How to balance different fitness activities

BodyTemple23 wrote: »

Hello Friends,

I'm trying to lose weight, so I work out 4-5 days/week for about 60-80 minutes. I also try to walk and get about 5K steps in. My morning routine also consists of yoga, breathwork, and meditation, which takes about 45-60 minutes. This is for mental health and not optional for me.

All three are important, but who has 3 hours a day to focus on health and wellness goals?

How do you balance different activities and not feel overwhelmed?

I did try ignoring getting steps in, but I realize, and it's also proven, that if you are sitting all day and working out in the evenings, which is the case with me, you don't burn fat. You should stay active throughout the day.

Any advice?

Do you have a cite for that research? That's counter to my understanding (from what I've read, from personal experience, and from some education).

Yes, it's better to be active during the day - short intervals is better than zero - from a health perspective.

But movement burns extra calories no matter when we do it, and if we're in a calorie deficit over a period of time, that energy shortage will be made up by burning stored body fat. The body fat may not burn during the exercise, but that doesn't really matter. Eventually, it's got to happen.

It's primarily exercise intensity that determines how much fat vs. glycogen is burned during the exercise. Loosely, relatively more fat at lower intensities, relatively more glycogen at higher intensities, as a percentage of the total calorie burn from the activity. But that's not all that important for weight loss: The total calorie expenditure is what matters. (Endurance athletes need to be concerned about the "fat burning zone" for purposes of planning fueling, so they don't hit the wall during a long competition or training session. Despite lots of buzz in the blogosphere, those concerned with weight loss don't need to worry much about the "fat burning zone".)

If your primary goal is weight loss, what matters most is the calorie deficit, not the timing of exercise. What exercise does in the short run for weight loss is let us eat more while losing at any given rate. (In the long run, fitness may make it more easy, fun and thus automatic to move more, possibly in subtle ways, so increase calorie expenditure. There's also a tiny contribution from having relatively more muscle mass, since a pound of muscle burns a tiny number of calories more per day at rest than a pound of fat burns. Yes, fat is metabolically active tissue.)

It's true that exercising shortly before bed can reduce sleep quality, perhaps more so for some people than others. Sleep is important to weight loss in various ways. It's good to be aware of that.

I'd suggest you budget your time according to the mainstream rule of thumb: Work your way up to a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity cardiovascular (CV) exercise per week (or 75 minutes of more intense exercise, or a proportionate combination); plus at least 2 days a week of strength training. More is fine, once it's manageable. Ideally, the CV exercise would be spread over at least 5 days of the week. (Walking counts as moderate CV exercise. We're not talking extremes here.)

Overdoing is counter-productive for weight loss. Among other things, that's because fatigue makes us drag through the day, burning fewer calories doing daily life stuff, effectively wiping out some of the exercise calories.

That's what makes it important to work up to that level of activity, especially if weight loss is the most important goal. (Overdoing is also counterproductive for fitness progress, but that's a little more complicated.)

What I usually suggest is to set a time budget for exercise: An amount of time you can devote while still maintaining good overall life balance, i.e., enough time and energy for job, home chores, family, social relationships, non-exercise hobbies, etc. Work up to spending that time budget on workouts, respecting current fitness level to keep it manageable (non-fatiguing). Ultimately, a mix of cardiovascular and strength exercise is ideal, but it's not essential to begin both at once if that will be an overload.

Over time, as a person gets fitter, that exercise time can be increasing in intensity, looking to always keep a manageable challenge on both cardiovascular and strength fronts. Loosely, if a person were a runner just as an example, that would mean running faster for the same amount of time, and lifting heavier weight for the same amount of time. Increasing the intensity as fitness improves (i.e., when the current intensity gets easy-ish) should be enough to create fitness progress.

There will be solid forms of strength exercise (for general health and good functioning) that take only 20-30 minutes 3 times a week (though obviously that won't get a person to bodybuilder physique). The cardiovascular exercise can be anything that's enjoyable (at least tolerable/practical) for the individual. If new to exercise, it's usually best to build base fitness with entirely moderate exercise, then add higher intensity a few months down the road. (Even elite athletes don't do high intensity exercise every single workout. It's a mix, with high intensity work more of a side dish than a main meal. There's no reason for us regular duffers to go all high intensity all the time. In fact, that's not optimal.)

A person with a sedentary job will need to exercise for best health and fitness. But weight loss can be accomplished purely on the eating side of the equation. I didn't add any material amount of exercise to lose from class 1 obese to a healthy weight. (I was already quite active while obese.) I lost weight fine just from managing my eating differently.

Furthermore, a lot of that exercise - during weight loss, and since in maintenance - happened in the evening, sometimes shortly before bed, because I'm almost regrettably nonfunctional until I've been up and moving around for a few hours. I burned calories from that exercise as expected, and lost (or maintained) weight as expected.

Realistically, I think we have to face the concept that we need to have priorities: We can't optimize every single thing we do, because time is limited. If the goal is weight loss, calorie management is the key thing. For health, nutrition and exercise enter the picture. We also have jobs, families, and other needs/obligations. We have to balance those priorities, and spend our time accordingly. I feel like you're trying to optimize. For good health and reasonable fitness, I guarantee it's not necessary to spend 3 hours a day, even including your required morning yoga/breathwork/meditation.

I fear you're overthinking this a bit, creating an unnecessarily high bar for yourself. That's really not necessary, and may not even be a good plan.

Best wishes!

BodyTemple23 wrote: »

Hello Friends,

I'm trying to lose weight, so I work out 4-5 days/week for about 60-80 minutes. I also try to walk and get about 5K steps in. My morning routine also consists of yoga, breathwork, and meditation, which takes about 45-60 minutes. This is for mental health and not optional for me.

All three are important, but who has 3 hours a day to focus on health and wellness goals?

How do you balance different activities and not feel overwhelmed?

I did try ignoring getting steps in, but I realize, and it's also proven, that if you are sitting all day and working out in the evenings, which is the case with me, you don't burn fat. You should stay active throughout the day.

Any advice?

If it's stressing you out, then it's not "working on your health and wellness." I think you're overdoing it, honestly. 45-60 minutes is a lot to designate to meditation/yoga. Honestly, I would cut that down to no more than 30. And 60-80 minutes of exercise 4-5 days a week... if your doing 4-5 days a week, I would cut that down to 30-45 minutes. That will make it much more manageable. And honestly, if you have to work out for over 45 minutes, you probably need to look at your time management with exercise. But that's my advice.

BodyTemple23 wrote: »

@kshama2001 @Retroguy2000 @AnnPT77 @sollyn23l2

Thank you, all. I appreciate your expert advice and comments.

I saw a video on this from an expert, a credible source, in which they researched how sitting all day, even if you exercise all day, hampers weight loss. I can't find it, unfortunately.

Either way, getting at least 5K steps in during the day doesn't hurt. I want to try doing that as much as I can. Right now, this one gets missed most days.

The morning yoga routine consists of 6 sets of Surya Namaskar (sun salutations) lasting 13 minutes. It's slow-paced and gentle. It's movement, but not cardio. The rest is breathwork and meditation.

The gym routine consists 3x spinning classes (45 minutes), 1 Zumba class (60 minutes), 2x strength training (45 minutes), and abs and stretching (25 minutes). It's not always consistent, but you get the idea.

Maybe look at stopping one if the classes? I definitely would keep up the weight training. But yeah, working full time, I couldn't keep that up either. Just something to think about. Health and weight loss doesn't have to take over your whole life. In fact, it shouldn't. Nor should it make life much more difficult or unpleasant. It doesn't need to. You will find a balance, I'm sure. Just look at what you want to maintain, prioritize it, and cut out the rest that just doesn't really do much for you. And if you're doing all the exercise to try and rip calories off your body, I would rethink that a little bit. It simplifies life a lot.

BodyTemple23 wrote: »

@kshama2001 @Retroguy2000 @AnnPT77 @sollyn23l2

Thank you, all. I appreciate your expert advice and comments.

I saw a video on this from an expert, a credible source, in which they researched how sitting all day, even if you exercise all day, hampers weight loss. I can't find it, unfortunately.

Either way, getting at least 5K steps in during the day doesn't hurt. I want to try doing that as much as I can. Right now, this one gets missed most days.

The morning yoga routine consists of 6 sets of Surya Namaskar (sun salutations) lasting 13 minutes. It's slow-paced and gentle. It's movement, but not cardio. The rest is breathwork and meditation.

The gym routine consists 3x spinning classes (45 minutes), 1 Zumba class (60 minutes), 2x strength training (45 minutes), and abs and stretching (25 minutes). It's not always consistent, but you get the idea.

Did you mean "exercise once per day" rather than "all day?"

I had the vague understanding "It's important to get up and move around periodically" without a sense of the science behind it. I was associating it with health, rather than weight loss.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/why-you-should-move-even-just-a-little-throughout-the-day#:~:text=Even if you dedicate at,the body's main energy source.

Why you should move — even just a little — throughout the day

Sitting for long, uninterrupted periods of time may leave you more prone to cardiovascular problems.

...How much time do you spend sitting each day? If you're like most people, more than half of your waking hours are spent parked on a chair or sofa. Even if you dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to structured exercise (such as brisk walking, cycling, or swimming), it's still important to get up and move for at least a few minutes, many times throughout the day.

"The more you sit, the more your large muscles are not using glucose, the body's main energy source. Uninterrupted sitting can cause blood sugar levels to rise, triggering the release of insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar," says Dr. Hicham Skali, a cardiologist with Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. Over time, sedentary habits cause the body to become less sensitive to insulin. The resulting insulin resistance promotes inflammation, a key player in the buildup of fatty plaque inside arteries, he explains.

sollyn23l2 wrote: »

BodyTemple23 wrote: »

Hello Friends,

I'm trying to lose weight, so I work out 4-5 days/week for about 60-80 minutes. I also try to walk and get about 5K steps in. My morning routine also consists of yoga, breathwork, and meditation, which takes about 45-60 minutes. This is for mental health and not optional for me.

All three are important, but who has 3 hours a day to focus on health and wellness goals?

How do you balance different activities and not feel overwhelmed?

I did try ignoring getting steps in, but I realize, and it's also proven, that if you are sitting all day and working out in the evenings, which is the case with me, you don't burn fat. You should stay active throughout the day.

Any advice?

If it's stressing you out, then it's not "working on your health and wellness." I think you're overdoing it, honestly. 45-60 minutes is a lot to designate to meditation/yoga. Honestly, I would cut that down to no more than 30. And 60-80 minutes of exercise 4-5 days a week... if your doing 4-5 days a week, I would cut that down to 30-45 minutes. That will make it much more manageable. And honestly, if you have to work out for over 45 minutes, you probably need to look at your time management with exercise. But that's my advice.

And I don't think 45-60 minutes is enough I need about 75 minutes of yoga before my mind is ready to settle into seated meditation.

That hasn't been part of my routine since I left the ashram 20 years ago. Fortunately, I find trail maintenance and gardening meditative, and that is easily accessible to me.