Slashdot Mirror
How Do Geeks Exercise?
An anonymous reader writes "I have always been thin but all the sitting in front of the PC is taking its toll now that I'm getting older. I have begun to get a little heavier around the waist. I don't eat a lot but the weight seems to stay on these days. Most of the time I don't have the luxury of just getting out of the house/office. And being an introvert, I'm not enamored of the idea of exercising in full view of *shudder* people. I regularly do press-ups (60 per night) and sit-ups (30 per night) and some fetching and carrying, but that is all and these days it isn't enough. I need a solid and effective routine that will tone all my muscle groups efficiently. Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?"
Pretty much what the title says. Leave the car at home if you can. If you take public transportation, walking to the bus stop (rushing so you don't miss it =P), running down the stairs of the subway station (not using those fancy high tech automated ones! /cough), and so on, the pounds go away quite fast.
That is if you live somewhere where its possible. I've melted a lot doing that.
You have to get out of the house, but to suit the introvert, you can go where most people can't. You also get to wear PFD as well as and a baggy dry suit to cover up the unsightlyness if you need it in your area.
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You very much need aerobic exercise to supplement your muscular-oriented exercise. Aerobic exercise works the heart, lungs, and circulatory system--very critical subsystems.
I'd recommend a treadmill or a bike with a trainer hooked up to it. Have a TV in front of you. After reading a couple books about it, use a heart rate monitor to keep from pushing too hard or too easy.
Try to build up to one hour per day. Don't discontinue your calisthenics. Read about exercise.
I went and picked up a cheap yet sturdy bike ($500.00 Specialized Hard Core Comp), and I take the train to work. from train stations in either direction it's about a 10 minute ride (20 total one way), however I can bike down to farther train stations to get a real benefit from it.
So the next train station from my work is about a 45 minute bike ride away, while the first one is ten.
The one after that is about an hour and a half away, and so on an so forth.
You can do this with bus stops too.
It's uncomfortable at first getting used to the bike, so pick up Mtn Bike shorts (They aren't the spandex ones, they look like regular shorts), and get used to it, then have at it. I love it now, and I royally hate working out in front of people.
Good luck!
#1 - Yourself Fitness. PC, PS2, Xbox all options for it (and the ps2 and xbox titles are both compatible with their "upgraded" counterparts).
#2 - Wii Fit. Surprisingly effective if you discipline yourself to doing it. Downside: not as organized.
And now we get to some of the better stuff.
#3 - Find a local swimming pool, strap on a pair of rollerblades, get a bicycle.
#4 - Join a sports league. Your local parks & recreation department is a good start here and can steer you to local team sports if nothing else. This will also help with your "introverted" problem.
#5 - Once you take care of the "introverted" problem... get a girlfriend and do a lot of the world's #1 calorie-burning exercise.
Agreed. I bike 30 miles every other day and that was enough, along with a sensible diet, to get me from a peak of 180 pounds down to a more healthy 155. Now I'm steady at 155 but can still eat more than I normally could without the exercise. Plus it's good for the heart.
Maintaining weight is a matter of how many calories you consume and how many your burn. Weight training will build muscle but doesn't burn a lot of calories. Things like running, swimming, and biking are the kinds of things that burn calories.
I'm sorry you're an introvert. Make time for your health and enjoy the great outdoors. You can always get a stationary bike but, having one of those that I use in the winter, I can assure you that a real bike out in the real world is MUCH more rewarding and it will help you relax mentally as well as keep you in shape physically.
Tai Chi is essentially a form of Kung Fu slowed down to maximize the exercise potential and lessen the strain on your body.
Once you have learned the essential 108 movements (its all one long cycle that puts you back where you are started, but is learned as 108 or so individual moves), you have a routine that will exercise pretty much every muscle in your body, looks cool, and requires no equipment to perform in, any stretch of ground/grass/parkinglot with a roughly 15x15 ft area free would probably do.
Its been very popular in China for centuries and obviously works quite well, given the number of old people you see doing it in droves there.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Weight training will build muscle but doesn't burn a lot of calories. Things like running, swimming, and biking are the kinds of things that burn calories.
You'd be surprised. Not only does resistance training burn kilojoules at a sufficient rate to lose weight (depending on your eating habits), but also the increase in metabolism (due to increased muscle mass) means that your BMR will be higher than if you only engaged in aerobic training. In other words, you'll burn more kilojoules at rest.
How come nobody has mentioned this one yet? I mean, come on! It has fitness tips as well as diet since you really need both to get the pounds off.
Hacker Diet
Tonights forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning
Until the start of 2008 I was about 90 lbs overweight and morbidly obese. Throughout the year I have lost 70 lbs, and I am on my way to having a healthy BMI.
Here are my thoughts:
You don't have to go to a gym, but it really helps to have access to nice array of equipment. Get over your fear of going to the gym. No one gives a crap about you --except for when you may be using equipment they want to use. If you want to avoid socializing, wear headphones or go during off hours. If you are afraid of the locker room (that's normal it takes sometime to get used to), then don't use it.
Now on to to the technical stuff: You need to do a moderate to strenuous aerobic activity at least ~30 minutes a day 3 days a week (5 is better) for the rest of your life. I like to run, row, hike up mountains and occasionally use the elliptical machine. This is necessary for good cardiovascular health, and will help you in your later years. It will also as a side effect help you loose weight.
You need to do some basic weight training. You seem to favor body weight exercises, keep doing push ups, try increasing the reps, or difficulty by doing them on an incline. Learn to do pullups/dips also. Finally buy a few dumbbells, going up to 35-40 lbs in weight. Learn to do basic curls, and some presses. Later on read some fitness books, or go to a couple of fitness blogs to learn how to do lifts and presses that work your big muscle groups --think squats, and dead lifts. Doing this won't make you a huge muscle guy (believe me the gains are not that great) but you'll be happy with your increased strength. It will also help to keep you from looking flabby.
One more thing. The key to loosing weight is your diet. Good weight loss is slow, and steady. Cut 500-1000 calories from your diet, and you'll loose 2 lbs a week. However, you need to combine it with exercise or you'll have to keep "dieting" for the rest of your life to maintain your weight. That won't happen, so creating a nice caloric deficit through working out 3-5 times a day will help you maintain a healthy weight once you've reached it.
Personally, I go to a gym. But then, I live in a small town so I don't see very many *people*. Incidentally, I've always gone to a gym, even when I lived in a slightly larger town of Philadelphia.
The key to the middle parts is: it's the last fat to go.
You don't say how old you are, but the fact is you're getting older and your metabolism continues to slow each year. You can combat that by moving (aka exercise) and eating. Yes, eating. If you don't take in enough calories - the right calories - your body will react by storing what it can, usually in your middle. Unfortunately, your middle is the last place you lose from.
Muscles burn calories. You can increase your resting metabolic rate by building muscle. Just having more muscle mass == more calories burned sitting on your butt. It's a vicious cycle though, if you don't maintain the muscle (aka exercise) you'll lose it through catabolism (body breaks it down for energy).
There's a godzillion things you can do at home, but the easiest way to start is with push-ups and sit-ups. Buy an exercise ball, one of those big funny-looking rubber balls. There are dozens of different exercises you can do with those. They're cheap and they're extremely versatile. You don't necessarily need weights if you're a beginner, or even intermediate. You just need to use your body as the weight and do _something_ to trick your body into building some muscle mass. (You won't build a ton just doing pushups, but you'd be suprised how quickly it works) Consistency is key - 3 times per week on the "weights". You need a day in-between to allow your body to recover and actually build the muscle.
This one goes without saying: Eat healthy!
If you have the means, i.e. space and money, get a treadmill. Use it 30 minutes a day, 5-6 days a week.
The bottom line is, you have to burn calories and build some muscle. The only way to do either one is to _move_ a lot.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
A good mix is obviously best. But if he wants to burn calories, I stand by my assertion that traditional exercises such as running, swimming, and cycling are more efficient at burning calories than weight training unless you're doing some ungodly effort on the weight training.
As an example, this link suggest that at 155 pounds and 60 minutes, I'd burn about 744 calories per hour cycling at 14-15.9mph. Meanwhile, general weightlifting comes in at 223 calories and vigorous weightlifting comes in at 446 calories. And it's a lot more reasonable for most people to do an hour on a bike than a constant productive hour of weight training.
If he wants to lose weight, he should do these kinds of activities (biking, running, etc.). If he is looking for muscle mass then obviously weight training is an obvious choice. And if he wants both, well, he's going to have to do both.
Counter citation: "Body size and composition. To function properly, a bigger body mass requires more energy (more calories) than does a smaller body mass. Also, muscle burns more calories than fat does. So the more muscle you have in relation to fat, the higher your basal metabolic rate." From http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/metabolism/WT00006
Didn't your mother teach you not to do things you would be ashamed to see on the evening news?
If you shower at home before biking, you'll be surprised at how little your sweat smells after a ride into work. Apparently the smell people associate with sweat is mostly bacteria being dispersed by the sweat. Then when you get to work, I change in the restroom into my work clothes, and freshen up any sweaty spots with some scentless moist wipes, apply some deodorant, and I'm good to go for the day. I've been petitioning my employer to install a shower, but so far, no luck.
From a quick search, unverified stats show that bikes make up 2% (just like milk) of vehicle fatalities:
From:
http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html
How many cyclists die
Deaths per year. 725, 629, 665, 732, and 693 cyclists died per year in 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, and 2000 respectively, and were about 89% male. (National Highway Traffic Saftey Administration, and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
An average of 16.5 cyclists per million die every year in the U.S. (For motorists, it's 19.9 motorists per million.) (National Safety Council 1988)
Cyclists are 2% of road deaths & injuries. The 761 cyclists killed in 1996 accounted for 2% of traffic fatalities, and the 59,000 cyclists injured made up 2% of all traffic injuries. (5)
They also state later:
Health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks. "The gain of 'life years' through improved fitness among regular cyclists, and thus their increased longevity exceeds the loss of 'life years' in cycle fatalities (British Medical Association, 1992). An analysis based on the life expectancy of each cyclist killed in road accidents using actuarial data, and the increased longevity of those engaging in exercise regimes several times a week compared with those leading relatively sedentary lives, has shown that, even in the current cycle hostile environment, the benefits in terms of life years gained, outweigh life years lost in cycling fatalities by a factor of around 20 to 1." -- Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Policy Studies Institute, and British Medical Association researcher (7, 8)
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Following-up, I found this link which says:
If this person dos moderate weight training then over time (the increased MBR is not immediate) he might burn an extra 143 calories per day. That pretty much supports my position that if he wants to lose weight, he needs to be on a bike burning 400-740 calories per hour rather than 223 calories per hour of weightlifting. So if he does two hours of weight training to my two hours of biking, he'll burn maybe 223 * 2 + 143 = 589 calories per day in his exercise while I burn close to 1,480 even if I don't get any increased muscle mass from biking (which I do, albeit to a lesser extent than a good weight training program).
If you want to burn calories: Run or bike, or similar cardio exercises. Of course a balanced workout including weight training is obviously the final goal. But if the immediate goal is weight loss, weight training isn't going to accomplish it nearly as fast as running or biking.
This was said in jest, but if your city's busses are good enough to include bike racks, and you are able to find a bus route that will take you close to where you work, you can take the bike with you, and just bike home.
I have a health condition that makes it extremely difficult and stressful for me to leave the house to exercise... I do enjoy a good cardio workout, and was feeling quite unhappy about being unable to engage in a regular routinized exercise session that I enjoyed (because aerobics, yoga, pilates, etc. tapes just aren't that much fun to me), so I decided to see what the hype was about last Christmas and I picked up a DDR game.
Now I'm an avid DDRer, and I must say that it can be a fantastic workout, especially if you play doubles (i.e. two mats) as you move your centre of gravity much more often, and if you work yourself up to the harder levels, which get you moving faster. I can burn an estimated 1000 calories per session, and those sessions just fly by because I'm really enjoying myself. You don't only see your improvement in the game, but the improvement in your appearance, too. My stomach is trim now, and I have that nice abdominal V that some fit people get.
If you haven't tried DDR, I highly recommend it. Get a PS2 game, get a couple cheap mats, and give it a go. If DDR isn't your cup of tea, find an exercise routine that you can do at home that you enjoy so that you actually feel inclined to do it more than a few times. You'll never keep up a regime that bores, intimidates, or embarrasses you.
Those exercises are not for beginners, though. If you aren't already in pretty good shape, two of them are outright dangerous: the bridge will wreck your neck, and squats with the heels coming up will wreck your knees. And even if you're in good shape, I've never met either a qualified doctor, physio or professional sports coach who advocates bridging, because of the risk of neck injury.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Having greater muscle volume does lead to greater calories burned without doing anything. This however is a pretty small gain. With aerobic exercise you can burn a ton of calories and most importantly you directly burn fat. When you burn the short term energy stores (sugar) of the body it effects you hunger. When you directly burn fat you feel less hungry after working out. This is why aerobic exercise is best for losing weight. Resistance training will work but it takes more will power.
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I really hate the holier than thou attitude as well. I'll gladly share the road with cyclists... when they start going the speed limit instead of doing 20mph in the middle of the road with a posted 30 mph speed limit - thus holding everyone behind them up.
This is a nonsense argument anyway, because in urban traffic a cyclist is almost always faster than a car. What's slowing you down is not cyclists, it's congestion. A cyclist uses a lot less road space than a car, so if everyone got out of their cars and onto bikes there would be a lot less congestion and everyone would get to their destinations faster (and in better temper).
But - at least in the UK and most other English-speaking countries - cyclists use the road by right while motorists use it by license. The point about a license is you don't have a right - that it can be taken away from you.
Motorists are allowed on the road as long as they play nice with the people who have a right to be there - and no longer.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
The answer to weight lifting vs cardio is to do both. Alternate cardio days with weight lifting days. Your muscles repair and grow both in size and strength when you are resting, so you need some days off. For example, my workout consists on mon/thurs cardio & core, tues/fri weight training. So if you workout your legs, heart & core one day, they will be in repair mode the next while you're exercising a different set of muscles.
Food is equally important, for it affects directly your performance in everything. You need to eat MASSES of veg and salad and fruits. And by MASSES I mean they have to be the bulk of your diet. Don't consume many carbs the days you're working out, do mostly veg & protein. No fats. Replenish the days you're resting with eating a bit more carbs. Brown rice, wholewheat bread, cereals such as oats, porridge, wheetabix.
Have breakfast in the form of cereals I said earlier. Eat some protein right after working out. If you feel peckish, nibble on apples. Leave bananas and melon fo "once in a while" as they contain masses of sugar, nevertheless you still need to eat them. Substitute meat by white or blue fish. Eat oily fish twice a week; red meat once, white meat twice.
Water. At least 2 litres a day, specially when you workout. Reason being, all the fat & energy your body is burning leaves debris, and guess how you expel it... hydration is not also important for that, but also to keep your brain's and body performance; and your skin will be so much better. Water. Not diet coke, yes? And forget by the way about coke & fanta. 125kcal every 1/3 litre (one can). Dude, that is well bad. It takes 12m on a medium sized person running at 9 km/h to burn all that.
Your head a splode
I think you are trying to say that one should strive for balance between weight/resistance training and aerobic excercise?
I'm male, approaching 40. At 30 I joined the armed forces and had an ongoing battle with weight and fitness for 4 years until I left. I learned (in no particular order after the first one):
1. To lose weight requires that you burn more calories than you consume.
2. After 30, men need to lift weights to maintain muscle mass.
3. Don't run two days in a row.
4. Muscle burns more calories than fat.
5. If you dramatically increase your exercise, your appetite will increase.
6. Change gradually and consult a physician.
7. Running shoes are not one size fits all.
8. "Fat burns in a fire fueled by carbs" (don't go on 0 carb diets, you'll burn muscle mass before you burn fat.)
Sensible portions at meals, avoid sugary foods and highly processed flour, eat balanced meals, err towards more fruit and green leafy vegetables, exercise for stress relief and burning calories.
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
Actually, the caloric content of food is measured by a bomb calorimeter, which simply burns the food until it is completely oxidized. To extract the maximum amount of energy, the body must do the same thing, which is what occurs through the metabolic pathway of glycolysis -> krebs cycle -> electron transport chain for sugars; beta-oxidation -> krebs cycle -> ETC for fats; and protease digestion -> reduction to pyruvate/acetyl CoA -> krebs cycle -> ETC for proteins. These pathways result in the food being broken down into water and carbon dioxide, the same end-products from the bomb calorimeter. In chemistry, the total energy derived from a chemical reaction (or set of chemical reactions) is given by the equation: Delta_Energy = Energy(in bonds of reactants) - Energy(in bonds of products). The body cannot extract more energy than this, and that is exactly what the bomb calorimeter is measuring. The caloric content of foods is based on the total amount of energy that can be derived from a food product.*
Now, if our AC troll friend can derive more energy from food than the bomb calorimeter can, he is, quite literally, Mr. Fusion.
* As such, it follows that people do not actually require 2000 kCal (on average) per day; however, that is how much energy needs to be in the food so that the ~35% efficient catabolic pathways can derive enough useful energy from the food to power the body. 35% efficiency is extremely high (the most efficient internal combustion engines get ~25-30%); it is the result of literally billions of years of evolution because deriving energy from a substrate is a requirement of life, so the whole complicated mess has been around from the beginning. Therefore, Nature has optimized the crap out of it. Unless Mr. Fusion up there has different catabolic pathways than the rest of life on earth there is no way that he could be that more efficient than everyone else.
It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
To specifically address the question posed (what do we, the Slashdot readers, do to stay in shape):
I eat vegetarian; low dairy, lots of beans, tempeh, and seasonal fruits/veggies. I bring my lunch to work every day which is cheaper and more nutritious than buying it.
I lift weights three times a week for an hour emphasizing multi-join and body-weight-resistance exercises like pull-ups, push-ups, dips, incline and hanging crunches, etc.
I bike to work whenever the weather permits.
I run 5 km at least once a week (though bad knees sometimes demand that I go for a long walk instead).
All of this combined yields a weekly time commitment of about 3.5 hours of exercise plus 90 minutes of biking to and from work (2 mi each way). I'm 185 lbs, 6'1", and I fill out my nerdy T-shirts in the shoulders, not the belly. I don't have six-pack, but I certainly don't have a gut. All around I feel very health even though the vast, vast, majority of my time is spent sitting on my ass in front of a computer at work.
I don't care whose biology teacher told them what about which calories are burned by how many muscles, but my whopping 3.5 hours a week of exercise entitles me to all the beer I can drink and stuffing my face with burritos to my heart's content without gaining a fraction of an inch around my waste line (which hasn't changed in 15 years). And no, I'm not one of those skinny nerds than can eat Taco Bell every day and still look like a bent coat hanger.
I think that the big trick to staying healthy is sticking with your routine, whatever it is. Don't just go on a diet and start running in response to feeling fat and out of shape. Biking to work is a great way to start and, depending on where you live, has the added benefit of being faster than driving.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.