Body Fat

[Nic#19 0]

Hey what is the quickest most effective way to loose body fat? any help will be great

[LegoDoom 0]

Getting a solid 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night. Eating a small breakfast when you wake up. Not eating big meals and not eating 3 hours before you go to bed. All that will speed up your metabolism. Combine that with a cardio activity (running, cycling, skating, etc) and you should be able to burn off fat relatively quickly.

EDIT: And of course not eating many sugars or fatty foods helps a lot.

[Gongshow11 1]

lots of water cuts down body fat too

[Guest phillyfan]

Fastest? Not sure, most effective in my opinion? I I run a few times around my block each night, and also know when to say I'm full. Honestly though, not having extra large fries with that combo meal does a number in the long run. I'd suggest to excercise, running or biking even and going on a diet as well if it's that servere. Push-ups and crunches wouldn't be a bad idea either.

[LegoDoom 0]

All push-ups and crunches will do is strengthen those muscles. To lose fat you need to burn off more calories than you consume. By speeding up your metabolism (through proper sleep and smaller portioned meals), you'll burn off more fat when doing an extended cardio exercise.

[Guest phillyfan]

Lego:Doing a couple hundred push-ups doesn't burn fat? I know it strengthens the muscles as well, but I was advised from my Uncle that doing simples things like push-ups in large quanities will aid in burning fat. Maybe I am incorrect here, but still wouldn't hurt to get into the rythm of doing these anyway daily.

[mack 44]

Something like push-ups helps strength more than it burns fat. What it would help is the long run since the more muscle you have the more fat you burn.

As for water I've found that it just helps break down fat better but the main thing it helps is making you feel full and keep you from hossing out.

[Chadd 916]

Hey what is the quickest most effective way to loose body fat? any help will be great

Tell her that she isn't as cute as she used to be.

[mack 44]

I don't know much body fat will be lost when he's castrated by her though.

[LegoDoom 0]

Lego:Doing a couple hundred push-ups doesn't burn fat? I know it strengthens the muscles as well, but I was advised from my Uncle that doing simples things like push-ups in large quanities will aid in burning fat. Maybe I am incorrect here, but still wouldn't hurt to get into the rythm of doing these anyway daily.

How long does it take to do push-ups? Doing cardio for an hour or two will burn a lot more fat than any strengthening routine. It won't build as much muscle, but will burn more fat. I find playing basketball is great cardio. And it's not as boring as running, cycling, etc.

[Guest phillyfan]

Ah, point taken. But cycling isn't always boring, find a nice trail around a lake, or something of the sort. It can be quite "un-boring."

[Chadd 916]

Increasing your muscle mass will increase the number of calories your body will burn. However, most things that build muscle mass do nothing to get rid of your bodyfat directly.

[LegoDoom 0]

Yes, but push-ups and crunches doesn't produce a ton of muscle mass, just more refined muscles.

[Kobe 0]

Just remember to keep the cardio intensity down and the duration high. You burn fat through oxidation. Going too hard while you're running, biking, etc. will burn sugar instead of body fat.

Adding more muscle is always good. A pound of muscle can burn up to 50 calories a day. You'll be burning calories while you sit on your ass.

I weightlift twice a week and do 30-40 min of incline treadmill walking 3 times a week. Combine that with your games/practices and a healthy diet and you should be good to go. Drink at least 2 litres (2 quarts) of water to keep the body nice and lubed and get some sleep to keep your metabolism high.

[Kobe 0]

There really isn't such a thing as a "more refined" muscle. Muscles are muscles. Muscles can't get "tighter". They can only do 3 things: get bigger, get smaller, and stay the same. The "ripped" look comes from a decreased percentage of body fat.

[LegoDoom 0]

Actually, what I meant by refined muscle is muscle that has less fat in it. While some strengthening builds muscle mass, it does leave some fat in the muscle. Using decrease weight and increased reps makes tighter muscles. It doesn't just burn body fat, but muscle fat.

[bulletproof_funk 0]

Atkin's diet anyone? I mean cutting down on carbohydrate intake while increasing protein for some people will reduce fat. It really depends how much you have now and want to realistically lose.

[LegoDoom 0]

The Atkin's diet is bad for your heart if you don't have much fat to lose and are active. A low carb, low fat diet would be better. But going down to under 50 carbs a day if you're active isn't healthy.

[bulletproof_funk 0]

The Atkin's diet doesn't say to eat unhealthy, only to lower carb intake (not to eliminate it either). Just so there's no misunderstanding, I wasn't implying anyone should eat nothing but greasy bacon only in order lose fat. So lowering carbs on a healthy diet shouldn't be bad for you or your heart, I would think.

[Dave 1]

A thing that did help me to burn fat is also to choose the right nutrition, and I am not exactly talking calorie-reduction here. Some food help your body to burn fat more than others. The most basic "ingredients" for burning fat are magnesium and vitamin c. Taking into consideration that your highest fat-burn-rate is while you sleep (!), it's an easy thing to have a glas of magnesium stuff with acsorbic acid (=vit C, cheap as powder in drugstores) before going to bed.

Also eggs (!) do contain tons of secondary fat-burning substances. Eggs are often condemned because they contain about 7 or 9 grams of fat each, but the fat-burners in it make more than up for it.

Eating fish once a week (or more) will also provide your body with fat-burners.

I'll look up more fat-burning foods tomorrow.

EDIT: and if you are into some more specific nutrition info that does not exactly mean a diet that makes you starve, check out Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo's books about blood-type oriented nutrition. Sounds crazy but your blood type seems to have an influence on what you should eat or not (not only for loosing weight but also to prevent disease/allergies and ageing). For example, B-typers (as me) should - according to D'Adamo's studies - avoid chicken and maize in first place (along with many other specific tipps).

[LegoDoom 0]

The Atkin's diet doesn't say to eat unhealthy, only to lower carb intake (not to eliminate it either).  Just so there's no misunderstanding, I wasn't implying anyone should eat nothing but greasy bacon only in order lose fat.  So lowering carbs on a healthy diet shouldn't be bad for you or your heart, I would think.

You're also not supposed to heavily exercise in certain stages of Atkin's. It's not all the fatty foods I'm talking about, it's the low amount of carbs. Also, if you can find a lot of food to eat that's low in fat and carbs, have fun eating that for the rest of your life. Also, you're supposed to stay in a low carb cycle to keep burning fat. It's not that healthy if you're not very overweight and actually exercise regularly.

[bulletproof_funk 0]

Interesting, Lego... Had I known this before, I wouldn't have mentioned Atkin's. It was just the lower carbs and lowering fat aspects of Atkin's that I mentioned it.

If I'm not mistaken, true Atkin's diet was designed for inactive people who want to lose fat.

[flaming_june 2]

Getting a solid 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night. Eating a small breakfast when you wake up. Not eating big meals and not eating 3 hours before you go to bed. All that will speed up your metabolism. Combine that with a cardio activity (running, cycling, skating, etc) and you should be able to burn off fat relatively quickly.

EDIT: And of course not eating many sugars or fatty foods helps a lot.

i heard it wasn't healthy to not eat a breakfast, and ive always heard that eating a full and complete breakfast is very healthy. since we are mostly teenagers to college students, i htink we should concentrate on our physical growth with a good breakfast. thats just my opinion, and i fully support the small meals, i eat about 4-6 small meals a day. i just need to start running again....

meals: low carb high protein meals

sleep: 7-8 hrs, with 1hr afternoon naps

[steve66 45]

Push ups, bench presses and squats will all effectively burn body fat, the reason being you are using the largest muscle groups in your body. To loose body fat you have to increase the calorific deficeit. The most effective way to do this is to "superset" these muscle groups. Doing cardio exercises will obviously work the legs and the arms if you swim, but by doing intensive muscle building exercise you are adding more resistance .: more effort.

A superset is a quick sucession of an upper body exercise followed by a lower body exercise- rest 60seconds - superset - rest etc....

eg

10 reps lower body:

Deadlift

no rest

10 reps upper body:

Bench press.

rest

do four supersets for each exercie pair. Each time you go to the gym and do this you can decrease the rest time between supersets by 5 seconds to build your recovery rate, but don't go below 25 sec as you need some recovery to make it worthwhile.

some people also work out for hours, 45minutes is about the optimum for the mucsles. A LOT longer in not as productive and sees a rise in several hormones that don't necessarily aid recovery and muscle compostion.

you can also make slight changes in the number of reps and pairing to improve muscle size, strength + power.

[steve66 45]

Which burns more calories? the treadmill or the crosstrainer (arms + legs).

The crosstrainer wins because it requires more muscles to be active and burn the fat. I'm not saying either of these shouldn't be included in workouts, in fact I think it would lead to an imbalance if you were to leave them out. So make suer there is some cardio in your workout to burn fat and improve lung capacity etc..

In an earlier post you said

not many have the will power to run 4+ miles

not many people have the will-power and maybe time to be running for an hour? If you do the supersets you can shorten the workout but still greatly increase the number of calories you burn.

I agree that eating bad will hinder any progress, but disagree when you say a superset type workout won't burn as much or isn't good for obese people.. they just have to start with moderate weights lik eeveryone and not do any damage. Can you see someone too fat to lift weights running for an hour?