5:2 Exercise & Fitness Thread Number 2: Advice and information for those following 5:2 / IF (Intermittent Fasting)

[BigChocFrenzy]

Why Exercise ?

Maintaining a normal bodyweight and taking regular exercise are 2 major areas of life which we can address to improve our health.

Regular exercise helps reduce the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, some cancers, osteoporosis, dementia, depression.

Increasing your % muscle and / or reducing your % body fat lowers the risk of death from all causes LowerRiskMuscle

Regular exercisers gain the greatest benefits over their lifetime and theyj can minimise biological aging, i.e. "Bend the Aging Curve BendAge

Fasted training

i.e. training on FDs, seems to increase the benefits of both training and IF.
Most experienced exercisers soon manage fasted training without loss of performance for session of up to 90 mins.

Hormesis

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"
Hormesis Mattson , BlackSwan and Hormesis is cutting edge science for nutrition and fitness.

Its principles are that alternating between "extremes" of feast and fast (5:2 / IF) or intense training and rest (HIIT), makes the body more resilient.

The intermittent stress of lifting an extreme weight or performing at high speed for a short period pushes the body to overcompensate and prepare for an even greater future challenge HormesisTrain , Hormesis-Edge , and AntiFragile The following recovery period avoids damage from over-stressing.

INEFFICIENT: Low-Medium Intensity Steady state Cardio

Steady state cardio is NOT necessary for fitness and should only be a small part of your weekly cardio, unless it is all you can manage to do.

Walking outdoors is beneficial psychologically, is easy on the knee joints and has some physical benefits.

However, at speeds of 5mph or faster, running will burn more calories per mile than walking Ref

Also low-moderate or steady state exercise tends to increase appetite, whereas intense exercise can suppress appetite for up to 15 hours.

BEST TYPES of Exercise

HIIT cardio and resistance training / weight lifting are recommended to boost the effect of 5:2/IF, to increase weight loss, reduce body fat, retain muscle and maintain TDEE / BMR.

Anyone who is not specialising in a sport at a high level should aim to do both HIIT cardio and lifting / resistance training.

FAST Exercise

Dr Mosely developed a Fast Exercise program to complement his 5:2 WOE FastExercise

He lists many HIIT and strength routines that only take a few minutes, but can make significantly improve metabolism and fat-burning capability FastExercises

HOW to Exercise

The cardio machines and the girlie pink dumbbells that gyms push are NOT adequate to significantly improve fitness or burn fat.

Whether you join a gym or train at home or in the park:

• Train as intensively as your time, health and fitness level allow.
• Do not remain in your comfort zone, or you will not improve.
• You are supposed to drip sweat and pant heavily !

However, a brisk 30 mins daily walk plus 5 mins hoop is better than nothing and if done regularly will bring some health benefits.

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)

HIIT is an exercise strategy which alternates brief intervals of high intensity exercise with less-intense recovery periods.
Examples:

• 20 seconds high intensity + 10 secs recovery
• 60 sec high + 30 sec low etc.

HIIT is very time-efficient, producing the greatest fitness benefit in the least time (the advantage of hormesis).

Scientists have proved that HIIT burns more fat than steady state lower intensity exercise and speeds up the metabolism, which helps burn more calories for up to 48 hrs.

HIIT also improves the insulin metabolism, which is very important for health.

HIIT reduces risk of heart problems more than doing lower intensity SteadyState , pp. 31-34.

HIIT increases both aerobic and anaerobic endurance

HIIT can be applied to cardio: e.g. cycling, running, skipping, jumping, mountain climbs or to bodyweight exercises, e.g. squatting, situps, burpees, pressups

Most gyms offer HIIT classes, e.g. spinning, circuit training, CrossFit, Tabata, Fartlek*(Fartlek = HIIT with irregular intervals)

RESISTANCE Training / LIFTING

Helps retain muscle mass during weight loss and hence to maintain TDEE.
You can lift at home, or in the gym weights area, or in a pump class.

It is best not to train the same muscle groups 2 days in succession, so have rest days, or cardio, or train different muscle groups on different days.
Try to build up to weight training for 30-60 mins twice per week.

Reps = the number of repetitions in a set of a particular lifting exercise
Sets are normally separated by brief rests E.g. you might do 3 sets each of 12 reps all of the same exercise.

WARNING
Do not lift massively heavy barbells, more than bodyweight, unless you are really fit with good technique.
Women who have given birth and / or are aged 40+ have a higher risk of pelvic floor / prolapse injuries when lifting heavy than young non-mums.

Press ups

• By far the best upper body exercise
• Keep attempting one full pressup rather than doing several dozen girlie ones with your knees on the floor.
• Once you can do one pressup, you will soon be able to build up to 5, then 10 etc.
• Tip: keep the abs rigid, so strong abs are as important as strong shoulders & arms
• Hand Release Pressups are good to build up strength for full ones
• Also build up via inclined pressups InclinedPress , see bottom of wiki page
• To increase the number of pushups IncreaseNum

ATG Arse To Grass bodyweight squat

• The best exercise for the large muscle group in bum and thighs.
• Basic principle: It is like having a pee on a public loo - get your bum down low and pointing to the rear, but not actually touching the seat.

-Lean back on your heels, so that weight is on them, not on your toes. -bring your arms forward

• keep your back straight, but angled slightly forward, not vertical.
• Go down as far as you can without knee pain.

Pullups

• Very few women can do full ones, but assisted ones build excellent muscle
• Work the same muscles with the much easier Australian pullup or imverted row InvertedRow

If you have access to dumbbells / barbells, then for maximum effect, work the large muscle groups:
squats bent-over rows (press button "female") Behind neckPress (press button "female") dead lift

To increase Strength Rather than Muscle Mass
Lift as heavy as you can, low reps, with 1 minute rest between sets e.g. 5 sets x 5 reps each, i.e. totalling 25 lifts.

To Build More Muscle
Lift lower (NOT Girlie) weight, do 3 sets x 8-20 reps, i.e. totalling 24-60 lifts.

AVOID OSTEOPOROSIS

To retain bone strength and avoid a painfully disabled old age, start now:
Ideally weight-bearing exercises that load the bone along its length of these types:

Impact exercise E.g. walking, running, jumping, skipping rope, step class, hitting a heavy punch bag.

Lifting: squats, press-ups, bench press, overhead press etc.

Squats are much better for osteoporosis than lunges, also for knees:
The weight in a squat is transmitted down along the spine, through the hip, and down along the bones of the leg, whereas in a lunge, it is transmitted across the shinbone and puts pressure on the knee joint.

Note: Cycling normally does NOT increase bone density, as it does not load bones along their length. Osteo

KETTLEBELLS Kettle
Beginners:
. Two-handed swing
. Sumo Deadlift
. Turkish Getup
. Swing
. Clean and Jerk
. Press

Improve your GRIP STRENGTH GripMen , BodyBuild

CALCULATORS:
Fast Fitness Calculators: 52FastExercise
Estimate your fitness age: FitAge
Estimate Vo2Max iTunes App: Vo2APP
Body Fat Calculator:BF
Healthy Body Fat Percentages at Different Ages: HealthyBF
TDEE with detailed activity times: TDEE

That's a fantastic change in body composition Betsy You've lost 20% body fat

Let's do some sums:


. Take 45% of your original weight to get your then weight of fat
. Take 25% of your current weight
What weight of fat have you lost ?
Divide by weight of your fav choc bar. What is your loss in choc bars ?


Your GP could organise some more blood work, if she/he is the cooperative type.
btw: I remember Mosely used the Bod Pod to obtain his % of everything, but it is £250 per go

B&W You've used up that Kettlebell already !
Well done on achieving 4 x20 in EVERYTHING (wow) so quickly.

I would recommend your next increase is not on kettle-bells, but to add 5 Big Girls to one of your sets. The following week, add 5 to another set, if you feel ok, no rush.

So, after a few weeks you'll be doing 4 x 20, very impressive

After that, try replacing, not adding, 5 from one set by knuckle pressups.

Hey, that's good Errol
Be proud of the improvements you've made to your bod and health.
Also, you managed in spite of a very low TDEE and being 50+ (bod-changing with meno is like dancing with lead boots), so great discipline.

Ooh yes, I like calculations bigchoc, especially when someone gives me instructions!

And the answer is....

178 bars of lindt dark chocolate, or more excitingly for me 89 boxes of Camembert.

Since May 2012

And if I do the same sum, but with a conservative, but slighter higher percentage as per possible fat levels at 11.5kg higher (as I was when I started all this back in September 2011)

I get an overall result of 258 bars of lindt or 129 Camemberts.

In fact, my preference these days would be to say 151 jars of hazelnut butter or 86 large packet of my favourite raw mixed nuts!

I have been meaning to ask the GP about redoing bloods but really there's always things I'd rather be doing than hanging around the surgery, especially as we had to do so very much of it this year with DS1 and his, now removed, odd growth.

I imagine I'll be asked to have some kind of you-are-40-years-old-MOT check up next year or so if I don't get round to it before then!

Ooh Betsy 151 jars of hazelnut butter Yes !

Now looking at the calculations from a different perspective - 2 years ago I was comprised of 40kg of not fat, ie everything else, and now that has increased by 5.5kg - which I am going to assume is all extra muscle.

32 jars of hazelnut butter's worth of extra muscle.

Yeah! I like that very much.

That's important, Betsy You have lost a huge amount of fat while gaining muscle.

So many diet "experts" say you always lose some muscle along with fat.
WRONG ! and several on this thread have proved this.
Regular strength training helps retain or even increase muscle.

People often aren't aware that % muscle is just as important for health as % body fat, e.g. ScienceStudy so weight is a very crude parameter to measure.
Also, waist more accurately indicates the more dangerous visceral body fat than weight does.

So, I keep nagging reminding everyone not to just do fat-burning cardio, but to build muscle too.

There was a piece about the misleading nature of BMI and the 'U shaped curve' in New Scientist a couple of weeks ago. I always assume that everyone knows the 'Daley Thompson' effect - muscular athletes are 'overweight' or even 'obese' if you just believed BMI. (the fact that the classic example is an athlete in his prime 30 years ago shows that this surely shouldn't be news to anyone!)

The thing that perhaps isn't sufficiently highlighted is the asymmetry of the curve - much sharper on the too-low side. The saying 'you can't be too rich or too thin' is unfortunately fallacious. Its a pity that (a) fat/muscle measurements are so much harder to do than a simple weight and (b) women often shy away from muscles beyond 'toned'.

Errol The U-curve is explained because very low BMI often also has very low % muscle, e.g. the elderly, or those who have crash dieted and lost muscle as well as fat.
The U-curve is exactly what you would expect, if you plot a curve for only one of two important parameters.

Yes, quite so. IIRC the curve was after they'd corrected for the other obvious reason for low weight (people with wasting diseases).

BigChocFrenzy, please could you cast an eye over what I've done today? I'm on an FD and attempted my first HIIT session today, along with some weights.

Bike 10 mins, Resistance 10
2x30s 1x20s sprints
gentle cycle 2 mins between sprints

Shoulder press, 5kg, 2x15 reps
Leg extensions, 15kg, 2x15 reps
Abductor, 25kg, 4x15 reps
Chest press, 10kg, 4x15 reps
Leg press, 30kg, 4x15 reps

Does that sound about right? I'd really welcome your advice!

Welcome Bimblepops That looks a really good basis, well done.

I would suggest a couple of changes:

For the upper body
. Add Big Girl pressups (i.e. full ones) if you can, or see the OP how to work up to these with inclined and XFit pressups.
The aim is to keep your body in a straight line, with abs rigid.
Little girlie pressups, with knees on the floor, are not much use at your level.
Start with 3 sets of 5, whatever pressups you can do and work up to 3 sets of 10 Big Girls.

For the legs and bum
. Abductor and leg extensions are not as useful as other exercises, so I would swap those for:
. Deep squats, as low as possible without hurting knees. Work up to 3 sets of 10.
It is better to do bodyweight only and go really deep, than to do shallow squats with a heavy barbell
. Forward lunges, but only if your knees are ok. Don't go any deeper than is ok for your knees. Bodyweight is fine.
Work up to 2 sets of 12 each side.

Abs
. Add the plank, which will also help pressups.
If you don't do this yet, start at 2 x 15 secs. Work up to 2x 45 secs

Try to do HIIT and strength training 2-3 times each per week, but you can split up exercises into muscle groups (i.e. upper body, lower body, abs) to do over 5 days if you prefer.

You decide how you prefer to split exercise over FDs and NFDs.

Always have at least 1 full rest day per week and for lifting, avoid working any muscle group on successive days.

Hi B&W

Can you copy my post on the main thread (Wed 21-May-14 13:40:27) about waist measurements to Gym Boffin ?
It is the one about waist sizes and risks for men & women, different ethnicities and has 2 picture tables.
It is important health info and one very rarely sees those measurements for different ethnic groups.

Thanks
Big Choc

oops, sorry, wrong glasses. i meant that as a PM ! So just ignore.

Hi,

Sneaking into this thread - I don't very often. Need some exercise advice.

So my exercise pattern is
Monday - gym
Tuesday rest
Wednesday - gym
Thursday Kundalini yoga
Friday - sometimes gym, sometimes Hatha yoga sometimes rest
Saturday rest
Sunday - gym or swim.

At the gym, I've been doing a yoga/pilates fusion abs programme (including plank, yoga plank, situps, down-dog, etc), 3 x8 squats with 3kg medicine ball, some arm work with 2x3kg weights and cardio. My cardio is 8 mins brisk walking on 2.0 incline for a warmup, then 8 mins of 30 secs walk/30 secs run.

At first when I started this in March, I could only run at 12.5kph - I'm asthmatic and any faster made me breathless and start to panic. Now I'm running the run intervals at 13.5kph fairly easily - I'm still a sweaty mess afterwards, but I'm breathing easily and recovering in around 2 minutes after I finish.

I want to make the cardio harder, but I'm not sure whether to extend the intervals or try and increase the speed some more.

Any suggestions (except giving up yoga which is my favourite exercise ever!) welcome.

Thanks

PoJ

Hi Pleco
Well done, that's great to hear such progress, especially with asthma.

Your overall exercise plan sounds fine. It's well-balanced and you enjoy it, so it's sustainable.

The benefits of HIIT lie in the intensity, which helps the metabolism and brings health benefits from hormesis (IF works on similar principle)

So, definitely go for the higher speed, not longer intervals.
I suggest you increase to 14-14.5 kph on just 1 or 2 intervals, then build over the weeks until all 8 intervals are at the higher speed.

Don't increase your recovery speed, i.e. between intervals.

Let us know how you get on.

if you are doing cardio intervals on more than one day, then I suggest on the 2nd day you do 10 x 20 sec intervals.
If you ever do a 3rd interval day in the week, then try 5 x 1 min and end with a 2 min interval at slightly lower speed

Most important to build your upper body too: add some pressups !

Awesome, thank you :)

That was pretty much what I was hoping the advice would be, I really want to speed up, just wasn't sure whether it was "what you're supposed to do.."

I'll try playing around with the interval lengths too. It's about getting confidence in my body, confidence that I can keep breathing through and that feeling a bit out of breath doesn't mean an asthma attack, it just means I'm working hard. That's the best thing I've got out of exercise so far, I'm so much more confident with the things my body does.

I thought the yoga might be a good upper body workout - I thought a sun salutation would probably achieve the same thing as pressups, as it's pretty much the same movements but with more flow. The yoga's been really strengthening for my upper body (shoulder injuries due to chronic RSI) so I might be ready to re-visit press-up land.....

Thanks :D

Pay attention, Guys!

Do NOT text and walk - you could end up in A&E, just as I did!

Walking round the perimeter at Somerset County Cricket Ground, I was texting my mate to arrange where we should meet, failed to notice a step in my way, and ended up sprawled on the path!!

Dignity - and parts of my anatomy - in tatters!

The result was severely scraped knees and one elbow, plus, as it turned out, a fractured bone in the top joint of my r-hand ring finger.

So I have a finger in a splint, ATM, which is preventing me from doing any meaningful exercise. Bummer!

Ah well, could have been a lot worse - I was moving a a fair lick, hurrying to my seat. I have an appointment with orthopedics on Tuesday, when I hope to lose the splint.

Oh, ((({ Big Hugs }))) BreadandWine I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope your injured bits recover quickly.

Have a few days total rest, just gentle walks, to let your system recover.
Next weekend maybe, resume cardio, abs, squats and one-armed kettles routines.

Must admit, I've never copied the texting habit of the young 'uns, so I always sit in comfort, to avoid texting gibberish.
B&W You're too young; you'll be twisting your ankle at the disco next !

Weight, Waist, Shape, BODY FAT

Many people obsess about the scales BUT

BodyClothes size and body shape are determined by inches more than weight

Example: this woman GAINED 9lb, but lost fat on XFit

Very interesting blog from a woman who lost TheLastStubbornPounds mostly via heavy lifting, not girlie pink dumbbells.

Oh yikes b&w :(

Good article bigchoc

Oh no B&W, I hope your healthy lifestyle will promote extra speedy healing though :) if it makes you feel any better, I used to text on my bike and only stopped when I cycled very fast into a bollard (not texting at the time, but I looked so stupid and grazed my face so badly I reconsidered...)

Thanks, folks, you're all lovely!

I'll do what you suggest (don't we I always? ), but I was in the local park earlier, with our grandchildren, and came across a set of monkey bars. Couldn't resist getting on them and doing some chin-ups. I managed 5 the first time, then not so many. I found the splint on my finger was digging into my little finger, making it a bit awkward. But my son was impressed!

Hey everyone. It's a FD today and I've got my workout in and at work already. Last time I ate was at 3pm yesterday, I'm not too hungry but definitely need to drink tea or water and fasttttt.
I have a weight lifting question. Is it about the time one works out for, say 60-90 mind or about getting all ur routines done in that time. Say doing 5x5 routines in an hour.hope I got this out clearly.