On Wednesday, a new study published in JAMA by researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle projected that by 2035, nearly half of all American adults, about 126 million individuals, will be living with obesity.
The study draws on data from more than 11 million participants via the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and from the independent Gallup Daily Survey.
The projections show a striking increase in the prevalence of obesity over the past few decades in the U.S. In 1990, only 19.3% of U.S. adults were obese, according to the study. That figure more than doubled to 42.5% by 2022, and is forecast to reach 46.9% by 2035.
I used to be 330; I’m 5’8". I got down to 220 through diet and exercise. That’s still obese. I did 10k on the Nordictrack this morning, can run a 7 minute mile, and routinely do full-body weight lifting including 10x140 chest presses and 10x300 leg presses. I’m now up to 260, which is even worse obese.
I don’t know how to get to a healthy BMI and I know I’m routinely failing to get there, but I’m trying.
you work out too much.
all that muscle needs fat to support it’s energy. you need to lose both.
i lose weight quickly when i stop working out. both fat and muscle. also weight work increases you bone density.
basically stop being so demanding on your body and it won’t have to ‘bulk’ so much. lighten up on the exercise.
I only do 2 days a week lifting, that’s the NIH recommendation. Granny wants to do 3, but that doesn’t currently fit into the rest of my life.
I would do cardio every day, but things get in the way of that often, too.
because you are working out too much. you should be working out like half of that or less.
NIH recommends like 20m of moderate activity, a day. You are probably doing 10x that. their version of lifting weights is like 10lb dumbells and 5lb ankle weights. not full body lifting.
it sounds like you’re training for athletic competition, not exercise. most people who exercise regularly can’t even do 10K on a nordic track, and you’re doing it in zone 2.
My 5k treadmill times are about novice: https://runninglevel.com/running-times/5k-times
My 10k treadmill times are about beginner: https://runninglevel.com/running-times/10k-times
(I’m 45.)
I’m not going to discourage a low level of exercise (or even not exercise, but activity), but I think the NIH recommendations reflect that my peer group (I’m a professional programmer and hobbist gamer; so pretty sedentary outside of intentional exercise) are very unhealthy.
They specifically mention resistance across all muscle groups and recommend a single set (8-12 reps). They imply that weight should be increased, rather than increasing the number of sets, with muscle fatigue being a a good measurement of effectiveness.
(from pg. 56)
(from pg. 61)
NIH recommends 150-300 minutes of moderate activity (or 75-150 minutes of strenuous activity) every week. If I keep my HR in the 130s for 60 minutes, that’s ~120 *minutes" due to the intensity. I don’t 10k every day, usually only once a week.
When I did the 5k every day that was too much. But 5 days/week or 3 5ks and 1 10k per week is just about right, as long as I keep up the intensity (if they get too easy, I can increase distance or grade or resistance to maintain HR for the right amount of minutes).
What are your thoughts on weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro? Would you consider using them?
I haven’t really looked into them, so I’m not sure. I guess it would depend on risks and side-effects. I do think they would help me consume fewer calories by reducing how much I overeat, so they could be worth it.
I lost about 100lbs on mounjaro. I love how it has changed my relationship with food, and silenced the cravings for unhealthy foods. My doctor was supportive of me taking GLP-1s. Some people say it’s not for them, but it has been wonderful for me.
Talk to your doctor. BMI is a crude metric that doesn’t distinguish between fat and muscle. For understanding population level statistics, this is good enough. But for individuals it can be highly misleading; particularly those that do strength training.
If you wanted to lower your BMI, there is a good chance that stopping all weight lifting would do that for you. But that would probably make you less healthy, despite “improving” your BMI.
Lose weight with cardio first, then try to gain muscle.
I did. I didn’t start lifting until I had my cardio doing much better. IIRC, I started lifting after I is a sub-30min 5km for 28 days in a row. But, I might have did some lifting before then.
Cardio is more my priority because the NIH recommendations are primarily about cardio, with weight/resistance training being secondary. I need to get my running / treadmill 10km to under an hour – the Nordictracktm lets me do a sub-hour 10km, but I’m not sure it’s getting my HR up quite as much as treadmill time. I find it easier to keep myself in “zone 2” on a treadmill with HR sensors in some hand grip.
why are you talking about weight when you should be measuring body fat?
Weight lifters weigh more because muscle is heavy.
Yeah, I should get an 8-contact machine for home to get good BF% numbers.
That said, it’s not hard to find the excess fat on my body, so while I don’t have good measurements, I know my BF% is also still too high. I have promised myself that if I can get a visible “6-pack”, I’ll stop worrying about weight so much, but I doubt that will happen soon.
Weight and BMI are easier for most people (including myself) to habitually track, especially individually. But I agree that BF% is the better metric.
Unfortunately what works for one person might not work for the next. I tried to lose and keep weight off for years without much success, but for me finally getting on thyroid medicine helped get it off for good. Turns out I was snacking because I was so fatigued all the time. It’s a frustrating process to try and find what works for you, especially when everyone just says it’s all calories in vs calories out.
If you want to be toned, don’t do max weight low reps, do high reps lower weight and stop trying to get stronger. I lost weight but was just getting physically bigger and not looking more muscular, only my belly and double chin went away but I stayed basically the same size. I felt a lot healthier tho, just generally good and had no issues being active at edm festivals, I quit working out and I looked skinnier after a while, but feel weaker now that it’s been two years.
I preferred being bigger and feeling strong over now where I can fit large instead of xl but can’t be active for as long without pain. I personally only enjoy the gym when I’m going for a new max weight for every set every week. Ik logically that gaining muscle and lifting heavier should lead to more calories burned naturally and should lead to losing weight and looking less big, but id just gain muscle under my fat layer and look bigger.
I’m not trying to get bigger. I’m following the NIH guidelines to do 1 set of 10 reps and move weight up if/when you can do 2 sets.
I was at 10x280 on the leg press for over a year, but I noticed it getting “too easy” a few weeks ago. Bicep curls still kill my left arm, and I can only do about 60 on those.
dude curling 60 is huge. most people can’t do 30. you’re not gonna be a small guy when you’re curling 60
He probbaly means 60 on a bar? So like 35-40 which is normal, most dudes curl that if they goto the gym a lot and wont have arms that look big unless they flex.
on a machine with cables, its even easier for whatever reason
I think most people give their single-arm / free-weight curl weight. I can only do about 25 on my left arm with that. (My right arm does more and doesn’t hurt in the same way.)
The curl machine I use has both hands on the same bar, and that’s how I can do 60. I don’t mean to be confusing, but I often have trouble talking about lifting because I’m entirely self-taught and didn’t start paying attention to what I was doing until I was like 40. (I avoided exercise for most of my life.)
That said, I’m doing more weight than many people in the gym, so I’m not small. On the hip extension and the rotary abdominal / oblique machines, I do the whole stack 170 lbs. and then +20 lbs.
No shade to people no matter what they can lift. Honestly, I’m more proud of what my 93-year-old grandma does, and it is understandably much less. Health the goal, not weight. You just move the weight up to make sure you are continuing to exert.