Dieting vs Exercise

[Clinton1]

Teach the body to use it's fat stores through prolonged exercise at lower intensities and you build endurance which then enables you to build strength.

 

Carmichael reckons each hour exercise below 78% requires an hour recovery, every hour over 80% requires 8 hours recovery (unless you on EPO)

 

Those numbers make for interesting reading indeed.

 

I think the thing is that most of those numbers are aimed at folk who are putting in many hours at a time. Most people get very little exercise. And recovery times are not an issue as if they do 1 hour of intense exercise now it is unlikely they'll be doing it again for at least 24 hours.

 

So should someone who only manages 30 minutes a day still be exercising at 65% or are they better off pushing 80%? Some people do not have the time to do 2 hours of low intensity.

[petatodd]

Low intensity is about time.

 

If you've only got 30 minutes then go the tabata route, warm up followed by 20 secs MAXIMUM effort 10 secs recovery repeat 8 times. Total work out 4 minutes. Then warm down.

 

It's said your body feels the benefit from a fat burning / recovery point after a tabata for up to 30 hours.

 

edit typo

Edited June 30, 2012 by petatodd

[eddy]

 

I used to exercise regularly whether running, surfing, hiking and the like but in the last few years, with kids, I have got a bit slack and I have noted my clothes becoming a little tighter. I then started riding quite a lot in November last year. My diet has not changed and I still eat what I want, when I want. Recently I have realised that most of my baggies are now being pulled in as tight as I can pull them and they still threaten to fall down.

 

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There is the conundrum :

 

As you infer, your diet has remained constant but as your activity level changed, your weight moved in the opposite direction. Less exercise, more weight and more exercise led to less weight.

 

My experience has been exactly the same although I have always maintained a relatively heathy diet, or rather, on balance eaten heathy foods.

 

As an elite athlete at varsity I was warned in an aside by an researcher at the Sports sciences institute to be careful of only moderating my weight through exercise, because there would be times in my life that i would not be able to maintain the same level of exercise intensity Work, family, injury, other priorities would at some stage get in the way and then, unless i learnt how to moderate my calory intake, I'd get fat. And so it turned out.

 

Now i do both, i eat more when I exercise, and less when I am relatively more sedentary. Having gained 23 kg from my varsity weight, I am now back to within 5 kg and am keeping the weight off by recognising that it is not "diet vs exercise" but that they are two side of the same coin

 

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[Clinton1]

I have always been lucky though in that my weight has always stayed between 75 and 85kgs. Or so it has shown when I weigh myself, which is not very often, so I tend to go more on how clothes fit. I never came anywhere near a 20+kg weight gain.

 

But then even when "sedentary" I am rather "active" when compared to some. Another huge point I feel. I used to work in an open plan office. If I needed to chat to someone on the other side of the office there was only one option for me, get up and walk over there. It astounded me how often I'd be standing there asking what needed to be asked and someone else from the other side of the office would phone to query something. I also tend to pace while talking on the phone. I hate sitting down and chatting. Something small but all those small things play I part, in my opinion.