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weight loss

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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robbyzuniga

Roberto Zuniga
Mar 25, 2004
45
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46
Hi guys, I've been asking myself which type of aerobic training is the best for losing weight? I kind of have the impression is running although I enjoy walking. Or maybe dynamic apnea?

Roberto
 
The best way for loosing weight was considered to be aerobic training at a medium heart-rate. This maximises the percentage of the burned fat-calories.
(medium heart-rate means about 60%-70% of your personal max)

When you do a harder training you will burn a lower percetage of fat-calories, but as the training is burning more calories in absolute, you will perhaps even burn mor fat.

In general i'd say that you just shold do aerobic training. The aspect that determinates the success ist the duration of the training. The longer the better. So choose a kind of training (bike, jogging, swimming... doesn't matter) that alowes you to keep up a certain heart-rate for about 1-2 hours and do this kind of training 2 to 3 times a week.

If you keep, in addition to this, an eye at what you eat, you will not only loose weight but you'll also be abled to improve your freedive.
 
Basically any kind of aerobic training is good, as long as you keep your calorie intake in check. Of course if you don't, no matter what you do will not cause you to loose weight :)

Also, I prefer the term fat loss, since the object of loosing "weight" is useless. If you want to lose 5 pounds quickly, stop eating salt and don't drink water for a few days. However, you have not lost a pound of fat.

So ranting aside, running, swimming, cycling, rowing, crosscountry skiing, roller blading...All are excellent. Sure, walking is good too, but to loose the same amount of energy you would have to go roughly twice the time. Depending on your current shape, you may want to start with that, as running for example can be quite tough on the joints if you're not adapted to it. If you can find the environment and time, long hiking would be most excellent, especially if you bring a heavy rucksack with you. Whatever you do, the aim should be long sessions with medium intensity. Windy, but not dying for air...Sessions lasting from 45-120 min (that's just a rule of thumb...), 3-4 times a week. If you don't have a HRM, a reasonably good estimate of medium intensity is that you should be able to speak complete sentences without having to draw a breath, but towards the end of the sentence you start feel like you really want to :)

Dynamic apnea I would say is not the greatest way to loose weight. You would have to do it at a pretty high intensity to get a benefit in that sense. But with all the breaks and breathups and whatever...I'd say it's easier just to swim.

Finswimming with a snorkel though, is good training for both dynamic capacity and loosing weight.

Oh, and remember, weight loss and performace training don't always go hand in hand. If you're really heavy, sure, loosing weight will bring performance benefits, but if you're reasonably fit, trying to loose weight will just hamper any physiological building and adaptaiton in your body if you're training hard...Training hard is just giving the stimulus for the body to adapt. But the actual adaptation happens during rest, when the body "rebuilds" it self. That will not happen if the proper "building blocks" are not available, ie. if you have a very negative energy intake balance, it will definately slow the development, even stop it.

But if you're untrained and just starting out, you need not worry about that...Just any kind of movement will bring tremendous benefits in huge leaps.
 
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I tend to agree that dynamic apnea is not an effective method of fat loss. I would go so far as to suggest that a reverse relationship might exist between dynamic apnea and fat.

Due to a number of factors in the last 6 months (death in family, stress, holidays, age, and human weakness), I gained around 15 lbs. Interestingly, this did not affect my maximum dynamics. In fact, I had a personal best in this period. Moreover, I manage to hit 90% of PB on most maximum attempts.

I wonder if fat aids the effectiveness of the anerobic metabolism which might kick in at the end of an attempt in the hypoxic state. I never had biology so I don't really know. But I understand that the anerobic metabolism draws oxygen from body tissue, like fat, as opposed to blood oxygen. I believe that dynamic apnea uses the aerobic metabolism for most, if not all, of a maximum attempt. But it makes sense the the anerobic metabolism might kick in at the end when the body gets hypoxic. Any thoughts?

In any event, I am trying to get back to optimum pre-holiday weight, so I will see how my maximums go as I lose fat.

Peace,
Glen
 
Hi guys sorry for doubleposting this thread, I copy pasted groenberg response here which is very useful. I think I'm deciding with running, although I do weights and walk a lot, I think I will push myself little by little with running.

This is groenberg response
"The best way for loosing weight was considered to be aerobic training at a medium heart-rate. This maximises the percentage of the burned fat-calories.
(medium heart-rate means about 60%-70% of your personal max)

When you do a harder training you will burn a lower percetage of fat-calories, but as the training is burning more calories in absolute, you will perhaps even burn mor fat.

In general i'd say that you just shold do aerobic training. The aspect that determinates the success ist the duration of the training. The longer the better. So choose a kind of training (bike, jogging, swimming... doesn't matter) that alowes you to keep up a certain heart-rate for about 1-2 hours and do this kind of training 2 to 3 times a week.

If you keep, in addition to this, an eye at what you eat, you will not only loose weight but you'll also be abled to improve your freedive."
 
robbyzuniga said:
I will push myself little by little with running.

Do you think "pusching yourself" will make you train for a longer than a certain period?
It'd be better if there is a kind of aerobic training you really like. Remember, you should train several times a week.

PS: Thx for not deleting my post ;)
 
Hi Roberto,

One really interesting thing about aerobic training is that it raises your metabolic base, ie, as you get in better aerobic shape, you burn more calories all the time, even when you are sleeping. This can easily be more calories than are burned during the actual excercise. Combine this with a change in diet, less sugar and highly processed carbs, more complex carbs more veggies and less fat, and you will see a slow but steady drop in body fat, even if you continue to eat a lot of volume.

Connor
 
The old saying eat less and exercise more always holds true I lost 2 &1/2 stone but it took over a year to do it. It goes on a lot faster than it comes off but if you can stay the course its worthwhile. I,m trying to lose another 1/2 stone now and finding it a lot harder but will have to up the training a bit
 
Groenberg, I think pushing myself with cardio is not a bad idea. I get tired running but I think little by little the body adapts to running. The two sports I like are bodybuilding and freediving, for some reason I think running is tied with the 2 sports.

I was reading that people that swim have higher fat percentage than people that run. I'm not sure how true it is, but I've read it more than once.

Roberto
 
I think that swimmers do keep a higher percentage of body fat than runners but that also depends on if they crosstrain. Look at triatheletes... they have very low percentage of body fat.

It is very true that aerobic training is the quickest way to lose weight. There are all kinds of ways to do it and one should consider cross training to avoid boredom and repetitive stress injuries. Personally, I work out on the punching bag using interval training three days a week and I run on three more. I also lift weights three days a week - and do a tolerance table per week. The important thing is getting up to an hour of vigorous aerobic training per day, preferably interval training with variable loads.

It is also important to eat. You can't lose weight if you don't eat properly. You will simply burn out, or hurt yourself. I take supplements and, when I was losing weight intentionally, I made certain I had a variety of protien sources daily and I ate fruit and vegies constantly. Every other day I might eat a cut of meat or fish. I have cut out soda, bread and starches like rice and potatoes all together. My rule of thumb at the time was 750cals of real food every 12hours plus supplement. I lost 50lbs in about 9weeks.

Yea, it definitely feels better.

However, I recently did a caloric requirement calculation that I found on the net to estimate the minimum calories needed to carry my daily workout load. It was almost 4,000cals - and my stomach has shrunk.... again, I supplement with a high protien weight gain and am concentrating on upper body strength.

The whole point is that you are undertaking a dynamic process and if you want to succeed, be aware that there are changes to adapt to. You also have to protect your mind and body from boredom, injury and malnutrition. It takes mindfulness and will.

I have found that it takes several attempts before I can engage a new training regimen. So I take it easy on myself because I know what I want and that will pressure me into getting it...

Health is supposed to feel good, be invigorating. The idea is to get yourself stoked up to THRIVE.... the results might be life changing. You could decide your career or lifestyle or environment is unhealthy and move away and do something else.

I did.
 
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we had a similar discussion about fat swimmers before I did a sprint triathlon before last year and am doing it again this year 750m swim 20 k bike and 5k run. If you go to a pool 95 or even 99% will be swimming the same way most people walk failry slowly with very little increase in heart rate and high rest periods I think because muscle fatigue sets in as the muscles aren't used to that work. Once you get over that and increase the tempo I think its a great way to train as its extremly low impact. I ,ve started running again and can already feel the impact on my hips ( knees for some ) but I started to enjoy it a bit more so will be keeping it up and increasing the distance.A good mix is best i guess so boredom doesn,t set in
 
believe me I've tried most methods of weight loss...

the answer (I lost so much weight last year I had to buy all new clothes) - eat right, exercise right.. and the best exercise I found was a combination of interval running and "spinning" (also known as RPM - crazy resistance cycling to very loud techno music in a studio at the gym)
 
fcallagy said:
A good mix is best i guess so boredom doesn,t set in

Right. A mix is what you need. It helps to train muscles, that are not trained by your usual training. It also gives a different training impulse to your body and so prevents stagnation of your performances and also lowers the risk of injuries.
 
You could try getting the flu i just had a week of it and couldn,t eat lost 1/4 of a stone !!! But painful
 
Just lost 1/4 stone from the flu eat nothing for 4 days just drank water painful though
 
More on the 'Flu Workout' ;)
[ame="http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?p=580435#post580435"]Swim Training Programme - get yourself back into shape - Page 5[/ame]
 
First Post Alert!!! - I spend quite a lot of time watching the forum at work and now it's time for a post!

I have to disagree with most of what's been said in this post so far - aerobic exercise is not the most efficient way to loose fat, nor is it particularly good for freediving.

People looking to loose weight should have a read of this (http://www.mikementzer.com/bodyfat.html) article on weight loss through resistance training (the most effective method)

As well as loosing the body fat as desired, you will also be training the muscles to work more efficiently anaerobically as they would be during apnea, and also not raising your resting heartrate through aerobic training.

The article also promotes super-hydration, something that is also beneficial to apnea

I'm currently on the mend from a quite serious car crash in january so will be using the principles outlined in the article to shed the body fat in time for my summer of freediving in thailand

If anyone has any questions, im no expert, but have a lot of links to supporting material etc - I hope everyone finds this useful or at least thought provoking!!

Cheers

Jon :)

ps. exercise aside, the *BEST* method is not eating it all in the first place!!!
 
Hi,

Interesting article. Is more or less what Erik suggest some time ago. Just take a look --> [ame="http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?t=51139"]Fitness Regime[/ame].
 
I started my real "training" in May, and I've lost 25 lbs. in the process. How? Simple; I changed my diet and became active. I no longer eat sugar (getting it from fruit, instead), avoid most fat, and stay away from junk food and fast food. I also make sure I'm done eating for the day by 6pm (food in your stomach just turns to FAT overnight!). As for exercise, I swim laps on Mon, Weds, and Fri, and do mask/snorkle/fins surface swimming and dynamic training on Tues and Thurs (on some Thursdays I'm lucky enough to get to freedive in a nearby 38' deep quarry with a scuba instructor friend as my safety...so far, I've reached 34'). I also do apnea tables 3x a week, and ab exercises daily. As a result, I'm now down to 159 lbs, and a 30" waist! It's been hard work, but WORTH it to see the results!
 
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