Health and fitness txt

Health and fitness txt

Note: This document is meant to provide a starting point, you're expected to research the different methods yourself and pick those you find useful. Everything is at your own risk.

What is your goal?
This is the first thing you need to decide. It's probably "losing weight" or "getting fit" or a combination.
This in itself is just a material goal for yourself, I'm expecting you to be reading this because you have other, higher goals in mind, which require you to be in shape. If you don't know what those higher goals are, you need to start by figuring out what you really want from this. There's a chance you want to achieve something by getting fit, which is better done by other methods. Getting fit is no universal recipe for success.
For example, if you're from /fit/ and think exercise will give you a girlfriend, you can stop reading now. Go get a copy of "Models" by Mark Manson instead. If you're from /fringe/ and expect some secret method to becoming an übermensch, you're probably going to get triggered by the contents of this document, there are better guides out there for you.
If you came from /x/ or some occult blog/forum, this may be for you. Not that any of the methods discussed here are occult in nature, but the selection and recommendations are made from this viewpoint. It's made to be light weight, simple and functional, offering different choices for different people.

Healthy levels of body fat
If you want to lose weight, first off I suggest changing your goal slightly. Low weight is not a sign of health. You may as well lose weight by losing muscle mass. Muscles weight more than fat, so if you start exercising and only use the scale as a measurement, you may think you didn't do any progress because you weight the same. This will discourage you into thinking the exercise isn't working and you may give up trying.
The most likely is however that after say a month of exercise, you still weight the same, or you weight more than before. This is because you lost fat, but gained muscle, and muscle weights more than fat. In reality you got thinner and stronger, but you weight the same. So stop using weight as a measure, forget it, it's not a productive mindset.
Instead I suggest using a measuring tape and measuring your waist. If you feel you need to lose body fat, set a goal waist measurement and check your progress by that. Measure before breakfast in the morning with the tape directly against your skin. Relax. Make sure to use the same method every time or it won't be reliable because your waist will increase after eating.

How to lose body fat
It's a common idea that the only way to lose body fat is to exercise more and eat less. This leads to an ineffective approach where people try to "burn fat" instead of changing the core issues that made them fat to begin with.
Some examples to show why burning fat by exercise isn't working:
If you do nothing during the day, you burn around 1600 calories. If you take a 1 hour walk you burn 250 calories during that 1 hour. But since you would already burn 67 cals by doing nothing, you only get to add 183 to that day's full count, ending up at 1783. This is still below the recommended intake of 2000 cal/day if you go by the nutrition table on consumer products. This means unless you have a manual job, you're unlikely to even burn the recommended amount since you sit at a desk all day, then go home by car.
So going by this you need to walk 2 hours to even burn the recommended intake. If you eat more than that, the only way is to add tougher exercise or to change to a manual job, where you're on your feet all day. But chance is you'll eat more because you feel you need more energy or that you deserve a treat after exercising, so you'll easily cancel out that benefit.
The point I'm trying to make here is that losing fat by exercising more, only works if you add extreme levels of exercise, like if you're a professional sportsman and burn 10k cals a day. The average person doesn't have the time or motivation to add the levels of exercise needed to compensate for eating too much.
In conclusion: if you want to lose body fat, change your diet. If this is your only goal, you don't even need to exercise at all.

Recommended resources for dieting:
Michael Mosley, has written books on intermittent fasting, known as the 5:2 diet, eat what you want 5 days, fast 2
Michel Montignac, the glycemic index method, focuses on eating the right kind of carbs, no need to eat less, www.montignac.com or any of his books
LCHF (Low Carb High Fat), self explanatory, very effective with quick results but may be harmful in the long run, you'll find many books on this topic

Gaining strength
Set your goals and pick out the exercises needed to get there. In general it's recommended that you keep your body in balance by exercising all muscle groups, but sometimes you have a weakness and need to focus more there.

Different types of exercise, what to do and what to avoid
Body weight, lift using you own body as a weight, requires minimum equipment
Isometrics, exercise where you hold fixed positions under strain, necessary for stability and endurance
Aerobic exercise, low intense exercise performed during a longer time, like running, walking, swimming, releases endorphines and make you feel good which is addictive
Anaerobic exercise, builds explosive strength, weight lifting generally falls into this category, does not release endorphines and is therefore less popular, requires higher motivation
Free weight training, the old school way of building strength, using dumbell, barbell, kettlebell, resistance band etc
Machine training, weight training which locks your movements in a fixed pattern, does not build stability as you're merely pushing against a weight, avoid this

It's recommended that you use exercises which include as many muscle groups as possible, this is called a compound exercise and is the natural way to use your body. Deadlift is an example of such an exercise. Straining one muscle in isolation may be harmful, an example of such as exercise is the fixed biceps curl. It's similar to using machines, as you do not build the supporting muscles used when actually lifting things in your daily life. This may lead to injuries later on.

Apart from strength you need to train your cardiovascular system, i.e your heart and lungs. This is done by aerobic exercise, also commonly called "cardio" since aerobics is associated with group training sessions for women. In essence it's the same.
The main point of this exercise is to raise your heart rate, and this can be achieved by walking or running long distances. But it is not necessary to spend a lot of time on this, there is also a form of exercise known as High Intensity Training (HIT) in which your heart rate is increased during short sprints. See www.fast-exercises.com, the book "fast exercise" by Michael Mosley or find your own sources.

After finishing your strength training, you need to stretch the muscles you used to maintain mobility and avoid injuries. You do not need to spend a lot of time on this, even a stretch as short at 7 seconds has been shown to lead to improvements. Short muscles may lead to bad posture which in turn leads to back problems and reduces your strength from ineffective use of the body, so don't skip this part.

Lastly, some words on when to exercise and when to eat
It's been found that exercising at night is more effective than exercising in the morning.
Eating something right after exercising increases muscle growth.
If you want to add protein to gain muscle faster, there are a few things to keep in mind. The body can only absorb 20 grams of protein at once. There is no need to eat more than that in one meal. Protein comes in 3 types: fast, medium and slow. Fast protein is recommended right after exercising. This usually means whey protein powder. Medium protein is found in eggs, this also works after exercise but isn't optimal. Casein is the protein found in cheese and it's the slowest type. This means it will provide your body with protein during a long time after intake, so it's best eaten at night before bed, before exercising or during the day.
If you already eat food which contain protein, like meat, fish, beans, you'll get no gain from adding extra protein. The body can still only take in 20 grams from one meal. What you can do is to replace one meal with a protein shake if this in line with your diet plan. Pure protein contains no carbs so this is perfect for the diets recommended above.