Exercise, Nutrition, WLS, and Cooking Q&A - 1/29/2014

I said I wanted to do more of these. I will be in sessions all day today but this guy gives us tons of breaks so I should be able to get to everything you have questions about.

So if you have questions, Lets Here It!

Hi Keith,

I am a week out from surgery and I wonder how much fluid I should be able to drink? I am up to 5 oz of protein shake 3x a day but am lagging in water because I never feel hungry. Any ideas? Should I just drink even though I feel satisfied?

thanks!

Autumn

Water should not be triggered by anything, you should just drink it. Have a bottle with you at all times and keep sipping. Early out super cold ice water worked best for me, but for some warm works better. The idea is to get as much as you can and shoot for 100oz a day. You probably won't hit that for a while, but shoot for it.

Just a quick "thanks" for these posts - I have no questions today, but always look forward to learning something from OTHERS' questions!

Thanks!

Endurance is your ability to go longer so the 1 two hour workout will build endurance. But I have also seen strategies where for like 3 days a week someone will do the 2 one hours and then once a week the 1 two hour. But always testing to make sure your endurance is improving. It depends what your objectives are and what a "workout" means for you. If you are doing cardio for an hour and weights for an hour, I would not recommend a 2 hour workout, I would split them and always do the weights first. I would also not do an hour of cardio but switch to a 20-30 min HIIT cardio routine.

Serious question, Keith...

I have heard of using HIIT to build bulk in addition to weights. I'm interested in this kind of workout (I already get a lot of low intensity cardio). Following my surgery, my goal is to bulk up as much as possible because MUSCLE BURNS CALORIES! How would you suggest HIIT to someone who can't run because of heel spurs and hasn't got access to a pool? There has to be SOMETHING I can do to jack my heart rate up. I want to start at 3-4 'sprints' and work up to 8.

I do have access to kind of a janky weight room in the basement at the office. Plan to use it, too, after I'm cleared following my surgery.

I have had cardio stress test etc. as part of my pre-surgery testing and the results came back "impressive", so we already know my heart is up for any kind of exercise I can tolerate.

HIIT isn't really for bulking, its for shredding. So great for burning fat in a short window and the theory is by spiking your heart rate you ultimately get residual calorie burn. So HIIT is more cardio although there are HIIT weight routines and circuit training is basically a form of HIIT. That being said we need to find you a way to get your higher intensity cardio, and don't get me wrong the low intensity cardio is great for burning fat so don't discount it. So to build muscle I am going to suggest weights 4 days a week, 1 day a week of extended cardio and on two of the 4 weight days (probably the days you don't do legs) add in 20-30 mins of HIIT cardio. So with heal spurs running is going to be too painful but if you can work it in somehow (I know ther are special shoe inserts, etc. that help) running eventually would be great. I would say try the elliptical machine, it is very low impact on feet and joints and might work well, if not then it is on to the bike for you. But regardless of the equipment the approach you will take is to find a challenging but doable pace and you will use that as your base pace. Something you can do to 3 to 5 minutes and be able to catch your breath fairly quickly. You will start with a walking or slower paced warm up for 5 mins, then you will go into a sprint, basically as fast as you can go and return to that base pace for 30 seconds, then the base pace for 3 mins, then sprint again for 30 seconds, then walk or slow pace for 1 min. Repeat everything except the warm up 3 times and that will give you a 20 min HIIT routine. I started doing this on the bike and now I do it running on the street.

Hi Keith

First  thank you for taking the time to do this post, I always look forward to reading your post. This is a silly questions but I have started adding a Tablespoon of Chia seeds to my morning Greek yogurt, I noticed that at the end of my yogurt the Chia seess have absorbed in to the Gel substance, and that made me wonder if I should wait to allow all the seeds to get to the Gel substance or is it is ok for me to consume them in the crunchy state.

thanks deb