excercise

[Snakepit]

I really want to lose inches, not neccessarly weight.

Trouble is I hate aerobic excercise, I have asthma so that worries me and tbh I'm just too lazy to jump around for an hour!

I don't mind toning exercises however, sit ups, press ups, leg raises etc so can I still lose weight/inches by doing these excercises alone every night or do you need to do the aerobic too? (p.s I do alot of walking and swim once a week).

[nailpolish]

you need to do aerobic stuff im afraid. you need to get your heartrate up up up to lose the fat

[bogwobbit]

Isn't swimming an aerobic exercise if you do it hard/fast enough. Maybe you could just increase the number of times you swim and swim fast enough to make yourself breathless.

[nailpolish]

walking and swimming is fine, but you have to walk/swim fast enough to get your heartrate up (if you are in your 30s it has to be about 130 of course depends on your weight and fitness too obviously, dont quote me on that)

you ahve to be breathless and red-faced

[TootyFrooty]

Up the swimming to 3x a week, make your walks power walks and you'll soon notice the difference.

[nailpolish]

oh tooty! ive been using it at the gym!

[TootyFrooty]

Are you enjoying it? I already have my trusty old concept 2 rower which I've had for 10 years and thought the power plates might compliment it quite well. And shift the rapidly approaching signs of ageing.

[nailpolish]

its great fun. at the gym they have a huge wall chart which i suspect just comes with the machine

i have used it for 2 purposes ;

after a good run on the treadmill i lie down on the floor and put the backs of legs (ie calves) on the machine and set it to soft massage (ahhhh massages the calves - lovely!)

and ive set it to higher a couple of times to tone thighs, arms etc

it was a bit embarrassing at first, but lots of folks in the gym use it

[RGPargy]

I've got a great Billy Blanks TaeBo DVD. I know you said you are too lazy to jump around for an hour, well problem solved. This work out is only about 25 minutes long but it is enough to get your heart rate up etc. It's over so fast that you dont realise you've been exercising for that long. I cant remember exactly now (DVD is packed away in a box ready for house move next week) but i think there are varying degrees of intensity on the DVD and i know that he has brought out more advanced DVDs after this one too.

Why not hire it from the library to see if you like it?

[speedymama]

If you get Taebo Everybody Get Ripped or Energise, Billy Blank does an 8 minute workout that will burn fat.

Also Keli Roberts Kick box bootcamp is divided into 10 minute slots. The Fat blast section is very good and if you do that coupled with the leg workout (so twenty minutes in total) you will have a good workout.

They have been reviewed on on this thread

[TootyFrooty]

I would love to get back into nice long runs but my achilles is so dodgy I can't do more than about 30 mins. Perhaps the power plate will help strenthen my achilles.

[nailpolish]

you could try BodyPump

thats not jumping around

[nailpolish]

theres a great position for a shoulder massage, Tooty, and you can increase it to tone arms etc

[TootyFrooty]

Hurry up John Lewis! I want to play on my new toy.

[nailpolish]

and the great thing about having it at home, Tooty, is you can use it in your pyjamas!

[TootyFrooty]

Exactly - without anyone watching me a make a fool of myself!

[OrmIrian]

snakepit - don't worry about the athsma. If you normally managed to control it with medication you'll be fine to exercise. Just take the salbutamol inhaler with you. I've had athsma since I was a child and it's never stopped me. Sometimes I get wheezy if I've forgotten the steroid inhaler for a while or if the weather is very dry, but a quick blast of salbutamol sorts it out.

Exercise can only do it good long term.

[Saker]

You can lose weight by lifting weights and I would recommend you do that in addition to aerobic exercise particularly if you want to maintain/build what muscle you have. However you will need to work up to quite intense sessions and you need weights not just lifting legs etc . I would recommend one or two weights sessions a week and two or three shortish aerobic (30-45min). To be honest even more effective would be some interval sessions - ie where you go into anaerobic respiration for short bursts but they are not always much fun.

If you haven't exercised much at all recently probably any sort of exercise will help you lose weight to start with but when the loss starts to plateau off then I would recommend the above.