Agreed, definitely. But when did this become a question of self-defense...?

There's a great solution for that: don't work out so much.

Umm, no. Working out builds stamina and endurance just as much as it builds muscle. Sometimes even more so, especially for people like me with high metabolisms. That said, working out is equally as effective at improving your endurance and stamina as doing sports.

In fact, there are specific ways of working out which pretty much do nothing but improve your stamina and endurance, no matter who you are.

Umm, to lose weight and get stronger?

Not necessarily, although physical labor is certainly a very practical way to improve your strength.

Yeah I guess you're right but the point is that I think there are better ways of staying fit. Personal preference I guess.

Working out is a key point of many sports that add onto athleticism. Such as wrestling. You need to be in top shape, and you can't get as strong as you need to be just from practicing, so you need to get muscle by lifting weights.

That being said, working out can be anything from lifting weights to doing a 30 minute morning walk. And, all those people who sit on the coach all day and play video games have to make up for all those hours of not doing anything with their muscles at all.

What if you work out so you can perform physical labour better?

There are plenty of situations these days where one benefits from strength, but doesn't do enough to cause muscle growth. Hiking with heavy packs, moving furniture, picking one's motorcycle up after a sidestand failure... some of them can be worked around with some smarts, but even then a bit more oomf will usually help things along.

Then there's the advantage of working on it in a controlled environment, and probably more .

An effective way of losing weight is to not eat anything 6 hours before you go to bed. If you're eating food right before you go to sleep, stop doing that!

I remember reading somewhere that's been proved a myth. Apparently if your daily calorie intake is less then the amount you need to stay neutral (varies for everyone) then it doesn't matter what time of day you eat. I'm still inclined to believe it though.


I have enough strength for this so working out is pretty much pointless for me. I'm not saying it's pointless for everyone.

a great way of dropping weight is picking up a fun sport as a hobby, if you dont allready have one. if you do try putting more time into it.
when i do four nights of icehockey i drop alot of weight, not so much in roller hockey but thats more to do with ice taking more effort to goalie right and the temp.

drink more water in place of sodas and juices, if you do drink juice try to make it yourself as store bought premades have more suger then needed. eat what youll need for the activity. before i play hockey is the only time i really eat carbs as i can use up energy fast playing goalie. run or jog, even walk alot. so long as your moving your burning up fat.

even try adding exercises to things you do. when i read a book i will be in a mid crunch position instead of laying or sitting. and if your trying to get the waist size down focus on ab workouts. chin up bars and bringing your knees to your chest while holding yourself up, and holding you legs steady standing and rotating your core side to side flexing like the bruce lee work out, with some good old alternating crunches have trimmed the waist down very fast for me, but everybody is different.

and lots of cardio, very important to heart health and helps trim weight too

Broscience.

People neglect calisthenics and wonder why they face a myriad of joint problems in later life.

Protip: Get yourself a copy of 'convict conditioning', it contains advanced bodyweight exercises such as one armed pushups and pullups and has a program that if followed correctly should allow you to perform 100 of each.

Schwarzenegger's arms would probably snap if he tried.

It's one thing to exert force on external objects, it's quite another to achieve flexibility and co-ordination in body movement.

Is this a hypothetical question? I suppose technically if you got all the essential amino acids and vitamins you could probably eat whatever you want.
I'm not a doctor or anything but I heard it's unhealthy to lose more than a pound a week, I wouldn't do anything terribly drastic.

While we are talking about a healthy diet and supplements I would like to point something out.

Many people believe that eating a foodstuff fortified with 'healthy' things like vitamins and iron is a good thing.
However, think about it like this:
Only food that has very little nutritional value even needs fortification.
You wouldnt dream about adding vitamins to an apple, for instance.

Cornflakes or whatever that has added vitamins etc. is not healthy or good for you.
Leave that in the store and have foods that do not require fortification.

There are even countries in the world that on basis of the philosophy 'only bad food needs fortification. We dont want people thinking junkfood is healthy', have made illegal these types of fortified foodstuff.

When it comes to losing weight, I believe the right way to go about that has already been said.
Excersize. Replace things like meats and cheeses with vegetables, fruits etc. in your diet.
The thing is, if you starve your body to lose weight it will go into 'food shortage' mode. Your body doesnt know youre trying to lose weight, it thinks theres a famine on.
Therefore it will start being far more efficient into turning that which you do get into fat, and as soon as you quit your diet you will rapidly regain your weight and nine times out of ten exceed your starting weight.
Your body is then trying to fatten up to be ready for the next famine.

To drink more water in place of soda and juice is a very good suggestion. Sodas have tons of sugars and the calories add up if you drink lots....same with juices, even the healthier 100% juice ones. I instead eat fruits in place of juices to get the vitamins I need and it's just healthier. I found just doing this alone for a month, I lost 5 lbs and it helps to cleanse the body of excess and gets you doing the #2, which also helps.

I recently lost 20lbs within 4 months (169lb to 149lb). Mix of healthy diet (limit the junk to once/week or not at all), more working out (lifting weights and sit-ups), and drinking more water. More cardio will certainly help losing that weight faster as well. But everyone's body is different and you may reach a point where the routines you do won't shed off anything much anymore ....what worked for me to lose 20 lbs may only lose you 10lb. I'm at the point that I can't go much lower than 149lb without more extreme measures, but I like my weight now.

And of course the more heavier you are, the more weight you can lose in a shorter amount of time...but the more weight you lose, the harder it is to keep it off. Dedicate yourself is all I can say.

More advice:
1. Spread out your meals if you find yourself hungry more often (you will), no need to eat everything in one sitting. Eat half of it and eat the rest when you feel that hunger a few hours later. I eat about 4-5 times a day, but in reality the amount of food is enough for 2 meals for most people. It's like tricking your body that you're eating all the time, but the amount of food really isn't all that much.
2. Take walks during work breaks.
3. Do avoid eating before sleeping and midnight snacks.

There's been lots of good advice already, but I'd like to add one more thing. I see a bunch of people recommending to avoid things like meat and cheese altogether. This is not needed at all, meat and cheese are perfectly healthy (when taken in moderation of course, as with all things). Just don't eat junk food and stick with just three meals a day and no more than one or two snacks. And if you do take a snack, take an apple or a bowl of yoghurt or something. No crisps, ice cream or chocolate bars. And don't deep fry everything!

How to lose weight is easy, really. All you need is willpower, which is the biggest problem for most people by far. You don't even have to exercise, just going on a short walk every day is enough. Of course exercise and working out are great, and if you want stamina and a good looking body with some muscle on it you'll definitely need to. However, just losing excess body fat can almost always be accomplished by changing your diet alone. Most people who fail at losing weight are just too weak to stick with that and go back to eating lots of unhealthy food (usually while telling their friends that they're still eating perfectly healthy and that they can't help being fat because it's just genetic/illness/or they're just big boned).

You could, yeah, but supplements are mainly for bulk. Don't trust any of those weight loss supplements or calorie burners.

Edit: I'm being real lazy with this response, I could add a whole bunch of stuff but I'm just too tired atm. Also, some of the stuff in this thread is absolute nonsense while other stuff is gold. CBA to tell which is which, but Fanner pointed some out.

I don't think there is an easy solution just control what you eat... don't eat pizza every day :Z

Just eat normally and don't overeat. Go for a walk or something. If your looking to be more hardcoe go running every day. Work out. Just don't rush it. It's easy enough to gain weight, to lose it takes time.

I'm trying to gain weight.

Eating fatty, sugary and portein full foods does nothing


- too early for these damn words...

Pause the stopwatch.

Read this: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/06/how-to-lose-20-lbs-of-fat-in-30-days-without-doing-any-exercise/

I can't

Working out is one thing, but your guts need the excercise too. Supplements don't give you fibre; you need to move mass through your body, or you will end up buff on the outside, twisted up on the inside.

Highly erroneous and potentially dangerous information is contained in that book. I would advise the OP to avoid it.

But don't completely cut out delicious treats. Trying to do so increases the chances of failure. Instead, make them treats. Restrict the quantity you consume and 'clean' them up as much has possible -- get them as healthy as you can without ruining them. Also try to find healthier substitutes.

Taking chocolate as an example, since it's the weakness of a lot of people: Go for extra dark (60%+ cocoa mass) if it's to your tastes, keep your serving size to a few pieces if you can (perhaps with an afternoon coffee?), and try to keep the frequency down. If milk choc is more your thing, stick with the quality stuff (at least 30% cocoa), and avoid crud like Hershey's. The latter is something I definitely recommend even if you're not watching your diet . Either way, see if you can make it a reward for being good.

Also, losing lots of fat in a short period of time can result in lots of loose skin which may require surgery to look anything other than unpleasant .

EDIT: Oh, and I encourage people to call me out if I'm wrong on something. I'll go so far as editing offending posts if my input is bad -- let me know if you think I should .

Holy broscience batman.

Some of you need to actually know about the subject before giving advice. I don't post in computer threads giving advice on what hardware to buy because I don't know anything about it, so the same should apply to people who 1) aren't actually knowledgeable about the subject, 2) their knowledge is based on past information (especially on nutrition, it's changed a lot), and 3) they don't actually practice what they preach.

Not singling you out Sneakmaster, just reading through the posts on the exercise and nutrition threads on this forum.

If people want to learn about diet and working out from a reliable source, read these threads:

On exercising
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=118920551
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=118885421
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=122509811

On nutrition
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=121703981
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=136691851
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=123915821
And a thread which talks about nutrition myths: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=492749&page=1

And the golden rule, backed up by Alan Aragon himself:



If you want more information, you read about it on the forum, articles etc. If you have any questions (not stupid ones, or ones which show that you have not actually read anything, because no one will reply if you're not ready to learn for yourself) post them in the exercising and nutrition sections. They're frequented by very experienced people, and the nutrition section is frequented by some of the world's leading experts.

Just eat a normal, balanced diet (yes, that can include small amounts of junk food) and do a fair amount of excercise.

A lot of people trying to lose weight obsess too much over healthy diets and rigourous excersise routines... and when they inevitably can't keep it up and slip back into old routines after several weeks or months, they just put on weight quicker than before.

When I wanted to lose weight for my wedding I employed a very radical approach:

Eat less, excercise more.

I used Slim Fast shakes for breakfast and supper and ate a normal lunch.

Then I downloaded this app for my iphone and followed the running program:

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/get-running-couch-to-5k/id319043985?mt=8

I ate 3 normal meals on a weekend but cut out sweets, down to 1 tea (with sugar) a day and in a couple of months I'd dropped loads of weight.

We eat too much and don't excercise enough.

The best thing you can do though is depsite all our well meaning advice why not talk to your DOCTOR and get some input from a medical professional.

Az