Want to lose a stone but how?

[Rorogeorge]

I go to the gym once a week and am meant to be running two other days, haven't got around to that yet! Just begun dieting as well as I haven't lost any weight since December- I am about a stone heavier than I should be.

I just wondered if anyone knows how to lose a stone without starving yourself- I love sweet things and bread :(
and how much is the optimum exercise? Thanks :)

If you want to lose weight but haven't got around to doing more exercise and don't want to eat less then you are going to have trouble.
Start running if you can, try it without cutting down on food and if that doesn't work then you knwo what to do.

you have to cut out sugar and erm...bread.

its simple maths really - you have got to burn off what you eat in a day and MORE to use your eserve fat stores.

now you can do this by calorie counting, or more excersise - i mean in theory if you excersised more you would be able to still have a few sweet things

but you cant sit on your arse - eat cake and wish you were thin can you?

another way is low carbing, i have a blog here that explains the principle

I was running all through summer and autumn and eating sweet things but didn't lose any weight, so I guess i have to count calories. What is a good thing to try which makes you feel less hungry?? Maybe I didn't make myself clear, I understand the maths, but I don't want to FEEL like I'm starving myself.
Thanks for the tips, I might try low carbing- the bloated tummy is my main problem area.....

Had a look at your blog, I'm a vegetarian so not sure it would work for me.
Do you think just cutting out bread, rice and pasta would help?

Also, I'm aiming to eat 2000 calories or less per day, should I be looking more like 1500??

there is a veggie low carber on the low carb thread, might be worth popping in and asking for some tips.

You won't lose weight on 2000 unless you are very very overweight.

At 1 stone overweight you need to be looking at closer to 1000 calories.

If you are cutting to 2000 then how many do you eat now?

You don't need to cut to 1000 calories, that will slow your metabolism right down which is not what you want. You need to make small sustainable changes to your overall diet and make sure your workouts are effective and will boost your metabolism. Unless you really love doing it then going for steady state runs is not the most effective exercise for what you want to achieve. A mix of weight training and high intensity interval training will help build lean muscle (which will boost your metabolism) and burn fat. As for your diet, you shouldn't ever be starving, if you are it is a sign you need to eat something as your body will start burning lean muscle for fuel instead of fat which again will lead to a slower metabolism. Eating regularly throughout the day, every three hours of so can help to stop energy slumps and hunger striking. The first thing I would do is cut out the sugary foods as your body doesn't need sugar at all. You don't need to cut carbs out of your diet completely but try adding up how many grams of carbs you eat in a day and you will probably be surprised how high it is. Make sure you are eating wholegrain versions of bread, pasta etc and try and cut your portions of them slightly. Make sure you are eating lots and lots of vegetables and increase your protein intake.

Oh, and try not to concentrate on what the scales are saying, rather judge your success on the fit of your clothes and how you feel. Our weight fluctuates hugely for lots of different reasons so the scales are not the best way to judge your success.

I was eating maybe 2200 calories a day? My meals are healthy generally, but I tend to snack on unhealthier things. If I only eat 1000 calories a day, I won't be able to sustain that.

Lost Girl- You are fulll of useful advice! I do the circuit weights in the gym once a week, I can't really afford to go more, is that enough combined with running on 2 other days and housework, walking dog etc?

"Eating regularly throughout the day, every three hours of so can help to stop energy slumps and hunger striking."

I'm sure that's true, but most people find that incredibly difficult to achieve. All the people who have ever said that to me have been fat.

Losing a stone without hunger means low-carb. While you're on that diet, you're on it, no exceptions. And then you should have a plan for sensible eating if/when you come off it, or the weight can go straight back on.

Belfast Bloke - funnily enough I eat at regular intervals & I'm not fat! The intermediate meals are small snacks - like a handful (small one) of nuts - or a piece of fruit.

Good luck Rorogeorge : listen to Lostgirl: she's done amazingly well over the last year & knows what she's talking about.

Deff keep up with the weights you will build better muscles & they burn more calories than fat even at rest.

To really see/get the benefits from weight training you ideally need to be doing it at least twice, preferably three times a week but you don't necessarily have to go the gym to achieve it. If you have some adjustable dumbbells and a swiss ball at home then you could easily create your own workout based around exercises like lunges, squats, chest press, push ups, bent over row, plank variations etc. The key thing when using weights is to always make sure you are lifting heavy enough to exhaust the muscles. If you can do 12-15 reps and still feel like you can do more then the weight is too light and is not going to have any effect, you will need to use a wide range of weights for different exercises. Do you run at all at the moment or are you starting from scratch? Is it something you love to do/particularly want to do or are you just looking for an affordable exercise to fit in to your routine?

BelfastBloke 'All the people who have ever said that to me have been fat' . It obviously depends hugely on what you are eating every three hours. I agree that cutting carbs and upping protein and veg is the way to go but I think it needs to be in a sustainable long term way not seen as a short term low carb diet, because most people tend to lose the weight and then go straight back to eating lots of carbs again. IME gradually reducing your portions of carbs and trying to reduce/stop eating any processed ones can be easier to stick to long term than cutting them out completely.

Thank you.
Lost girl Not starting running from scratch, no, I was running nearly 5k 3 times a week before the snow came. I am now doing about 30 mins cardio on treadmill or cross trainer with the circuit the gym has which is 35 seconds on a machine then move on, its meant to be an all rounder.Hubby has dumbells, guess I could have a go at home too! I am running the other days as i live in a nice area but if you have any other 'free' exercise ideas I would be happy to hear them!
Belfast bloke, I don't think I can do the no carb thing- it just won't fir in with my family and lifestyle and the fact I'm a veggie

Should also mention the doc has advised me to go fat free if i can as I have gall stones, so the no carb thing would be very hard!

You definitely can't do fat AND carb free.

Could you explain the circuit at the gym a bit more? Is it 35 seconds on each weight machine? Do you adjust each machines weight when you are on it or is it fixed for you? How many reps do you tend to be able to do in the 35 seconds? Do you have to do the circuit or can you do your own thing, do they have any free weights?

Sorry, so many questions! If you can run 5k comfortably then try running some intervals rather than at a steady state. For example, if you normally run at around 6mph then drop that down slightly to between 5-5.5 for 2 minutes then increase the speed to 7mph for one minute, then drop it back down and so on for 20 minutes. You can do the same on the cross trainer or the rowing machine. You want to aim to be out of your comfort zone on the fast part of the interval so that you can't do much more than a minute at that pace. Obviously you need to warm up for a few minutes before going into the intervals. Everytime that you keep just running a steady 5k your body is getting more effective at doing it so you burn fewer calories. You must keep challenging your body and interval training is a great way to do that, you just keep increasing the upper speed at which your higher intervals are run at.

You can get some great bodyweight routines on line that you could just do at home. The idea of them is to raise your heart rate with resistance moves so you maintain muscle and burn fat. This is an example of one though it does utilise a swiss ball but you could substitute other movements in place of those. The idea is that each time you do it you try and increase the number of reps you can do during the minute. The whole thing takes about 30 minutes. Always concentrate on having good form for each exercise to get the most out of it and prevent injury. (Warning, that site has some scary bodybuilding images on it, doing this will not make you look like that )

If you type in your details and the amount you exercise to myfitnesspal.com it will calculate how many calories you need to eat to loose the stone.

As a guide, I am 5 foot 4, go to gym 3-4 x a week and down to last half stone - it suggested 1200 calories for me to loose a pound a week. I'd guess 1000 a bit low, but 2000 definately too high - I thought that was the recommended daily intake for women not intending to loose weight.

Low carb isn't necessary esp as a vegetarian, but sweet things and bread are not going to help.

Because of the gall stones, I recommend you try Rosemary Coneley - her hip and thigh diet was "discovered" by her when she had gall stones, and she managed to cure himself of it - basically its a fat free diet -I have done it before and it works well - I strongly recommend you buy the book - there are tables at the back with the recommended number of calories. Bread and occasional sweet (but fat free) things are allowed if you stick to your calorie limit.

the book I referred to above

Lost girl the circuit I use at the gym is not weights but hydraulics so the harder you try,the tougher it is. The chap at the gym recommended for all round body toning and there are about 10 different pieces of equipment.
Yes there are free weights there too and lots of other stuff, I find it all quite confusing but there are always lots of men doing the free weights. there is also a rowing machine which i sometimes use for 15 minutes or so, also these odd sort of sideways cross trainers which are meant to firm thighs and bums I presume.

I can't do 5k yet I don't think, more like 3 or 4, (well I run for 20-25 mins anyway) That was a few months back but I am getting back. I like the intervals idea, have seen other doing that at the gym so will def. try it.

forever- thanks for the rosemary conley tip, I am feeling very enthusiastic about all this!

BTW- I never weigh myself- we don't have any scales in our house but all my clothes feel tight and I know I have about a stone to shift to be a comfortable size 12/big 10 again :)

I know nothing about hydraulic machines I'm afraid but if you are interested in using the free weights then there are some good books which will show you in detail different exercises you can do for each muscle group and how to put a programme together to make sure you have a balanced workout. This is really good and is generally available in bookshops so might be worth a browse to see if it would be of any use. There is a 'women's version as well which I have never seen in a shop but have been told it is basically exactly the same exercises just with a female modelling them.

Don't be put off by the men in the weights section, I am the only female who uses the free weights at my gym, you get used to the strange looks after a while!

And hurrah for not weighing yourself, far better to go by how you are feeling and how your clothes fit. If you can try to cut out sugar for a while at least then you will be amazed at how crap you feel when you start eating it again and will really notice the effect it has on your energy levels and mood. Makes it a bit easier to stay away from then.

Good luck with it all, I think the most important thing is to find a way of exercising and eating that you enjoy and works for you, we are all different. Just remember to keep challenging yourself whatever you do

I've tried this one this morning with DH's weights- had to remove the crazy amount he has on there!
Warmup
Squat (or leg press)
Bench press (or chest press)
Deadlift
Crunch
Seated cable row
Triceps pushdown
Lat Pulldown
Overhead press
Biceps curl
Cool down, stretch

Found them online with descriptions. Is this the sort of thing you mean? I can do these at home if so, but would you recommend doing these exercises combined with cardio in the same session 3 times a week? ie 3 lots of both rather than alternating.

Thank you for all the great advice it is much appreciated!

There are two ways you can use the weights, you can create a metabolic routine which will last about 20-30 minutes where you use the same weight for all the exercises and do a circuit so say 10 reps, of each exercise and then repeat the circuit 5 times of something with a one minute rest in between circuits. This is like a cardio workout. To do more of a strength based workout then you will need to change the weight that you use for each exercise as they will differ vastly. Start of by doing two sets of 15 reps with a minute rest in between sets. Do this routine for a fortnight then change to 2 sets of 12 reps, so you will need to use heavier weights now you are doing fewer reps. After another two weeks change to 3 sets of 10 reps, again adjusting the weight accordingly.

Out of that list I wouldn't bother with bicep curls of tricep pressdowns. These are isolation moves which will not burn many calories and you can work these muscles more effectively in other full body movements. Push ups for example are great for your triceps, do them at an incline with your hands on your stairs if you cannot do full length ones yet. Drop down a step when you can do a full set. Unless you have a cable machine or a pull up bar it is hard to find a good bicep move so maybe do bicep curls with a lunge, that way you are not standing still for any amount of time.

Don't do crunches as you are at risk of injuring your spine, try holding a plank for 30 seconds instead.

I doubt if you have a cable machine at home but if you have access to one then lat pulldowns and seated row are great back exercises.
So for a strength workout you could do for example, do 2 sets of 15 reps of each of the following:

squat
deadlift: these are hard to do effectively without a barbell. Single leg deadlifts with dumbbells are a great substitute.
push ups
bent over row
plank

Or

Bulgarian split squat
Step ups
shoulder military press
dumbbell pullover
reverse jacknife on swiss ball

For each exercise you would need to choose a weight that allows you to just barely be able to complete the number of reps you are aiming to do.

If you were going for a cardio type circuit then you could try holding lightish dumbbells and doing:

10 squats
10 pushups
10 reverse lunges (each leg)
10 bentover row
30 second plank

Rest 60 seconds, repeat 5 or so times.

You need to leave at least 48 hours between strength training sessions as this is when your muscles recover and rebuild. You can do cardio straight after your strength training of you can do it on your off days in between, up to you.

Concentrate on getting the form right in each exercise, eg when you squat your hip crease should be below your knee crease, you will know when you are low enough as you will suddenly feel your glutes and hamstrings doing some of the work, not just your quads. Lunges make sure you are getting enough depth, ie knee barely brushing the floor. You can make these harder by elevating your front or rear foot to give a greater range of motion. You tube is great for looking up different exercises and seeing how they should be done. Once your form is great then start increasing the weight that you can maintain that form with.

Sorry, that is all rather garbled, the book I recommended can explain it far more clearly and has great illustrations of the movements and suggestions on how to progress from easier to harder variations. It also suggests different cardio finishers you can try after a workout. For example, the leg matrix: 24 squats, 12 lunges on each leg, 24 jumping lunges, 24 jumping squats. Rest for twice the length of time it takes you to do and then repeat. It hurts...a lot

It's so important to find exercise you really enjoy. I don't know whether or not you live in London but there is a weekly, women only fitness event there that doesn't have any of the horrible bright lights and macho men trappings of the gym.

It's called Dance Dance Party Party and is pretty much dancing your heart out and getting fit and sweaty however you want to good, loud music with other women. If you want specific results you would do well to combine something like that (which you will love going to and keep going to) with a more structured programme.

Anyway, there is a facebook page with more info: www.facebook.com/ddpplondon

"horrible bright lights and macho men trappings of the gym"

I have been a member of a gym for more than 10 years and have never experienced any bright lights! And there is a womans only gym & most day time classes mainly woman.

About to go to bed and eaten only healthy, low fat all day!
2 boiled eggs and 1 slice wholemeal toast for brekky
ainsleys soup and weightwatcher yogurt for lunch
banana at 3.30
Tea- homemade veg and butterbean soup and another weightwatcher yogurt.

Had 2 diet cokes too hope they are not too awful!
realise this is quite dull to most people, just feeling quite proud and determined!

Thank you for the great long post lostgirl, glad I posted that list now!

Glad you had a good day
Make sure you are getting enough protein in your diet, your breakfast is perfect. Diet coke whilst it has no calories does nothing good for your body as it is full of chemicals, and it is really bad for your bone density I'm afraid, but maybe leave cutting that out until you have sorted out how you like to eat, one thing at a time! Just make sure you are not using it to fill yourself up when you are hungry, if you are hungry then your body needs fuel.