Q&A for: 29-Jul-05
253. Q:
weight loss excercises?
A:
Best way to lose fat (not just weight!) is to strain your muscles through weighttraining and then letting them recover. That recovery process is your best friend in losing fat. The more muscles are recovering, the greater the extent of fat loss. So best fat loss exercises are massive whole-body movements like the squat, the lunger, and the deadlift among others. You can find all of them here.
However remember that merely doing exercises, even good ones, once in awhile won't get you very far. You need to follow a comprehensive nutrition and exercise programs to keep you on track for a sustained long-term fat loss. Please read this article to find what programs you should be following. It will take time, but the results will be more than worth it!
254. Q:
how can i 20 pounds in 5 day or less and get rid of the man boobs
A:
The most FAT you can lose in 5 days is ONE pound. Maybe TWO if you don't mind losing some muscle along with that. But that's it. There's no way no how you can trick your body into losing 20 pounds of FAT, no matter what diet you follow and what pills you take. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
So what about all those diets that claim to make you lose 10-20-30 pounds in a week or two? What actually happens is you lose 1-2 pounds of actual fat, a bunch of water weight (water is retained in your system by carbs/glucose and is flushed out when you go on a starvation-type diet) and a bunch of muscle mass (because your body will prefer to use muscle rather than fat for energy under starvation conditions). Water weight comes back as you go back to your regular routine and it should come back since you don't want to be facing constant dehydration. Muscle mass does NOT come back which means you're that much more weak, your metabolism is that much lower, and you will accumulate new fat that much more easily!
Hopefully now those lose-20-pounds fast diets don't sound so appealing. They lose you just as much fat as you can lose through any moderate healthy diet (such as the ones described on this site) and actually lose LESS fat than you could lose through a good diet + exercise program. On top of that, they endanger your health, burn a bunch of your precious muscle, and leave you much more vulnerable to future fat gains. There is absolutely nothing good that can be said about these diets, except that they will temporarily set your scale back a few pounds. Those pounds and more will come back quickly and with a vengeance.
Instead of looking for quick fixes, you should educate yourself about good nutrition and exercise and start on a healthy, sustainable, long-term fat loss program. Please read this article and the other articles it refers. The sooner you commit yourself to doing the right thing, the faster your true fat and weight loss will start. Good luck!
255. Q:
hey mike i am on a 5 day diet but i need to know how lose weight in that tim period
A:
Please read Q&A #254
256. Q:
Mike, thank u for ALL the useful info on ure site.....What can i do besides eating 4-6 times a day and weight training to increase my metabolism?? ( which is quite slow and im trying to lose 30pounds of fat)
A:
By far the two biggest metabolism boosters are Exercise (preferably whole-body weight-training, but at least some cardio) and Proper Nutrition (eating the right foods, eating small amounts of them, and eating them often). Everything else is relative peanuts as far as boosting metabolism and some methods are of questionable safety. You could drink more coffee and use more spices in your foods, but don't do it if caffeine has negative effects on you (or if you have high blood pressure) or if spices don't agree with you. Really, proper exercise and proper nutrition are what you should focus on and not get bogged thinking about other things. It will take some time to rev your metabolism up, but think how long it took you to gain all that extra weight in the first place! Waiting a couple of months before your new program starts showing results shouldn't seem so bad then!
257. Q:
What does calorie deficit mean? How does it affect the body when exercising?
A:
Calorie or caloric deficit is just a fancy way of saying that you're eating fewer calories than you're burning every day. This means that you are losing weight as your body uses up internal fat reserves and muscle mass for energy. In almost all cases, your goal while under caloric deficit is to structure your diet and your exercise programs in such a way as to maximize the use of fat for energy and minimize the use of muscle for energy. This way you'll spare the most muscle and burn the most fat. How to structure your diet and exercise programs this way is what this site is all about! Check out the Article section if you haven't done so already.
258. Q:
How does the body process work when exercising to burn or lose things? (ex. First, it burns something... then after it's burned that, then it burns something else... etc)... (what is the last thing the body burns?)
A:
It's not quite that simple. Your body is an incredibly complex machine and in order to talk about it we are forced to use simplifications like 'your body is now burning fat for energy'. The truth is that in the billions of cells throughout your body, there's ALWAYS some fat-burning, some muscle-burning, some fat-storage, and some muscle-building going on in different places.
Whether your goal is to lose extra fat or build more muscle, what you'll be attempting to do is to influence all these processes in such a way that the most fat is burnt and the most muscle is preserved or built. In order to do this you need to recognize when your body is more predisposed towards which of those processes. The rough rules are:
- When body is under caloric deficit (losing weight), it will start off burning primarily fat and will turn to burning more muscle as the caloric deficit increases.
- When body is under long-duration aerobic physical stress (i.e. cardio), it will do largely the same as under caloric deficit, but it will be more conservative in burning muscle.
- When body is under intense anaerobic physical stress (i.e. weight training), it will do largely the same as under aerobic stress, though it will be significantly more conservative at burning muscle.
- When your body is experiencing caloric excess (overeating and gaining weight), it will primarily deposit extra calories into fat reserves. Very little may go towards building new muscle, depending on age, physical condition, exact diet, etc.
- When your body is experiencing caloric excess and intense anaerobic stress, it will distribute extra calories between fat reserves and building muscle. The distribution will depend on age, physical condition, exact diet, type of program followed, etc.
Again, these are oversimplifications, but they're useful for trying to figure out how to manipulate your diet and exercise to achieve your goals.
259. Q:
How would you lose bulky leg muscles the fastest?
A:
I, of course, haven't seen you, but chances are very high that what you think is bulky leg muscle is actually mostly fat. Very few people who haven't weight-trained (and this includes women) actually have so much muscle mass in their upper legs that it gives them bulky appearence. For most what is perceived as muscle bulk is actually fat. Test it by poking your upper leg while flexing it -- you should be able to tell very easily by how jiggly and soft the tissue is. Muscle tissue should be quite hard.
If you determined that it's really mostly fat that you have there (which I suspect is the case), then you need to lose fat overall in order to lose it in your upper legs. Please read this to learn the most effective way of losing fat.
If you found that it really is muscle mass that's making your legs look bulky and you are certain that you want to lose it, then the best bet is to go on a calorie-deficit diet while NOT exercising lower body (either weights or cardio). Any diet will make you lose muscle and a badly constructed one will make you lose a lot of muscle :) I do NOT recommend doing it, even if you're sure that your bulky legs are due to too much muscle simply because losing a lot of muscle will almost inevitably lead to more fat gain in the long run and worse situation than you when you started. But it's your choice ultimately. Just be REALLY REALLY sure that it's muscle and not fat that's causing your problem and be prepared for some fat gain when you finish with your diet.
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