.

I just find it hard to have a day or 2 away from exercise.

mary659497

Can you sucessfully lose weight doing only the elliptical machine?

jayhawkfan51

What exercises do you recommend for toning inner thighs and abdomen?

allgoodthings

I'm a 41-year-old woman and I've started lifting 2 days a week. What do you recommend for a good full-body circuit?

aj_31

What would you tell a woman who wants to lose a lot of fat in her belly area? Is it better to do more cardio now and then focus on lifting later or a mix of both?

jesz124

Can you give me the numbers that will be drawn in the Euro millions tonight?

shelbyfrootcake

What would you consider the optimal work out routine over a week for fat loss and generalised health improvement?

shelbyfrootcake

Can you give me the numbers that will be drawn in the Euro millions tonight?

And can I have them for next Friday please?

shelbyweeeee

Do you have any experience with women who have Diastasis Recti, and what transverse abdominal exercises to do to help close the gap?

stroutman81

Nice one.

Can you do too much cardio?

I aim for 10 hrs a week, mainly cycling outside, but often go over, as somewhat addicted! I do however aim for 3000 calories per day on average as I'm in maintenance mode.

I just find it hard to have a day or 2 away from exercise.

I find that many women, especially of the leaner segment, tend to do too much cardio. The problem? When paired with the low calorie intakes that these women are on (by default given their size) and their high strung mindsets when it comes to food and exercise.... things in the fat loss department tend to go wonky.

I can't pinpoint exactly what's going on, and obviously the energy balance equation always wins out eventually, but that doesn't mean this isn't a real phenomenon and it's likely to do with something pertaining to stress overload, bloating, and hormones.

I'm not the first coach to see this in this population.

Truth be told... I find the most success in this population by minimizing cardio.

Obviously things are a bit different for other populations and regardless of where you are along the spectrum of fatness/leanness... mileage varies from person to person.

Sick_Beard

Can you sucessfully lose weight doing only the elliptical machine?

Depends on the diet, a calorie deficit determines whether or not you will lose weight

What exercises do you recommend for toning inner thighs and abdomen?

Squats will work legs, glutes, abs....you can throw in some planking and ab crunches as well

I'm a 41-year-old woman and I've started lifting 2 days a week. What do you recommend for a good full-body circuit?

One which is balanced, meaning for every push there must be a pull....both horizontal as vertical. This is to ensure you are building your body proportionally.

What would you tell a woman who wants to lose a lot of fat in her belly area? Is it better to do more cardio now and then focus on lifting later or a mix of both?

Patience and staying in a caloric deficit will result in a lower body fat given your protein intake is optimal and you exercise...you can't spot reduce fat so focus on getting your nutrition on par and then adopt a full body workout

Can you give me the numbers that will be drawn in the Euro millions tonight?

12 24 46 1 33 ......

stroutman81

Can you sucessfully lose weight doing only the elliptical machine?

The fundamental underlying principle to weight loss is an energy deficit. If you're burning more calories than you're eating over appreciable lengths of time... you will lose weight.

So if the energy expended doing the elliptical helps keep you in a deficit, than yes... it'll help you successfully lose weight.

There are some caveats though.

1) This shouldn't be solely about weight loss. You should also be concerned about health, functionality, and, most importantly to most, physique. These things are optimized with a more balanced approach. One that typically entails some strength training too.

2) General cardio training isn't very efficient per unit of time. Meaning, it's impossible to expend a huge amount of calories relative to the amount you can consume in the same or lesser amount of time. That's why each year you see articles hit the mainstream claiming "exercise doesn't work for fat loss." Silly claim obviously... but these articles do have a point.

It's a catch 22. The people who have the capacities to burn the most calories via exercise are the ones who don't need it. But that's sort of beyond the scope here.

Long story short. The answer to your question is yes. But I think you should also be factoring some other things into the picture.

stroutman81

What exercises do you recommend for toning inner thighs and abdomen?

Let me be very clear. You can't flex fat.

Read that a few times and let it sink in.

Fat and muscle are very separate tissues. Subcutaneous fat lays directly below your skin. It resides between your skin and your muscles. And because these are separate tissues, you can flex the muscles under this fat until you're blue in the face, but that's not going to do a thing for the fat that's on top of said muscles.

Which is why there's no such thing as spot reduction. I know everyone supposedly understands this... but hearing it and believing it are worlds apart. I know people who will repeat this same thing day in and day out about the impossibility of spot reduction, yet, I'll see them banging away on endless exercises to target their problem areas.

That wouldn't be a problem if their problem areas were problems due to a lack of muscle. But that's typically not the case. They're problem areas typically due to excess fat.

And fat is and always will be lost in a pattern that's genetically predetermined.

Now, maybe by now you're at a point where you're thinking, "shut up, Steve. What I meant to ask is what are the best exercises for the muscles of the abdomen and inner thigh." If that's the case, I'm not married to any one exercise for either region.

I tend to stick mostly with stability exercises for abs but I'll throw in some flexion exercises as well. My list of go tos include plank and side plank variations, stir the pots on a stability ball, pallof presses, rollout variations, dragon flags, cable crunches, and for the beginner I'll resort to introductory Sahrmann abdominal exercises (google if you're not familiar).

I'm not a fan of isolating the inner thigh muscles. I prefer compound movements involving knee flexion/extension and or hip flexion/extension. Go tos include barbell squats, goblet squats, leg presses, forward lunges, lateral lunges, reverse lunges, barbell hip thrusts, glute ham raises, romanian deadlifts, conventional deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, rack pulls, rear foot elevated split squats, etc.

britneygail3

How many calories should I be eating? My BMR is 1600 at rest, I am doing Insanity 5 days a week. Was at 1290, per MFP but hit a plateau... heard I was in 'negative calories'.

krisiepoo

What is the best way to fuel a long run? I generally have an english muffin or whole wheat bagel with PB prior to running but if I'm out for 2+ hours I feel I need fuel during the run as well. What is best for this and how often (I read so many conflicting things)

ps, I run slow so my 12.5 miler tomorrow will take me approx 2.5 hours.

Thanks

stroutman81

I'm a 41-year-old woman and I've started lifting 2 days a week. What do you recommend for a good full-body circuit?

One that:

1) focuses on compound lifts

2) focuses on moving more weight as time goes on

3) hits at least one movement from each of the following categories - squat variation, hip hinge variation, pressing, pulling.

4) emphasizes your entire body, which should be obvious from point 3

That's pretty general, but that's sort of the point... there are many ways to skin this cat. How I'd specifically structure it to your given situation depends on things like your weight/fat level, your goals, your experience, your equipment availability, your current and past injury status, your anthropometry, etc.

But put it this way. In most situations, I could simply do something like (examples in parentheses):

Day 1:

Squat (barbell squat, leg press, goblet squat)
Single Leg Hip Hinge (single leg glute bridge, single leg DB romanian deadlift, single leg leg curl)
Horizontal Pull (cable row, chest supported rows, bent over rows, inverted rows)
Vertical Press (standing overhead presses, arnolds, push presses)
Core

Day 2:

Hip Hinge (conventional deadlift, barbell hip thrust, glute ham raise, romanian deadlift)
Single Leg Squat (RFESS, step-ups, reverse lunge)
Vertical Pull (pull-ups, chins, pulldowns)
Horizontal Press (bench press variations, pushup variations, floor presses, dips)
Core

stroutman81

What would you tell a woman who wants to lose a lot of fat in her belly area? Is it better to do more cardio now and then focus on lifting later or a mix of both?

I'd tell her to read my post above about "flexing fat" and not being able to spot reduce. I'd also tell her to stop focusing on where the fat is stored, chalk that up to genetics. Rather I'd have her focus on a balanced approach to exercise that likely included SOME conditioning work and SOME resistance training.

I'd educate her to understand that resistance training, in most cases, should be prioritized over conditioning.

Yup, that's right.

I'd also help her understand that when it comes to fat loss, nutrition is the primary driver to success.

stroutman81

Can you give me the numbers that will be drawn in the Euro millions tonight?

Yes.

DexterDarko

What's the best time to weigh yourself?

stroutman81

What would you consider the optimal work out routine over a week for fat loss and generalised health improvement?

2-4 days of strength training
lots of walking/hiking
a few days of mixed intensity conditioning

stroutman81

Do you have any experience with women who have Diastasis Recti, and what transverse abdominal exercises to do to help close the gap?

I'm sorry.... I do not. I know of the condition but I've not researched it. I would be interested in knowing if exercises can actually improve the issue. I would guess not to any appreciable degree... but guesses aren't worth much.

jayhawkfan51

What exercises do you recommend for toning inner thighs and abdomen?

Let me be very clear. You can't flex fat.

Read that a few times and let it sink in.

Fat and muscle are very separate tissues. Subcutaneous fat lays directly below your skin. It resides between your skin and your muscles. And because these are separate tissues, you can flex the muscles under this fat until you're blue in the face, but that's not going to do a thing for the fat that's on top of said muscles.

Which is why there's no such thing as spot reduction. I know everyone supposedly understands this... but hearing it and believing it are worlds apart. I know people who will repeat this same thing day in and day out about the impossibility of spot reduction, yet, I'll see them banging away on endless exercises to target their problem areas.

That wouldn't be a problem if their problem areas were problems due to a lack of muscle. But that's typically not the case. They're problem areas typically due to excess fat.

And fat is and always will be lost in a pattern that's genetically predetermined.

Now, maybe by now you're at a point where you're thinking, "shut up, Steve. What I meant to ask is what are the best exercises for the muscles of the abdomen and inner thigh." If that's the case, I'm not married to any one exercise for either region.

I tend to stick mostly with stability exercises for abs but I'll throw in some flexion exercises as well. My list of go tos include plank and side plank variations, stir the pots on a stability ball, pallof presses, rollout variations, dragon flags, cable crunches, and for the beginner I'll resort to introductory Sahrmann abdominal exercises (google if you're not familiar).

I'm not a fan of isolating the inner thigh muscles. I prefer compound movements involving knee flexion/extension and or hip flexion/extension. Go tos include barbell squats, goblet squats, leg presses, forward lunges, lateral lunges, reverse lunges, barbell hip thrusts, glute ham raises, romanian deadlifts, conventional deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, rack pulls, rear foot elevated split squats, etc.

Ok so maybe I should have said tone up loose skin. But thanks for the exercises, never even heard of some of them. Assuming those same ones should help with skin issues too?

stroutman81

How many calories should I be eating? My BMR is 1600 at rest, I am doing Insanity 5 days a week. Was at 1290, per MFP but hit a plateau... heard I was in 'negative calories'.

The number of calories that allows you to lose a sane amount of weight each week (ON AVERAGE) over longer periods of time.

Stop focusing on a particular number and start focusing on the process of trying a particular intake while keeping other things constant, being consistent with that for a number of weeks (2-4), and adjusting according to what's happening. If you're losing too quickly, bring calories up. If you're losing too slowly, drop them down slightly. Rinse. Repeat.

I find that many people who claim to be eating really low calories and stalling out in the fat loss department are, in fact, eating far more calories than they believe.

In the other rare cases where they are eating in big deficits without success, first step is usually full blood panels to rule out any hormonal issues. Second step, depending on the findings of the blood work, would be to bring cals up to maintenance for 1-2 weeks, relax on the exercise, and then start again using sane parameters and the process outlined above.

HeatherHoskins

Hi,

i was watching tv last night and heard a nutrionist say that you should always eat fruit with a protein like cottage cheese. Is this true?? it is "bad" to eat fruit by itself?

stroutman81

One which is balanced, meaning for every push there must be a pull....both horizontal as vertical. This is to ensure you are building your body proportionally.

It's worth mentioning that with many of my clients I wind up doing more pulling than pressing. People's backside muscles tend to be weak/underactive and people's front side muscles tend to be short/overactive.

Thanks for your answers in the Q&A though.

shelbyfrootcake

I have no idea what mixed intensity conditioning as I am an exercise n00b; could you please elaborate for me?

CannibalisticVegetarian

Not sure how silly this sounds, but I'll ask anyway.

I know that swimming is fantastic cardio work, but could it also be used for strength training? Like on days when you can't get to the weight rack due to crowds, could you get the same results merely by swimming a couple of laps in an Olympic sized swimming pool?

deanna_bond

Everyone is telling me I should stop cardio and just lift I dont how that is going to lose weight. Im 220lbs 5'9" everytime seems like I keep the excercise up i gain even more

aj_31

What would you tell a woman who wants to lose a lot of fat in her belly area? Is it better to do more cardio now and then focus on lifting later or a mix of both?

I'd tell her to read my post above about "flexing fat" and not being able to spot reduce. I'd also tell her to stop focusing on where the fat is stored, chalk that up to genetics. Rather I'd have her focus on a balanced approach to exercise that likely included SOME conditioning work and SOME resistance training.

I'd educate her to understand that resistance training, in most cases, should be prioritized over conditioning.

Yup, that's right.

I'd also help her understand that when it comes to fat loss, nutrition is the primary driver to success.

Thanks Steve. I guess I've just hit a point of total frustration with myself and my progress. I'm having such a hard time getting back on track 100%. All I can focus on is the fat I have to lose and how I'm not losing it. I think my mind is working against me to a point. I need to get back into it mentally.

stroutman81

What is the best way to fuel a long run? I generally have an english muffin or whole wheat bagel with PB prior to running but if I'm out for 2+ hours I feel I need fuel during the run as well. What is best for this and how often (I read so many conflicting things)

ps, I run slow so my 12.5 miler tomorrow will take me approx 2.5 hours.

Thanks

I think you read so many conflicting things because there's a lot of individuality at play here. Honestly, without diving in the the technical side of the literature, my best suggestion would be to experiment with different carb loads and see where you're feeling the best.

Hopefully your running for competition training or for the love and not because you believe it's the way to get the body you're after. A lot of people think they need to run to get in shape when in reality most need to get in shape to run.