Diets & Weight Maintenance Support Group
Chat about how well your latest diet is -- or is not -- working. This group is a great place to find support and accountability as well as share success stories and valuable lessons with the community. From where to start to weekly weigh-ins, get help from others to reach your dieting and weight maintenance goals.
I don't know if there is anyone else in this group that has lost or is trying to lose 100+lbs. However, I am still thinking this is the best place to ask my questions. I could be wrong, but I hope some folks in here have some experience with exercise, weights, and training.
So the first part is sort of a personal struggle of mine. I have been having relatively smooth success with my weight loss but am beyond intimidated and scared of having a lot of leftover skin, one of the immense joys when you have a lot of weight to lose. Well, a friend of mine has lost close to 100 or maybe more, I am not positive, and she claims that because she did weight training/lifting that it prevented her from having any excess skin. She never had to have any surgeries or procedures done.
I wanna know if there is any sound base to this idea. I have tried researching it and haven't had much success with anything that says this is or usually is true. As a background premise, I am not against or scared of surgery... I just have been unemployed for 3 years now and have been without insurance so it's not a viable option if necessary down the road. I mean it obviously won't hurt so it's not whether to do it or not, but if someone else has been told this or it also worked for them I would have much better faith in it.
The second thing I am wondering about is how calorie burn differentiates between cardio and strength training. I have a Polar Ft4 heart monitor which I love during my aerobic/dance workouts cause it tells me based on height, weight, gender, age how many calories I burn. Now the other day I decided to start using some of the weight and strength training exercises I have found on pintrest, fitness.com, womenshealth.com, prevention.com, etc. This happened mainly because my VCR broke so I couldn't use my 1990s aerobics lol. So I tried it and of course because it was the first time and I was unorganized it didn't have seamless transitions, so I had to stop between to read the next one to do. Now I definitely felt it so I have confidence I wasn't doing anything wrong... but my calorie burn was much less then I would have liked. Is it normal for a strength session to be a lower burn then a cardio session? Mind you I can't afford a gym so I have a balance ball, a resistance band, and small 3lb hand weights for right now. I am thinking about trying to make up my own cross-training or interval workout to bring up my heart rate but it'll take a while still to even perfect that.
Basically I just want some opinions of experience, what helped others when it came to weights. Am I to expect a low calorie burn or do we think it was just this once cause I was sort of starting and stopping. Again, I want to maximize my potential because if this will be what helps me not have a crazy flying squirrel physique then I want to have as much information as possible.
Thanks for any and all advice!
So the first part is sort of a personal struggle of mine. I have been having relatively smooth success with my weight loss but am beyond intimidated and scared of having a lot of leftover skin, one of the immense joys when you have a lot of weight to lose. Well, a friend of mine has lost close to 100 or maybe more, I am not positive, and she claims that because she did weight training/lifting that it prevented her from having any excess skin. She never had to have any surgeries or procedures done.
I wanna know if there is any sound base to this idea. I have tried researching it and haven't had much success with anything that says this is or usually is true. As a background premise, I am not against or scared of surgery... I just have been unemployed for 3 years now and have been without insurance so it's not a viable option if necessary down the road. I mean it obviously won't hurt so it's not whether to do it or not, but if someone else has been told this or it also worked for them I would have much better faith in it.
The second thing I am wondering about is how calorie burn differentiates between cardio and strength training. I have a Polar Ft4 heart monitor which I love during my aerobic/dance workouts cause it tells me based on height, weight, gender, age how many calories I burn. Now the other day I decided to start using some of the weight and strength training exercises I have found on pintrest, fitness.com, womenshealth.com, prevention.com, etc. This happened mainly because my VCR broke so I couldn't use my 1990s aerobics lol. So I tried it and of course because it was the first time and I was unorganized it didn't have seamless transitions, so I had to stop between to read the next one to do. Now I definitely felt it so I have confidence I wasn't doing anything wrong... but my calorie burn was much less then I would have liked. Is it normal for a strength session to be a lower burn then a cardio session? Mind you I can't afford a gym so I have a balance ball, a resistance band, and small 3lb hand weights for right now. I am thinking about trying to make up my own cross-training or interval workout to bring up my heart rate but it'll take a while still to even perfect that.
Basically I just want some opinions of experience, what helped others when it came to weights. Am I to expect a low calorie burn or do we think it was just this once cause I was sort of starting and stopping. Again, I want to maximize my potential because if this will be what helps me not have a crazy flying squirrel physique then I want to have as much information as possible.
Thanks for any and all advice!
Second, with regard to exercise, I think strength training is great because it helps to boost your metabolism during the rest of the day. My favorite workout routines combine multiple movements (like a lunge and an arm press). Your body needs a lot of oxygen to support the complex movements so it makes it into a cardio workout while strength training. The workout has you do as many reps as you can during a set amount of time and then switch. When just getting started, your reps will be few and your transitions will be awkward, but your heart will be pumping the whole time for a great workout.
I needed to adjust my diet to be truly successful with my weightloss, but I think that working out 3 - 5 days a week during that time really helped a lot. My body was firm at my final weight instead of just being skinnier but still out of shape.
I guess I had a hard time getting into a flow... figuring out good beat music... the cardio tapes takes all the guess work out and you just do whatever they do lol. Plus I have a dance background so I catch it rather easy. (I have always been overweight/obese even when I took dance growing up - 15 years - so even out of shape it comes naturally to me) Some of the ones I do incorporate the resistance band or the hand weights so it has both.
I am turning 30 this year so I know I still have some elasticity to my skin, but the overall condition isn't that great since I am plagued with psoriasis - but I don't think that would make a real big difference in how it will respond while my body changes.
I take a multi-vitamin and an extra vitamin C (psoriasis = immunity deficient), but only when I remember... I am horrible with taking stuff or doing something everyday. Although, knock on wood, I have overall been very successful with getting up and working out before starting my day, and if I miss a day during the week I make up for it with a day on the weekend. I am also using coconut oil as a supplement for the psoriasis, which I stopped for a little while because I would go somewhere and forget and got lazy cause I figured it wasn't working, but just started up again cause I noticed it getting worse. Because my skin is so sensitive I only use cocoa butter cream for moisturizing (which isn't everyday) and I know that's good with stretch marks too. Part of the changes I made to my diet was to only drink water, besides my 2 cups of coffee in the morning, and I know that hydration is helpful for the skin too. So I am relatively confident that I am making the best choices I can with the resources I have... I guess I will have to just wait and see if my strength training will get better and my calorie burn goes up.
Thank you for your response!
My MIL took a health seminar, and I drove her there. Rather than drop her off, I sat in. The teacher did not mind at all. The class was small, and I did not ask a lot of questions so I was pretty unobtrusive. My point here is that you may be able to be a 'drop in' on a class offered to one of your friends. (You can even ask the friend to limp and walk with a crutch and claim that you are her driver!)
Look for free clinics.
Go to gyms and tell them you are investigating gyms and would like to sit in on a couple of their classes. All gyms I have ever looked into offer free trial periods!
As for weights, there are 3 basic styles of weight lifting or rather 3 different results you can get:
The first is bulking up and having huge muscles. This is achieved by lifting excessively heavy weights for very low reps and sets. Not many women like this!
The second is toning up, or going for endurance. This is achieved by lifting less weight but for more reps and more sets.
The final is for losing weight, and this is done by doing your reps and sets quickly, and quickly moving onto the next station where you quickly do your reps and sets. Did I mention doing all this quickly?
For me, I do weights to get endurance muscles (at 60 I don't need to bulk up), and treadmill for cardio.
Hope you find a program that works for you, and CONGRATS on that first 30 pounds!!!
I would think that any weight lifting would help combat sagging skin by helping to increase muscle tone. I wouldn't worry about not burning a lot of calories while doing the weight lifting. The benefits are so great that it is worth having some strength training in your exercise regime. I thought the conventional wisdom for regular folks (not bodybuilders or high performance athletes) are that we need to do both aerobic activity and strength training.
Like Pepperman said, congratulations on getting rid of the first 30. You are well on your way.