Here are some things I was ignorant about until a few years ago, when I realized I’d have to lose a few pounds or buy a new set of pants, which was followed by some successful self-experimentation.
Unless you consciously discipline yourself, and unless you’re extremely athletic or have unusually low appetite, you’ll end up consuming way more calories than you spend. It depends on your metabolism whether these will end up stored as fat, and in what proportion. For many people, this proportion is near zero, but only until some point in life. For me, this point came sometime in my late twenties.
One wrong-headed belief many people have is that they’ll lose weight just by exercising. The trouble is, you can burn a significant amount of energy by physical effort only if you’re in a great shape to begin with; otherwise, you can exert yourself for hours and still burn what amounts to (literally) just three or four bites of food. The key is to figure out a regime of exercise that makes you eat less, not more, which I managed; I’m not sure if this is possible for everyone, though.
There are insane amounts of sugar in almost any sweet-tasting drink, more insane than most people perceive them to be even if they’ve read the figures on the labels. (I don’t really perceive those awful artificial sweeteners as “sweet.”) The pictures on sugarstacks.com are worth checking out. One would do well to develop a feeling of disgust towards anything that’s liquid and sweet-tasting. All this holds even for the hip and supposedly healthy pure fruit juices.
Carbonated water can be a fairly satisfying zero-calorie substitute for sweet drinks and beer. Try looking for Eastern European brands that are sold in ethnic deli stores. They’re far superior to anything mass-marketed in North America.
Losing even a modest amount of weight can dramatically lower your alcohol tolerance. After losing something like 11-12 pounds, I realized that it took about half as much booze as before to get me drunk, and caused more severe hangovers. (Some of that was also due to less drinking in general during these months, but this can’t possibly account for the whole effect.)
(This one I’d known even earlier.) Chin-ups are by far the most cost-effective way of working out for people with very little time and/or willpower. Just a doing a few sets every day every now and then while you’re going around the house is enough to see rapid results. Again, this might be a genetic quirk of mine, not a universal law.
i’d supplement with dips so you aren’t encouraging an imbalance in upper body muscles. you can get straps that hang from your chinup bar to do them on if there’s nothing convenient around.
According to wikipedia, dips mostly work the “triceps, with major synergists being the anterior deltoid, the pectoralis muscles (sternal, clavicular, and minor), and the rhomboid muscles of the back (in that order). ”
An imbalance in upper body muscles indicates more development in particular muscle groups in the upper body while neglecting the other upper body muscles that balance them. This can lead to posture problems and in the worst case injury.
The trouble is, you can burn a significant amount of energy by physical effort only if you’re in a great shape to begin with; otherwise, you can exert yourself for hours and still burn what amounts to (literally) just three or four bites of food.
Why does exercising when unfit burn fewer calories? Is it because you cannot exercise as intensely?
Why does exercising when unfit burn fewer calories? Is it because you cannot exercise as intensely?
Pretty much, both when it comes to the maximum power you can exert and the time you can sustain it. To take a very extreme example, Michael Phelps can exercise intensely enough to burn almost 10,000 calories in a few hours every day (of course, there’s a large genetic component to it). An average couch potato would likely collapse before managing to burn the equivalent of a single Starbucks muffin in a stretch.
Here are some things I was ignorant about until a few years ago, when I realized I’d have to lose a few pounds or buy a new set of pants, which was followed by some successful self-experimentation.
Unless you consciously discipline yourself, and unless you’re extremely athletic or have unusually low appetite, you’ll end up consuming way more calories than you spend. It depends on your metabolism whether these will end up stored as fat, and in what proportion. For many people, this proportion is near zero, but only until some point in life. For me, this point came sometime in my late twenties.
One wrong-headed belief many people have is that they’ll lose weight just by exercising. The trouble is, you can burn a significant amount of energy by physical effort only if you’re in a great shape to begin with; otherwise, you can exert yourself for hours and still burn what amounts to (literally) just three or four bites of food. The key is to figure out a regime of exercise that makes you eat less, not more, which I managed; I’m not sure if this is possible for everyone, though.
There are insane amounts of sugar in almost any sweet-tasting drink, more insane than most people perceive them to be even if they’ve read the figures on the labels. (I don’t really perceive those awful artificial sweeteners as “sweet.”) The pictures on sugarstacks.com are worth checking out. One would do well to develop a feeling of disgust towards anything that’s liquid and sweet-tasting. All this holds even for the hip and supposedly healthy pure fruit juices.
Carbonated water can be a fairly satisfying zero-calorie substitute for sweet drinks and beer. Try looking for Eastern European brands that are sold in ethnic deli stores. They’re far superior to anything mass-marketed in North America.
Losing even a modest amount of weight can dramatically lower your alcohol tolerance. After losing something like 11-12 pounds, I realized that it took about half as much booze as before to get me drunk, and caused more severe hangovers. (Some of that was also due to less drinking in general during these months, but this can’t possibly account for the whole effect.)
(This one I’d known even earlier.) Chin-ups are by far the most cost-effective way of working out for people with very little time and/or willpower. Just a doing a few sets every day every now and then while you’re going around the house is enough to see rapid results. Again, this might be a genetic quirk of mine, not a universal law.
i’d supplement with dips so you aren’t encouraging an imbalance in upper body muscles. you can get straps that hang from your chinup bar to do them on if there’s nothing convenient around.
According to wikipedia, dips mostly work the “triceps, with major synergists being the anterior deltoid, the pectoralis muscles (sternal, clavicular, and minor), and the rhomboid muscles of the back (in that order). ”
Aren’t those all upper body muscles too?
An imbalance in upper body muscles indicates more development in particular muscle groups in the upper body while neglecting the other upper body muscles that balance them. This can lead to posture problems and in the worst case injury.
Why does exercising when unfit burn fewer calories? Is it because you cannot exercise as intensely?
sfb:
Pretty much, both when it comes to the maximum power you can exert and the time you can sustain it. To take a very extreme example, Michael Phelps can exercise intensely enough to burn almost 10,000 calories in a few hours every day (of course, there’s a large genetic component to it). An average couch potato would likely collapse before managing to burn the equivalent of a single Starbucks muffin in a stretch.