(no subject)
I think I’ve been lying to myself for a long time. I wage my little war against my weight, hoping for a long time that I could find that perfect exercise program for losing weight. But with just exercise, the best I usually manage is a jiggle effect, lose a kilogram, gain a kilogram. I don’t look much different in the end, even if the weight I can lift inches upward.
Exercise classes can help if they are 75-90 minutes long, and they have to be that long for my slow metabolism to kick into fat burning, otherwise I end up maintaining the same weight (see above). I say this after trying Tae Kwon Do, judo, jujitsu, aikido, kick boxing, boxing, and normal cardio classes to music stuff.
But an even bigger problem with exercise classes than that most of them are less than an hour long is that our bodies have evolved the ability to conserve energy. This is a good thing in the normal world of food scarcity we evolved in, and for blue collar workers who make their living with daily labor, but our bodies’ ability to adapt to exercise means that they learn how to do the same movements with less energy, so to lose weight with a particular exercise you have to work harder and harder, and the old issue of diminishing returns can kick in pretty fast.
But the two times I was vegetarian, weight loss was a much steadier downward trend. On my ex-wife’s diet (vegetarian M-F, only fruit on Saturday and only tea, water, and juice on Sunday) our only exercise was yoga and alternating walking with 1/2 of Tae Kwon Do and I lost 85 pounds in about two years. Unfortunately, that included lots of muscle. My weight dropped 85 pounds, but my bench press dropped 165 pounds. Then after she left me, I hung out with writers and poets all the time and, no offense intended, they don’t have the best eating habits with their café and bar lifestyle.
Last August, I was vegetarian and weight lifting, and I lost 4 kilograms in 4 weeks. That’s twice the weight loss I had under my ex-wife’s regime adjusting for the same amount of time. It’s something I should think about again.
Exercise classes can help if they are 75-90 minutes long, and they have to be that long for my slow metabolism to kick into fat burning, otherwise I end up maintaining the same weight (see above). I say this after trying Tae Kwon Do, judo, jujitsu, aikido, kick boxing, boxing, and normal cardio classes to music stuff.
But an even bigger problem with exercise classes than that most of them are less than an hour long is that our bodies have evolved the ability to conserve energy. This is a good thing in the normal world of food scarcity we evolved in, and for blue collar workers who make their living with daily labor, but our bodies’ ability to adapt to exercise means that they learn how to do the same movements with less energy, so to lose weight with a particular exercise you have to work harder and harder, and the old issue of diminishing returns can kick in pretty fast.
But the two times I was vegetarian, weight loss was a much steadier downward trend. On my ex-wife’s diet (vegetarian M-F, only fruit on Saturday and only tea, water, and juice on Sunday) our only exercise was yoga and alternating walking with 1/2 of Tae Kwon Do and I lost 85 pounds in about two years. Unfortunately, that included lots of muscle. My weight dropped 85 pounds, but my bench press dropped 165 pounds. Then after she left me, I hung out with writers and poets all the time and, no offense intended, they don’t have the best eating habits with their café and bar lifestyle.
Last August, I was vegetarian and weight lifting, and I lost 4 kilograms in 4 weeks. That’s twice the weight loss I had under my ex-wife’s regime adjusting for the same amount of time. It’s something I should think about again.