Fitness

[zzm9980]

No not too fast, just jogging.. It has to do with lack of stamina. I can tell by just looking at my biceps. Its softer than a lady's who never did any excercise and its thin as well. I cannot do more than 12 pushups in one set.

Do pushups every day. They're great exercises, easy, and you can do them almost anywhere. Just get as many done as you can. Do cardio to burn the fat, and pushups to build up a bit of upper body mass. There are various positions that will help all different muscle groups in your arms, shoulders, chest, and core.

http://www.askmen.com/top_10/fitness/to ... tions.html

And use the pullup bars outside most HDBs. If you can even do one, just go as high as you can and hold it as long as you can.

[Wd40]

No not too fast, just jogging.. It has to do with lack of stamina. I can tell by just looking at my biceps. Its softer than a lady's who never did any excercise and its thin as well. I cannot do more than 12 pushups in one set.

Do pushups every day. They're great exercises, easy, and you can do them almost anywhere. Just get as many done as you can. Do cardio to burn the fat, and pushups to build up a bit of upper body mass. There are various positions that will help all different muscle groups in your arms, shoulders, chest, and core.

http://www.askmen.com/top_10/fitness/to ... tions.html

And use the pullup bars outside most HDBs. If you can even do one, just go as high as you can and hold it as long as you can.

Thanks, yeah, I realize how useful push ups are and have started doing them, although just 12 a day in 1 go. I also do leg lifts.

I just did some googling on my calorie intake and I am actually not a big eater, on the contrary I eat lot less than others and being a vegetarian and dont eat enough pulses, veggies or fruits. I realize that my diet may actually be giving me lesser calories than the actual 2000 calorie requirement and even those calories are predominantly from rice(carbs).

My daily routine is very sedentary. I think my body has gotten used to the low quality calorie intake and sedentary lifestyle and still stores away fat.

Atleast now I know where the problem is. Its not over eating. Its just eating right, which is easier to do than to reduce your eating if you are overeating. I have already started excercizing and eating right, so just need to kind of be consistent with it.

Thanks everyone for you advise and support.

[bloodhound123]

The best way to build up your stamina slowly and steadily is to target a half-marathon 6-9 months down the line. There are lots of marathons that happen in Singapore - Standard Chartered, Sundown to name a few. Register for one and start preparing for it. Doesnt matter if you cannot complete it the first time, but it will prepare you for all the good stuff.

You will start with 500m and slowly and steadily hit the 10 km mark and then 15km, 20 km. Thats how I built up my stamina 5 yrs back and have done many half-marathons since then. You would have to adjust your diet accordingly. A heavy breakfast helps a lot - complex carbohydrates and proteins.

There is a book which explains clearly and precisely how the body metabolism works ( I cannot remember the name now), the ones that zzzm is talking about - aerobic and anaerobic respiratory cycles. In short this is the pattern you follow to boost stamina and increase fat burning - 10-15 minute warmup/walk then 2 minutes sprint, 4 minutes jog, 2 min sprint, 4 minutes job and so on.

Sprinting speeds and jogging speeds are subjective - in general during a sprint you are out of breath ( anaerobic zone ) and gasping for breath by opening your mouth. During this phase your body would be burning the readily available glucose/sugar for energy. During the jog phase you should be able to breathe normally without gasping for breath ( aerobic zone ). Your body burns fat during this phase.

You will see a reduction in fat as well as a boost up of stamina. Swimming does not aid much in fat burning, but is great for toning up your body.
Another hard way to reduce the fat is resistance training. But this requires a lot of perseverance and a regular+good diet. Muscle cells consume 8 times more energy than any other cell and your sedentary BMR would shoot up drastically.

[bloodhound123]

Finally there's the dietary component. That means cutting down on starchy carbs and upping the leafy carbs and (lean) protein you intake. Chicken and fish are the meats of choice. If you are a vegetarian, adequate protein consumption can be a problem however. (I'm afraid I don't have an answer to this one.)
.

The problem with being vegetarian is getting the right amount of protein. If you start working out or even jogging/running, your protein intake has to be increased. Most vegetarian Indians' protein consumption is way below the recommended levels ( ~0.8 g/1kg of body mass ). This goes up if you start working out/cardiovascular excercice routine.

Most of the pulses are not complete proteins. A protein molecule has some 20 amino acids and most pulses dont have all of them making then "incomplete proteins". You should combine 2-3 different pulse varieties everyday to get "complete" proteins . If you dont mind eating eggs nothing beats it. Egg whites are the best quality proteins available.
Another option is to consume skimmed milk. The casein protein has a slow digestion/breakdown cycle making it ideal for consumption in the night .
But as you age your consumption of milk should go down as well as the enzymes that digest these proteins get reduced slowly.

[bloodhound123]

Forgot to add - There is this drink mix supplement called "Protinex" which you get in India. Get those and they would add to your protein intake. I get 2-3 boxes of these whenever I go to India. I could not find them in Singapore, not even in Mustafa.

[the lynx]

The best way to build up your stamina slowly and steadily is to target a half-marathon 6-9 months down the line. There are lots of marathons that happen in Singapore - Standard Chartered, Sundown to name a few. Register for one and start preparing for it. Doesnt matter if you cannot complete it the first time, but it will prepare you for all the good stuff.

Half-marathon for Wd40 to start? You will probably scare him away into NOT doing anything! LOL

I'd think it is more sensible to ask him to try the 5km fun run first (plenty of them: Cold Storage, Jurong Lake Run, etc), before looking into 10km runs (even more) AND THEN half-marathons.

[Wd40]

I agree with Bloodhound, Indian vegetarians consume very less protein.

I am planning to restart taking eggs. I used have eggs as a kid, just stopped them some 8 years ago. So I am going to make sure that the protein in my diet is right.

[the lynx]

I agree with Bloodhound, Indian vegetarians consume very less protein.

I am planning to restart taking eggs. I used have eggs as a kid, just stopped them some 8 years ago. So I am going to make sure that the protein in my diet is right.

Soy bean is also rich in protein.

Here is a list of vegetables rich in protein if you wanna find out more.

http://www.healthaliciousness.com/artic ... rotein.php

[zzm9980]

The best way to build up your stamina slowly and steadily is to target a half-marathon 6-9 months down the line. There are lots of marathons that happen in Singapore - Standard Chartered, Sundown to name a few. Register for one and start preparing for it. Doesnt matter if you cannot complete it the first time, but it will prepare you for all the good stuff.

Half-marathon for Wd40 to start? You will probably scare him away into NOT doing anything! LOL

I'd think it is more sensible to ask him to try the 5km fun run first (plenty of them: Cold Storage, Jurong Lake Run, etc), before looking into 10km runs (even more) AND THEN half-marathons.

Yeah, the couch to 5k suggestion was probably better. Once he at least completes that program, then try for the half marathon.

[bloodhound123]

The best way to build up your stamina slowly and steadily is to target a half-marathon 6-9 months down the line. There are lots of marathons that happen in Singapore - Standard Chartered, Sundown to name a few. Register for one and start preparing for it. Doesnt matter if you cannot complete it the first time, but it will prepare you for all the good stuff.

Half-marathon for Wd40 to start? You will probably scare him away into NOT doing anything! LOL

I'd think it is more sensible to ask him to try the 5km fun run first (plenty of them: Cold Storage, Jurong Lake Run, etc), before looking into 10km runs (even more) AND THEN half-marathons.

Yeah, the couch to 5k suggestion was probably better. Once he at least completes that program, then try for the half marathon.

Half-marathon 9-12 months is not a herculean target. 5 years back I could hardly run 2 km at a stretch and I managed to complete a half-marathon 7 months down the line. I know of several others who have managed to do so. Of course it requires a lot of perseverance and regularity in schedule.
And there is no necessity to complete the half-marathon. A month before the half-marathon I was doing 11-12 km once a week and was able to complete the half-marathon on the D-Day. My muscles were in a bad shape though and it took 4-5 days to return back to normalcy.
Lost about 8 kgs of body fat during my training.

[bloodhound123]

I agree with Bloodhound, Indian vegetarians consume very less protein.

I am planning to restart taking eggs. I used have eggs as a kid, just stopped them some 8 years ago. So I am going to make sure that the protein in my diet is right.

Soy bean is also rich in protein.

Here is a list of vegetables rich in protein if you wanna find out more.

http://www.healthaliciousness.com/artic ... rotein.php

I dont know if people are aware of this, but soy bean tends to increase estrogen levels ( not what a "man" wants ). I have seen several research publications inkling towards this conclusion. Of course as with any theory there are hundreds of counter publications too.
I used to be a regular at Rochor Beancurd but have pretty much stopped consuming soy products after reading several of these conclusions.

Egg whites are very safe. Its just proteins and water with no saturated fat and other unwanted stuff.

[nakatago]

I dont know if people are aware of this, but soy bean tends to increase estrogen levels ( not what a "man" wants )

Not to mention....http://youtu.be/MJjUAXIK6pQ

[bloodhound123]

I agree with Bloodhound, Indian vegetarians consume very less protein.

I am planning to restart taking eggs. I used have eggs as a kid, just stopped them some 8 years ago. So I am going to make sure that the protein in my diet is right.

Make sure that you dont consume more than 1-2 egg yolks in a day. Though they are packed with nutrients they add unnecessary saturated fat and dietary cholesterol ( whose absorption rate in the body increases with increased presence of saturated fat ).

Studies claim that an average lower/middle income American consumes 2-3 times the recommended level of protein. Probably the hamburgers are doing the trick

[bloodhound123]

I dont know if people are aware of this, but soy bean tends to increase estrogen levels ( not what a "man" wants )

Not to mention....http://youtu.be/MJjUAXIK6pQ

I still like the cold beancurd with palm sugar syrup that we get in Rochor Beancurd. A bowl of that coupled with a you tiao is really satisfying.

Plain soy milk sucks though

[Max Headroom]

Not to mention....http://youtu.be/MJjUAXIK6pQ

Hahaha, epic gob that last one