Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Have you ever done cardio to lose weight?

Sal

Congrats. You basically went atkins/keto correct?

Yes.
Basically meat and low carb greens.
Read all labels.
In the beginning, the cravings can be overwhelming.
The beginning stages of it are tge most import.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto

What do you wish to achieve?

Just to tone things up a bit, and loose the little but of gut I have. I don't need a six pack I will settle for a two pack

That’s interesting stuff. Where did you read that ?

Diet. It's the rare person that can out exercise their fork/spoon. Cut the carbs to around 100 grams per day (if you're counting) which is the equivalent of about 4 slices of bread. Stick to meat and vegetables, especially greens. Low sugar fruit on occasion.

Cardio is fine but need strength/resistance training which causes you to burn calories 24-36 hours after your workout. With cardio generally you only burn the calories while you're doing it.

Drink water but increase gradually. Don't go to 6-8 glasses a day if you only normally drink 1 glass a day.

There's more but you get the idea.

Do you plan to do any strength training / lifting, or just make diet changes to get there?

Regardless, if I were you, I'd try to figure out about how many calories you need to stay the same size with one of the online calculators. Then I'd try to average somewhere around 400-500cal a day under that, shifting a lot of my calories to protein/vegetables and some fats. Minimize carb intake, but not with the goal of ketosis. You can use CalorieKing to figure out what your meals are looking like, calorie wise, as in "how many calories are in an ounce of steak or chicken". That is really valuable info to simply be relatively familiar with. So if you eat a lot of vegetables, a fair amount of lean meat, and maybe some protein supplements like whey powder or some clean-ish protein bars, you'll actually feel like you are eating like a normal human being, but can still be in a moderate deficit and giving your body good nutrition. Maybe limit yourself to one meal a week that is cheat-worthy and enjoy it. Over the course of several months, the pounds will likely drift away and your midsection will shrink. I've done it several times when I got lazy on my fitness and diet, allowing my waistline to bump up several inches. Focusing for 3-5 months on simply "behaving" and eating good, clean foods at modest amounts has always taken it back off. It is apparently how I'm supposed to eat to be fit and healthy. I just tend to give in to the temptations of the modern world with regards to rich food, junk calories, being lazy, and drinking too much. Just like your bank accounts, sensible levels of credits and debits get things back in line and make for good day to day operation, it just requires a bit of vigilance and tending/planning. I'm currently undoing the Covid fat gains I've been lazy with. It's leaving at a rate of roughly a pound a week. I should be where I want to be by late spring or early summer.

I'll also add that it helps me to cut out or extremely limit alcohol if I am trying to shed fat. As in 0-2 drinks per week. I plan to lay off totally for 6 months this time and see how I feel. Alcohol reduces the metabolism and limits fat oxidation, but for me it also leads to bad food choices and laziness.

Intermittent Fasting has been my lifestyle for 3 years now, I will never go back to eating more than one meal a day, I eat once a day within a 1 hour window.

Unlike what Nutri System would have you believe, humans did not evolve and are not designed to eat 3 times a day plus "snacks" for some reason I have always hated that word, it sounds GAY!

Not everyone is equal: I mean that in terms of Metabolism.

I have had an exceptionally low metabolism all of my life, always had to watch what I eat or I gain weight, even if I am exercising. 1 meal a day keeps the weight off so its work for me. Other people that have high metabolisms, simply can not eat that way, they feel week, and get headaches. I Can go three days without food without any issues whatsoever.

Another thing that I have learned is that for those of us that live an intermittent fasting lifestyle, it's really important to get your "72 Essential Minerals"

First thing I do every morning is to drink a sugar free electrolyte drink for hydration, salts and potassium and I add "Liquid Minerals" to my morning electrolyte.

Supplementing with Minerals, especially the "72 Essential Minerals" is the most important you will ever do for your overall health.

This is the brand of liquid minerals I take, I highly recommend it for everyone!

KB

Sounds like you aren't doing that bad. Without getting off into the weeds too much I would suggest you just pick up a copy of the latest Atkins book and follow the directions in it. It has various levels of low carb eating plans in it that you do in "phases" and explains the jist of why this way of eating works. Its not written by Dr. Atkins (he ded) but by a couple of low carb experts....Dr. Eric Westman and Dr. Steven Phinney. If you follow it I'd say you are almost guaranteed to get the results you want.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Atkins-You-Ultimate-Shedding/dp/1439190275

I intermittently fast as well. Not really in a real organized way, but I never eat breakfast except for the occasional weekend. So, I’m always going on about 14 to 16 hours between dinner and lunch the next day. Then, usually about once, maybe twice per week my schedule will cause me to skip lunch as well and I’ll go 20 to 24 hours without eating.

Thanks for the info

Currently in a 17 hour fast. Grabbing the dirt bike
and headed out. I’m not hungry, have good energy and I’m ready to roll.

IM works well with exercise and a clean diet.

It works well with a crappy diet like mine once you train yourself that you don’t really need very much food. The average American could probably go a week without or more without food and no ill effects. We’re vastly over fed.

Just an FYI
If you want the maximum benefit from Autophagy to clean up free radicals and older cells not functioning as well, don't take in any calories in any form during the fast. Water, unsweet tea, and black coffee is fine. There is disagreement on how many calories will prevent that level of deep autophagy, but I would rather know for sure I'm getting the maximum benefit.

It is theorized that it takes carb burners approx. 24 hours to enter into this level of autophagy but that ketone burners can enter it within 12 hours.

Just another FYI
Red meat does increase mTOR levels which is beneficial in building and repairing muscle. It can however promote other growth, as in tumors, particularly in individuals living more sedentary lives, not building muscle.

Back to OP.

I read or someone told me an approach to weight loss and associated workouts.

Set a goal, say lose 30#. Set to dieting, Atkins, keto, low/slow carb, whole 30, paleo, whatever you choose.

Start your diet without exercise. Plan to lose 10# or so before you add in physical activity, especially cardio. Reasoning being that activity drives hunger, especially cardio. That could lead to immediate failure and a lot of people give up when they don't have success.

So, get yourself a small win, start to change your metabolism and then add activity in later when you are moving in the correct direction.

When I started dieting, I just sort of dropped things I knew were high carb. It was just simpler for me to give up sugar, bread, rice, beans, pasta and potatoes. Just not eating those 6 things forced me to completely change my diet to basically an animal protein and low carb vegetable diet.

I may have lost as much with a slightly different diet, but I had tried the small portion balanced approach before and lost 60 or so pounds several times only to be heavier than ever just a year later. I needed a diet that wouldn't be by definition something I would go on and then off when I reached a target. I needed a way to eat that I would enjoy long term. I had never stuck with diets before longer than maybe 6-8 months. The first thing I did was to go Carnivore for a month because it preached eat as much as you want and still lose weight. That left me constipated as hell even though I tried to eat lots of fat.

I started trying to add every healthy low carb veggie I could think of to my animal protein. It took a while, maybe 4-5 months before cravings for bread and sugar went away. I ate without those 6 things for more than 2 years and felt great. The big thing is that I ate when I was hungry and ate as much as I wanted. I ate less and less frequently as I got smaller. I learned about intermittent fasting and that worked well for me. I was mountain biking an average of 100 miles a week. I live close to good spots and rode every day. My weight settled in at 170 and I was trying really hard to get good abs. I felt so good I gave myself a double hernia. I went undiagnosed for more than a year having some ungodly torture tests done. I gained a bit during that time because I started eating some things, I had done without for over 2 years.

I just had hernia surgery 2 weeks ago. I'm back low carb and one meal a day. I've dropped 10 lbs in two weeks. Another 10 and I'll be back to 175 which is a good weight for me at 6' 2" tall and 54 years old. I had shamedly reached 360-380 lbs. when I turned 50.