abarber's transformation thread

[abarber]

Booya, kyleb. Booya.

[Jbrochu]

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If there's one thing I've learned, it's that diet>>>exercise when it comes to losing weight.

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The only thing that matters for losing weight in the short term is creating a caloric deficit. You can do this by changing your diet or exercising or a combination of both. In my opinion, a healthy diet and aerobic exercise are both equally important if your goal is to maintain a healthy weight long term as it's difficult to achieve long term success with only one approach.

Also, a quick note on your aerobic exercise plan: I'm not familiar with this HITT system but while doing things like sprints are good and will burn calories and improve your anaerobic capacity, you should also try to work in several long aerobic sessions at an easy pace each week.

Exercises like lifting weights and running sprints stress your body and can lead to overtraining. Adding long easy aerobic sessions into your plan helps your body recover from the stresses of "power" type exercises. This will reduce the chances of experiencing overtraining injuries.

[mattnxtc]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that diet>>>exercise when it comes to losing weight.

[/ QUOTE ]


The only thing that matters for losing weight in the short term is creating a caloric deficit. You can do this by changing your diet or exercising or a combination of both. In my opinion, a healthy diet and aerobic exercise are both equally important if your goal is to maintain a healthy weight long term as it's difficult to achieve long term success with only one approach.

Also, a quick note on your aerobic exercise plan: I'm not familiar with this HITT system but while doing things like sprints are good and will burn calories and improve your anaerobic capacity, you should also try to work in several long aerobic sessions at an easy pace each week.

Exercises like lifting weights and running sprints stress your body and can lead to overtraining. Adding long easy aerobic sessions into your plan helps your body recover from the stresses of "power" type exercises. This will reduce the chances of experiencing overtraining injuries.

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Dont listen to most of this

[fitnessfreak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that diet>>>exercise when it comes to losing weight.

[/ QUOTE ]


The only thing that matters for losing weight in the short term is creating a caloric deficit. You can do this by changing your diet or exercising or a combination of both. In my opinion, a healthy diet and aerobic exercise are both equally important if your goal is to maintain a healthy weight long term as it's difficult to achieve long term success with only one approach.

Also, a quick note on your aerobic exercise plan: I'm not familiar with this HITT system but while doing things like sprints are good and will burn calories and improve your anaerobic capacity, you should also try to work in several long aerobic sessions at an easy pace each week.

Exercises like lifting weights and running sprints stress your body and can lead to overtraining. Adding long easy aerobic sessions into your plan helps your body recover from the stresses of "power" type exercises. This will reduce the chances of experiencing overtraining injuries.

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Dont listen to most of this

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why not? Jbrochu pretty much nailed it on the head imho. id be interested to hear what you disagree with (thats serious interest, not me trying to be argumentative)

[thirddan]

i think most of was jbrochu said is fine...just note that the long steady state cardio should probably be very low intensity, like going for a walk in the morning, this will burn a few calories, but also aid in recovery...what most people should avoid is the moderate intensity steady state cardio that most people do in the gym (sit on a bike for an hour or elliptical) this is catabolic and increases cortisol which will hinder any goal you are seeking w/ regards to body comp...

[Jbrochu]

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i think most of was jbrochu said is fine...just note that the long steady state cardio should probably be very low intensity, like going for a walk in the morning, this will burn a few calories, but also aid in recovery...what most people should avoid is the moderate intensity steady state cardio that most people do in the gym (sit on a bike for an hour or elliptical) this is catabolic and increases cortisol which will hinder any goal you are seeking w/ regards to body comp...

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I thought his goal was to lose weight and get in shape. It wasn't clear to me that he was trying to be a body builder. It's difficult to lose a lot of weight without sacrificing some muscle mass along the way.

I just googled HITT and I see it's basically a fancy term for interval training. I stand by what I said about incorporating GAET (general aerobic endurance training) into any training program that includes power training (such as lifting and interval training) in order to help your body recover between hard training sessions. This is important to your long-term health even if it sacrifices some muscle mass.

[mattnxtc]

Guess Ill add reasons why:

Diet is going to be far more important in weight loss and maintainence in the short and long run. Generally all that is necessary is to simply adjust yoru diet to fit your aerobic activities. Simply put..with a good diet you can offset poor workout habits (in terms of workout and/or frequency), but you will struggle to offset a bad diet with working out even if you are working out optimally.

I think thirddan put it very good on the issue of cardio. I will point out that some top trainers do like doing some easy long steady state cardio (Berardi did it with David Tate), but for quicker weight loss, HIIT is superior in terms of minimizng weight loss.

Overtraining while not a myth...is a lot harder to achieve than most people think. The average person probably wont ever reach that level though. HIIT/sprint workouts are used (1-2 times a week) to get into a fat burning state (mind blanked on the technical term) while reducing muscle loss...thats why your workouts end up being super short (10-15 minutes if your an animal). But you will see that in that short period of time that you are burning more calories than someone doing a steady state workout.

I dont disagree that there are times that you should add in some steady state cardio as I said above. I probably have 1-2 days of light-moderate easy cardio, but doing compound exercises/HIIT is far more beneficial than just running.

I would be that if you went out and focused on squatting and deadlifting with some HIIT (on a bike no less) that you could go out in a couple weeks and drop off significant time off any run you did.

[lozen]

I think both of you are right. His sprinting is a great idea. But his best results will come from mixing it up. Maybe one day run %km or 30 minutes on a elyptiocal and the next wind sprints. Two of us here are using biking as our Cardio but we mix it up. Myself I have three routes and will add a 4th soon. They key is to mix it up it also helps keep your workouts fresh

[Thremp]

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They key is to mix it up it also helps keep your workouts fresh

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What does this mean? Do you mean fresh like they will stay interesting? Or do you mean that my workouts will go stale like a condom in the center console of my car in long term parking in Tuscon? Or what about day old bread fresh... I mean its not fresh fresh... But it isn't bad.

Aerobic exercise isn't bad. I don't think I could have a problem with anyone who wanted to get a sub 20 5k time. But it really isn't what people need to be doing for longterm fitness. Less time > More time and you can achieve on a weekly basis the same caloric deficit with HIIT as opposed to logging a ton of miles. As far as ancillary health benefits. HIIT is lower impact. But by far the may thing for keeping off weight is learning some [censored] self control. You will be able to eat again. In most people could probably eat several hours from then. They just gorge themselves and then rinse and repeat while living sedentary lives.

[mattnxtc]

When doing these long runs...you arent looking to break any personal best...its more about just getting out there in a nice low intensity recover type slow jog. Your goal is to not wear yuor legs out.