How much exercise to lose weight

[richard077]

Hi the only excersie I do is walking could any one give advice on how long u should walk for and how many times in week to lose weight any advice appreciate new to site thanks

 

[TorqPenderloin]

Richard, it's good to see you asking questions, but I can imagine it's a little tough to keep up with all 7 of your current threads. Maybe consider asking multiple questions in the same thread so it's easier for us to answer them for you?

To answer this walking is good for overall health and burning calories but there's no set answer to what you're asking. Ultimately, you must burn more calories than you digest. Walking increases the number of calories you burn, but if you're still eating too much you'll never lose weight.

Walking for an hour each day may burn a few hundred calories (more or less depending on your weight and other factors). In theory, if your diet remained unchanged that would put you on track to lose about 1 pound every 1.5-2 weeks (roughly 1 kg a month)

 

[zand]

Well exercise is good for your health generally, but food is the main key with losing weight.

 

[Prem51]

@richard077 I am trying to control my recently diagnosed T2 with diet and exercise. I don't want to have to go on medication if I can possibly avoid it. As TorqPenderloin says to lose weight you need to burn more calories exercising than you are taking in with food.

So you would need to know how many calories you are absorbing and expending to know for sure, which is not easy to work out.

I try to walk every day, at least 10,000 steps, which is about 5 miles. I have been doing over 20,000 steps recently as I got fitter.
I have cut down on sugar and carbs, and eating more healthily. Since being diagnosed six weeks ago I have gone down from 12st 4lbs to 11st 6lbs today, losing 12lbs in 6 weeks. I hope to get down to 11st by my next blood test in November.

I got an Amron pedometer (can be bought online for about £16) which gives steps and distance walked, kcals and grams of fat burned. It encourages me to walk more. You can get a slightly more expensive version which can be downloaded onto a computer. Or there are more expensive Fitbit watch type devices which can be linked to smartphones or pcs which will give performance records and charts of how you are doing.

 

[mfactor]

Well exercise is good for your health generally, but food is the main key with losing weight.

Exactly , a good quote to remember is " You can't out exercise bad diet".....................................

Lots of info on the net if you google the above quote............


But to sum up , we all have a Basal metabolic rate (BMR) , which for instance for me is 2400 calories per day, so if i eat 2400 cals a day i will stay at the same weight.......... http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

Anything less than that and I lose weight anything more and i gain weight....................


So say you have a treat and eat 250 extra cals (a mars bar) over your BMR, IIRC that would take 30-40 mins of cardio to burn off.....for every mars bar

Far easier to do it by diet and manipulate your macros (protein ,carbs and fat) to equal your BMR .............


Then use exercise for fitness........


As an aside, you can see from my avatar that I lift heavy stuff , one great side effect of weight training is that muscle burns more calories than fat when you are at rest.....

So gonna have a lie down and read a book for the rest of the day and burn some cals

 

[his_lordship]

Hi Richard,
I'm not very computer savvy but copy the link below into your Google search engine. I found this most enlightening.
Any exercise is good. but in my humble opinion its your diet that will make a difference. Hope this helps.


Br J Sports Med doi:10.1136/bjsports-2015-094911

 

[AloeSvea]

I don't agree that one needs to know how many calories one is absorbing or expending, or that one needs to count steps - but it is all good if that is what you are into! Just that it isn't necessary. I personally don't enjoy counting anything, so I didn't (until I wanted to particularly target my treatment with various ways of eating, which boringly have involved counting). Walking has been a hugely important part of my own treatment. I changed my way of eating, and walked, and lost 15-20kg in three or four months. My HBA1c went from 93 to 67 in that time, I think. I walked a lot! There are many in this forum, however, who have had much more dramatic HBA1c drops than mine. (Mine is now 43.) But I came to counting carbs rather late in the piece.

Walking is a great, variable, and enjoyable way to get your limbs moving and your muscles working, and I would let your own body determine how much, for how long - what feels good and good enough for you and your health as a diabetic.

But, saying that, the recommended amount I have read on many diabetes websites is at least a half hour five days a week. It sounds pretty reasonable to me, and can include things like walking around a supermarket, or mowing the lawn, walking to and from transport - that kind of thing. It can also improve mood hugely, and as it can be more than a bit stressful and worrying being diagnosed with a chronic health condition - and feeling happy is great for our health. I personally prefer to have somewhere to walk to, with a goal in mind, even if it is just getting to work, a cup of coffee at a cafe, or a particular shop or event or a friend's place, rather than take the car or public transport. It's amazing how much walking/steps you can clock up that way. Now one of the goal-places I walk to is an outdoor gym where I bench-press, but I wouldn't have been doing that soon after diagnosis!

Good to see the 30 mins at least five days a week as a baseline, from which you can increase? When you feel up to it, or want to, with your blood glucose levels (and your weight in your case) spurring you on? And the beauty of physical exercise is it gets easier and faster the more you do it.

 

[Squire Fulwood]

Hi the only excersie I do is walking could any one give advice on how long u should walk for and how many times in week to lose weight any advice appreciate new to site thanks

When did this site turn into Weight Watchers?

Diabetics needed to control their blood sugar levels. Advice was given to help them to do that which often meant telling them not to eat foods which raised their blood sugar levels. Some of them lost weight doing that.

 

[TorqPenderloin]

I personally don't enjoy counting anything, so I didn't (until I wanted to particularly target my treatment with various ways of eating, which boringly have involved counting).

I think your own words perfectly address the point many of us are trying to make.

 

[richard077]

Yes I know that but I think. Managing your weight is apart of your diabetes and and has a big effect on it so I would disagree

 

[AloeSvea]

When did this site turn into Weight Watchers?

Diabetics needed to control their blood sugar levels. Advice was given to help them to do that which often meant telling them not to eat foods which raised their blood sugar levels. Some of them lost weight doing that.

Lol - It is Richard077's thread asking a question about the relationship between walking and weight loss (in relation to diabetes T2) in the weight loss and dieting section of the forum! Many discussions about treatment of T2D address weight loss because it is such a, excuse me, huge, part of T2D for many folk. Whether one is conscious about it or not.

I find it helpful to remind myself that high blood sugar levels are the symptom of liver and pancreas dysfunction, not the disease in itself. When you are treating blood sugar levels you are treating the liver and pancreas dysfunction (and there is evidence that this has to do with body fat deposits in those organs - no matter how slender you might be with T2D). Hence the focus for many on lowering those fat deposits on the liver and pancreas.

 

[AloeSvea]

I think your own words perfectly address the point many of us are trying to make.

Indeed. Just addressing the issue of motivation and enjoyment.

 

[ButtterflyLady]

When did this site turn into Weight Watchers?

Diabetics needed to control their blood sugar levels. Advice was given to help them to do that which often meant telling them not to eat foods which raised their blood sugar levels. Some of them lost weight doing that.

Weight management is an important part of BG management for many T2s, because excess body fat drives insulin resistance. The site might not be about WM, but this subforum is.

 

[Catlady19]

Hi, there is a calorie calculator on the website: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/calories-burned-calculator.html

You need to burn or eat less of 500 calories to lose 1/2 pound!

Hope this helps!

 

[verdesca]

for weight loss more important is, lifestyle change and portion size. sort of be more active and eat less in tandem with walking is good.
"normal" walking pace is 3-1/2 mph you can easily put this up to 5 mph though 7 mph is better but needs concentration for walking any distance, say 10 miles. Oh! Whilst walking use a mixture of pace and short busts of intense walking.
and the "bad news", I have just lost 41kgs and it's costing me "a fortune" in new clothes.

 

[TorqPenderloin]

for weight loss more important is, lifestyle change and portion size. sort of be more active and eat less in tandem with walking is good.
"normal" walking pace is 3-1/2 mph you can easily put this up to 5 mph though 7 mph is better but needs concentration for walking any distance, say 10 miles. Oh! Whilst walking use a mixture of pace and short busts of intense walking.
and the "bad news", I have just lost 41kgs and it's costing me "a fortune" in new clothes.

While I commend you on your weight loss, the single most important factor in losing weight is burning more calories than you digest. That's not an opinion. That is basic science.

You can eat less, burn more (exercise), or a combination of both, but either way it's energy in and energy out.

Furthermore, walking/jogging faster isn't necessarily "better." If your heart rate is too elevated, your body will resort to burning carbs instead of fat which, for most, is less than optimal. Thats partly why ketosis diets are excellent for weight loss. In the absence of carbs your body will search for an alternate energy source. Optimally, you want that alternative source to be fat which is why a low carb diet should also include a high fat intake (LCHF)

 

[SunnyExpat]

While I commend you on your weight loss, the single most important factor in losing weight is burning more calories than you digest. That's not an opinion. That is basic science.

You can eat less, burn more (exercise), or a combination of both, but either way it's energy in and energy out.

Furthermore, walking/jogging faster isn't necessarily "better." If your heart rate is too elevated, your body will resort to burning carbs instead of fat which, for most, is less than optimal. Thats partly why ketosis diets are excellent for weight loss. In the absence of carbs your body will search for an alternate energy source. Optimally, you want that alternative source to be fat which is why a low carb diet should also include a high fat intake (LCHF)

What's the science behind eating extra fat, as opposed to letting your body burn it's (in my case, excessive) fat stores?

 

[TorqPenderloin]

What's the science behind eating extra fat, as opposed to letting your body burn it's (in my case, excessive) fat stores?

That's a question that requires a very complicated answer, one I'm not qualified to give (I'm not claiming to be a scientist).

It is my understanding that the point of "high fat" in a LCHF diet is to encourage your body to produce ketones through the process of ketosis.
Protein has the ability to be turned into glucose (although the jury is still out on how it affects your blood sugars) which isn't optimal.
Furthermore, fat is much more dense in energy (9 calories per gram vs 4cals for protein/carbs).
Fat also has the ability to satisfy hunger cravings which can be very important while maintaining a caloric deficit.

Basically, the worst thing that can happen is your body resorts to protein which eventually means your body begins eating it's own muscle. Unfortunately, that happened to me earlier this year before my type 1 diagnosis.

 

[dunelm]

Interesting thread. Always been reasonably fit but a busy time building up my business over the last 10 years had lead to not taking care of the me part of it.
I used the diagnosis of T2 in April as a wake up call and made a couple of changes. Drastic reduction of carbs, increase of good fats and walk/stager/run each morning.
Important thing about losing weight is first change the way you eat and next time on your feet.
Weight on 1st May was 92kg and now is 84kg. My morning blood readings are somewhere between 4.6 and 5.2.
Off to do a couple of routes on Snowdon this weekend. Stay well.

 

[Humma]

If you can afford to get yourself a bike some good deals at Halfords and a garmin Edge cycle computer to go on it tells you miles cycled etc and best all calories burnt...........