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Wednesday Weighins on wiifit

30th Mar 2011
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For the past three weeks, I have been taking out my under used wiifit every dreaded Wednesday morning to monitor my weight.

I just want to learn the impact various measures

Week 1 - I carried on cycling and made no changes to my life style at all - Result +1lb

Week 2 - Made a small change - cycle 3 days a week and no other change - Result +1lb

Week 3 - Did not cycle whole week, just ate whenever I felt like it (within reason). - Result minus 1lb

What does this mean? Cycling makes me put on weight! During my employment days I use to cycle 26 miles a day five days a week. I did put on weight! Though not a huge amount, about 10 lbs or so.

I think cycling makes me so hungry that I eat more calories  than  I burn cycling. Result - weight gain. Cycling makes me feel I can eat whatever and whenever I want. Evidence indicates I should  not do this.

I think I will carryon with this experimentation for little while.

Plan for Week 4 - Keep a food diary. Record everthing I eat including my hunger level each time I put food in my mouth. I need to understand my behaviour before taking corrective actions.

I will blog my weekly weighins and I promise to provide detailed account of why I think I have put on or lost weight. I hope to carryon with this till I have reached my target weight. It is a long way away!

Please feel free to add your comments/opinions.

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Replies (7)

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By clegganator
31st Mar 2011 08:58

Probably because

I have a rough knowledge of exercise so I'll throw my 2p in. You might be creating muscule rather than buring fat. Is it a relatively short and intense cycle ride? Maybe it will help you lose weight if you stretch it out and go on longer rides?

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By wilcoskip
31st Mar 2011 12:23

Diet / Exercise

You could well be right that your body is responding to the exercise by increasing your appetite, and feeling that you deserve a treat after the exercise it's tempting to give in....

Personally, I've found that keeping a tight rein on my food intake has much more effect on my weight than increasing the amount of exercise I do.  Obviously both are important for a healthy lifestyle, but for weight loss diet is the key thing for me.  I know how many calories I should have (roughly) as an adult male each day, so from there it's a case of noting what I eat on a rough sheet of A4.  Keep it a few hundred below what you actually need, and you should start to see a difference.

Hope this helps.

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Red Leader
By Red Leader
31st Mar 2011 12:24

food and drink

Food diary's a good idea, but don't forget to include all drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) as well.

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By rasmith
31st Mar 2011 12:24

exercise v's diet

i am sure i read somewhere to burn a lb of fat from your body you have to expend 3500 calories worth of exercise! which at my size equates to running for about three hours! (and then not over eating afterwards).

i found weight loss has to be diet lead. cut the portion sizes and get used to being hungry. but the exercise side of what i did helped to focus me and keep me motivated, as the weight came off the exercise got easier and more enjoyable ... and yes am now a little addicted to it, which has got to help 

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By anzanijohn
31st Mar 2011 12:40

Consider what the cycling is doing.

Further to the first post not only may the cycling be building muscle which is heavier than fat but also you need to consider what the cycling is doing.  I undertook a Sports Scotland course which looked at appropriate exercise.  Lots of people who attend gyms do the wrong intensity workouts if their aim is weight loss.  I learned that a 30+ minute low intensity ride to work on an empty [well a cappucino] stomach would metabolise fat.  Doing it faster and/or after eating would have done nothing for weight loss and might have led to weight gain for any of the reasons that you yourself list in the blog.  In my case weight  loss was not a primary purpose but I decided to alter my routine to get the benefit.

I would suggest that you get more detail of any exercise programme [formal or informal] before starting so that you do the right routines to get the benefit you want at that time.  Cycling 2 miles to the pub [at whatever rate and however strong the wind] may make me feel virtuous but is not going to offset the calorie intake :)]

Good luck

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By Becky Midgley
31st Mar 2011 12:52

Cycling not great for weight loss in my experience

You don't burn off as many calories cycling for 20 minutes as you would running for the same amount of time. Also, I'm reliably informed that muscle is heavier than fat, so what you might be losing in body fat will still show up on the scales as 'weight'. 

Might be worth looking at a different exercise regime; keep it varied, get some cardio stuff in there, when your heart rate is up you'll burn those cals even if you're doing strength exercises.  For example, 1 minute of star jumps to get your heart rate up, and then a mixture of sit-ups, push-ups etc. And repeat! 

There are some great training programmes online, have a rummage around. But remember that in order to lose weight you have to burn off more calories than you take on. I'm told that to lose 0.5 kg you need to burn off 3,500 more calories than you take in! I'm guessing this is spread out over time rather than in one day though :)

Good luck with it, keep experimenting, every body is different.

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By clegganator
01st Apr 2011 14:07

There's an app for that...

I've downloaded a calorie tracker for my iPhone. I tell it what I've eaten, what exercise I've done, what I'm trying to get my weight down to, and if my net daily calories is on par or not... Quite useful, it's call MyFitnessPal and I think they have a website that does the same thing as well...

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