Exercise, Nutrition, WLS, and Cooking Q & A - 2/4/2014

Keep me honest, if you don't get an answer from me, make sure to ping me, I sometimes do not always get an email when people post in these threads. I do try to check and make sure I have answered everyone.

So, Let's Hear Your Questions!

So my questions for the day:

(1) Remind me again about you protein recommendations before and after workouts...

(2) Can I do ab work on back to back days?

(3) Can you "run" on back to back days or is rest required?

(4) Can you to elliptical on days following a long run?

I drink a protein shake an hour before my workout and then within an hour after I try to get some protein and some carbs. My protein shakes typically have around 2g or carbs. My post-workout "meal" will have around 10g. Depending on what else I have planned for the day or if I have done quite a lot of weight work, I will eat more carbs and have a brown rice cake (slow digesting carb with fiber), peanut butter (protein, though could use more protein), and a half a banana (fast digesting carb) which causes an insulin response (bad when you are trying to lose weight) which is good for building and repairing muscle. Insulin is an anabolic hormone and its very good at taking available protein to the muscles that need to be repaired. You would not want to do this during the weight loss phase of your program but once you get to maintenance.

You can do ab work on back to back days, but its an easy muscle to overwork and it really does not require that much work to build them, so back to back ab days are completely unnecessary. Most guys with a 6 pack do them once or twice a week. That being said, there is no harm in it either.

I run 6 days a week, so rest is not required, its a cardio activity. Now if you are doing weight lifting and have a leg day you might want to rest them in between and do your run immediately after your leg workout using like a 20 min HIIT approach while you still have feeling. Plan on using a walker the next day.

Elliptical falls under the same basic rule, its cardio, its fine to do as often as you like, its very low impact so you don't really have a lot of recovery once you build up some endurance.

Excellent, thanks, is exactly the info I needed.

The brain was fuzzy on the subject after 14 years without exercise.  You gave me an easy out to ask you rather than look it up again.  LOL

I found out yesterday that my bmr is 1410. If I eat 800 cal day can I build muscle tissue or just lose fat?  I'm doing firm videos so it's supposedly aerobic and muscle building together. I'm not sure if I should be eating 800 cal day or 1000. My weight loss is going at a snails pace now, but I expected that once I got toward goal. Thank you so much, Kathy

I would try to keep my calories between 600 and 800 with a BMR of 1410, that is pretty low for someone in weight loss phase, most overweight people are more in the 2400-2800 range. Your weight loss is slow because of this. Do you have heart or respiratory problems? Have you had your oxygen levels checked? You can build muscle for sure, your BMR has little impact and yes theoretically you would want to eat more to build more but there is a lot more to it than that. So for now stick to your plan and honestly to get your BMR up the only cardio I would suggest you do is walking and focus your energy on weight lifting and building muscle. That is how you will get that BMR up to a higher level which means more calories burned. Right now you are only netting about a 600 calorie per day deficit which means it would take you about a week to lose 1 lb. So obviously you can speed things up by getting your BMR to 1600/1800, which will take some time. You will want to focus on the big muscles in your body. Your thighs, hamstrings, glutes and your chest and arms. Your calves too. Squats are your best exercise for building muscle and strength followed by deadlifts and then chest press. Don't stop there but those for sure you will want to do with as heavy weights as you can handle twice a week.

Thank you soo much!!  I have ms and this is tge first time I've been able to get around in a while. I think that's why my bmr is so low. Lack of use in tge muscles

Yes that would certainly do it. I don't know a lot about MS but I do know it has a lot to do with inflammation throughout your body. Eating whole and healthy foods that are anti-inflammatory might be helpful. I also know that Tumeric has anti-inflammatory properties that are talked about frequently and might be good to include in some of the dishes you cook.

Yay! I've been waiting for this post. I have to daily work with dealing with brain injury symptoms. The way to manage it is to conserve brain energy-won't go into it all. For exercise, the physiologic changes are a big strain on the brain-especially if it is intense. The docs guidelines are to keep HR 110 or lower. With walking, I have gotten to the point that I can handle 30 min at a HR of 130. Since I started sedentary, that is at a speed of 2.5. The thing is I like intense exercise-seems more rewarding and interesting. So I thought about intervals-if I jog 1 min and walk five, jog 1, etc-I am giving myself a recovery period. Seemed to be ok last night and was more fun. So what are ideal intervals? How many min on and off? What change in HR?

thanks

So the cool thing about intervals is you can customize them to your ability and in your case your needs. I think intervals are a great idea and changing the pattern periodically, even if you don't change the times is a good idea. My typical heart rate will go from 50-70% of max during what I call my base pace (so in your case your walk) to my push pace (80-90% of max). So in your case what you should do if you can is just monitor your heart rate. If you are at a base at 130, then you might want to peak it at say 150 or 160 (I am not familiar with your condition so I am not in an position to say what is safe for you, so work with your docs on that). 

This is the routine that I use and I am not suggesting you use this but it will give you an idea of what other HIIT routines look like and there are literally hundreds of different patterns.

5 min walking warm up

30 second sprint (push pace)

3 minute jog (base pace)

30 second sprint (push)

1 min walk

Repeat with the 1st 30 sec sprint and repeat that pattern 3 times for a 20 min HIIT run.

Another example is and I did this one last week, here again adjust the speeds as necessary for your condition:

5 min walking warm up

1 min at 5mph

1 min walk (3mph)

1 min @ 6mph

1 min walk

1 min @ 7mph

1 min walk

1 min @ 8mph

1 min walk

1 min @ 9mph

2 min walk

45 sec @ 9mph

1 min walk

45 sec @ 9mph

1 min walk

45 sec @ 9mph

So what is probably happening and the reason you like the higher intensity workouts is that your body releases endorphins when you workout strenuously and they make you feel good and rewarded. My best piece of advice to you is to be safe at all costs.