Interval Noob! Is what I'm doing okay?

Hi there! So, I am a total workout newbie, 100lbs overweight, and recently bought a low-budget yet sturdy recumbent bicycle. I was using it every day at the same light/moderate pace for about 3 weeks, until I felt I needed to up the challenge a bit. I stumbled across a tiny little blurb on livestrong about interval training. It recommended a 2min on/2 min off repetition cycle. I've been doing that for a week now, and it really kicks my butt (in a great way), but I've been reading elsewhere about other interval cycles, and mine seems.. well.. not very typical? Sort of over-simplified? Am I doing this completely wrong? Any advice would be so appreciated!

I'm not sure intervals are the best for weight loss.

You can do a variety of "interval" times.  I do "tabata" timed workouts a lot 20 sec on 10 sec rest for 8 rounds.  But I do 4- 5 different exercises for the complete workout but I guess you could do it for 40 rounds

I do 30 sec on 30 sec off on some of my intervals, done 15 sec/ 15 - 45/ 15 just whatever - as long as you go all out and are sure you don't want to do another rep and then get to take your little rest. 

I think I would decrease the rest time to 1/2 the all out time-

Intervals are great for getting the metabolism a good boost.

Why shouldn't it be? It burns calories just like any other exercise does..

Ahh, thank you dbackerfan! Good to know. I was worried there was some sort of trick in the timing for this stuff, and that perhaps I was just too eager to try the first thing I read about. ;) I will try the rest time decrease, as well. Thanks for your help!

Original Post by armandounc:

I'm not sure intervals are the best for weight loss.

I think they are, when added to a full body weight lifting routine, but if all you have is cardio equipment then doing this kind of workout will do wonders to burn through calories, and that is what the object is.

I personally had the best success in losing fat when integrating metabolic workouts paired with the weight lifting vs steady state cardio alone or with weights.

I think the OP would be better served doing body weight exercises a few days a week if no access to a real gym or free weights.

Push ups, planks, bw squats, and lunges for people overweight will help preserve the muscle you have carrying the extra weight and then when the weight comes off you won't have to do as much "firming"

Original Post by dbackerfan:

Push ups, planks, bw squats, and lunges for people overweight will help preserve the muscle you have carrying the extra weight and then when the weight comes off you won't have to do as much "firming"

I am keeping this all in mind. So very good to know. I am really embarrassingly ignorant about ALL of this stuff. But, I am a quick learner, and I do believe I have come to the right place. Thank you again for your time :)

Unless you are sustaining a really elevated HR for the duration of the interval and taking a reduced amt. of time off between intervals, chances are you can burn more calories just doing regular, sustained exercise.

 

I burn more calories running one hour at a moderate pace than I do running mile repeats full out with 3 mins rest for an hour.

I had great success losing weight with steady state cardio, but I also ended up "skinny fat"  I weighed 10 lbs less than I do today but had no muscle definition and I was flabby

Today I wear a size smaller pant than I did back then and look much better.

I stopped doing "steady state" cardio after this was published in the book Female Body Breakthrough

http://members.rachelcosgrove.com/public/505p rint.cfm

I also find metabolic workouts much more efficient.  I can get the same calorie brn in 30 min that would take me an hour to do otherwise. 

 

I also lost a good amount of fat by simply lifting and doing interval/metabolic workouts.

My intervals were taken from the metabolic work that Rachel Cosgrove suggests in Female Body Breakthrough. I tyipcally do 30 seconds all-out, 30 seconds rest for 8 sets. My heart rate is usually in the 190s when I'm going all-out.

I also occasionally do intervals on my rowing machine.

I tended to think of intervals as "transitional" workouts. Like tricking your body into higher performance for short periods to break new ground in your system. 100 lbs. overweight probably means you'd be better off with anything you can plug away at for long periods of time to maximize the calorie burn.

I'm playing around with some interval work now, but I lost over 100 lbs. with simple, slow, grunt work and very tight calorie counting.

Original Post by nicholas_shannon:

I tended to think of intervals as "transitional" workouts. Like tricking your body into higher performance for short periods to break new ground in your system. 100 lbs. overweight probably means you'd be better off with anything you can plug away at for long periods of time to maximize the calorie burn.

I'm playing around with some interval work now, but I lost over 100 lbs. with simple, slow, grunt work and very tight calorie counting.

Why?  If you can burn fat faster doing interval training and do equal calorie burns in less time why do you have to plug away and do it slowly?

I know when I plugged away and walked and watched my calories I lost 55 lbs in a short time but like I said I was "skinny fat" I was just a mush of flabby loose skin.  My butt was flat and huge and baggy saggy my thighs were wide my arms were loose and saggy- I had no muscle and my measurements were 1- 2 inches bigger than they are today and I weigh more today, but I've lost FAT this time instead of muscle and fat.  The "fat burn zone" is hogwash and I think a waste of time.  If I only have an hour a day to workout I want to be able to burn as many calories as possible in the least amount of time.

Again, weights integrated into the metabolic workouts is going to do even more good, but interval training is very good for burning through calories in less time.

Original Post by nicholas_shannon:

I tended to think of intervals as "transitional" workouts. Like tricking your body into higher performance for short periods to break new ground in your system. 100 lbs. overweight probably means you'd be better off with anything you can plug away at for long periods of time to maximize the calorie burn.

I'm playing around with some interval work now, but I lost over 100 lbs. with simple, slow, grunt work and very tight calorie counting.

The "tricking your body" and "breaking new ground" things actually have a lot of science behind them, but it is actually tricking your mind, not your body. You might enjoy reading about the "central governor" theory of fatigue, in Lore of Running, by Tim Noakes, or elsewhere. Tricking your mind to allow higher levels of performance by your body helps in exercising and training, as well as in competition. It is a huge, important subject, and affects everyone who exercises.

For a person who has a determined mindset (an experienced athlete, like armondouc, for instance), steady state cardio burns more calories in the same amount of time than intervals can possibly do. There is an easy proof for that, based on how people perform in those huge stair climb races, like the Sears Tower thing. It is the number of stairs that count, not your heart rate. The fastest way to the top is steady state, with a sprint at the end.

But, many people just can't exert the mental effort, or don't otherwise have the right mindset to perform up to their fitness level capabilities when doing SS cardio. For them, intervals are probably better, just based along the lines of "the best exercise is the one that you actually do/enjoy." Also, intervals are definitely a good way to expand your horizons as far as what you are capable of, and so they can actually help you increase your steady state cardio level to a more appropriate level (i.e. higher).

I don't know if interval training will appreciably burn more fat than steady state.  I think that's bro-science from the HIIT fanatics. I find weight lifting to be more effective for losing fat than either steady state or interval training, but without a calorie deficit, it's all moot.

 I started with interval training because I didn't have the stamina to maintain a long workout, but I didn't notice any decrease in fat loss when I switched to steady state.

I think there are some good reasons to do interval training: if you're not in good enough shape to do a workout for a sustained period of time, if you are trying to improve your athletic performance for x sport/event, if you find them fun.

In the long run though, I think that some steady state training is useful because improving endurance is a good thing.  If you can run for 2 hours, then you are probably in better shape than someone who can do interval training for 15 minutes.  Doing interval training to get at other sports makes sense. Doing interval training to get better at interval training does not.  Oprah reached her thinnest point in 20 years when she trained for and ran a marathon.  It's the only weight loss trick she tried that ever worked.

 

I guess my biggest beef with "cardio" on machines is the fact I can't move my legs fast enough to get my heart rate up to a respectable number - I have shin splints which makes running impossible due to the pain.  I can't move my legs fast enuogh on a bike to get my heart rate up and the elliptical although it does get my heart rate up I can't hold onto the speed necessary to ramp it up - but doing 10 burpees a minute and resting the rest of the min and doing them again for 10 min my heart rate will exceed my "max" and in those 10 min I'll burn a lot of calories, more than 10 min on a piece of equipment. 

I think doing some "steady state" cardio on a few days, but ramping it up on others is probably the best option for what you have available at this time, but look into weights - or at least using your body as a weight

http://caloriecount.about.com/forums/fitness/ money-advice#1

I wish I had known about weight lifting the first time I lost weight- then maybe there wouldn't have been this 2nd time I've had to do it and it is much harder with age!!

I don't think you can burn fat faster with intervals as dbacker suggested. Look in the activity browser and you'll see the calorie burn burn isn't much higher for faster speeds than for slower speeds. Once more weight comes off, then you'll naturally start performing better.

Since you feel you're ready to up the challenge I suggest not doing on/off intervals but rather a "baseline" interval.

E.g. 10 min 60 rpm 1 min 65 rpm 1 min 60 rpm 1 min 70 rpm 1 min 60 rpm etc.

If you find numbers you can sustain that way it's a great workout and the time and calories really add up fast. In my opinion it's more efficient than on/off.

My heart rate monitor gives me a lot more calories burned doing metabolics, however you have to really push yourself for the short interval you gotta be able to get your heart rate to about 80- 90% - I am 52 my HR gets as high as 167- 170 when I do metabolics it will only get to about 140 with a cardio machine. 

I also think metabolics add more to the 'afterburn" effect.  http://www.drlenkravitz.com/Articles/epoc.htm l

Steady state cardio does burn calories during the workout but that is it.  It does not increase EPOC it does not build lean body tissue and it will not increase your resting metabolic rate.  Steady state cardio should be reserved for those who have the  time in addition to weight lifting and doing metabolic work.

Metabolic workouts will burn through calories after you are done and it will increase your BMR. 

Pick up Female Body Breakthrough for all the "science" behind the workouts, but I would still say if you want to increase your BMR and not have to spend a lot of time working out metabolics are the way to go.  I am only so adamant since I have had the obvious results once I started doing them the way they were meant to be done.

Check out Zuzana lights youtube channel for ideas of metabolic workouts most don't need any equipment.  I have yet to be able to do most of the exercises, but I still try and my heart rate gets going pretty darn good.

 

 

Snooglies, this might all be pointless if you haven't adjusted the resistance on your bike yet....

I am trying to digest all of this information as best I can. Thanks for taking the time to share it with me, and for giving so much quality advice.

As far as my bike's resistance, I have adjusted it somewhat, but here's the deal. I began my workout routines very slowly about 5 weeks ago. I literally hadn't exercised in YEARS. So, 15 minutes of steady, light biking on a level 2 resistance was all I needed to get my heart rate going for the first week. But, very quickly, I noticed that I wasn't feeling anything during and after, so I increased my duration incrementally until I was at 30 minutes of steady biking, on a resistance of 4 out of 8.

My reason for trying intervals is simple.. boredom. By doing this 2on/off routine, I was able to crash through 25 minutes without hardly noticing, because I was biking minute to minute, while also feeling a healthy(?) amount of exertion. I suppose, in my ignorance, I felt that the higher exertion, the better results. I can see now that it just isn't that simple!

On a different, yet totally related note, I am also coming to grips with the fact that my diet has been ALL wrong for the last 2 months (I have only just begun food logging on CC over the last couple days.) I have been eating far too few calories, apparently, and now I'm a little confused as to how to continue. My net cal deficits are massive, like -1100 every day, and I now understand how bad this is. But I have to imagine that I have been like that for 2 months now, which is horrendous. The only way I can figure it, is that if I stop exercising, my deficit will be slightly more in line with what it should be? But I want to exercise. UGH. Sorry this post is so long, but I am truly lost!

Well, if you want to continue exercising, eat more until your deficit is reduced to 500 calories.

As far as intervals go, I like them for the same reason you do--it's not as boring as steady-state. If it works for you and allows you to enjoy exercise, keep doing them!

Eat more!  Enjoy the fact that you can exercise and eat.  Increase your protein Have a handful of nuts that will add good fats and proteins and calories.  Cook with real butter or olive oil.