is it "over kill" ??

G

Greatnorth

0
i think i already know the answer - no its not over kill, but i want to ask anyways....

i want to lose about 60lbs. Like everybody else, i'd like to see it go as quickly as possible, but i know the best way to do it is through a lifestyle change, nutritious foods, reducing calories and regular exercise.

is 45min per day, 7 days per week on a treadmill "over kill" ?? is it even necessary? ive read in the past that 20min, 3 days per week is all it takes, but, it seems more logical that if I want to lose the weight faster, I should be working out 7 days per week, at 30 to 45 minutes per day

im not sure, any thoughts??
 
ya body doesn't work that way. if the body sense it's too far into calorie deficit, it slows down your metabolism. so the more you exercise and the less you eat, there comes a point where it's a case of diminishing returns and you end up hurting yourself far more in the long run than helping.

1% of your bodyweight of fat a week lost, thats your target.

Also, cardio only isn't the best way to go. It's a good start, but for maximum results you'll want to also add resistance training.
 
Well ... hmm. I think there are a lot of variables here. First of all are you talking about the bare minimum you need to be healthy? To build cardio-vascular health? To lose weight? To lose weight w/out losing muscle mass? All of those require different levels and different types of exercise.

Then there's the personal part of it - each of us is different in weight, strength, shape, and condition. 45 minutes for one person might be as easy as breathing, while 45 mins for another person might be enough to leave them a sweating, puking pile on the floor.

Ok that said, then there's the whole "lose weight faster" thing ... time on the treadmill really burns very few calories, comparatively. Obviously this varies from person to person, but in extremely general terms, an hour of moderate to moderate-high intensity time on the treadmill will burn 400 calories. So putting in an extra 15 mins a day would equal an extra 100 calories a day. That's 700 calories a week, if you do it every day. That's about 1/5th of a pound a week.

Then, let's get into the idea that you really should be doing more than just running on the treadmill. If you're serious about losing weight healthily, you really should be adding in weight lifting to your routine. Weight lifting and body resistance exercises will minimize the loss of lean muscle mass and maximize fat loss. Then it becomes not "will I lose weight faster" but "will I change my body composition more effectively".

Ideally you would lift weights 2x - 3x per week and do some form of cardio 2x - 3x per week to maximize both body re-composition and fat burning.

Now, all of *that* said .. yes you do need to take a day off. Your body and your muscles and your nervous system need recovery time. Does it have to be 1 day a week? Maybe not. Some people do great on 1 out of 10. Some people only work out 3x a week. But if you don't take a break eventually you'll go backwards - and I'm not just talking about weight loss, but about overall ability. If your body doesn't have recovery time, you'll wind up not being able to effectively complete a workout. You might start to feel fatigued, stressed, etc. And eventually you'll make yourself ill by overworking your body.

See, it's not just as easy as saying: do x for y minutes and you'll get z result. It just doesn't work that way because we're all so different. There are basic fundamentals that hold true for everyone: If you want to maintain lean muscle mass you have to work the muscles (which means weights and/or body resistance). Cardio is good to aid in losing fat but also to build cardio vascular health. Rest periods are necessary. Eating healthy food in reasonable quantities is necessary. Within those guidelines - there's a huge wide range of what works and what doesn't work.
 
greatnorth said:
is 45min per day, 7 days per week on a treadmill "over kill" ?? is it even necessary? ive read in the past that 20min, 3 days per week is all it takes, but, it seems more logical that if I want to lose the weight faster, I should be working out 7 days per week, at 30 to 45 minutes per day

im not sure, any thoughts??
Click to expand...

Walking on a treadmill? Or running on a treadmill?

That "20 min, 3 days per week" is for those with busy schedules that want to gradually lose weight over time. You can do more or less depending on your weight loss goals.
 
Then it must be horrible for me to do the treadmill no less than 40minutes a day, And i will actually do an hour to 2 hours a day, I go on 10 incline, and only at 4.0 considering i find it hard to go faster with my short stubby legs. ..... I do this about 6 days out of the week, if not 7. is THAT overkill? I really dont think im going backwards on my dieting thing.. lets say i have night time snackies... i burn over 1,000 calories when i go 1 hr 35 minutes BTW.... Mainly , generally in a day i will burn 600 and above.. but the days i go 40 minutes ( normally around my time of the month) I burn about 400 and something.. whats yer thoughts on that ?
 
i'm unsure of your point.

Tour de france riders burn 14000 calories a day with their biking. Is that overkill? The deal is you're trying to balance 2 factors here. 1) getting an adiquite intake of calories and nutrition and 2) Exercising enough to put your body in a caloric deficit... The more you exercise, the more you need to eat to make up for calories burned in order to keep your body at that level of just being a little under maintainence.

There can easily come a point where you really don't need to exercise anymore. This is especially true with resistance training. People like myself who are able to lift with big intensity only need a handful of hours a week and have insane metabolism increases from it. I'm at 3300 calories a day to maintain with 5 hours exercised a week. This is a monster increase of my old ~2400 calories a day maintain with no exercise. There can also come a point where you can exercise too much if your nutrition isn't increased to compensate for the increase of burn. And this leads to a negative effect of slowing down your metabolism and shedding muscle mass rather than a healthy fat burn. If you want to work out 2 hours a day, by all means if it's working for you and you enjoy it. It's sure not needed though. You can easily work out for half that and get the same benefit.
 
I guess my opinion on it is really that it's about what works for you personally. If someone were asking me did they NEED to do an hour and a half of cardio, I'd say no, for the purposes of weight loss, I think that's overkill.

If you enjoy doing it or if you have a purpose in doing it then that's purely an individual decision.

My problem with (most) people who say they do 1hr + of cardio a day is that they are doing it purely for the purpose of losing fat and they feel that the more they do cardio (run, elliptical, bike, whatever) the faster they'll lose weight. The truth is that while cardio is good for you for all kinds of reasons, cardio by itself is not nearly as effective for fast (and I use fast in relative terms ... while still being healthy) weight loss as a combination of strength/weight training and cardio at various intensities, plus a reasonable reduction in calories combined with a proper balance of nutrients.

A lot of people seem to think, however, that if they blast out the cardio, that they can eat whatever they want and lose weight - it's just a matter of doing their 2 hours of cardio and burning 1000 calories.

Or those same people eat miniscule amounts or eat unhealthy, non-nutritious food and blast out 2 hours of cardio and don't consider that the more cardio they do and the more calories they burn, the more they're going to have to eat to replace *some* of those calories in order to not become ill and undernourished or screw up their metabolisms.

Finally, I personally don't have 2 hours a day to spend doing cardio. I don't know about others, but I suspect that most people would have a hard time fitting in multiple hours of exercise/gym time. A lot of times I see people who are upset or worried that they're not going to be able to lose weight because they can't pull that much time out of their day. So I think that there's this perception that if someone isn't blasting out 1-2 or more hours of cardio a day, then they're not "doing it right" ... and then people get discouraged because they are "failing".

Most people can lose weight at a very reasonable and healthy rate by eating right and doing 30-45 minutes of total exercise per day - alternating cardio with strength/weight training.

So ... all of that to say "excessive" is pretty subjective, but if I were asked, I'd say more than 30-45 minutes a day is really unnecessary if you're eating healthily and reasonably.
 
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