HIIT as key to weight loss

Hey I'm new here, just discovered this site/forum from searching on the web. I used to participate on a powerlifting forum for three years, then I decided to move away from just dedicating myself to strength gains, and now I'm fully focused on weight loss and conditioning. I usually jog a couple times a week at the beach (I love being by the water it's peaceful.) But what I usually focus my time on now is HIIT. This has been the key to my weight loss, I usually follow this routine.

I find it to be the most effective and rewarding way to gain endurance, stamina, and just a good boost to my morale. I thought I would join here, the community seems really awesome. Lots of helpful people : ) I want to learn some new things for my diet and training. Hope I can also be a good helper.

Based on all of the information I have on HIIT, i do believe what you are doing is considered HIIT.

Ah! I tried this yesterday at the gym...did about 5 minutes of warm up...30 seconds hardest I could go, 1 minute off....after 3 of the 30 second intervals, I thought I was going to die....I got the sick/pukey feeling...put the bike at no resistance and let my legs dangle in the pedals LOL...it took me about three minutes to "recover" and feel like I wasn't going to be sick. I was disappointed that I thought my workout would be done in 10 minutes...but I regained some strength and was able to get to a fairly steady pace for the rest of my work out (didn't try anymore hardcore intervals though). 

I assume my tolerance for this type of cardio will improve next time I do it and so on, but is this normal? Or was everyone else able to do a full workout? About how many of the 30 second sets do you do?

I like to think of my weightloss strategy of calories in calories out. If I want to lose a lb of fat I need to burn 3500 calories. Not doing HIIT wont stop me from burning those calories. But if it doesn't come from fat where does it come from? Especially if I have reduced my calorie intake to my allowable amount. I do think that HIIT is alot like weightlifting it builds muscle and over the long run (and short run) it will allow you to have higher intensity workouts. You will go from Jogging 5 miles an hour to 8 miles an hour.

http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/HIITvsET.html

This article says that the people who did HIIT expended less calories. But lost over 3 times times as much subcutanious fat. I think it is a good methodology and will allow you to lose fat but I think there is something missing here that doesn't quite make sense to my calories in calories out mentality. Is it that you continue to burn calories afterward? Is that just not measurable?

jswoolf - I'm not sure if there are answers to your questions.  My understanding is that the exercise physiologists are a little perplexed about why HIIT is so effective at burning fat.  One suggestion is that it raises RMR, or has some other physiological effect that we don't fully understand.  Basically, what we know is that it works ... and I'm not going to argue with the results!  ;-)

I bike when I can and I walk/jog on the treadmill when I can't bike (I LOVE biking!!). I find that I get the most benefits and can bike longer and at higher intensities if I warm up for about a mile and then PUSH myself around our 4 1/2 mile neighborhood and get my heart rate up into the 160-180 range. After that I go around another 4 1/2 miles at a lower intensity that gets my HR at ~140-160..sometimes I do that twice. I gradually taper down to a cool-down and I feel great! If I don't push myself at first and then gradually taper down I get worn out and find it really difficult to maintain my pace for more than 5-6 miles. With the tapering method I usually get 12-18 miles in.

Same thing with my walking/jogging. I find that I get a better workout if I keep my walking pace to about 3.0 MPH and then occasionally sprint for about 1-2 minutes at a 6MPH rate (this is a lot for me...totally out of shape, lol). I end up spending about 15-20 minutes sprinting out of a total workout (including warm-up and cool-down) of about an hour and 15 minutes or so.

So far I've brought my resting heart rate down from 75 to 65 and my blood pressure has dropped from 145/98 to 125/78. Hopefully all of this moving around and my new diet changes will bring my cholesterol down as well.

do i have to do HIIT at a gym? or could i go find a really big hill and do it on that?

do i have to do HIIT at a gym? or could i go find a really big hill and do it on that?

You don't even need a hill. Just run fast then jog; or jog then walk; whatever your fitness level is. I think running HIIT is the hardest of all personally

Some people have already posted here, but I was just wondering if others could post their results from this...especially if they noticed a difference between the 'regular' cardio they used to do and HIIT.  I just started reading about HIIT today but it seems like it would be a more beneficial form of cardio for me (rather than what I was doing before ->  20-35min eliptical). My diet is normally between 1300-1600 and I do work with my resistance band.  My goal is to lose fat.  I know HIIT is always good, but is this the best choice for what I'd like to accomplish? (5'4, 139lbs,20yrs.)

Thanks!

Some have said you can do this with just about any cardio exercise.  I hate running and have begun swimming.  Anyone with any experience on how this would work for swimming?  I'm just curious because it seems everyone runs or uses elliptical...

holy crap i tried HIIT for the first time today - i literally thought i was going to puke. i pushed myself for 15 mins, so i prob. overdid it, but i'm in good shape so i thought i would just jump right in. OMYGOD it was amazing.

Can you explain to me how EXACTLY you do it on the eliptical and the bike. Do I have to set it on 0 incline and then put it on 10 or 20 resistance? What kind of resistance is the best? Same question on the bike. What kind of levels do you have to be on to do this. If there is a program what kind of program do you do on them. I'm so confused right now. Can you basically run me through the whole thing of the HIIT program! Thanks!! It would be greatly appreciated!

Wan3bfit,  what i do with my elptical is set it on a resitance of 8 (the max on my machine is 12)  i dont change the incline, and mine measures rotations per minute (one full foot rotation) and i keep that at about 60ish on my down time and for my sprint i break 93-95ish  though by mins 15 - 20 its more like 50/81.     Trust me put it on a hard enough resistance to be challenging alone at and then just do that sprint eveyr 30 secs and a normal jog for 30.

Dana, the whole thing is based around being at a normal comfortable level you could hold for some time then pushing yourself up to a level that you could only sustain for maybe 1min max, so just swim at a decent pace i guess and just really push yourself on 1 or 2 laps or something *shrug*

I dont know why I kept putting off reading about HIIT, but I did. Finally I read throught this entire post, checked out all the links, and I am going to start it tomorrow. I have been doing something similar for the past few months. I usually go on the ellipical for 35-40 minutes at a time. I warm up on Level 11 (Max is 20) for 4-5 minutes. Do 2 minutes on Level 12, followed by 1 minute on Level 13, then back to 2 minutes on Level 12. I knew breaking up the resistance was a good thing, and I think it has been key to my 12 pound weight loss since April. However, I am extremely excited to see if doing a HIIT version of my elliptcal workout will really help in aiding my fat loss. I'll keep ya posted..thanks for everyone who contributed to this topic so far.

I've been doing a HIIT routine for three weeks now on the treadmill. One minute at full tilt, one minute jogging pretty slow, one minute walking for a total of 21 minutes not including warm up or down, three times a week in addition to my weight lifting, and the increase in my conditioning is incredible.

Today I did just straight jogging to see how I was doing. I'm trying to get fit enough for a 5k at the end of the summer, and I ran three miles straight on the tread with almost no problem. Very cool. 

From what I've read I would just caution adding too much HIIT running too soon...it can well lead to injury due to the higher impact stress put on a body that is not ready for it. Most running sites/sources I have read do not recommend any speedwork in at least the first 6 months (some over a year!) of a running programme.  If you want to do HIIT then do it on something low impact to start with, in addition to the running.

bump for Karak716.

what attracts me to this is that... i dont like the gym.

Im used to doing 100mHH or riding horses. These things naturally have goals, all-outs, and rests.  The HHIT seems to be similar to what I try to do already to mimic a real 'live' outdoor workout.

really, when was the last time anyone in a gym hit stop speed?
wouldnt that mean you are missing something?

When using HIIT with ellipticals, how high do you recommend the resistance or level for it to be? I've been reading up on this and I'm really interested in it.

I want to start trying this, but I am a bit confused about how I should go about it.  I can't afford to go to a gym right now, so I want to just do it while running outside.  When I am doing the "rest" portion, should I still be jogging, or should I be walking?  Then, on the high intensity portion, I should be running as fast as possible?  Is the warm up included in the recommended 15 minutes?  What else should I be doing along with HIIT?