I wish I could lose some leg muscle. Instead I just lose a little more padding so that the veins stand out like a body builder's legs. <sigh>

OK...take my thighs for instance.....I've lost a lot of weight and have a lot of fat that sits in my thighs still. As I was doing weight training, I did not lose the fat that was there and the muscles under the fat started to push the fat out...my clothes were not fitting and my thighs were getting bigger....ugh! not pretty at all!!

I will need to have surgery to correct this issue... all the exercise in the world will not correct this.

And in all this, my weight stayed the same because I got the food part right for my body.

Every time I've done weight training, I've increased the size of my thighs, much to my unhappiness. I much prefer cardio over weights.

I was VERY happy not to have the thunder calves anymore. Now they are mor lithe like a dancer's. I can run a few miles on them and they don't get sore at all, so I know they are pretty strong. My thighs are pretty fat free. I have the muscle pushing the fat out phenom in my belly - it just sucks!

Janine

Hmmn. I always had large thighs, calves and ankles even when I was decent-sized in high school; I'm sure fat was part of it, but I just seemed to have more muscle. As a kid I used to make money jumping off the apartment roofs onto the grass for bet-dares.... my legs and ankles were super strong. (Now that I'm a parent, just thinking about that makes me feel faint...) Probably why I was such a good speed skater I guess.

Anyway, I don't know, given my starting weight, that I will ever get anywhere near a normal weight. And my family definitely stores fat in the hips-thighs in a big way, I'm a somewhat exaggerated pear. It is sorta demoralizing though! -- to think that even if you lose a bunch of weight, and gain a bunch of muscle, that gaining muscle might only make the fat more obvious not less.

Hmmmn. Sounds like the only solution is to work on getting the muscle in my thighs BEFORE I have lost most the weight. That way, by the time I get there, there's not much that could happen to them besides losing a little fat!

well, I see some of those people on The Biggest Loser and wonder if, in the long run, the message they are sending might not be wise for everyone to accept without questioning very carefully: IS THIS RIGHT FOR ME Not all "reality TV" tells the whole truth, you know.

All the "experts" seem to pretty much agree though, that whether physical activity helps you lose actual weight or even become more fit--moving around more does release endorphins and so from that standpoint alone, just "moving" a bit more energetically might have psychological advantages no matter how heavy or limited we might be at any given time.

I personally feel I have become too sedentary (sciatic problem all winter) so sent for Callanetics--Ten in Ten and Evolution. Although not completely out of shape (I can walk 3 miles in 57 minutes) I could not do them. So sent for Beginning Callanetics and am starting with that and a few minutes a day on my glider. That is what I am comfortable with. Ideally (according the "experts" I ought to be able to do more, but I cant do it comfortably and I refuse to blow out my knees or wreck my hips, ankles, feet etc. all to please someone who has never seen me, does not know me, and never will

So maybe the best thing exercisewise is for us all to use our own common sense: stop and think about this long enough to recognize and respect our own limits and take the experts with a grain of salt until we know what we are capable of and what we can do without feeling so punished. that we damage our bodies or become so turned off that we become couch potatoes forever.

I lucked out--the majority of my extra weight's in my stomach or butt, which I get annoyed about because my pants will be flapping loose on my legs because I have to get sizes to accommodate the gut and ass. It looks very weird. I will lose fat on my legs, but it wouldn't be noticeable.

Me, too. Somewhere I posted about my waistline and my frustration about it not reducing but it maybe got deleted - I hope I didn't write anything offensive! Anyway, its circumference just bumped up again since I started running again and certain pants are getting tight although my other measurements are showing improvement. So my experiment at losing the belly and exercising more intensively is not working yet. Still hoping! I think no matter how much I lose if my waist does not get smaller I will feel like any loss doesn't count.

Janine

Okay way back when I posted this, I meant to add; so that's two out of three. Is it that far out that exercise would increase fat mass? Most powerlifters, professional strongmen, etc., not only have very sturdy bones, big strong muscles, tendons and all that, but also rather generous fat stores.
Myostatin is a hormone mostly secreted by skeletal muscle. Myostatin-deficient mice (and dogs, humans, cattle...) have twice as much muscle or more. Myostatin is decreased by exercise. Myostatin doesn't just inhibit muscle growth, it encourages increase in fat mass, both in number of fat cells and in size of fat cells. So here we have a hormone, put out by muscle cells, that encourages fat to grow. Sure, exercise decreases myostatin--but what if there's some kind of hormonal rebound, what if your system is such that the swing down in myostatin after exercise is soon followed by an over-compensation on the up side?

I wonder how many people that think feel like exercise makes you gain fat , have actually exercised beyond the initial week or month , has anyone just continued it beyond that, to see what results you would get .
My son was chubby ( he had 4 or 5 big rolls on belly , chubby hands , round chubby face ) , he started homeschooling , and started doing more physical chores around the house , as well as riding his bike to his baseball practices 4-5 days a week , and at baseball they had them running laps , then he would take a swim at the local beach after some practices. His activity level increased tremendously . Now after about a month I remember looking at him thinking "See ,... look at all he is doing , and he is still chubby " ... ok well a couple more months into it and I kid you not .. he has a 6-pack ( NO rolls when he sits ) , he had man boobs and they are nonexistent now. And his face has thinned right out .
It made me wonder if its just that the physical results of exercise take longer to show , and most of us start to exercise see a slight increase on the scale , want instant gratification and results , so we give up and fade out . Maybe its just that you have to dedicate to it for a longer time frame before the fat loss and toning are apparent.
He looks so good now , and I am jealous , I wish I could get my mind in the right spot to get dedicated to exercise . He eats somewaht like southbeach style ( because I cook low carb , and I do buy brown rice , whole grains , and lots of veggies and fruits for snacks , but I don't buy white junk ) ..

Personally, weight lifting is more effective for losing fat than aerobic style exercise.

Teaser, I feel like you may be on to something. I always think of the Marines who are hugely built, but always have a layer of fat spread out over their whole body.

Angeline, I think you may be right. I guess the question is how long does it take? I've been exercising for over a year and plan on completing a half-marathon in November. Sometimes I think I need to be skinnier and in better shape to see the kinds of results other people see - I just blimp when I exercise harder and lose when I take a break.

I woke up this morning and I couldn't button my jeans (the big ones!). Sigh...

Janine

Sometimes I think I need to be skinnier and in better shape to see the kinds of results other people see - I just blimp when I exercise harder and lose when I take a break.

I woke up this morning and I couldn't button my jeans (the big ones!). Sigh...

Janine[/QUOTE]


Janine,
Do you count calories ? and have you ever tried counting calories versus calories burned each day logging down what you've done for activity ?

Maybe we just eat too healthy on Low carb to appear "skinny" .... we just get muscled up

I gained inchs in my hips thighs and calves the first two months of doing weight lifting cardio(at 80%) and pilates every day. I was doing induction the whole time . I finally dropped fat 12 weeks into the program in those areas and overnight had a huge diff. in inchs. The problem was I was losing weight in my upper body(which also happens to be the last place I gain) so when that was gone all the mustle that I have been building under the fat finally showed up. So you can get increased size with exercise which for awhile looks like fat until you actually lose the fat that is covering it. Now if I could just lose fat in the tummy Id be done. It can be discouraging to see the tape measure go up not down but it all balances out in the end if you can stick to it.

Janine,
Do you count calories ? and have you ever tried counting calories versus calories burned each day logging down what you've done for activity ?

Maybe we just eat too healthy on Low carb to appear "skinny" .... we just get muscled up [/QUOTE]

I'm not sure what you mean - do you mean not to count calories burned and instead count calories eaten. I do neither. I don't count calories that I've eaten, but I do write down everything I eat so it would be easy to get a sense of what the trend has been. I am sticking to about what I'd been eating during my period of recent weight loss (VLC and restricted calorie) while jump starting my exercising and I stalled out anyway and got my massive pooch belly back, as always. I'm done for the year, I've decided, with trying to lose weight. I am going to keep doing what I'm doing, not worry about the last two pounds I have to goal and just do my physical activities. Maybe I can get the last two off slowly. And then next year I'll take a break again and try to lose some more. I think I just have to be willing to be patient if I want to be active in the way I wish to be. I ran three miles on Tuesday, did a challenging trapeze class on Wednesday and swam .4 miles today. On Friday I'll do fast 1/2 mile repeats at the track and Saturday I'll do trapeze again, and so on. For some reason, for me, weight loss does not fit with that kind of schedule, even if I eat similarly to when not being so intensive.

I agree about the little extra to be healthy. It's interesting at the trapeze school. You'd think the skinniest people would be best at it because being light is an advantage, but the heavier people, even kinda pudgy, people are better.

Janine