Another noob trying to shed pounds

davef · Post by **davef** » September 30th, 2007, 7:35 pm

Hi everyone,

I bought a rower earlier this year with the goal of dropping a lot of weight (I'm 29 yrs old, 5'9", and weigh 270

).

I've made some messed up attempts to drop weight in the past. I went from 240 to 200 a few years ago using the "atkins" diet. In a year and a half that crept up to 250.

So next I did something really stupid and tried one of those prepackaged meal low calorie things (nutrisystem) and dropped down to 210 without exercising. What a mistake, I totally killed my metabolism. Afterword I was gaining weight on 2500 calories a day.

I know this yoyo diet crap is going to kill me, and that I can't cut out food. So I figured I'd have to lose weight through exercise and hopefully get my metabolism back up so I can still eat a lot but be healthy. After reading around I bought a c2 rower since I've had some foot problems in the past and don't think running would work out for me.

I bought my rower this spring but let it sit until now. I've finally got the bug to do something bad. So for the last two weeks (today is day 13) I've been rowing for an hour or more a day ... a half hour when I wake up and a half hour when I get home from work with weekends being just sit and row until I get too tired (hour and fifteen minutes or so seems to be it for me, both last weekend and this one). I'm using a hr monitor but haven't been targeting anything, just watching where it ends up as I work what feels like "hard". That ends up being around 160 bpm.

I've also cleaned up my eating quite a bit, which has proven easy after the silly diets I used in the past. 3 turkey sandwiches on whole wheat bread and veggie/salad sides with fruit and cottage cheese snacks in between per day? No problem after months of "no carbs" atkins crap. ugh.

I've read I should work in weight lifting too, but I don't really have room for weights and don't want to spring for a gym pass. I try to do some pushups and bodyweight squats before bed, but that isn't much.

I'd like to drop a lot of weight before seeing my family at Christmas. I know it has to be a lifetime thing so don't hurry, but you know how that goes.

So my question is if there are better things I could be doing with my approx one hour/day to speed up the weight loss. Is the 1/2 before work 1/2 hour after work thing any worse or better than doing a single hour session? Is there a point at which I could be doing to much? How do you tell? I've read people mention over doing it here. Will you just feel like crap or not be able to complete the workouts? It really seems like the more I do this the more I want to do. I feel like I could pretty easily replace the 1/2 before and after work workouts with 45 minutes.

Thanks,

Dave

tbartman · Post by **tbartman** » October 1st, 2007, 3:43 pm

I think you are on the right track. Congrats on giving it a go. I was obese (6' 3" - 261 lbs), for the better part of 15 years (except brief periods when I could get into the 230's) - also with various diets, but I never incorporated exercise, and I eventually realized that this was the problem. Watching TV while feeling deprived because I wasn't snacking felt horrible. Now I exercise during my "pig out" time, and lost about 10 lbs/month for 8 months, and have been stable at ~185 for over 4 months now.

So, be realistic about what you can lose by the holidays. 20-30 lbs is a reasonable maximum, but will certainly be noticed!

You want to burn as many calories per day as you can on the machine. An hour a day seems fine. It is probably better to do one session of an hour than two of 30 minutes, since lipid metabolism doesn't kick in until glucose and glycogen are depleted at about 20 minutes. So, even though a calorie burned is a calorie burned, longer workouts will train your biochemistry to use fat as a fuel better. It may also keep your metabolism higher longer after the row. Some people hate this - but I row in the evening 1) to avoid sitting in front of the tube with chips, and 2) to avoid pigging out when the post-row hunger hits (I'm already asleep)

The pace should be close to the most you can sustain for that hour. If you can check your pulse, aim for the 140-150 bpm range. Or, towards the end of that hour, you should be fairly soaked with sweat and able to blurt out 4-5 word sentences on the recoveries. If you can't speak at all, you'll probably be too pooped to row the next day. If you can carry on full conversations, you probably could have gotten a lot more done in that hour.

Nosmo · Post by **Nosmo** » October 3rd, 2007, 7:34 pm

I don't really agree with tbartman on a few points. Best for fat loose would be one hour work out but with a break in the middle. row for 30 minutes, take a 15-20 minute break then do it again. However I would recommend variety. Some days do an hour continuous, others do two sessions, others do one session with a break.

On some weekends, try taking a 5 minute break every 30 minutes and see what happens--you will probably find that you can go much longer then an hour and 15 minutes total. Other weekends rowing continuously

Some days you want to be pushing it close to what you can sustain, others it is fine to back off and taking it easy.

Listen to your body. If training is getting harder and harder either mentally or physically, your doing too much and need to back off some. If your falling asleep at work and are too drained after a workout to lead your normal life, take it easy.

Read about various training programs on this forum to get ideas. Keep it fun and interesting and you will keep it up. It is more important to be fit and get the exercise in then to be skinny, so don't over do the weight lose. Also be aware that you may be gaining muscle and hence losing more fat then the scale says.

It is also important to beable to get back to the erg after a break. Things will come up and you won't always be able to work out or eat right. Don't get down on your self just get back to it as soon as you reasonably can.

Good luck!

mischa · Post by **mischa** » October 6th, 2007, 8:27 pm

The UK site has an Interactive Weight Loss Programme at http://www.concept2.co.uk/weightloss/interactive.php .

I have more fun with varied workouts, so I got myself a 20 week program to follow and even in just the couple of weeks I've been doing it my times have moved much closer to what they were before my year+ break from rowing.

Weight loss isn't a big goal of mine so I can't say how well it does for that but I'd recommend it for at least giving you a skeleton training regimen to follow.

Hally930 · Post by **Hally930** » October 7th, 2007, 3:56 pm

Thanks for the link to the UK site and the interactive program! The resulting workout schedule is very helpful. Although it starts out "easy" (even for my beginner self) I can see that it ramps up nicely.

mischa · Post by **mischa** » October 7th, 2007, 11:52 pm

No problem! I hope you enjoy it!

davef · Post by **davef** » October 8th, 2007, 9:50 pm

Thanks for the posts everyone. What I'm doing seems to be working well so far.

Since the 18th I've dropped 10 lbs, but I'm guessing that's a lot of water since I've cut way back on the salt in my diet.

I'm having fun doing the 1/2 hour rows using the "rerow" thing and having my previous one show up as a pace boat on the monitor. I like trying to improve the distance I can make in 30 minutes. Usually I'm getting around 5500-5800 meters. The best I've done so far is 6200 but I felt like I was going to die at the end of it. Pretty pathetic when I look at some of the records on the website, but hey, I'm just looking to lose weight and improve health really.

I'm looking forward to trying out some of the rowing software once I get unlazy enough to move the rower and computer closer together.