Looking for training advice

"Isaac Zammond" <akzeo@20/20.com> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Two years ago I needed to lose ten pounds of fat and gain more muscle,
and I began a weight training and cardio workout routine. Contrary to
what many people think, I had no trouble shedding the fat and adding the
muscle mass. As long as I stayed consistent, my body could easily tell
the difference between the two--this in spite of the fact that I was 68
at the time I began.

The standard exception to the rule is that you can do this for a while when
you're just starting. Most people find that they can't keep it up.

Hugh

--
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will attend no other.

Quoted message said:

Hello All. I am looking for some training advice. I have three goals I
wish to accomplish this year. They are:

1. Lose about 20 pounds.

Eat 200 calories per day less than you expend. On average.

Quoted message said:

2. Improve my appearance by gaining some muscle definition.

#1 will do that.

Quoted message said:

3. Run my very first 9 mile race (Boilermaker in July in Utica, NY).

Run lots. It will help with #1 and #2. Don't forget to eat enough.

--Blair
"I can't believe they give out
credentials for this stuff."

Isaac Zammond akzeo@20/20.com said:

Stephen, you're going to get contradicting responses to that question.

Although you did not address me directly, I can say from anecdotal
experience that when I go for short periods of days without adequate
food--whether fasting, dieting or due to illness--my muscle mass does not
suffer. It may just be my personal physiological makeup, but my body
cannibalizes the fat stores to keep its vital signs righted.

It's not just you. It takes time for your body to go into
starvation mode normally. It takes less time to start
catabolizing muscle when you're already hypertrophic (it
wants to shed it all the time when you're bulked way up).

Quoted message said:

It is the same phenomenon when I burn lots of energy in high-cardio routines
for the purpose of *fat loss*. In my <personal> case, the fat comes off,
and the muscle mass does not diminish.

How are you measuring it?

Quoted message said:

Others may have different experiences and/or have been taught differently
depending on the academic source of their knowledge.

I have graphs. My LBM went up, and then it went down,
while my weight loss was fairly constant at about a pound
a week.

--Blair
"ymmv"

Steve Freides said:

"Roger Zoul" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Steve Freides said:

"Roger Zoul" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
> Steve Freides <[email hidden]> wrote:
>
>>
>> I believe that weight lifting while losing weight is important in
>> maintaining muscle mass because you are, in effect, telling your
>> body that you still need the muscle you've got. The advice the OP
>> received
>> about avoiding doing "too much cardio" sounds correct to me. I do
>> precious little of it now.
>
> I thought you were into cycling? Maybe I have you confused with
> someone
> else.

I love cycling (and running), but my body likes weight lifting much
better. Last summer, my riding consisted of lots of short jaunts
around town with the occasional 20-miler thrown in every couple of
weeks and nothing more than that. It will probably be the same
this summer as well.

FWIW, I've found my strength/endurance work with kettlebells
provides a lot of carry-over to the bike and running for relatively
short distances, e.g., things like a 20 mile bike ride which is a
short jaunt for anyone who rides a lot. For longer distances, I
need to put in the mileage on the bike, but for what I do lately, a
regular diet of kettlebell swings and snatches keeps me ready to
ride (or, for that matter, run and swim) without much in the way of
regular sport-specific training - for example, my resting pulse
remains in the low 40's and I do no regular cycling, no regular
running, and my swimming consists of 400-600 yards once a week. I
might get out and run a mile or two once every week or two but it's
nothing more than that, maybe 10 minutes on a bicycle wind trainer
every couple of weeks as well.

To get back to the original point, I'm working on increasing my
limit strength - kettlebell strength/endurance work does not get in
the way of my strength gains but more traditional cardio did and
would again if I did a lot of it, I'm sure. And the kettlebell
work provides excellent grip training that has had a real carryover
to my deadlift, and keeps my shoulders healthy (repetitive full ROM
in a few directions) and my hamstrings flexible (the lack of which
is a chronic problem for many runners and cyclists). For most
people, if a competition at an endurance sport isn't their goal but
lower body fat and improved strength and possibly additional muscle
is, focusing on resistance training and doing regular cardio but
not "too much" is a good thing. My personal experience has been
that, the older I get, the more important strength training is to
keep me in the kind of good health I want to be in. In my 20's,
30's, and even most of my 40's, running and biking were enough.

I'm certainly in sync with you on resistance training, but I would
have
thought that the downsides of enjoyable forms of endurnace work (ie,
cycling, running, and swimming) could be counteracted by simply
eating more
food. In other words, keep at the resistance work and do the
enjoyable
cardio forms of exercise, but eat to offset them causing muscle loss.

Is there some reason this isn't possible? Perhaps you don't like to
eat?
20-miles on a bike ride isn't quite enough for me. But, like you, I
do have
to put more effort in to make it easier, so maybe that's your issue:
time
to train up.

I will leave the reasons _why_ a lot of cardio interferes with gains
in limit strength to those who know more than me. I can ride for
hours and hours and deadlift maybe just under 2x bodyweight without
much difficulty, but getting much above that doesn't work if I'm
doing a lot of cardio. Like I said, hopefully Elzi, Keith, or
someone else will chime in here.

Training up different muscle fibers?

Quoted message said:

As to giving up what you enjoy, I'm not doing that. I enjoy all these
things, including riding the bike and lifting heavy weights. I'm
riding as much as I want to, and I'm enjoying making progress at
weights. One of the nice things about weight training is that I can
do it at home and in a relatively short period of time - I've got
school-aged kids and am busy managing several simultaneous careers
(if you can call them that) - the days of my having hours to ride are
likely gone until the kids are, knock on wood, grown and out of here.
The kettlebell cardio is very time efficient and it's fun and
challenging besides, so that's what I do for the most part.

Okay. I can understand that. Thanks for the comments.

Start running, today. Take it easy at first, walk if you need to do so.

Start lifting weights if you so desire. Get a knowledgeable person to show
you proper technique for safety reasons.

Personally, I would not suggest making big changes to your diet. Maybe cut
back on desserts or other sweets for now. There is some evidence and
rationale for eating small meals throughout the day as long as you are not
taking in more energy that you were before. Eat 5 meals of 400 kcals each
or 3 meals of 667 kcals each and the former might be better (might be).

I certainly think you can run a 9 miler in July; it might not be fast but
you should be able to finish it feeling okay.

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hello All. I am looking for some training advice. I have three goals I
wish to accomplish this year. They are:

1. Lose about 20 pounds.
2. Improve my appearance by gaining some muscle definition.
3. Run my very first 9 mile race (Boilermaker in July in Utica, NY).

I am a 35 year old male, 6.0 feet tall, about 203 pounds. My body fat
is about 25.5. I have done extensive research on dieting. After looking
at all the fad diets out there, I feel the Abs Diet from Men's Health
magazine is the best. I've tried most of these diets and they all kind
of work in the short term. However, the Abs diet is more geared towards
someone who plans on doing weight training, and it seems like a better
plan for the long term. My long term goals are to get down to 180
pounds, and to generally live a healthier lifestyle. I would also love
to run a full marathon one day. Most of the fad diets out there,
(atkins, south beach, etc.), do not give me the energy I need to be
able to lift weights and run. The Abs diet does. However, the one big
problem I find with the Abs Diet is that it kind of discourages you
from doing "too much" aerobic training. They claim by doing too much
aerobic training, you are burning away a lot of the muscle you are
trying to build. This is a problem because i am going to be doing a lot
of aerobic training (treadmill/running) to prepare for the race in
July.

I guess my dilema is, I want to be able to run that race, but I also
really want to improve my appearance by losing weight and adding
muscle. I am basically looking for ANY advice anyone might have, to
reach my goals. How much running/training do I need to do to be ready
for a 9 mile run in July? Any diet suggestions? Small healthy meals
throughout the day? How many calories should I consume a day? Will
lifting weights be useless if i'm doing a lot of running? Are my goals
even obtainable in this time frame (3-4 months)?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Doug

"Devon Wellhung" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

1. Lose about 20 pounds.

Lipposuction.

2. Improve my appearance by gaining some muscle definition.

Plastic surgery.

3. Run my very first 9 mile race (Boilermaker in July in Utica, NY).

Drive your car, faster, easier, cheaper.

Cheaper? Have you checked gas prices lately?

Besides, we all know it's our pal Roger.

Besides, we all know it's our pal Roger.

It's good to see someone conversant in biochemistry posting in this
newsgroup. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as though if someone
is on a hypocaloric though very high-protein diet, the high
concentration of amino acids used in the synthesis of muscle protein
could counteract the catabolic effect of the hypocaloric diet. I have
been taking in 160-190 g protein a day (about half from whey protein),
while keeping my caloric intake below 2000, my lean body mass is
around 160 at 18% b.f., yet I have been able to make gains in lifting
while cutting fat.

JMW said:

Stephen Mulholland said:

Filthy Sanchez said:

<[email hidden]> wrote:
why would your
body be silly enough to burn muscle when it has food and fat to live off?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

Does the body not "live off" muscle in preference to fat for quite a while,
if there's no food about? Very simplisticly put, but you get my drift, I'm
sure.

I'll make a little less simplistic. There is constant protein
turnover in muscle. If the protein breakdown exceeds the protein
synthesis, you are losing muscle protein. On a hypocaloric diet, it
is probable, though not absolutely certain, that protein breakdown
will exceed protein synthesis, and the amino acids from the breakdown
will be deaminated for use in energy metabolism.

Different energy sources are constantly being used by your body.
Which source predominates at any given moment is affected by your
metabolic state.