The A2K (virtual) Weight Loss Club !!

then again, friend of a friend quit drinking few weeks ago and lost 15 pounds.... just like that!

Not every step, just some. Have you ever watched kids running? They go from zooming to slowing to zooming again. They seem to surprise themselves.
Run that way.

I am an expert at talking myself into having fun, surprising myself, during a run. (I've started putting some of my conversations with myself on my blog.) I tell myself that no matter what song comes up next on the MuVo, I have to SING all the words and dance to the music. Then I pray for "into the Mystic" but it always is "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow." or I bet myself a drink of water that I can power up Dog Run Hill without lagging.

I run really slow, then bouncy-jog for fifty feet or so, then slow again, then concentrate on making no noise with my shoes, then zoom for 100 yards. The idea is that the routine never becomes routine.

Joe(z---om)Nation

I'm prompted to speculate that Real Athletes have a high boredom threshold and limited imagination.

maybe I'll hang-out ant see what's up here

ouch I felt that

alittle more explaining here: link

well, i have decided i have a low boredom threshold...that means i cant stand being bored right? yep that's me. probably why i hate swimming so much now adays. i guess at some point maybe you could consider me a real athlete, but those days are long gone when i graduated college in 1998. swimming ended then and now i can't stand it-hate it completely-actually i hate exercise in general.

thanks shewolf for the link to yoga, some raved to me about yoga (ex swimmer who doesn't have the weight issues i do - boo).

welcome husker. i read your other topic...many good thoughts to you.

one of my friends emailed to tell me that there is this exercise class here that also teaches you to strip for your hubby...mr. d was all over that -who cares what it costs he said. heehee, i will probably be enrolled in that soon. maybe it will help, who knows. i think i am start yoga soon or pilates (which i think is somewhat similar to yoga, but not quite the same). size 8 here i come!

ohhh yeah
the pole dance work out.

hey I bet you are great at that

the brochure says it does wonders for the body. and yes they have poles there-i am not kidding. who knows if it makes me thin and capable of dancing sexy for my hubby, isn't it a winner?

my quest for weight loss has slumped. it has been rainy and dark here for about a week, and i just can't get out of bed and get motivated! i am going to try a yoga class this weekend for free although there is also a kick boxing class and a pilates ball class to try (and they are all in a row so i won't be trying them all). we shall see. i have to lose weight, 30lbs, i can't stand it anymore. everytime i look in the mirror i get more and more depressed and yet i keep coming up with all these excuses as to why i can't exercise. i just need to set a freaking schedule and keep to it eh? shewolf, slap me around please! noddy, husker, JB, dag, all join in please, i need it.

OK Dragon, if you don't want Yurassis for a first name,
you'd better get that keister in gear!

Yes, a schedule helps. Here's mine for right now:

Mon-Wed-Fri: upper body weight training with 10-min jog for warmup.
Tue-Thu: 4 mile jog
Sat or Sun: long bike ride or trail hike

GO GO GO!

Dragon--

George's schedule is a bit intemperate. I'm with you on the dark and the gloom, but brooding burns few calories.

I'm behind in my magazine reading, so I'm going to climb on the exercycle and stretch both mind and metabolism.

I was watching a movie on PBS last night about Albert Einstein. I love that kind of stuff. Did anyone else see it?

Of course I don't have the brain power of a physicist, but sometimes I'm able to grasp a little of it, but it can be so mercurial.

Last night, the way something was explained I had a real A-HA! Moment, where some of it was just clearer. As I was absorbing the info, one of the ways I felt made sense was to apply it to weight loss. I figured I'd better write it down before I forget.

So, if I sound like a real kook, that's ok. I'm sure I don't have it all straight, but it felt good the way my brain was like, owwwww, you're making me work! Bear with me as it takes a while to get to the weight loss part, but maybe you'll enjoy learning something anyway, if my poor interpretation makes any sense.

OK - This movie was not ALL about Einstein, but about scientists way before him, which was a base for him, and about scientists at the same time and after him, who built on his work. Sorry, I can't remember all of their names.

First idea: Mass

There was a Frenchman, back during the French Revolution days who argued that matter never disappeared, it just changed its form. Like water that has been brought to a boil, the steam collected, and then allowed to re-condense. Any difference in the volume of the water could be accounted for by the fact a small amount of H20 became a gas, hydrogen and oxygen. Adding all that up will equal the original mass/volume of water.
I know, you're sitting there thinking, "well DUH" but for that time that was some really radical stuff. Anyway, because he was such a stickler for precision, he wouldn't let some others present their thesis about other things to the Academy of Science, because they were just ideas, but did not have facts to back them up. Well, he got on the wrong side of some, and ended up getting beheaded.

Second idea: Movement (Energy and Speed)

Next, there was a Frenchwoman, du Chatelet, who because she was the daughter of one of the kings courtesans had more freedom than most women.
She was interested in studying movement.

She was interested in the findings of another scientist Liebniz (I think German) whose ideas had been debunked.

Liebniz proposed that the effect of energy was effected by not the speed of an object travel (mass times velocity), as Issac Newton proposed, but by the speed squared.

His tests included dropping lead balls from various heights into soft clay.

Let's say you dropped a ball from the height of 6 feet, and the ball made a hole 3 inches into the clay. People presumed that if the ball was dropped from double the height, 12 feet, the ball would make a hole double the size, that is 6 inches into the clay.

Hold onto your hats, this is not what happens. When dropped from 12 feet, thus doubling the velocity, the ball made a hole 9 inches deep, that is 3 squared (3 x 3)

Here, maybe this says it better….
Du Chatelet conducted her lead ball experiment and sure enough, doubling the velocity of the ball (by dropping it from twice the height) resulted in the ball travelling four times further into the clay. This simple but brilliant experiment proved that when calculating the energy of moving objects, the velocity at which they travel must be squared. The energy of an object is a function of its velocity squared - it is for this reason that the speed of light in Einstein's equation must be squared.
Now jump to Einstein with his famous E=MC2, that is Energy = Mass (body weight) x the speed of light, squared. The speed of light is 670 million miles an hours, so multiplying that by itself is, well, a really big number.

So, at this point it hits me that the way to decrease the Mass on one side of the equation, is to increase the Energy (exercise) on the other side of the equation.

The reason we have to exercise, (expend energy) for a relatively (theory of relativity - AHA!) long period of time in order to effect even a small change in our weight (Mass) is because we have to multiply it by the speed of light squared.

That is why, if we exercise more intensely, we are using more energy, thereby reducing the Mass by a greater rate, since the speed of light squared is a constant (a really big number).

Unfortunately, we cannot maintain expending intense energy for a long period of time, thus the tradeoff being longer time expending a small amount of energy to expend X amount of Mass.

Here's where time part comes in….this I'm just guessing at….

If we where physically able to exercise at an incredibly intense rate, the mass would go down accordingly, to keep the equation stable.
As the Mass goes down, that number is a lower and lower one being multiplied by the speed of light squared.

SO………what would happen if we were able to expend energy at such an intense rate that Mass (M) came down to 1? That would make the equation read E=MC2.

Einstein said the key to everything was light. If we could expend enough energy to equal the Speed of Light, would we not Become Light?

If we Became Light, would we not be……Wait a minute, now I'll have to take this to a different forum, spirituality or philosophy or something.

No, they would just laugh at me.

Anyway, I know like it sounds like I went off on a real tangent, but relating the energy being expended to the ratio of the mass being loss made it seem so much more productive than just saying "I'm going on the elliptical for 45 minutes" Now, I shall try to Become Light.

OK - Vote time…..On a scale of 1 to the Speed of Light Squared, how nerdy am I?

nerdness= .0001

Clarity of writing= 657,990,000

but

moderate to slightly less than moderate exercise over long periods of time burns more fat. So, slow down, but not to the level of Hatha Yoga which is wonderful for flexibility and balance but burns no fat, and do the work longer.

(loved the idea of reaching the speed of light and becoming thus.)

Joe(we are stardust)Nation

I havnt posted on here for a while.
I quit the gym, its basically dull.
Ive started to look at my healthy cook book and make some of the recipes.
I havnt weighed myself for a while.id say Im about 12 and a half stone, sadly I havnt grown, if I was six foot I wouldnt look heavy!!

I hit 30 and a couple of weeks before I found my tastes in food was changing.All my favourites became less nice,very odd but hopefully it will help me eat better food.

I like nerds.

Luckily, we can get lighter by making the rest of the world heavier, which makes excercise much more efficient in terms of weight loss. That, of course, is just a nerdy way of saying: "Let's sweat it off!"

About the fat: My understanding was that it depends on what you hold constant. If you hold constant the time spent training (think "45 minutes on the elliptical"), training harder will always burn more fat, but the proportion of fat burning to carb burning decreases. If you hold some kind of distance constant (think "5 mile run"), moderate training will burn more fat absolutely. For every mile you run, you burn an amount of energy that is roughly independent of speed, so burning a higher fraction of fat means burning more fat absolutely. Just my 2 cents.

-- Thomas, 5' 7", 258 pounds

Ha! I have a convert! I talked my colleague Magda into joining the boxing club. She's young, lively, talkative and very pretty, so I got all the guys at the club shift their focus to her. Whew. She came for the first time yesterday, and liked it. So she'll join me every monday, wednesday and friday and i can become invisible and just mind my own business there. That, and it's more fun going with someone.
Today I bought boxing gloves! Hoooray. Purple with tiger pattern, there is a 'Fighter's World' sign on them. Mui mui cool. (Now I have to get a matching purple outfit to go with them... I'm getting the hang of the footwork and steps/punches coordination. Much more difficult and technical then it seems. And getting stronger. It's a perfect sport, works out every little muscle, especially shoulders and biceps, thighs and quads, ab and butt,calves, upper and lower back... hmmm, i guess that is just about the whole body.
life.... so good...

Thanks Joe Nation and Thomas.

I like nerds too.

Oh yeah, I always exercise long and slow, never been a sprinter.

Isn't it something like before approx 20-30 minutes of moderate exercise you are burning 20% fat and 80% glucose, and after that it flips to 80% fat and 20% glucose, since at that point your glucose stores are becoming depleted?

When I notice I'm around 30 minutes, I always think of this as "golden time"

I really atuned to my body, and I think I can tell when it makes that shift, between 15 and 20 minutes.

Ever notice that at around 15 minutes, if you gave it any thought, you'd probably say if you had a choice you'd prefer to stop, not having fun?

However, 10 minutes later, it feels like you can continue at this certain pace forever?

Something that helps me stay within certain boundries is the fact I gave away all my size 14 clothes a few years ago. I was a 12/14 for decades and then lost a lot of weight and got down to a size 10. I allow myself to grow back into my size 12s but as they get snug I get it in gear. I refuse to buy anything in size 14 and I haven't bought any 12s in a long time either. I have plenty of nice looking size 10 clothes, I just need to keep myself looking nice in them.

Not quite. I have experienced what you described, but it usually means I started out too intense, then crashed and burned, then slowed down into a more sustainable pace. I could imagine something similar happening if I started out too slow, felt bored, then accelerated; but in practice that never happens. Maybe you want to experiment with your warmup phase?