How much does weight factor in?

[Cecil]

Fruit are carbs?!

Fructose is a sugar so yes. And one quickly transformed into glucose at that.

[Drakken]

On the subject of fatness my time for excuses are over with the coming of the warm weather (long since...) and my impending old age. Really need to get in shape. So I wonder; do gyms work?
I mean...does the equipment therein really make for so much more efficient exercise than just going for a long walk/bike ride/whatever?
I am thinking of joining one but don't know if I could get the motivation to go....and its pricey...

Yes, but if you want to lose fat eating below your caloric maintenance is all you need, about 400-500 calories under your maintenance would mean losing about one pound a week.

Weight training when "cutting" is for minimizing muscle loss as much as possible, so I would integrate a full body workout routine as well.

[Sheilbh]

Fructose is a sugar so yes. And one quickly transformed into glucose at that.

Amazing.  I thought carbs were bread, potatoes, pasta, rice and that sort of thing

[Zoupa]

Foods are always broken down in carbohydrates, protein and fat.

Fruits and vegetables are probably the best carbs you can have though.

[Martinus]

Yeah, there are several levels of carbs, e.g.

- glucose (simplest) - e.g. contained in honey
- fructose (simple but more complex than glucose) - contained in fruit
- starch (complex) - contained in potatoes, wheat etc.

As a rule of thumb, the simple ones give you a quick sugar rush (that's why if you want to lose weight, it is not recommended to eat e.g. an apple before sleep) but do not stay long in your body - the complex ones burn for a long time - so that's where your body does not need to burn fat and stores it away.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Amazing.  I thought carbs were bread, potatoes, pasta, rice and that sort of thing

As Zoups says, there are three macronutrient groups. Generally if a food isn't animal flesh (protein) or animal fat then it has a high likelihood of being a carb. Of course to complicate it a bit many plants have some fat or protein in them, although generally not much. A few types of plants are high fat/protein.

[Zoupa]

Anyways, everybody that wants to get in shape should listen to Otto.

He gave me a detailed workout and food plan about 6 years ago that kicked ass, even though he probably doesn't remember. 

[Sheilbh]

Interesting.  I know beans are high in protein and nuts are fatty but are they both still carby?

My understanding of food was from my mum, which was basically that it was all either starch or roughage, that's all anyone needed to know

[OttoVonBismarck]

Anyways, everybody that wants to get in shape should listen to Otto.

He gave me a detailed workout and food plan about 6 years ago that kicked ass, even though he probably doesn't remember. 

Wow, I totally do not remember. I've given out a workout and food plan to a bunch of people over the years though so I guess not too surprised.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Interesting.  I know beans are high in protein and nuts are fatty but are they both still carby?

My understanding of food was from my mum, which was basically that it was all either starch or roughage, that's all anyone needed to know

Generally beans are high in protein for plants, but still have most of their calories from carbs. Nuts are the freaks of the plant world, as they have more of their calories from fat than from carb.

Just as a quick example, a single serving of garbanzo beans (chick peas), has 1g of fat, 18g of carb, and 6g of protein. That means about 8.5% of its calories are from fat, 68.5% are from carbs and a little under 23% are from protein.

Another quick example, a single serving of almonds has 15g of fat, 5g of carb, and 6g of protein. So 75% of its calories come from fat, about 11.5% from carbs, and about 13.5% from protein.

If those weird percentages throw you, it's because different macronutrient groups have different calories/gram. 1 gram of fat has 9 calories, 1 gram of carb or protein has 4 calories.

Alcohol is not technically in the three macronutrients (although most forms that alcohol comes in come with some carbs too), the literal aclohol in a beer or a liquor has 7 calories per gram.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Something that also throws some people with American food labeling. Say you take the grams of fat, protein, and carb in a serving of something and do the quick math to see how many calories per macronutrient group that food has. Sometimes when you add those totals up, it doesn't equal the total number of calories on the label for that serving. This is generally because manufacturers are allowed to "round" and that can throw things off a little bit. So if something has 25.5g of protein, they don't have to show that, they can just report it in whole numbers. Anything under 0.5g they don't have to show at all.

[CountDeMoney]

Fruit are carbs?!

Yeah, there is such a thing as too much fruit.  Natural sugars = bad.

[CountDeMoney]

That's why I always had my rowing machine in the living room, so I could pull it in front of the TV.

Engages a large portion of your body.[/quote]

Outrigger sculling model, too.  Even better.

I I could manage to get my ass to buy another one, I would.  Bitch to flick your ashes, though.

[Cecil]

Fruit are carbs?!

Yeah, there is such a thing as too much fruit.  Natural sugars = bad.

Though too much fruit tends to have more immediate sideeffects.

[merithyn]

Engages a large portion of your body.

Outrigger sculling model, too.  Even better.

I I could manage to get my ass to buy another one, I would.  Bitch to flick your ashes, though.

I'm really hoping that we end up relocating somewhere close to a lake or reservoir. I rowed in college and absolutely loved it. I'd love to get a one-man scull and do that for exercise.

Biggest downside is that I bulk up VERY easily. I mean, my calves are larger than my 18-year-old son's without an ounce of excess flesh. Rowing has a tendency to make my traps, triceps, and biceps HUGE.