I bought a Nordic track stationary bike last week, and so far I've ridden it 6 days in a row since I've owned it; for 20 minutes a day on the "fat burn" program. I've been averaging 3-4 miles each time. My question, my weight is still basically the same, and I've also been taking front/profile pictures like John Stone did, and I'm not really noticing any difference in the way I look. I know excercise isn't an over night change, but I get discouraged very easily and am wondering if I should of atleast seen a bit of weight loss by now? Thanks very much for any replies.

I won't add my opinion/thoughts as I'm only beginning myself. But I did want to quote a passage from http://www.hussman.org/fitness/index.htm that I've found to be accurate.

From the notes I've received from some of you, the most common concern seems to be that your fat loss seems too slow. After starting a serious fitness program including cardiovascular and weight training, nearly everyone feels better and more energetic almost immediately (aside from the perpetual soreness). But even after several weeks, some people do not see a noticeable change in the mirror, so far as fat is concerned. And the scale! You've busted your bottom for weeks, and there's no change! Of course, if you've really been half-hearted about following your program, it's clear why this may happen, but it can also happen when you have honestly been experiencing intensity every day, and have been careful about limiting your portions. I've received messages from people literally in tears at the frustration. Kid, the road to Easy Street runs through the sewer. You gotta get tough (words spoken to me at 14 by my calculus teacher, Father Arnold Perham).

Here's what's going on. Fat is stored in several places, within the muscle as intramuscular fat (which is why pork is "the other white meat"), around the organs as "visceral fat", and under the skin as "subcutaneous fat". If you're inactive as you get older, the fat starts depositing in the muscles first - the muscle tissue gets "marbelized". After the intramuscular stores are full, the fat spills over to subcutaneous stores, which are more noticeable. Well, now take that process in reverse. Exercise (and specifically interval training and progressive weight training) tends to draw significantly from the intramuscular stores early on, so instead of seeing a major change in the mirror, you may instead feel your muscles getting firmer and less "mushy". That's a good sign. Don't give up! The subcutaneous fat loss becomes more evident once the intramuscular stores are whittled down a bit.

I think that you are going to have to either just give it some more time, or step it up a bit. 120 minutes of biking 24 miles isn't a whole lot. I would either up the time a bit, or go at it with some high intensity intervals.

If you look at what John did, weight training was a major component of his transformation, along with adjusting his eating habbits. I think you will see the most benifits if you adjust your diet, and start weight training.

What does your diet look like? Post an example of what you eat in a day..

What does your diet look like? Post an example of what you eat in a day..


I'm not really on a "diet" yet... I've been cutting down on the amount I eat, but still eatting the same stuff (fast food). Taco Bell, Sandwiches, stuff like that..

As for upping the amount of time, I've been steadily going up in the amount of time I spend on the bike. I'm a heavy smoker so I'm working up my endurance, when i first started I couldn't even do 10 minutes on the bike, now I'm up to the full 20 minutes of the program. I am trying to get an audio cable to reach my bike from my computer so I can do the "ifit.com" thing, so I'll have more program options. Thanks very much for the input.

I think that you are going to have to either just give it some more time, or step it up a bit. 120 minutes of biking 24 miles isn't a whole lot. I would either up the time a bit, or go at it with some high intensity intervals.

If you look at what John did, weight training was a major component of his transformation, along with adjusting his eating habbits. I think you will see the most benifits if you adjust your diet, and start weight training.

I just upped my intensity a bit, trying to put some sprints in between the cruising. It upped my numbers from yesterday
10.5 fat
33.9 cals
3.92 miles
20 minutes

to todays
13.3 fat
42.7 cals
4.72 miles
20 minutes

Thanks for the advice = )

I cannot stress enough how much difference diet makes on weight loss, without this in check then I wouldn't expect you to see much loss. Besides, with a much more effective diet then you can do less cardio and target your time towards weight training where all the action is at.

I cannot stress enough how much difference diet makes on weight loss, without this in check then I wouldn't expect you to see much loss. Besides, with a much more effective diet then you can do less cardio and target your time towards weight training where all the action is at.

I wouldn't mind dieting, if I just understood the best way to do it for me.... I see people talking about dieting and all I see is a bunch of math... 20/40/10 and stuff like that... If I could find a place that can explain the essentials of dieting without me needing to pull out a calculator I'd definatly start...

I don't like to refer to my diet as 'a' diet as such, but an actual diet that I will stick to for the rest of my years (stick to the principles at least depending on cutting or bulking). This is not to be taken as a fad diet like Atkins etc, because I think it should be a lifestyle change like most people around these forums have made, and not just a monthly thing that relatives or whoever are on to lost the christmas podge which they then put back on anyway when they undoubtedly give up after a few weeks.

The hardest part I found about arranging my new permanent diet was what foods to eat in order to get the nutrients and calories I need. These ratios that you are refering to are for Fat/Protein/Carbs (order not important right now). The common way to go with this is 40 % Carbs, 40% Protein and 20% Fat. I try not to get too hung up on these myself, and have sucessfully lost weight and maintainted lean mass by sticking roughly to a plan that I set out in the beggining.

I would get along to the nutrition forums for better advice about these ratios, but as I said, this is a lifestyle change, and once you have sorted your diet out, you will be able to lose weight so much more effectively. Basically it is your diet combined with wieght lifting and cardio which are what you need for a better physique.

I wouldn't mind dieting, if I just understood the best way to do it for me.... I see people talking about dieting and all I see is a bunch of math... 20/40/10 and stuff like that... If I could find a place that can explain the essentials of dieting without me needing to pull out a calculator I'd definatly start...

read around this site for a week or so, follow the links others post, and you'll learn more than enough to get you started. that's how i've been doing it.

Read this post by Marcus. It contains everything you need to know to get off to a good start. Exercise without diet is like a car with no gas.
http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=1222

Don't get discouraged. Rome wasn't built in a day. You didn't get out of shape overnight and you won't get back in shape overnight. Only by consistently eating right and exercising properly will you lose the weight. If you do those things you will lose weight. I can 100% gurantee it. But first you need to decide that your desire to change yourself is stronger than your desire to eat fast food. But the good news is you are not alone and everyone here is happy to help you stay motivated. Like I said read that link I posted to get informed.
You can also check out:
www.fatlosstips.com which is in a very similar vein. :tu:

This "diet" is a gradual building of sound nutritional practices. It's what I personally did; I made it up all by myself, so it's not perfect. If you follow guidelines like this, you don't need to count calories to lose weight.

Weeks one and two: No pop or alcohol. Swap with diet pop, or, ideally water. Reduce dessert consumption.

Week three: Reduce fast food meals to once a week. If you have to eat at a restaurant, eat half the entree only.

Week four: Reduce red meat intake to no more than once per week. Replace with chicken or pork. For breakfast, eat barley or oats instead of boxed cereals.

Weeks five and six: Replace at least half pork or chicken intake with beans, fish, and nuts. Eat more fruits and vegetables and less rice, potatoes, and pasta.

Weeks seven and eight: Replace white bread with whole wheat, white flour with whole wheat, white noodles with whole wheat, and white rice with brown.

There's probably some more steps people could add on to the end.

I wouldn't mind dieting, if I just understood the best way to do it for me.... I see people talking about dieting and all I see is a bunch of math... 20/40/10 and stuff like that... If I could find a place that can explain the essentials of dieting without me needing to pull out a calculator I'd definatly start...I lost the first 40 lbs without counting or calculating anything. Lean protein, low glycemic index carbohydrates, and good fats. Cut out all the refined carbohydrates (sugar, white flour, etc). Eat until you're satisfied, not until you're stuffed. Eat 5 or 6 smaller meals each day instead of three large ones. It's as simple as that.

It's not often that a person's question/problem is so easily answered, but in this case yours is: you eat too much. Basically you've gone from a sedentary & fast food lifestyle to two hours/cardio/week and you wanted to see a difference in the mirror? You have to have reasonable expectations. You didn't get chubby overnight and you won't lose it overnight.

First of all you can increase your cardio, but more importantly since you're getting an ok amount of cardio now you _have to eat less_. The majority of a person's weight loss, if they want it done reasonably quickly, is driven by diet unless they do a lot of cardio (say one hour+/day or really intense cardio).

You need to be eating less. Stop eating that junk from taco bell. It's garbage. Now, most fast food joints you can get something reasonably healthy, like a wendys chicken sandwhich without the dressing (NO fries), or a mcdonalds salad with fat free italian, or a 6 inch subway sandwhich (minus mayo/oil, etc.).

You HAVE to focus on diet if you want to lose weight. If you care enough about your diet and you continue with this cardio you will lose weight quite quickly. At first I'd focus on the scale, since you can see two pounds off on that quicker than in the mirror. Realize though that a person's weight can fluctuate from fluids by a couple of pounds easily from day to day and a morning weight is almost invariably lower than an evening one.

In terms of what to eat as always I'd say for you to have 5-6 meals/day evenly spread with a good emphasis on protein. You don't need to try fatkins or anything like that. Calories you'll want below 2000/day.

Foods include fat free cottage cheese, meal replacement bars, chicken breast baked, bison burger with low-carb bread, etc. etc. You could pick up a book on nutrition or visit some websitse to get basic meal ideas. Read the nutritional info from a grocery and soon enough you'll have a basic idea of the calorie composition and macronutrient ratios (fat,protein,carbs) of foods.

I think I take it for granted, but it seems that a lot of people don't really have a clue as to what is in what they eat in terms of calories or anything else.

Don't look for a change over night. If you're not willing to make a big diet change and only do a moderate bit of cardio your progress will be slow.

The most important thing for you now is to realize that you are fully capable of losing the weight. You'd be a pysiological anomoly if you couldn't. You got fat because you ate too much for your needs. You can reverse that by eating too little. You absolutely positively can lose wegiht. If what you're trying isn't working, just keep modifying until something does. It's really not rocket science though; excercise plus eating less and eating healthy and you will lose weight.

BTW a lot of people, if they're used to feeding with their co-workers, will have to modify that habit severely. If you work, for instance, with a bunch of large people who eat ribs and fries at lunch you'll need to stop going out with them or get used to buying a small salad instead. Most of America can't lose weight because difficult decisions such as that are just too difficult for them.

Goodluck. You definitely can lose it and you're on the right track with the cardio :)

Six days of moderate cardio and you're expecting a drastic change? Not to mention, you're still eating Taco Bell. Fitness is a drastic lifestyle change, and is typically a long haul (it took me over a year before I finally got a grasp of what I was doing).

I don't mean to sound harsh, but we all need to be realistic about our progress. Remember to set both short and long term goals and you will soon find yourself rewarded along the way, which should hopefully motivate you to stay the course.

Oh, and I noticed that you mentioned ifit.com. Whatever you do, DO NOT use their nutrtional program. They will screw you over royally!

:gl:

I bought a Nordic track stationary bike last week, and so far I've ridden it 6 days in a row since I've owned it; for 20 minutes a day on the "fat burn" program. I've been averaging 3-4 miles each time. My question, my weight is still basically the same, and I've also been taking front/profile pictures like John Stone did, and I'm not really noticing any difference in the way I look. I know excercise isn't an over night change, but I get discouraged very easily and am wondering if I should of atleast seen a bit of weight loss by now? Thanks very much for any replies.

As has been pointed out, this isn't enough time to really see anything. The most important part of your routine right now isn't the cardio or the diet, it's the motivation. You need to find a way to stick with the lifestyle change for a long time, possibly the rest of your life, because you'll never see a change week-to-week. You need to log your weight and fat% on a daily basis so you can see that after a couple of weeks your fat% has dropped a point or so. You won't see the difference, but it'll be there on paper.

That said, diet is 80% of fat loss. Count your calories, etc., or all your sweating will be for nothing. I recommend a program by Calorie King that really makes it easy, especially if you use a PDA.

And ramp up your cardio. It takes a lot of work to make body fat changes. Keep doing each day longer than the last until you're up around 45 minutes or so a day. Also try HIIT for cardio. Strength training is also a very good idea if you can work it into your life right now.

Best of luck!

Well today at the store I ended up buying a bunch of the Lean Cuisine frozen dinners... Anyone have any thoughts on them? According to the calories on the back of the box, I'll be way below 2000 calories a day, I'll end up being around 1000 or so a day. Also bought some fruit and stuff... I appreciate all the advice.

If you eat 1000 cals a day for a few week,s you will be in "starvation mode". Your body will hold on to all fat it possibly can - and use all new cals for NEW fat. You will start burning muscle.
You will lose weight. But you will be losing muscle - why is this bad?
well - Muscle BURNS FAT (a bit simplified but close enough) the more muscle you have, the easier it is to burn fat. You need to keep your calories in the range of 10-12 x bodyweight (again simplified, but should be good)... How tall, old and heavy are you?

Well today at the store I ended up buying a bunch of the Lean Cuisine frozen dinners... Anyone have any thoughts on them? According to the calories on the back of the box, I'll be way below 2000 calories a day, I'll end up being around 1000 or so a day. Also bought some fruit and stuff... I appreciate all the advice.

Most if not all frozen dinners are loaded with sodium, which isn't good for most people. I personally prefer "real food" plus like efk said, 1000 cal per is way too low.

Jason

A great way to get started on a diet or better yet a new way of eating is to record what you're eating.

Try carrying a little notebook around with you for a couple weeks. Write down everything you eat. You will soon realize all of the bad stuff that you're eating. Start out slow but make a few changes here and there. Eliminate some bad stuff and replace it with satisfying good stuff. After you do this for a while set up an account on www.fitday.com and start to record everything. You'll soon see those pounds melt away.

Ofcourse this isn't the only way to do it but it is the way that's working for me.

Goodluck.

If you eat 1000 cals a day for a few week,s you will be in "starvation mode". Your body will hold on to all fat it possibly can - and use all new cals for NEW fat. You will start burning muscle.
You will lose weight. But you will be losing muscle - why is this bad?
well - Muscle BURNS FAT (a bit simplified but close enough) the more muscle you have, the easier it is to burn fat. You need to keep your calories in the range of 10-12 x bodyweight (again simplified, but should be good)... How tall, old and heavy are you?

I'm 5'8" 250lbs 21 years old. I lift weights quite often, so I've got some muscle, I was hoping that now that I started cardio I'd be able to start losing weight if I stuck to it, which I am going to.

Yep 1000 is just too low. Aim for 1700-1800 calories/day now and see how that works. Those lean cuisines, cans of soup, etc. are convenient but often packed with sodium. I love soup and you can get fairly high protein stuff too, plus it's convenient, but I never eat it because it's just all salt (sodium). In moderation it's ok, but anyway set your calories in the high teens for a while and see how that works.

Well today at the store I ended up buying a bunch of the Lean Cuisine frozen dinners... Anyone have any thoughts on them? According to the calories on the back of the box, I'll be way below 2000 calories a day, I'll end up being around 1000 or so a day. Also bought some fruit and stuff... I appreciate all the advice.
Buy lots of fresh vegies. Some examples; broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, sweet potato, green beans, carrots. When you are hungry, chop em and and steam em. Grill a chicken breast at the same time.
In minutes you have a meal that is probably twice the size of some crap from mcdonalds or taco bell, 1/3 of the calories and contains huge amounts of essential vitamins, fibre and protein. And its QUICKER than going to a fast food place and waiting in line.