Another question for the fitness experts
 

Finally after years of talking about losing weight/getting fit I started at the beginning of August. However after nearly 4 weeks of jogging/running/walking i'm not feeling more energetic but absolutely knackered.

I do a 2.4 mile round trip each day (1.2 straight line country road from my house, turn round and come back). Started off jogging 1/3 a mile before was completely exhausted on my first day (yes that is how unfit I was) and fast walked the rest of the 2.4 miles . I have gradually managed to up that so I now jog .7 of a mile, walk .15 to .2 of a mile to get my breathe back and then jog another .3 to .4 of a mile to the end of the 1.2 mile stretch. I then fast walk .8 of a mile back and jog the final .4 of a mile to home with the last jog being a real struggle. Still not great but a big improvement for me.

When I get in I then do a few weights, and occasionally for now some sit ups and press ups. I have reduced my food intake dramatically so no chocolate, crisps, biscuits, cakes which previously I was stuffing on a daily basis and have lost half a stone in the first 2 weeks. The 3rd week i was off with the kids and didn't excersise every day and ate more but still lost 1.5lb. This week I have gone back to keeping to it rigidly and will see how much more i've lost at the weekend.

I am probably now not eating 2000 calories a day by having just a bowl of cereal for breakfast and only 1 coffee with only 1 sugar (was several cups with 2 heaped sugars in each), a sandwich for lunch or a bowl of soup and a main meal for dinner with a small ice lolly for desert.

If I have to have a snack during the day I have a cereal bar or a banana.

A colleague at work does club running and is currently running about 50 miles a week and his calorie intake is massive but then he is skinny as a rake so burns off all the chocolate etc he eats. I am trying to burn fat so don't want to eat sugary food like chocolate as he does but it seems my diet isn't giving me enough calories/energy to deal with the excersise. This week I have done 5 days on the trot and my legs are shot away today. If I rest 2 days I will feel better like I did when I took a break last week but then I wont be keeping up the exercise and wont lose much weight each week.

How do I deal with the total lack of energy? I thought burning fat was supposed to give the energy required? I don't want to increase my food intake as I wont lose any weight so do I need to change what I am eating to higher energy food such as more pasta? I seem to be really missing the high intake of sugar I used to have every day and i'm not adjust to not having it.

You are taking fluids while running aren't you? It's essential you do so as the lower hydration levels cause you all sorts of issues when exercising

I'm in my 3rd week of cycling the 14 miles home from work each day (train in, 1 mile to work from the station) and I've gone through the dip of lower energy and am JUST starting to feel more alert during the day. Your body is adjusting to the change in requirements at the moment and you have to give it chance.

Fully fit people burn more calories just sitting doing nothing than unfit people do - you ARE increasing your metabolism, you have to give things chance.

Cheers for the reply. No not taking in fluids whilst doing the 2.4 miles. However I have a pint of very weak sugar free orange squash when I get in (as can't stand plain water) and then a further 2 pints of that during the evening. I tend to do the jogging late afternoon and am not drinking much during the day before exercising. Do I need to up the water before I exercise then?

Yes you do, I have a 1 litre bottle for the ride home and I use it. When it's really humid I sometimes pack the 2nd litre bottle as well.

I leave work at about 5, so from about 4 I drink 3-4 cups of water to set me up. Which means I only need to top up on the way home. It really makes a difference.

I know it looks a bit sad when you see these people jogging with the bottles in their hands but you really do need to, so I suggest you get one.

Oh, and you need to consider that you are burning fat which is very inefficient so you are going to feel more tired than usual. At present I am not hugely concerned about weight loss, so I have only reduced my calory intake slightly (smaller portions mainly!) what I am trying to achieve is a faster metabolism so that the weight loss will happen anyway.

Bound to hurt if you havnt done any for a long time and depending on your weight could actually be harmful to your jionts .!

I havnt exactly exercized for several years and i doubt i could do more than a mile without 'drawing breath' - in this time ive put on at least 1/2 a stone :eek:

Bupa's website had some really good stuff about running

I'm not an expert, but I started exercising a couple of years ago and lost a couple of stone. I've now built this into my life and keep up the daily routine so I can tell you what worked for me.

I use a heart rate monitor for all me excercise and this tells me what zone I'm in. Have a google and you can find out all the theory behind it, but in simple terms you only need to do a easy excercise to loose weight. If you do hard excercise then you'll turn muscle into fat (and maybe increase your weight!) As a result of the HRM I found that excercise doesn't have to hurt, and I could also measure my improvements.

On the diet front I think you need to cut down on what you eat, but be sensible. When I eat too little I feel shaky and can't excercise, but I find that I can still eat well and loose weight. As a rough rule IIRC you need to have a calorie deficit of 3000 per week to loose one pound. Keeping a log of what you eat/what you use is useful to work this out.

I still cycle/run 4 to 5 times a week, which I enjoy and when I keep a control on what I eat/drink I can easily control my weight.

When you laid out your daily eating plan it doesnt appear to have a good variety of foods.

When you wake up, have a pint of water. Overnight your body actually dehydrates, so this is essential to rehydrate you. So many people start their morning with a coffee which ends up making you even more dehydrated.

Follow this with a bowl of good cereal (wheatbix or a muesli), and a piece of fruit, and a cup of tea if you want. Finally have a dose of protein, something like AST VP2, which has very low carbs, calories, and fat, but gives you a good protein boost and helps keep hunger at bay as well.

Mid morning, around 11, have a small sandwich, as in half of you daily sandwich, with a carrot, apple, and small yoghurt, as well as a very small handful of nuts (the type you buy in the health secton of your local store, not nobbies salted etc).

Around 3PM, have exactly the same as above, so other half of your sandwich and a carrot etc, small but sufficient portions. Try salads on some days, with some avocado and the like in them, keep foods as raw as possible too, so wholegrain/wholemeal breads.

Then have dinner as early as possible, preferably around 6PM.

After your excercise, have another serving of protein, and make sure during the day you drink a lot of water and very little tea and coffee (try keep to 2/3 cups a day).

This way you never let your body become hungry. Hunger causes your body to store fat whereas eating regullaly as above means your metabolism remains high throughout the day and helps burn calories.

Using the above you provide your body with a wide range of essentials, it'll improve your running and allow you to feel a lot less tired and fatigued.

No doubt others will have their own recommendations, but using the above has definitely worked for me.

As above is good advice regarding when to eat. Try never to eat to excess, and eat less more often.

Regarding the exercise. Running every day at your level wont do you much good as your body needs the recovery time. Run Monday, Weds and Friday and once into it try run on a sunday but a bit further than you would normally.

On the off day do your weight bearing exercises. forget the sit ups for now. Pointless exercise for you currently. If you can put on muscle it helps as you will burn more calories at rest as well as when you're working out.

This first month your body is getting used to the exercise so don't expect to be feeling super fit as yet. Things should start to kick in about week 6. Thinking of it as a graph with a slow shollow curve at the start rising upwards. You're currently near the bottom as your body fights to shift the weight which is hindering it as you try to run. As that comes off and your aerobic capacity increases the curse will start to rise and the results will speed up which will give you more motivation for it!

Keep up the work

I was in the same boat as you just under a year ago. I bought a treadmill and put it in a spare room and use it quite a bit. I can now run 10k in under an hour without stopping which is fantastic for me.
I did not cut down on food I just started eating better carbs with more proten and cut down on the beer.
With regards to drinking when running, I read unless you run for over an hour you don't need to carry a drink when running.
I would also buy a HRM. I am 33 so my target heart rate is about 160bpm if I want to burn fat. Most runners when starting out run too fast so it's a good way to see how hard your working.
The best way is to start of slow and build your time up before starting on any speed work. The best forum I found for running is: Runner's World Forum

hope this helps and stick with it.

This is a good resource....

Nutrition facts, calories in food, labels, nutritional information and analysis – NutritionData.com


As above eat 4-5 times a day, feed your body not starve it.

maintain a high protein diet to retain muscle mass (you might lose weight by not eating much but a portion of that will be lean tissue)

make sure your protein intake is clean as possible, i.e. skinless chicken, fish, lean meat etc. go easy on red meat although dont cut it out as red meat is good for you.

Keep your cardio and weight training seperate if possible, if you cant then do the weights first!

Eat a couple of bananas before you train, i',m a big believer in this and makes such a difference. This will give you sustained energy over your workout an is much better than having some sugery quick rush energy drink that is shortlived.

And finally - have a cheat day, dont be a pig but if you want that fry up or that Sunday roast after you've worked your arse off all week then go for it.

You may be knackered but you need to take into account that maybe one of the following is applying to you

1) You are running further than you did at the beginnning
2) A mate had a hill near his house that he rode up daily as part of his exercise regime but used to complain to me it was never easier and he was always knackered...... turned out that he had dropped almost 3 minutes from the time it took to ride up the hill.

Just cos it does not feel an improvement does not mean you are not improvement.....

Dont base your results on energy alone... also look at times and distance.

Have to agree about the still feeling knackered - I am every time i get home, but I am now consistently using a higher gear than I did at the start. The one I started with is too easy for me now and I 'over-rotate' on it. On one stretch of an uphill I am now holding 16mph where I used to struggle with 13-14.

As you improve things just sort of happen, but you don't notice it yourself as you are in the middle of it

Cheers for the replies and advice :) As for the last reply, yes I have been increasing distance jogged and quickening the time taken quite regularly trying to push the weight loss by pushing the jogging and reducing the fast walking. Quickest i've done the 2.4 miles in is 28 minutes, when I started 4 weeks ago it was 35 minutes to do it.

My lungs are much improved in terms of lasting longer before getting out of breathe and also helped by slowing down the pace to go further. I've doubled the distance on the initial jog from when i've started and recovering a lot quicker from it to then do more jogging. The bit that isn't improving is how heavy my legs feel. Yesterday on the last bit of jogging they felt like they were buckling due to weakness as I went on and off of pavements.

Just had a pint of water, jacket spud with small about of baked beans and a banana for lunch so hopefully that will give me some energy for later when I go.

I also think it's a massive shock to my body in the reduction of sugar intake. I'm addicted to chocolate so stopping that has been far harder than it ever was giving up smoking. I've been caning sugary foods since the age of 19 so to suddenly stop in mid 30's has been a shock I think.

And prob the fact that you're a gooner doesn't help either :p

Great advice here.

Cutting out the sugars is obviously going to be felt.

I've been re-assesing diet of late as part of a more sustained and intensive gym programme - as opposed to a "train hard and eat what you like" plan.

I've cut out as much of the saturated fat and "bad" sugars as i can, and replaced them with fruit, nuts and seeds, together with lots of water (try and get to like it). I've always been a fan of lean, high protien foods anyway, so that's a given for me.

My energy levels have increased, my body fat percentage is reducing and my weight has remained constant.

I have a very sweet tooth and cutting out the chocolate, etc was a nightmare. I've found dried fruit to be a great substitute, obviously in moderation.

i made it from an unfit so and so to being very fit. I'd say you need to alter your diet to eat little and often. I'd also say don't do weights straight after running as you'll be too nackered. So either run/gym on alternate days, or run in the morning and gym in the afternoon. Do research on the optimum carbs/protein you need, most people eat far too many carbs and not enough protein.

Sean

If your doing 2.4 miles in 28 minutes your not that unfit. I was told for the police fitness tests if you can run a mile in ten minutes you pass.

I spent the first year of work totally knackered every day. Another couple of years on and I can do a days work steel erecting/shed building(getting up at 5-6am depending on how far away the job is), and go straight out for a run when I get home, then spend the night doing stuff to the car. Never seem to get tired at all.

If you put 100% effort into something, it will just keep getting easier and easier. Don't worry about feeling knackered after a month, that's par for the course. Just stick at it, no matter how sh*t you feel. :thumb:

Also, you should be taking in loads of protein rich food if you are weight lifting. Just make sure it is healthy and low in fat.

Should mention that I have hardly had a drink since I was 19(i'm now 21), I don't smoke and eat very healthy. I think that helps alot to be honest!

Edited to say - There's nothing wrong with pushing yourself to the absolute limit...e.g Going for a run, then weight lifting straight after even though you feel terrible from previous day's exersise. This won't help you get fit at all, but it will build will-power: and in the long term that will help you alot.

Alan

There will be a lag between how much better your "wind" gets and a significant improvement in the fitness of your leg muscles. You will get an imrovement in your lung capacity/efficiency very quickly, but in order for your leg muscles to take advantage of the increase in oxygen levels in your blood, your body has to "upgrade" the blood supply to those areas. In other words, the network of arteries, veins and capillaries that supply blood to your legs needs to have time to grow in response to your increased workload. This won't happen overnight and will only just be starting to happen in the three weeks you've been at it. :)

As far as jogging/walking every night goes, I think that's too much at this early stage. I would drop it to every other night. Your body needs time to react positively to the higher demands you're making upon it, so that means rest and recuperation. Just think, you've gone from zero to ohmygod overnight - every tissue in your body has become weak and underdeveloped because the body won't maintain highly efficient blood systems, strong muscles, capacious lungs, resilient cartilages, skin (blisters... ouch!) and over-efficient heart if you're not using them. It's a waste of energy/food and the human body has evolved to cut out waste. Give it time to rebuild itself between sessions and you'll see your performance leap up very soon.

You're doing brilliantly so far. :thumb:

Every 3 or 4 weeks have a week off all exercise. This will give your muscles, including your heart, a thorough recovery, leaving you raring to go again.

Funny how threads have a habit of mirroring your life! :D
I've just spent the last 5 weeks getting back into training after both a hernia operation and my holidays. I started, using my HRM, training very low intensity. All fat burning runs, mostly fast walking, along a familiar flat canal route. After the 3rd week of that, I upped the HR to aerobic, and did 2 weeks of similar routes. My diet has changed quite a lot in that time, although I've read some good advice above that I'll try to incorporate in future.
I've just this week joined the gym, and paid into a years contract with the missus. Now I normally hate going to the gym, but for some reason I've enjoyed my last 2 sessions and am looking forward to next weeks. I'm planning on mon/wed/fri trips to the gym, with maybe a run tues/thur if I'm upto it. Then rest sat and either more gym sunday or a good bike ride :)
I can feel the benefits of my new regime already, and although I've lost some weight, it's the sense of energy I have that is the big gain for me.

CHIEF SAID:
Why? I tend to do 30 mins on the crosstrainer at 144 bpm, then 30 mins bike at 144 bpm then 15 mins on the rower at 144pm. I've then gone and done some lightweight 3 x 10 reps on my arms and chest, 100 situps and rest :D
Should I be doing the weights first then?

ignore this :lol1:

That's not a 'weights workout' in the sense he means. In the case there he's talking about doing a split routine eg. Monday - chest and tris, Tues CV routine, Weds, Back and Bi's, Thurs Cv routine, Fri - Shoulders and abs. Where when you do weight loading exercise you're training to failure.

Thanks once again for all the great advice and positive replies :) When I say weights, i'm only using dumbbells for my arms and sides/ribs/shoulders nothing more than that. Got weights in the garage but have no interest in using them and going to the gym is out due to cost and time. I'm doing the jogging because it's free and lasts the 30 minutes minimum exercise you are supposed to do each day.

I went out again yesterday which was my 6th day on the trot and it was the worst i've managed for 2 weeks so definitely can not keep it up 6 days out of 7 and need to rest more than 1 day in 7. My legs were completely shot away and I got dizzy by the time I turned round to come back so only walked the return leg home feeling quite rough. Either i'm going to do 4 days jogging and a day off or alternate jog 1 day and walk the next with 1 day off a week and so on as I want to maintain that 30 mins a day minimum.

Bubba that makes perfect sense and thank you for that. Yes my lungs have improved dramatically for me quite quickly and that surprised me because up until 4 years ago I was a heavy smoker and assumed they would always be out of puff even after giving up. My legs definitely have not managed to improve at the same rate. Stupidly I thought my legs would refill with energy in 24 hours so could keep it up each day as its only just over 2 miles which isn't a lot. As proved to myself yesterday they need more than 24 hours rest if kept up for more than 4 days in a row.

Going to rest today and just do Wii fit (but not the jogging) and light exercise.

STi WS out of interest mate why are the sit ups a waste of time? The weight i've lost so far seems to have come off my face and side of my body and none off the front of my stomach so far which is where I want to lose it from most. I thought the sit ups would help strengthen my stomach and posture and help burn some fat around what little muscle is currently there?

I've still got my rowing machine in the garage and still after what must be 3 years of having it its not been used since the day I bought it. Could this be of use incorporated into a routine? My biggest concerns of using it are back/neck strains as i've had issues with my back/neck before so don't want to return to a badback/neck by incorrectly using the rowing machine.

Oh and NAF :razz: :D

Men predominantly store fat around their waist. you cannot spot reduce where the fat comes off so to get rid of that fat you need to burn it off and to be honest sit ups burn very few calories for the effort. I'm not saying there's anything bad about doing them but you wont shift that fat off the gut doing them and your time and efforts would be better spent working bigger muscles groups (chest, back, legs). Good lumber and trunk strength is required though for any exercise you do so it's not a bad thing you're working them just don't think those sit ups are going to sort out the belly.

Unfortunately for us bloke who want to get that 6 pack look you can work out and put on the muscle all you want but you wont see them until you get the body fat % down to about 12. I'd say I'm about 18-20%.

Edit: The rowing machine will be a great way to burn calories and could be used as a good HIIT (High-intensity interval training - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) work out. The only thing would be that it may put too much strain on your back if you have had problems. Check the concept 2 thread and see if you could find help to make sure your technique is correct then see how you go.

The advice about rest days is very important - I suffer by the end of the week as a rule - this morning just sat at my desk I have tension in my thighes due to a weeks worth of 14 mile rides. I've concluded that this is what causes my poor start to the ride home (which is an uphill struggle for the first 6 miles).

Oh, about the weight loss - I am exactly the same. People have commented on my face looking thinner but I see NO difference to my belly. I also do have more energy now (in general) but am still utterly shattered when I get home after the ride.

I'm just being patient - I know it will come and I've ordered all my winter cycling kit to make sure I keep this up off season.

Jer, thanks and just been having a think about this, what treadmill did you buy? Is a half decent one a minimum of £500 (which is a years gym membership so piad for itself after a year)? I've lost hardly any weight this week and I think I know why. When I do the jogging stretches they aren't lasting anywhere near 10 minutes at a time so not burning any fat or getting into that 'zone'. A treadmill could possibly help in that I will be able to control pace a lot easier, keep an eye on heart rate and not knacker my legs by not running on poor surfaces with rubbish trainers. It also means i'll be able to keep it up during winter which running outside I wont as I know I wont go out in the pee'ing of rain in the dark down an unlit country lane.

The other option is an exercise bike as when I used one in a gym a few years back I did that for 20 minutes at a time and lost a stone in a month easily. I'd rather be doing 20 minutes hard cycling and losing weight than 30 minutes jogging/walking and only losing a pound or 2 a week. EDIT to add: what exercise bike is OK (don't need or want the best) as looking at prices you get a far better bike for a lot less money than treadmill prices?

Wii fit also seems to be what contributed to me losing more in the first 2 weeks as I did the running and exercises on there that went for longer than 10 minutes (the full island jog on that thing is bloody hard work). I haven't done any on Wii fit the last 2 weeks and weight loss has been substantially less so going back to that this week and see what changes.

Having gone out for 6 days this week and lost just over 1lb its not worth it and not working and pee'd me off.

Sound advice. :thumb:

Lots of long posts i've read some not all but this is what I did.

Was 15st 6lbs (i'm 6ft 1") had footy injury that did leg in big time so no exercise for near a year, after recovered I suffered a set back, tore knee ligiments, calf muscle and snapped achillies tendon so set back again.

I decided now 95% better although still dodge knee to cut down to around 13st.

I instantaly changed to a 600 calorie a day diet! 4 meals of 150 calories, no carbs at all! and everything else I needed.

After 3-4 days body is forced into ketosis which if you don't know what that is, forces you body to eat it's own fats.

For an example on how quick it works.

Day 1-4 I lost 4lbs
Day 5-7 I lost 7lbs
Week 1 total lost 11lbs. (was working long week so no exercise!)

Also I only drank water 2.5litres+ a day and if I craved something else I opted for a Zero Coke 1/2 pint.

I really don't recommend this for more than 3-4 weeks but it's fantastic way to lose weight rapid style, you need huge willpower though.

On the fitness side I bet if you ran and did the same exercise you did to begin with you'll not be knackered thus proving your fitter already just because your now going further your still pushing your body to it's limits, all be it more than before.