Some tips.

1) I recommend this program. It has some good resources on eating healthier. 

The Original Whole30 Program

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The Whole30 changes lives. Learn how the Whole30 Program has helped millions own their health and reset their relationship with food.

2) Weight yourself under the same conditions every time. Water weight can change as much as 3-5lbs from day to day. It makes it difficult when you weight yourself daily or even weekly. If you are going to weight yourself a lot, then track a rolling 7-14 day average. This way, you can see if your averages are going down. I recommend first thing when you wake up after using the restroom. 

3) At a certain point, it is better to track your neck and waist circumferences to see what your body fat % is. See the US Army equation for this. It's a pretty decent estimate. The scale doesn't tell the whole story when you start gaining muscle mass. 

4) Track your calories so you get a sense of how much you should be eating. If a certain level of food intake is not getting the results you want, you can adjust it. It is hard to know if you don't measure it. 

5) The number one thing that brings success for weight loss is to do something you will adhere to. It is better to walk 30 minutes a day than try to run 40 minutes a day and stop running after 1 week versus if you walk 30 minutes a day for 3 months. 

6) Get good sleep

Good Luck, I hope you see good results. 

4 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Some tips.

1) I recommend this program. It has some good resources on eating healthier. 

The Original Whole30 Program

---

The Whole30 changes lives. Learn how the Whole30 Program has helped millions own their health and reset their relationship with food.

 

2) Weight yourself under the same conditions every time. Water weight can change as much as 3-5lbs from day to day. It makes it difficult when you weight yourself daily or even weekly. If you are going to weight yourself a lot, then track a rolling 7-14 day average. This way, you can see if your averages are going down. I recommend first thing when you wake up after using the restroom. 

3) At a certain point, it is better to track your neck and waist circumferences to see what your body fat % is. See the US Army equation for this. It's a pretty decent estimate. The scale doesn't tell the whole story when you start gaining muscle mass. 

4) Track your calories so you get a sense of how much you should be eating. If a certain level of food intake is not getting the results you want, you can adjust it. It is hard to know if you don't measure it. 

5) The number one thing that brings success for weight loss is to do something you will adhere to. It is better to walk 30 minutes a day than try to run 40 minutes a day and stop running after 1 week versus if you walk 30 minutes a day for 3 months. 

6) Get good sleep

Good Luck, I hope you see good results. 

 

Thx, I'll look over the Whole30.  I plan to weigh myself daily but know from experience that some days will be up and others down and the "Trend" is more important than any single point in time.  For me getting on the scale first thing in the morning is more my reminder to do what I need to do that day rather than looking for a specific number.

As for eating, I do know what to eat, the problem is more with portion control (ie Self-Control).  I love food and love to eat food and I'm not sure I know what "Left-overs" are.  I've found if I cook only the correct portion I will be satisfied but if I cook a lot of food I will just eat it all.  I do plan to eliminate Pasta.  First I feel cutting back on the carbs helps but the realy big thing is my addiciton to pasta.  I simpy don't stop eating it.  I know it is not the same thing, but it is like booze to an alcoholic, once I take a bite its over, I'll eat it all and then go cook more if there was not enough (and there is never enough pasta).

I also need to focus on the snacks in between meals.  I have a tendancy to eat two large meals a day and nothing in between.  I know that eating smaller meals more freequently and healty snacks between is better than eating 2 large meals and I just need to do it.  When I lost most of my weight I took a small bag of carrots to the office and ate a few @ 10am and then again @ 3pm.  That helped me not pig out at lunch & dinner (also carrots are better for weight-loss than that chocolate bar in the vending machine).  In the evenings I can have an apple instead of a bowl of chocolate ice cream or a bowl of buttered popcorn.  Its really just making the correct choice more often.

5 hours ago, saevel25 said:

At a certain point, it is better to track your neck and waist circumferences to see what your body fat % is. See the US Army equation for this. It's a pretty decent estimate. The scale doesn't tell the whole story when you start gaining muscle mass. 

I probably did something wrong.  It says I meet the Recruitment Standard.  

The way I understand it, high to moderately high intensity is the best for burning calories if you can't do long endurance stuff. Walking at a moderate pace for an hour will burn around 315 calories (200-lb person). Running at 6 min pace will burn 1524 calories. So if you break that running up into a circuit (HIIT) program. You only need to run 12.5 minutes at that pace to equal walking for 1 hour in terms of calories burned. It just depends on what you can do over and over again.

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

This is because even after your ride, your heart rate (metabolism) stays elevated for hours and you burn calories. We did this in the off season or early season. But these were 3 hour+ rides and you reduced your calorie intake.

More so with HR getting closer to higher intensity zones. 

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

Threshold training was higher speed (resistance) and shorter duration (interval training) and was done to ramp up to race speeds. You still burn calories after the workout, but the higher stress on your system required more caloric intake to build muscle. So you weren’t focused on losing weight in this phase. You still can though as long as you reduce your calorie intake. But you may also feel more tired and will not really build as much muscle.

If you want to build muscles and minimize calories, then eat a good amount of protein per day. You probably want days where you are at your daily expenditure, with good protein amount, to build muscle. If you eat enough protein every day, then you can minimize muscle loss. If you do at minimum 5 challenging sets per week, you pretty much are maintaining your current muscle level. 

So, If you wanted to lose weight and not lose much muscle mass at all. 5 sets a week on each muscle group. Then do cardio and calorie deficit. Make sure protein is sufficient. 

1 hour ago, iacas said:

From what I understand, cardio is good for your heart, but isn't necessarily the absolute best at calorie burning. It's still a good thing to do, though, so that's not meant to dissuade, and there are better cardio things than others - cycling fast is good, cycling medium speed with a lot of resistance is better (as I understand things) because the resistance is basically weight training, which is slightly better for calorie burning.

51 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

This true depending on how much time you have to workout. When I was racing, long slow distance training while keeping your heart rate below threshold was an excellent cardio workout and was great for weight loss. This is because even after your ride, your heart rate (metabolism) stays elevated for hours and you burn calories. We did this in the off season or early season. But these were 3 hour+ rides and you reduced your calorie intake.

Threshold training was higher speed (resistance) and shorter duration (interval training) and was done to ramp up to race speeds. You still burn calories after the workout, but the higher stress on your system required more caloric intake to build muscle. So you weren’t focused on losing weight in this phase. You still can though as long as you reduce your calorie intake. But you may also feel more tired and will not really build as much muscle.

Building muscle via weight training is the ultimate long-term calorie burner but you should not work out the same muscle every day.  However, you can do cardio every day.  Days I do weights would be lighter cardio but I do find that cardio does help and I have dropped weight doing only cardio.  Maybe not as much as incororating weights, but cardio can help.

Definately need resistance on the bike.  Otherwise you are just sweating.  That is why riding my actual bike is not as good as the stationary bike.  Where I live is rather flat so on a real bike the primary resistance is my weigth or the gear.  I can get more resistance on the stationary bike and can vary it better to get more of an "Interval Training" type excercise session.  Same with the treadmill, I can add incline or decline to change it up a bit.  Walking/jogging at a 0* incline is not going to engage the leg muscles as much as the incline will.  And you want those muscles to work.

Brief update: After @ 15 mnutes on the treadmill last night the pain started shooting up my leg.  Had to drop it to 2MPH just to get to 20 minutes. (and this was all at 0* incline)  That is not going to do much for me.  I've always felt you need to get at least 20 minutes at an elevated heart rate to get any value out of cardio, thus a minimum 30 minute session to allow for warm-up and cool-down.  I did not get that last night.  I guess it is better than sitting down watching TV, but not much better. 

3 minutes ago, StuM said:

Building muscle via weight training is the ultimate long-term calorie burner but you should not work out the same muscle every day.  However, you can do cardio every day.  Days I do weights would be lighter cardio but I do find that cardio does help and I have dropped weight doing only cardio.  Maybe not as much as incororating weights, but cardio can help.

It isn't as much as you think. 

The myth of ripped muscles and calorie burns

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The myth of ripped muscles and calorie burns

So, if you slave at weightlifting and increase your muscle mass by an ambitious 20%, this translates into only a 4% to 5% increase in RMR. Since a 200-pound man has an RMR of roughly 2,000 calories, a 20% increase in muscle mass equals only an 80- to 100-calorie increase.

Basically, increasing muscle mass is important for functionality. Primarily we need to keep a high 1 rep max and speed train as we get older. We lose most of our fast twitch muscle fibers at we get older. We all wonder why we hit the ball shorter as we age. 😛. This is also why older people fall a lot. They do not have enough speed to send their foot out to catch their balance. An older person can go walk 10 miles a day easy (slow twitch muscle fibers). In general, more muscle mass is good. 

7 minutes ago, StuM said:

Brief update: After @ 15 mnutes on the treadmill last night the pain started shooting up my leg.  Had to drop it to 2MPH just to get to 20 minutes. (and this was all at 0* incline)  That is not going to do much for me.  I've always felt you need to get at least 20 minutes at an elevated heart rate to get any value out of cardio, thus a minimum 30 minute session to allow for warm-up and cool-down.  I did not get that last night.  I guess it is better than sitting down watching TV, but not much better. 

Not sure what your starting point is but going into 40-60 minute jogging or running right out of the gate might not be good. If it is causing you sciatic nerve pain, then you may not be conditioned enough to do this. The priority should be to lose weight? So, maybe stick to low impact activities that you can do a lot off. Having pain while doing something will make you do it less often. It also could be your running technique is bad, which is putting stress on your lower back (pinching the nerve).

22 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Not sure what your starting point is but going into 40-60 minute jogging or running right out of the gate might not be good. If it is causing you sciatic nerve pain, then you may not be conditioned enough to do this.

Maybe I've not been clear enough on the Treadmill.  It is by no means "Aggressive" and is definitely not running which my feet simply do not permit.  I liken it more to a brisk walk, not even to the point of "Jogging".  The session I referenced above never got faster @ a 17 minute mile.  I usually use MPH since that is how my treadmill shows it.  the 17 minute mile is @ 3.5 MPH.  Trust me, I am not jumping in the deep end expecting to do 40 minutes of hard cardio right off the bat.  The current condition of my foot prevents any attempt a jogging or running and wearing the brace, which eliminates all ankle flex, makes it hard to go fast at all.

My goal for this 1st two weeks is simply to begin having some level of activity and begin to build up to more effective workouts down the road.  

22 hours ago, saevel25 said:

It isn't as much as you think.

I agree with the article.  I'm not looking to become Mr. Universe with the weight training.  And the "Calorie Burn" is definitely bigger for aerobic exercise which is where my use of the treadmill or stationary bike helps achieve a calorie deficit.  Still, building muscle is important for long term success.  During any work out, including running/jogging, engaging muscles increases the calorie burn rate.  That is why adding incline to a treadmill or resistance to a bike helps and having strong muscles enables that.

You can do this. 👍🏼

3 hours ago, bkuehn1952 said:

You can do this. 👍🏼

Yup, thx