Q&A for: 1-Jul-06
1644. Q:
ok i used to be really fat i got a lil skinnier but i still got like man boobns how do i lose them ?
A:
Good job losing extra fat! 'Man boobs' are just excess fat. If you're a teenage guy, then having them to some degree is normal and they should diminish by the time you're 18 or so. Otherwise the way to lose them is to lose more fat. The thing you have to understand is that it's impossible to lose ONLY 'man boob' fat or ONLY belly fat -- instead all you can do is lose fat overall and let your body decide where that fat comes from. Usually it'll result in small fat losses from all over, but some trouble spots like chest and stomach may hang on to more fat than other areas.
There are many different ways to lose weight and fat but they're not all equal. While simply eating little and running a lot is a good start and will let you make fast progress for awhile, it usually results in weight loss stopping after a few weeks and often ends in all that weight fat coming back. In order to make sure you lose all the fat you want and keep it off afterwards, you need to have a solid nutrition and training program and lose weight slowly (about one pound per week or even slower). Please read this article to learn the best way to go about losing the remaining fat and those 'man boobs'. Good luck!
1645. Q:
hi mike i want to lose weight and im wondering if eating papaya is good as a fruit because some fruits are really high on carbo.
A:
Papaya, like most raw fruits, is a great health food and most definitely can be a part of your diet, even when trying to lose fat! You're correct that it's high in carbs and sugars, so you can't eat in unlimited amounts. But one cup or so of papaya cubes is only about 50 calories and can certainly be part of your breakfast or another meal during the first half of the day. As usual, try to keep your evening meals lower on carbs -- mostly salads and other vegetable-based meals -- so don't eat papaya in the evenings. But it's perfectly fine in moderate amounts in the first half of the day.
1646. Q:
My mum is middle aged and leads an active lifestyle - hence she she has no weight of major health pronlems, but could do with some muscle strengthing. have you got any suggestions - like a lot of people she doesn't want to spend hours in a gym. is it possible to do say an hour of muscle stengthing exercises without spending more than say an hour a week - is it necessary to spend a couple of hours several times a week? sports are very good for exercise because you have fun so you do't realise your exercising - the problem is every sport i think of apart from maybe climbing are aerobic only.
A:
Certainly, even just one hour per week spent weightlifting would greatly improve your mom's strength and have other positive effects (including strengthening her bones and reducing the risk of osteoporosis). If she doesn't mind doing exercises, then you can have her do any of my full-body programs even just once a week: beginner no-equipment program, intermediate dumbbell program, or full-blown gym weight training program.
If doing formal workouts is not an option, then sports can certainly give many of the same benefits, along with a cardio kick. Many sports actually incorporate unaerobic elements, especially for the lower body, along with aerobic (sprinting or high-jumping are unaerobic, for example) and they will provide many of the benefits of weight training. And, as you mentioned, climbing is an excellent legs, back, and arms strength builder.
The best thing for her is to simply choose a sport she will play and enjoy since most of them have some unaerobic elements and even traditionally aerobic sports can be turned unaerobic by sprinting. So for example, instead of or in addition to plain long-distance running, she can do 50-200 yard sprints which are unaerobic. The same can be true for swimming, biking, and rollerblading -- simply do sprints instead of steady long-distance pace to add the unaerobic element. Many other sports naturally have unaerobic elements, including soccer, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, racquetball, basketball, and of course rock climbing. Hope that gives you some ideas.
1647. Q:
Is losing two pounds a week healthy? SAme person 15, 230 lbs, 5'10, male
A:
That's near the upper limit of healthy weight loss pace. I would recommend losing slower than that. At 15 you're probably not done growing in height and fast weight-loss can jeopardize your growth.
1648. Q:
Mike, i need some help in deciding what i should do.. im 16 and have been bulking for several months now. im not fat, in fact i dont have much fat at all except in my stomach a little bit.. mainly my lower 2 abs.. if i suck in i look fine but like if im sitting down or something it looks kind of bad. also my bottom 2 abs dont have much muscle or something, because if i suck in while sitting down everything goes in, but my bottom 2 abs stick out still. now, if i stand up and push my stomach with my fingers i can feel the muscle and a little fat. so should i start cutting, or just bulk with cardio.. right now im just bulking and lifting. should i add like 10 minutes of cardio at the end of every workout and see how that goes?
A:
Decision whether to bulk or cut should only be made by you yourself -- it's your body after all. But it certainly doesn't sound like you have almost any fat to cut, so if I were you I wouldn't cut at this point.
As far as your stomach sticking out when you are sitting down, that's completely normal and would happen even if you had very very low body fat. The reason it happens is because naturally we slump forward a bit when we sit down which squeezes the stomach so it has no room to go but jut out forward. If you sit down perfectly straight, maintaining a strong arch in your lower back (same as if you were standing up straight) then your stomach wouldn't stick out -- it's just that sitting like that is not easy and tiring after awhile.
1649. Q:
I just had my body fat percentage measured at my gym. The readout gave a percentage of 6.4. The only problem is that I cannot see my abs very well. I spoke to a trainer at my gym and he suggested that I may not be able to see my abs because they are just not very big. Is this possible? I thought that body fat under 10% for men would show your abs. If it truely is the case that my abs just are not that big, how can I make them bigger?
A:
I would be cautious about the accuracy of that body fat percentage measure -- 6.4% is VERY low and I can pretty much guarantee that you should be able to see your abs clearly, no matter their size, if you're really at 6.4% body fat. My guess is that your body fat is a bit higher, which is why you can't see the full six-pack. If this measure was done using a bioimpedance device (such as body fat scale or handheld), then that's still more reason to suspect its accuracy. Can you get another trainer to measure you using body fat calipers?
As far as increasing your ab size, it's not much different from gaining any other muscles. You can simply do more ab exercises (mainly crunches of various sorts plus leg raises). With ab exercises you can do higher reps than with most other exercises, so sets of 20 and even more reps to failure are fine. Doing core exercises like squats and deadlifts also develops abdominal muscles. Finally, as with any other muscle, the easiest way to increase its size is to bulk up and gain some weight. Just keep in mind that additional weight is almost certainly going to add new fat as well which will make your six-pack even harder to see, at least temporarily until you cut the fat back down.
But again, my guess is that it's not the size of the abs that's the problem, but the accuracy of the body fat measurement.
1650. Q:
I have noticed that when I run outside after about fifteen minutes i start to feel a little weak and shaky. What could this be from. I am a 23 yr. old male, I have a very good diet and do other forms of cardio like the eliptical. I don't get that weak feeling as often on the eliptical. I suspect that is because running outside is more intense. I don't have any health problems, and I am in pretty good shape. I work train six days a week ( 3 cardio 4 weight training). It makes me feel like I am not in good shape or something. Have you had any experience with this?
A:
You're probably right about the intensity. My guess is that you tend to run faster outside, pushing yourself harder than when you are working on the elliptical in the gym. It's also possible that outside you're running up a slight incline some of the time, which would also increase intensity without you realizing it. Finally, it could be that the air quality outside where you live may be poor which would make it tougher on your cardivascular system. It's not unusual for urban areas to have poorer air quality outdoors than indoors.
1651. Q:
Hi Mike! I heard something the other day and wanted to ask you if it was true. I was told that when cutting after a bulk, it is good to do more cardio at a less intense pace. As to burn fat while preserving muscle. Could you shed some light on whether or not this is true? Thanks
A:
Generally, I don't think the difference in intensity of cardio will have much impact on how much fat vs. muscle is burned (with the exception of all-out unaerobic sprint efforts which aren't really 'cardio' at all). What matters, for the most part, is total distance covered. However higher intensity exercise has more of a chance to boost metabolism, so I usually recommend doing cardio at fast tempo. At the same time, if you are following a whole-body weight training program, you want the cardio to be supplementary and not the core of your program, so you don't want to absolutely exhaust yourself doing hours of intense cardio. So my recommendation is to keep cardio brisk but not necessarily to exhaustion and not exceed 2-3 hours per week max.
|
