Is Tennis the Secret to Effortlessly Losing Weight?

[Pengwuino]

So guys, what do you think the best way to lose weight is? And it can be anything besides drugs/surgery lol. Seems like running doesn't produce much sweat with me which i heard is the real indicator of weight lose routines. Tennis seems kinda odd though. When i use to play tennis, after a rather short time id be sweating like there's no tomorrow yet not feel very tired at all. Is there somethign about tennis that is incredibly hard on your body yet you can do it alot? What gives :D

 

[BicycleTree]

When I am active I gain weight--not so bad because I don't need to lose much weight and I'm mostly gaining muscle. Whenever I sit around on the computer for a few days I lose weight because I eat more than proportionately less. I think one thing to do is eat only bland foods. Also you should bicycle everywhere you can, especially if you live in the city where it's probably faster anyway.

 

[Pengwuino]

Bleh, i live in the city and nothings faster by bicycle lol. Biking to my university would probably take a good 30 minutes because its 5 miles away if i didnt stop (so god knows how long if i do sotp and classes for me start at 8am :P). But of course i have to go through about 10 or 12 intersections... and the route id have to take is waaaaaaay too dangerous of an area :D

I really wana know why tennis seems to be such a strenuous activity though without really 'tiring' you out.

 

[russ_watters]

Sweating is an ok indicator, but really what you want to know is your heart rate. http://www.thumperworks.com/fms-info/thr.html is a good start to figuring out what you should keep your heart rate at for a good aerobic or fat-burning workout. You should sustain this heart rae for at least 20 minutes (better, 30 or 45 minutes), 5 days a week.

 

[Pengwuino]

Sweet stuff :D

 

[DaveC426913]

Best solution (IMO) is that you must combine exercise with a reduction in caloric intake.

Diet won't do it. Exercise won't do it. Diet and exercise will.

I managed to lose 25 pounds on the "Jared diet". Walked 45 min per day, and ate a 6" sub built according to the "7grams of fat" guide twice per day. My snacks were celery and low fat cheddar.

I lost 1 pound per week, (http://www.davesbrain.ca/weight_chart.html ). More than 1 lb/week is unhealthy.

 

[Pengwuino]

I think its more then 1lb/day is unhealthy because I've heard of many people lose 50 or 60 pounds in 10 or 12 weeks.

I need a new scale. According to my scale, sleeping sometimes allows me to drop 5 pounds overnight! lol. Stupid digital bs.

 

[russ_watters]

I need a new scale. According to my scale, sleeping sometimes allows me to drop 5 pounds overnight! lol. Stupid digital bs.

5 lb in a night is a lot, but you will lose up to 1/4 lb an hour by breathing. Your weight should fluctuate 2-3 lb during the course of the day.

 

[brewnog]

5 lb in a night is a lot, but you will lose up to 1/4 lb an hour by breathing. Your weight should fluctuate 2-3 lb during the course of the day.

And more if you have a particularly large dump.

 

[Ba]

Bleh, i live in the city and nothings faster by bicycle lol. Biking to my university would probably take a good 30 minutes because its 5 miles away if i didnt stop (so god knows how long if i do sotp and classes for me start at 8am :P). But of course i have to go through about 10 or 12 intersections... and the route id have to take is waaaaaaay too dangerous of an area :D
.

I bike 5 miles to school pretty much every day, it's really not bad except when it is pouring rain. It takes about twenty minutes and I'm going up and down hills.

 

[BicycleTree]

Bleh, i live in the city and nothings faster by bicycle lol. Biking to my university would probably take a good 30 minutes because its 5 miles away if i didnt stop (so god knows how long if i do sotp and classes for me start at 8am :P). But of course i have to go through about 10 or 12 intersections... and the route id have to take is waaaaaaay too dangerous of an area :D

For 5 miles in the city, your bike is almost certainly faster unless it's hilly or your city has very little traffic. The more intersections there are, the faster the bike is relative to a car. When the cars stop you can just continue to one side of them and be first at the light every time. It will not take 30 minutes, probably more like 15 to 20 minutes, and it would take that long by car. Even if it is uphill and the traffic is wide open so you have no advantage over a car, consider that you're spending 30 minutes exercising instead of sitting in a car. It's 30 minutes of useful exercise vs 20 minutes of wasted time.

 

[Pengwuino]

I have a freeway going straight up to the university so its a dream for me. Can get to class in about 12 minutes.

 

[joejo]

hey slimfast worked with me...

well 2lbs a week is also healthy but nothing more then that!

 

[Pengwuino]

Geez, i always thought it was 1lb a day...

 

[Moonbear]

Sweating is an ok indicator, but really what you want to know is your heart rate. http://www.thumperworks.com/fms-info/thr.html is a good start to figuring out what you should keep your heart rate at for a good aerobic or fat-burning workout. You should sustain this heart rae for at least 20 minutes (better, 30 or 45 minutes), 5 days a week.

Getting a good aerobic workout is important for fitness and cardiovascular health, and will burn calories faster, but any exercise is going to burn calories. The key to weight loss is to consume fewer calories than you burn. This is why a combination of diet and increased exercise works best.

The best exercise is whatever you enjoy, because you'll keep doing it! If you enjoy tennis and can really work up a sweat doing it, go for it (just be careful to stay hydrated). I understand the dilemma of needing to get through bad neighborhoods to get from home to campus, so won't suggest biking or walking to campus (5 miles is a bit long anyway when you don't have the spare time...I used to walk 1.5 mi, which was really nice once I got used to it, because it gave me time in the morning to plan my day and think while heading to the lab and then time to clear my mind and de-stress at the end of the day). Even an extra walk around the block each day will help.

Keep in mind, however, that as you add exercise to your routine, you may get to a point where you are building muscle mass in addition to burning off fat, so may not see as great of a change in total weight (hinted at by Bicycle Tree).

Cutting calories is often easier than you think as well. How many cans or bottle of soda or fruit drinks do you consume in a day? Replace those with water. What about cookies, chips, candy bars? Pack a few apples or oranges instead. Leave a little food on your plate when you sit down for a meal.

Ignore that bathroom scale for at least a week. As has been mentioned above, your weight can fluctuate 2-3 lbs a day just from normal activities (how much food is still in your gut from the last meal, the last time you urinated, whether you've just dehydrated a bit from a workout, etc.), so when you do weigh yourself, do so at the same time of the day (first thing in the morning is often a good time to be consistent before you're influenced by whatever else you do during the day). If you're losing weight at a healthy rate, it will frustrate you to check the scale every day because you really shouldn't lose weight fast enough to notice on a daily basis, at least not on a standard bathroom scale. Oh, also make sure you put the scale in the same place every time you use it. Those things aren't always the most accurate and putting it on a different surface can change the reading by a few lbs (at least with my cheap scale...move it around the floor a bit and re-weight yourself and you'll see how variable your own scale is).

 

[The Bob]

A while ago I hated my 'fatness' (well it was about 5 years ago). Anyway, I was doing less excerise than I should have been (as I was trying a trick of not going out to play outdoors in a hope that people will wonder why was not out and start to be concerned but it failed). I gained weight so that I was very rounded in the face and could grab 3 inches.

I found all I needed to do was to swop my crisps and cakes and other high calore foods for apples and bananas etc. I am not addicted to apples (granny smith's) and that was all I did and I lost the weight in about 3 months easy.

Try your diet before you try excerise and drugs. I still ate pizza and burgers but I simply changed my snacks from unhealthy and high in calories to healthy and low in calories.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[Moonbear]

Try your diet before you try excerise and drugs. I still ate pizza and burgers but I simply changed my snacks from unhealthy and high in calories to healthy and low in calories.

That's a very good suggestion, especially for someone who is both eating a bad diet and overly sedentary. Ease into a weight loss plan, don't change everything at once. Diet is a good starting place, because once you start to lose a little weight and have more nutritious foods in your diet, you'll find you're going to start having more energy to make the exercises more enjoyable.

 

[DocToxyn]

For 5 miles in the city, your bike is almost certainly faster unless it's hilly or your city has very little traffic. It's 30 minutes of useful exercise vs 20 minutes of wasted time.

The other potential advantage of a bike is in relation to parking. At my university I would have to pay for the privilege of parking a good distance away from my building. Not only am I saving money on parking fees (and gas), I love speeding by all the pedestrians trudging to work.

Additional benefits - dodging traffic on busy roads really wakes you up in the morning , as does the requirement of extra speed when going through the "bad" sections of town.

 

[Ouabache]

basic biophysics

Losing weight is actually quite simple, just basic biophysics. If you consume less calories than your body burns per day, you lose weight.. That happens even without exercise. What you eat, how much and when you eat, is just habit which you can consciously change with a little feedback.

For myself, I went to the gym, did aerobic exercise, muscle toning, bicycled, played tennis, but it made little difference in weight.
I thought the reduction of caloric intake sounded too simple, but tried it. Sure enough, the kg began to drop off.. Went from 90kg (198lb) to 70kg (155lb) over 2 1/2 year period. One of my biggest changes of habit was eating the smallest meal in the evening.. And anything you eat after that meal, be low in calories, like salad (low cal dressing), and as TheBob suggested, fresh fruit and even sugar-free jelly (gelatin dessert).

I also recommend weighing yourself once a week and recording it (on a spreadsheet) and plot your progress. It will zigzag like a financial curve with gains (after holidays ) and losses (as you get into your stride) and also plateaus that can go weeks at at time and you wonder if the laws of physics have stopped working.
Yet over time, with this kind of visual feedback, a downward trend will emerge.

 

[ShawnD]

Another thread for crack pot theories... my turn

1. Be a vegetarian for a while. Big meals like supper will probably be the same amount of calories if you keep eating things like potatoes, but snacks will have essentially no energy. Instead of eating beef jerky when watching TV, the only thing to eat will be banana peppers or something like that. I've never heard of anybody getting fat from eating too many cucumbers or hot peppers.

2. Start drinking tea. I find that when I'm drinking crazy amounts of tea, I don't drink as much milk or pop. Tea is just water that gives you a crazy buzz; basically no food value. This might actually make your skin look nicer as well since rumor has it that drinking water helps your skin. I'll have to look into that.

I also recommend weighing yourself once a week and recording it (on a spreadsheet) and plot your progress. It will zigzag like a financial curve with gains (after holidays ) and losses (as you get into your stride) and also plateaus that can go weeks at at time and you wonder if the laws of physics have stopped working.
Yet over time, with this kind of visual feedback, a downward trend will emerge.

I like the way you think, but I would recommend the exact opposite.
Scales tell you nothing about how good you look. You can take two men, both 6 feet tall and 250 pounds, and have them look completely different. One will be fat slob, and one will be a muscular stud.
You shouldn't be fighting what the scale says. You should be fighting what the mirror says.

 

[DaveC426913]

Losing weight is actually quite simple, just basic biophysics. If you consume less calories than your body burns per day, you lose weight.. That happens even without exercise. What you eat, how much and when you eat, is just habit which you can consciously change with a little feedback.

The human body. Quite simple. Who'da thunk it?

No, it's way more complex than that. You should know better.

Reducing the caloric intake without increasing the metabolic rate will cause the body to think it's undernourished, and it will begin storing extra. You need the exercise to move the body to a higher metabolic equilibrium.

I found all I needed to do was to swop my crisps and cakes and other high calore foods for apples and bananas etc. I am not addicted to apples (granny smith's) and that was all I did and I lost the weight in about 3 months easy.

Whereas I, in an equally valid anecdote, did not lose weight by strict dieting.

Try your diet before you try excerise and drugs. I still ate pizza and burgers but I simply changed my snacks from unhealthy and high in calories to healthy and low in calories.

I can't believe you're advocating "not bothering" with exercise. It's essential.

 

[Moonbear]

Another thread for crack pot theories... my turn

This thread is making it apparent that people really don't understand much about nutrition or body composition, or what it really means to be healthy.

1. Be a vegetarian for a while. Big meals like supper will probably be the same amount of calories if you keep eating things like potatoes, but snacks will have essentially no energy. Instead of eating beef jerky when watching TV, the only thing to eat will be banana peppers or something like that. I've never heard of anybody getting fat from eating too many cucumbers or hot peppers.

Okay, note the common theme to what most people are suggesting. Change your diet to include healthy snacks and to cut calories. However, be careful not to cut out essential nutrients. Vegetarian diets can be very healthy, or they can be very unhealthy. You need to be more careful to combine foods to get adequate protein, and you don't want to eliminate too much fat. Without knowing what someone's diet is like to begin with, it's hard to know what changes are the best for them. If someone sits down and had an entire steak for dinner every night, trying to cut out some of that meat will help, but if the real culprit is potato chips, french fries, and milk shakes, then this isn't going to help. Anyway, the variety of options suggested here are good, because the one thing that is important with dieting is to choose a diet you can stick with.

2. Start drinking tea. I find that when I'm drinking crazy amounts of tea, I don't drink as much milk or pop. Tea is just water that gives you a crazy buzz; basically no food value. This might actually make your skin look nicer as well since rumor has it that drinking water helps your skin. I'll have to look into that.

Not a good idea if you're prone to kidney stones. Caffeine is a stimulant, so will get your metabolic rate up, but it's not the healthiest way to do it. But, substituting water for high calorie beverages is a good idea. If plain water doesn't suit you, a little lemon juice or other juice mixed with it is good...just not too much...those juices are very high in sugar. This is a mistake a lot of people make, to drink juice or sports drinks thinking it's healthy, not realizing those are mostly flavored sugar water.

I like the way you think, but I would recommend the exact opposite.
Scales tell you nothing about how good you look. You can take two men, both 6 feet tall and 250 pounds, and have them look completely different. One will be fat slob, and one will be a muscular stud.
You shouldn't be fighting what the scale says. You should be fighting what the mirror says.

Yes, this is why I suggested staying away from scales initially. If you have access to a gym or other facility that has the equipment to test body composition (% body fat), that's really helpful. If you start on a good fitness program, you may actually gain weight over time if you start to build up muscles to replace the fat you lost, depending on how overweight one started out. Some people can start out not even truly overweight, but just flabby, and they may really enjoy the change in appearance with some defined muscles building up. I really recommend avoiding scales, mirrors, etc. initially, because the changes aren't going to be that rapid and when you don't see progress, it can be discouraging.

Instead, have someone take a "before" photo of you. It's much easier to look back at a photo and see what you really used to look like than to let your mind play games with you that nothing has changed because it happened so gradually, you didn't notice it in the mirror.

Other things you can track that will give you measures of progress without seeming discouraging will be to keep a log of your exercise routine. Just get one of those small, bound notepads (one that will easily fit in your pocket), and whatever exercise you do, record things like time spend doing it, distance you ran or biked or walked, intensity of the workout (if you work out on fitness machines, they have different settings that you can gradually work up to more and more difficult workouts), or weights lifted and # of reps if you do weight lifting. I personally found that much better than trying to track progress on a scale. It's really fun to look back through those records 6 months later and see what a wuss you started out as and how much progress you've made. For example, if someone chose jogging as their exercise, when you're jogging 3 miles a day, you'll get a good laugh to look back and see that when you started out, you couldn't even make it around the block.

I think good exercises to start out with are ones that you have to push yourself to complete. What I mean is something like going for a walk or run, and even if you get tired out halfway around the block, you have to push yourself to get the rest of the way around the block to get back home. Unlike sitting on a stationary bike where as soon as you get tired, you can stop and get off. The way to increase endurance is to keep pushing the limits. Not to complete exhaustion, but beyond what's easy.

I think the biggest mistake people make is to do too much at once. If in the first week of a diet you so drastically cut back on all your meals that you're feeling hungry all the time, you're going to have a hard time sticking with it. But, pushing yourself to be a little hungry some of the time is more likely to work. For example, instead of going for that snack after lunch, tell yourself you have to wait until dinner. You'll eat dinner, and you won't stay hungry all night, but you will just be hungry for a little while between your usual snack time and dinner. Before long, your body will adjust and you won't miss that snack at all. Same for exercise. If you set out to bike 5 miles on the first day when you haven't been on a bike since you were 12, you're going to be in such pain the next day that you won't exercise for the rest of the week. If you just push yourself a little past your comfort zone and begin with an every other day routine, you can build up gradually to a daily routine and to longer and longer workouts. Another trick that can work is when you get that craving for a snack, think about how much time you stop working to get that snack and eat it. Now, instead of spending that time snacking, go take a walk for that amount of time, especially if you're someone who snacks when bored.

 

[The Bob]

Whereas I, in an equally valid anecdote, did not lose weight by strict dieting.

Doesn't work for everyone.

I can't believe you're advocating "not bothering" with exercise. It's essential.

Exercise is necessary (if you were saying I said it was not) but I did not say that you shouldn't exercise. I simply, tried, to imply that maybe the diet needs to be changed first. If that doesn't work then try other options. I suppose it is my fault for not adding the word 'extra' before exercise. I do apologise.

What I was also saying was I got less exercise and so I didn't burn as many calories. By reducing my intake of calories I lost weight. However I should also have said that I did start going outside again (as the plan in my last post didn't work) and getting exercise that sped up the process.

Again I apologise if what I wrote could (and has been) misinterpreted.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[KingNothing]

Protein increases metabolism.

I would say most overweight people can blame their problem on their diet rather than exercise. Running isn't really that great of an exercise for losing weight. Walking isn't too great either. More fast, intense workouts seem to do better.

 

[Monique]

1. Be a vegetarian for a while. Big meals like supper will probably be the same amount of calories if you keep eating things like potatoes, but snacks will have essentially no energy. Instead of eating beef jerky when watching TV, the only thing to eat will be banana peppers or something like that. I've never heard of anybody getting fat from eating too many cucumbers or hot peppers.

how many snacks contain meat? There are potato chips on the market without chicken flavor, and french fries are fried separate from meat too. Chocolate does not contain meat, candies don't either, I could go on but you get the point

And for the tea: start drinking herbal teas! A whole shelf in my kitchen cabinet is dedicated to teas, my favorite is Dragons mix containing peppermint, cinnamon, liquorice root, lemon grass, ginger, camomile, some flower of a tree and taiga root

 

[ShawnD]

If someone sits down and had an entire steak for dinner every night, trying to cut out some of that meat will help, but if the real culprit is potato chips, french fries, and milk shakes, then this isn't going to help.

I was under the assumption that the guy asking for help is not an idiot
Not eating chips, fries, or milk shakes is sort of understood. It shouldn't need to be mentioned.

Not a good idea if you're prone to kidney stones. Caffeine is a stimulant, so will get your metabolic rate up, but it's not the healthiest way to do it. But, substituting water for high calorie beverages is a good idea. If plain water doesn't suit you, a little lemon juice or other juice mixed with it is good...just not too much...those juices are very high in sugar. This is a mistake a lot of people make, to drink juice or sports drinks thinking it's healthy, not realizing those are mostly flavored sugar water.

Thanks for the caffeine tip.
The juice mistake falls under the problem of thinking all natural is healthy. Apple juice in particular has a lot more sugar than people suspect.

I really recommend avoiding scales, mirrors, etc. initially, because the changes aren't going to be that rapid and when you don't see progress, it can be discouraging.

It might depend on what you're doing. I've never had a weight problem and I've never done cardio, but I know that strength training gets amazing results incredibly fast. After just 1 week of intense workout, it's easy to see definite changes; especially the biceps.

Other things you can track that will give you measures of progress without seeming discouraging will be to keep a log of your exercise routine. Just get one of those small, bound notepads (one that will easily fit in your pocket), and whatever exercise you do, record things like time spend doing it, distance you ran or biked or walked, intensity of the workout (if you work out on fitness machines, they have different settings that you can gradually work up to more and more difficult workouts), or weights lifted and # of reps if you do weight lifting. I personally found that much better than trying to track progress on a scale. It's really fun to look back through those records 6 months later and see what a wuss you started out as and how much progress you've made.

This is excellent advice. My brother told me to do the same thing when I started working out. It's very encouraging when the results are plotted in Excel. Think of it as QA/QC work for your body

 

[ShawnD]

how many snacks contain meat?

Here are some of the things I eat as snacks:
-thinly sliced pepperoni covered in Frank's Hot Sauce
-poached eggs
-fried eggs
-omlets
-leftover meat from the previous night covered in Iguana Gold hot sauce
-fish sticks
-fish cakes
-hot dogs
-bacon
-canned tuna
-canned salmon

Take away meat and you're left with nothing good to eat. It rhymes so it must be true.

 

[Telos]

Sorry if I missed someone else saying it already, but the best thing I can add to this thread is to drink more water.

No, really, drink more water! You'll have to go to bathroom a lot, but if you can get over that it's well worth it.

My story is that I lost almost 40 lbs. by drinking water whenever I was hungry during the day, particularly when I desired high calorie/carb foods. I ate small amounts of atkins-type foods at the beginning and end of each day, and exercised some, and that was about it.

As for keeping the weight off, exercise seems to have contributed a lot more than continuous diet regulation.

Oh, and as for drugs, I tried one over-the-counter substance and wound up bedridden for 3 days with a sickness that resembled scarlet fever.

 

[Monique]

Here are some of the things I eat as snacks:
-thinly sliced pepperoni covered in Frank's Hot Sauce
-poached eggs
-fried eggs
-omlets
-leftover meat from the previous night covered in Iguana Gold hot sauce
-fish sticks
-fish cakes
-hot dogs
-bacon
-canned tuna
-canned salmon

Take away meat and you're left with nothing good to eat. It rhymes so it must be true.

you eat that as snacks? although I don't think that poached eggs, canned tuna or salmon are that unhealthy. I don't really eat any snacks, I guess I drink too much tea

 

[The Bob]

Sorry if I missed someone else saying it already, but the best thing I can add to this thread is to drink more water.

I knew there was something I forgot. Change you drink to nothing but water. That is what I did (yes and excerise).

Good point to raise Telos.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[Moonbear]

Here are some of the things I eat as snacks:
-thinly sliced pepperoni covered in Frank's Hot Sauce
-poached eggs
-fried eggs
-omlets
-leftover meat from the previous night covered in Iguana Gold hot sauce
-fish sticks
-fish cakes
-hot dogs
-bacon
-canned tuna
-canned salmon

Take away meat and you're left with nothing good to eat. It rhymes so it must be true.

I never considered any of those items as snacks. Those are meals! Um, yeah, if you eat meals between your meals, you should cut out some of those extra meals to lose weight.

The juice mistake falls under the problem of thinking all natural is healthy. Apple juice in particular has a lot more sugar than people suspect.

It's not just that. People know you're supposed to eat fruits and vegetables for a healthy diet, so assume that fruit juice is as good as fruit. However, if you just eat a piece of fruit, you're consuming far less sugar than in a single glass of juice. Anyone who has ever made fresh-squeezed juice knows how many pieces of fruit it takes to get one glass of juice. So, even if your juice is all-natural, with no added sugar, you get all the sugar water contained within several pieces of fruit without any of the fiber and other good stuff in the pulp of the fruit that helps you fill up without too many calories.

 

[DaveC426913]

you just eat a piece of fruit, you're consuming far less sugar than in a single glass of juice.

I was told in my nutrition class that there's about 20 oranges worth of sugar in a bottle of orange juice.


BTW, fruit juice as a diet, not so good an idea. Tried that, lost 25 pounds in about 6 weeks. Thought I was doing great weight-wise, until they diagnosed me with diabetes. Did I do it to myself? Can't be sure.


Anyway, fruit way better than juice. Fibre good for diet. Good for keeping full. Eat less.

 

[Moonbear]

I was told in my nutrition class that there's about 20 oranges worth of sugar in a bottle of orange juice.

Well, having once, a long time ago, gotten the bright idea of squeezing my own orange juice, and after squeezing 5 or 6, maybe got a half glass of juice, that's probably about right. Though, on the plus side, if you squeeze the juice with one of those old-fashioned hand operated juicer things instead of with a machine, you do get quite a workout in the process of trying to get juice.

 

[Chronos]

1st rule of dieting: If it tastes good, spit it out.

 

[Loren Booda]

My doctor told me that the unrefined sugar of orange juice is much more healthy than the refined sugar of soft drinks. Is there any truth that orange juice can induce diabetes, as DaveC426913 relates, like refined products do? My meds have the possibility of inducing diabetes.