Increasing my exercising

bikinibound

New member
For the last month I've been walking about 9miles per week with an average of 16-minute miles. I've also been circuit training for 30min, 3 days per week. I've lost 13 pounds in that time.

I've decided to increase my exercising in hopes of speeding up the weight loss. I am currently doing about 4hrs of exercise per week, and want to up it to 8 or 9hrs per week. Has anyone else done this? And what were your results?
 
exercise is only part of the equation when it comes to weight loss...

what does your daily eating look like? how many calories a day are you taking in?

What is your current weight and goal weight?
 
It's a whole balance thing.
I found that I naturally HAD to up my exercize, because I was getting stronger and I wanted to get better at the things I was doing. In the process, I had to really monitor my caloric intake and adjust it UPWARDS the more I was exercizing. I sort of stagger my days depending on what activity I am doing. If I am burning 200-500 cals, I have a bigger intake that day. If I am doing weights, I will generally have a high protein breakfast but work in a bit of a deficit the rest of the day... keeping in mind that I am still only about 10% below maintenance.

In this way, I've lost a pound a week, and kept it off. Pretty soon I won't be going in to deficit at all, because I won't want to lose any more weight.

Think of it as a scale... you have exercize, you have fuel. You have to fuel the exercize. If you up your exercize, you will want to up your caloric intake a bit.
 
My eating is very much under control these days. I would guess it's about 1200 calories per day. But i realize that I will have to up that if I'm going to increase my workout. Don't want to go into starvation mode and slow down my metabolism. As you can see from my ticker, I have 73lbs to lose yet.
 
I am kind of coming to a problem myself.

I started running from 1-2 times a week to 4-5-6 times a week because I love it so much.

But in the last week, I am slowly coming to a crawl weight-loss wise.

I eat normally and I don't eat TOO MANY calories...I think I just eat a little too bad though I stay around the total calorie limit.

All that initial excessive fat is now gone and the tough fat loss is ahead
 
I did some reading on the subject, and talked to the owner of my gym. She recommends upping the exercise from 4hrs p/wk to about 6. She said if I do too much too soon, my body will adjust to all that exercise and could make it harder to lose weight. She lost about 70lbs herself, so I think she knows what she's talking about, plus this is her career.
 
I think that depending on the exercize, when you up it, if you are in a caloric deficit (but not a black hole deficit, merely a dip - 10-20%) then you will lose weight.

I lost another pound this week, absolutely not intending to - I was eating at maintenance! I upped my riding to another day and further mileage, and it's just burning burning burning. I really think it is helpful to think as food as fuel, and then making sure you have enough for your activity over and beyond maintenance. And I think had I eaten in a deficit, I would have lost a lot more than a pound...

Also, don't forget about stalls. They happen, they're normal, and it pays to be patient. If you change your focus from weight loss to general fitness and "training", I think you will start to see results that don't necessarily reflect on the number on the scale.
 
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