Goldi said:
thanks for answering guys. I'm not too sure about taking anything - I'd rather not mess up my body's balance. Is there a way I could boost my metabolism without 'shocking' my body too much? Should I up exercise? Up my food? Drop my food or have I *shudder* done permenant damage?
I agree that you are smart not to take anything. Weight loss products are not effective for long term use, and many of them are dangerous. The good news is that you have not done permenant damage.
Weight, in isolation, is not very meaningful. What is important is the percent body fat, but that is difficult to measure. Muscle is more dense than fat, so if you increase your exercise, you indeed could gain weight, but you would be loosing fat and gaining muscle, which is a good thing. Also, how much weight gain over what period of time are we talking about?
Because muscle is more dense than fat, a better measure of fitness is your waistline. If your waistline is decreasing, even though your weight is increasing, that is another indicator that what is happening is that you are loosing fat and increasing muscle. Again, that is a good thing.
As far as eating, keep a balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. Fad diets that totally eliminate fat or carbohydrates are effective in the short term, but are not good in the long term. On average, it takes 13 to 15 calories per day per pound of body weight (28 to 33 calories per kg) to maintain that weight. The low end is if you are inactive, and the high end is if you exercise moderately and regularly. The high end goes up with the intensity of exercise, but for the amount of exercise you describe, the midpoint of that range is probably about right.
If you are overweight, and you reduce the amount of food you eat too quickly, the body will compensate by slowing down the metabolism. Exercise will help keep the metabolism up, but it still might not be optimal. Some people find that keeping track of everything they eat on a daily basis helps them to stay on target. Cutting out 150 calories per day should result in about a 10 pound weight loss. It is far better to focus on losing 10 pounds at a time than on losing all of the excess weight at once. Once you have lost eight to 10 pounds, reduce your daily intake by another 150 calories and keep going until you reach your ideal weight.
Too much exercise is not usually a problem. The only time exercise can be a problem is if your percent body fat is already low, and all of your excess weight is muscle. In that case, you are not really obese. That is why weight, in isolation, tells us nothing about fitness. There is a varient of
anorexia nervosa where people eat normal amounts of food but exercise obsessively. Their caloric intake, even though "normal" for inactive or moderately active people, is not enough to keep up with the demand, and serious health problems can occur.
If you do want to loose muscle mass (and I cannot think of a good reason for doing so), cut back on both the exercise and caloric intake, but in general, this is a bad idea. The one thing you should never do is to cut back on exercise without cutting back on caloric intake (unless you are one of those
anorexia nervosa varient atients). For most people, reducing exercise without reducing caloric intake is a good way to gain weight in a hurry and loose fitness in the process.
