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Anyone getting fatter instead of thinner?
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The body can cope with fructose much better than refined sugars, but you still need to watch them, bananas have around 14g's of sugar in them, so stick a couple in a smoothie, and have a few smoothies in a day, and you'll have loaded up with sugar.
Not only that, all the acid isn't great for your teeth.
I blame the advertisers for the "smoothie" boom.
Well, ok then, aslong as you cut your calorie intake in accordance with your yearly reduction in metabolic rate, you don't
Hi,
I'm new to this forum lark so be gentle!
I agree with MissyD & others. Breakfast as they say is the most important meal of the day. I know I couldn't leave the house without eating. The fear being that if I did I would fall under a bus or something!
I'm running a year now & have lost about a stone. I haven't followed any regimental diets or anything. I just cut down on the rubbish & try not to eat before bed. A food diary sounds like an idea just to see where you could be going wrong. I find myself that I get hungry after a run/exercise in general. When that happens I just eat some fruit (boring I know) But what's the point in putting back in what you ran off?!
Anyway, just take on some of the advice people have left as they all seem like a sensible bunch. Don't get down keep up the running & I'm sure things will work out for you
Take care
Nigel
But why does your metabolic rate go down as you get older?
Is there something fundamental about getter older that makes it go down, or is it because most people have less muscle mass and do less exercise when they are older than when they are young?
But why do you think that?
You could well be right - I don't know the answer - but this is this one of those 'exercise facts' that everyone knows but no-one seems to know how they know? I wonder if this has been scientifically proven or it is just a 'fact' that is repeated endlessly in fitness books and articles.
Hormones play a part.
From an old study I read (not verbatim, from memory): Humans lose 6% fat free muscle mass per decade once they're over a certain age too (50?) - UNLESS they exercise / strength train.
Measurements were creatinine urinary levels and cadaver dissections I think.
Prolly more up to date stuff if you want to look
I'm not a scientist but I believe it is one of the facts of the ageing process being fundamentally irreversible at the cellular level. This will obviously affect muscle as much as any other tissue in the body, which means that as we age the re-growth/recovery process in the muscles slows down because not as many cells are replaced. So this leads to the degeneration of muscle mass, which in turn means a slowing of the metabolism.
Exercising the muscles can speed up metabolism, or at least slow down the rate of decline in the long term - so that a very fit 40 yr old can have more lean muscle mass and higher metabolism than a sedentary 20 year. (BUT the 40 yr old will still suffer worse hangovers than the layabout whippersnapper, because there's nowt you can do to reverse the decline in liver function... but I digress!)
The same is true with max HR - yes, the formulae suggest that this will drop by 1 bpm every year (although think about it, why should this nice convenient figure fit so well? Always bound to be an estimate based on empirical observation...) but if you exercise the heart, you can slow this process down (hence, some of the formulae taking into account whether or not an individual is an athlete, etc).
So this is why older folk are recommended to (a) include weight training in their exercise regime, to help boost metabolism and slow the rate of muscle loss and (b) try to maintain quality of training (speedwork, etc) even when it gets difficult to maintain training volume, due to longer recovery, etc. (Strength training in turn would help to lessen the impact of ageing on injury, longer recovery time, etc.)
That's the way I understand it anyway.
The more intensively one trains the lower the proportion of fat that is used versus glycogen (a VO2 Max test has shown me that). Therefore if you want to lose weight then go for slow runs; the longer the better (obviously you won't be using energy at the same rate but the proportion of fat is higher). The more you train at lower intensities the better your body becomes at accessing that fat and converting it into muscle energy rather than glycogen and blood sugar. Therefore, one should train at all levels of intensity for marathons but generally keep to the lower end of intensity (I train at 70% - 85% of working heart rate). So the more you do it the less likely you are to "hit the wall". This is the point at which your liver runs out of glycogen and your body switches to the reserve tank (body fat) exclusively.
As for watching what you eat: you could make yourself some post-exercise something-or-other to replace the energy but even the leanest runner has 100,000 calories of fat hidden about their person so, if you are going to replace energy then do it in preparation for an intense session. If you are just wanting to lose weight then stick to lower intensity stuff and keep your apres-run to water.
If you want to be a decent marathon runner then it helps to train at an intensity that builds the capacity of glycogen the liver can carry (and there is a maximum) as well.
That's part of the theory. I hope this helps.
Your body can't use JUST fat for fuel, once you run out of glycogen, the body starts to metabolise muscle protein as it can no longer metabolise fat.
There is a report that shows that HIT opposed to low intenstity workout can actually burn more fat, but I am of the opinion that a mixed regime (low, moderate and high intesity) workout is the way to go.
I'd say look at your portion sizes. If you're eating a huge portion of pasta loaded with creamy sauce for your evening meal or a normal size pasta dish with tomatoes it's very different. One of my friends is vegan and really stuggles with her weight. She probably eats more healthily than me in terms of the content of her diet but when I've been around there for dinner the amount is more than double what I'd have for an evening meal so no matter how healthy the foods are I can see where the weight gain comes from. Also, if you have them, try swapping puddings for fruit. Good luck.
I have the same sort of issues, not losing any weight and appear to be gaining a belly even though I have given up all booze, chocolate, crisps, snacks, processed food etc and am keeping a food diary too and being honest in it!
I am building up my training so am now up to 1 1/2 hours outside running, am I not pushing myself enough or not running for long enough either?