The first post was tru man but a little harsh .

How was it harsh?

Hi, just joined here (I'm quite a bit younger than most people here, in 9th grade actually) and looking for some advice. I've watched anorexia destroy many girls at my school obsessing over their weight/body, and as a girl I'm looking for a way to tone my body, mainly stomach and thighs, taking a route healthier and more effective than starving myself.

I'm 5' 4" and by no means overweight--I'm 100 pounds and actually don't really need to lose weight, I just want to get more fit and tone my body. I have membership to 24 hr fitness, which is right down the street, so I definitely have resources (although I'm a little intimidated over there with so many older people sweating it out and staring at me as if to say, "what is SHE doing here??" as most of the youngest people there are in late HS). Any suggestions for a good workout for someone my size that I can do twice a week, and maybe some nutrition advice, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

~Gramrgrl (yes, I'm a grammar freak, but I promise not to correct anyone here like I do with friends at home =P)

Thanks for shareing

I don't know where to start, other than to first thank you for a great "rant". If all rants were this honest, informative and useful, and not all b*tching and no substance, I'd love to hear them a lot more often!

I hate when people sound like late night informercials, as if they're trying to sell you a magic bullet or that they've discovered the holy grail of something.

You keep it real and yet, you manage to motivate at the same time, making the best out of what people are willing to put into it.

Definitely looking forward to more rants! (I never thought I'd say that!

Glad to hear you enjoyed and thanks very much!

Dude, you are so on about the HITT fallacy. I'm so tired of every fitness freak telling me I just NEED it if I plan on losing weight. But I don't think I do. I mean, I'm new to this workout thing and I don't wanna overwork my body just to "target the fat and not the carbs". I'm pretty sure my greatest concern would be to get started and MAINTAIN my routine as it is right now, and not focus on those things till I start to get substantial.

REALLY?!

You do NOT know how I wish I knew this ages ago.

For so long I've been having trouble with my diet because I just can't manage eating so many times a day. I've been hearing "You've gotta eat every 2 -3 hours a day to keep up your metabolism going or you'll just be wasting time!!!"

I'm out all the time (well I was) and I used to hang out over friends all day and be SO frustrated by having to plan out my whole days worth of food so I could follow some ridiculous schedule for eating.

I personally found it ANNOYING to eat so often, maybe if you like to eat it's fun because you get to eat a little bit again and again but I couldn't take it.

You have no idea how STUNTED I've been with my dieting because I just had this "well what's the point of doing it if you aren't going to do it right" attitude.

Thank you so much.

And I have a question? IS breakfast as important as people make it sound? I've heard the same things "breakfast boosts your metabolism so you lose weight". But I'm just not a breakfast person and "skinny people eat breakfast" is something I also hear (and somehow the skinniest people I know never eat breakfast, go figure).

It just makes me feel a little sick when I eat breakfast as soon as I get up. Some morning juice or protein shake, sure but solid food is hard for me especially because it takes me awhile to actually feel hungry.

I actualy think that emotions such as stress do affect metabolism and the break down of calories. In these situations the hormones that control metabolism and burn calories are affected, therefore leading to the body clinging onto calroies.

Really.

Higher meal frequency is often touted by a lot of the magazines and even some professionals but in the research and anecdotally it really isn't the case. I mean, if higher meal frequency helps you personally in terms of hunger and the like, that's great. I'm not suggesting anyone change that.

But many people can do just as well or even better with a lower meal frequency.

The misunderstanding comes primarily from the thermic effect of food, otherwise known as TEF. It's one component of our metabolic needs. The smallest I might add. The other components include the thermic effect of activity (TEA) and your basal metabolic rate (BMR).

TEF increases after you eat, obviously, as your body works to breakdown and utilize the foods you just ate. Each time you eat, metabolism increases. People took this too mean, "Eat more frequently and boost your metabolic rate."

The problem with this logic is this: If you eat fewer, larger meals... the thermic effect per meal is going to be larger since your body will have to "work harder" to breakdown and utilize the larger food per meal. Thus, you're left with zero net difference in terms of TEF or metabolism.

Same calories spread over more, smaller meals = smaller, more frequent TEF per meal.

Same calories spread over less, larger meals = larger, less frequent TEF per meal.

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For so long I've been having trouble with my diet because I just can't manage eating so many times a day. I've been hearing "You've gotta eat every 2 -3 hours a day to keep up your metabolism going or you'll just be wasting time!!!"

And that's exactly why I take issue with people saying it's a necessity. It's the polar opposite. Choose a meal frequency that fits your schedule and body.

Just make sure you're accounting for calories and nutrients.

Quote:

And I have a question? IS breakfast as important as people make it sound? I've heard the same things "breakfast boosts your metabolism so you lose weight". But I'm just not a breakfast person and "skinny people eat breakfast" is something I also hear (and somehow the skinniest people I know never eat breakfast, go figure).

Breakfast doesn't have some crazy metabolic boosting effect. Metabolism simply doesn't vary greatly over these short periods of time. In experimentation, the largest drop was something like 30-40% and that was after months of extreme starvation dieting of lean mean to mimic the Nazi concentration camps.

Over the course of a night, you're not going to see metabolic swings that matter.

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It just makes me feel a little sick when I eat breakfast as soon as I get up.

Have you tried shakes or smoothies?

Quote:

Some morning juice or protein shake, sure but solid food is hard for me especially because it takes me awhile to actually feel hungry.

My typical breakfast is a shake that includes fat free milk, fat free yogurt, natural peanut butter, chocolate protein powder, a frozen banana, and a couple of ice cubes.

Who are you responding to?

Thank's for replying so fast!

Wow, I feel silly after reading that because for awhile I've questioned the eating multiple times a day rule and never looked into it. I psyched myself out for so long because of lack of research.

I'm so glad I came here! Thanks for explaining that so easily.


That shake sounds good, the only problem is it won't work for me.
Since I've gotten IBS I can't eat bananas they just make me sick, for hours. Almost all of the shake/smoothie recipes I've found require banana so I'm kinda at a loss for those. Having a shake in the morning would be really easy for me too. The only thing I can think of are those powdered already made shakes, but I haven't had those in awhile and I'm not sure how diet friendly they are.

There are plenty of shakes without bananas! I get creative and just throw crap into a blender and invariably it turns out tasting really good.

Another one I make on occasion includes fat free milk, fat free vanilla yogurt, 1 scoop vanilla protein powder, frozen strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.

Yummy.

breakfast REALLY is the most important meal of the day, and if you are serious about losing weight then you MUST eat some sort of breakfast. People on these threads have dismissed breakfast as being important even saying that most health professional recommend it! there's a reason that health professionals recommend breakfast! when your body feels that it is getting less calories it goes into a starvation mode - its a basic human response that was developed after thousands of years of people struggling to get enough food (only in the past 50 years or so has there been an abundance). Even a short period of no food such as during the night 10-12 hours can prompt the body to begin the starvation period and start to hold onto calories and, if prolonged, breakdown muscle in order to save calories (as muscle burns calories)

SO... the bottom line, and research DOES support this, is that we do need to eat something for breakfast in order to reasure the body that food is on hand.

SPAM

Saying stuff is great. It means little to those interested though unless you back it up with some supporting documentation.

Did you not read what I wrote above?

Metabolism does not swing in and out of "starvation mode" over night. In fact, if you actually did some research, you'd see that during the initial stages of fasting, metabolic rate actually increases.

You might want to check out the work on intermittent fasting, too.

I beg to differ.

Please show me.