Help

hoodlisa1979 wrote: »

cmriverside wrote: »

Well six pounds of weight loss in the first week is pretty normal. So is no-loss for the next few weeks.

Just do the next right thing. The weight will come off.

As far as HR while on beta blockers, I'd discuss that with a physical therapist or your doctor. I was on propranolol for years, but I don't understand what you mean by, "progress," in exercise?

Sorry by progress I mean fat loss through exercise as I've read something about not being in the fat burning zone until my HR is over 119bpm

I'm going to go a little technical on this point: Any movement burns calories. Even being flat on your back in bed just being alive burns calories. If you have a normal life (job, chores, etc.), that burns more calories. If you add intentional movement-for-its-own-sake (which some people call "exercise" ), that burns more calories.

Like Tom said, get your calorie intake from food/drink below your calorie burn - no matter what combination of the above is doing the burning - and you'll lose weight. It's simple physics. Even if you're motionless in a coma, there's some calorie level at which you'd lose weight (but it would be a pretty low one, probably 1000 to 1900 or so calories, depending on body size and composition - less than 1000 would be rare among adults, really tiny people mostly).

So, what is the "fat burning zone"? It's a real thing, but the blogosphere and tabloids and even some trainers completely misunderstand what it actually is, and give us dumb advice as a result. I'm going to oversimplify, but here's the basic situation IMU:

When someone is completely still - sleeping or in that coma - they're burning mostly fat. They're not burning very many calories (i.e., few calories per minute), but it's mostly calories from fat.

As that person starts moving more, they burn increasingly more calories per minute, and eventually the body's ability to turn fat into fuel limits use of fat for immediate energy, so it uses increasing amounts of what amount to carbohydrates/sugars (in various forms in the body) as a percentage of that calorie burn. The more intense the exercise, the more calories burned per minute, and the higher percent of those calories that will be carb-sourced, loosely speaking.

It's a gradual ramp-up of the percentage of calories that come from carb-equivalents, as exercise gets more intense, not an on/off switch. Super loosely speaking, the "fat burning zone" is approximately where the crossover happens, for most people, from more than half the calories coming from fat in the moment, to more than half coming from carb-y stuff in the moment.

Conclusion: The "fat burning zone" isn't really about weight loss at all: It's about what fuel the body is using in the moment, at the time of the exercise.

Do intense enough exercise long enough, the body will run low on available carbohydrate-type fuel, and defend itself from overdoing, through fatigue or (at an extreme) something called "hitting the wall", or "bonking" among other terms. Most of us will never feel that, so let's ignore that for now.

Looping back: It's eating fewer calories than we burn overall that leads to fat loss. For that overall result, it doesn't much matter how or when we burn those calories. If we eat less than we burn, the body is going to turn to stored fat at some point as an energy source. Why should we care when it happens - during sleep, during exercise, while watching The Bachelor, whatever - as long as it does happen?

The implication: There's no need for us regular duffers to worry about the fat burning zone. Long-endurance athletes need to worry about it, in order to have reasonable fuel during their marathon run or whatever, so they don't hit the wall. (That's why most of them eat sugary things on long runs - quick energy to avoid bonking.)

So, if the "fat burning zone" is pretty irrelevant for weight loss, how do we plan exercise during weight loss?

Well, for one, exercise is more for health than weight loss. We can lose weight even without any exercise at all.

But if we do exercise during weight loss, one of two nice things can possibly happen: We can either not eat back the exercise calories and lose weight a little faster (as long as we're not trying to lose weight too fast, which would be dumb), or we can eat a little more while losing at the same rate (which is nice, because food is tasty).

Further, if we do strength exercise while losing weight - even though strength exercise burns relatively few calories as we do it - we can keep more of our muscle mass while losing fat. That's loosely because the strength exercise reminds our bodies that we like and want those muscles, so it should keep them.

Since muscle is relatively slow and effortful to build, we want to keep what we have, right? And - though many people don't realize it - fat/obese people typically have more muscle mass than similarly-active always-thin people, just from moving our heavy bodies through the world every minute of every day. Keep it!

So, here's what I think, just my opinion: The sweet spot for calorie burn during weight loss is a thing that's very individual, and we need to figure it out.

How?

First, set a time budget for the amount of exercise you can fit into your life (ideally permanently) while maintaining good life balance (enough time and energy for job, family, chores, hobbies, anything else important to you).

Next, fit some strength exercise into your time budget - it needn't be lots, probably less than half an hour 2-3 times a week unless you want it to be more (and you can start slower with less if kind of out of shape at the start).

If there's still exercise time in your budget, fill it with the intensity, duration and frequency of cardiovascular exercise that will leave you energized for the rest of your day/week, not dragging through the rest of life. (A very few minutes of "whew" feeling right after the exercise is OK.)

Pick a reasonably fun (or at least tolerable) exercise, because things we like doing are more likely to happen, realistically. Pick something that's convenient, too, not some thing at a gym way over on the other side of town where you never go. Same deal, that makes it more likely to happen.

What intensity, duration and frequency you should do will depend on your current fitness level. Here again, it's fine to start by using less of your time budget, if necessary because of low starting fitness.

If you're a little more fit at the start, and can fill your budget with more-intense cardiovascular exercise, allow a little time at the start of the workout to warm up (slow pace of whatever you're doing), and a little time at the end for cool down (slow pace of the exercise, and/or a little stretching-type stuff).

This is an investment in long-term health, not a forced march to an end date. You're shooting for a small, manageable challenge from your total exercise plan. That's the right balance for maximizing exercise calorie contribution to weight loss, IMO. Too much, and fatigue will make you rest more and bleed calories out of the rest of your day. Too little, and you won't make fitness progress (and you'll have fewer calories in play from exercise).

As you gradually get more fit, whatever you're doing will get easier to do. When that happens, increase the frequency, intensity, duration or type of exercise to keep that manageable challenge in the picture. You'll be surprised what you accomplish in a few weeks to months. That's how fitness happens.

TL;DR: Pretty much only endurance athletes need to worry about "fat burning zone", not us regular people. For weight loss, just think about total calories burn vs. total calorie intake. Get some strength exercise to keep what muscle you have. For fitness and health, plan fun exercise that gradually increases in intensity, duration, frequency or type to continuously keep a manageable bit of challenge in the picture. Don't work to exhaustion, because that's counterproductive.

Just my understanding and opinions (and rant ).

Best wishes!