How Important Is Exercise For Weight Loss?

[bp7178]

This is something that I’ve always struggled with. As a teenager one summer of running and weights and i went from being the fatkid to pretty lean and muscular. I rode that for a while and after grad school i quit working out, ate like crap, and one morning I looked in the mirror and i was 6’3” and 350lb. I joined the gym, cleaned up my diet, cut back in booze, started running as a way to meet people in a new city, and next think I knew i was a lean looking 225 at the end if my first marathon. Being single and living alone it was easy to control my diet. A couple years later, I crossed the finish line of my first Ironman at 245... suddenly i wasn’t living alone, I had to eat around someone else schedule, and with training 28 hr a week and working full time. I ate garbage to keep moving and ate formal sit down meals at home... now, 7 years later. With a family, I’m not in control of my meal schedule, or workout schedule. And I’m 295... even though I did my 14th half Ironman last weekend. The lessons I’ve learned are.

1 it’s time to get serious about diet. And I need to get my wife on board.
2 running is good for me. Long triathlons are not. Running mentally helps me to control my diet. I comeback from a long run tired and nauseous. My body tells me to eat light and sleep. Swimming, I feel great but am voraciously hungry. Amd grab anything I can find. My wife is a snacker, and buys things I never trusted myself to have in the house. Cycling is neutral. I’m not starving. But not burning the same calories.
3 all day activity is great for weight loss. Example, surfing. It’s not a huge caloric burn. But I’m not eating on a surf board. And it’s fun so keeps me going. Hiking is bad, because my wife packs snacks.

Dude. This post is epic.

You can't count on getting the wife to join. You HAVE to find a way to make it work with or without her involvement. This is a new dynamic I'm trying to figure out in real time as well. I have a feeling your gal and mine are a lot a like. She's lucky and naturally very lean. I wish my struggle was to add muscle. I feel I'm at the opposite. I feel my genetics stray me toward being skinny fat or just fat, as evidenced by others in my family. She, on the other hand, can pound pizza.

I like long slow runs for mental health, as they give me a sense of calm. But, for weight loss, intervals are where its at. The ideal interval length is 3:00-5:00. This will hurt some people's feelings that think they can run hard for :30 and count it as an interval. It takes much longer than that for your HR to even elevate to a point where you are training near your max. When the average person's HR crosses 120 BPM, they will feel very exerted. This isn't ideal for interval or VO2 max training, which calls for much more.

Easy pace training is good for mental health, but intervals are where its at for weight loss. They are HARD workouts. It sucks. Consider doing 4x 800m at your 5k race pace. If you're on a treadmill add 1.0 incline. When I was 30, that would have been an off day. At near 41, by the 4th interval, its hard w HR in the mid 170s. 800m or 1200m are ideal interval lengths for running. 200m are good for form drills, 400m to a lesser extent, but the exertion at time is key. It takes a bit to build up your HR.

Its about you. You cannot depend on the actions of others. You have to make it work in your situation.