Lose weight safely

[battle4ya]

Hey leg lifts and free weights, will that tone or just help me lose weight more?

[WendyB · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the forums!

It will help tone. But you need to increase the weights as well at some point.

Eating less  is what will help you lose weight. Its more about what you eat then exercise

[exhile]

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@battle4ya wrote:

Hey leg lifts and free weights, will that tone or just help me lose weight more?

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Leg lifts and free weights will strengthen your muscles which is called anaerobic exercise. To lose weight, you have to to do aerobic exercise like running, jogging, walking, swimming, cycling & elliptical wheel. Lastly, it's also what and the amount you eat that will help you lose weight.

[battle4ya]

Wendy, as you say increase weights, I also got a Bowflex resistance machine at home. How can I incorporate that into my workout also?

[battle4ya]

Oh I am on a point system plan to eating right. My thing is I don't want to get to bored eating the same thing. Any suggestions on what foods to help with losing weight?

[WendyB]

I agree with the cardio you need both

You say Point system? Are you talking WW?

They have many recipes on their site.

[Dominique]

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@battle4ya wrote:

Oh I am on a point system plan to eating right. My thing is I don't want to get to bored eating the same thing. Any suggestions on what foods to help with losing weight?

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When I see "point system", the first thing that comes to mind is Weight Watchers, as @WendyB already guessed. If it’s the case, it should provide you with guidelines about what (and how much) to eat.

Limiting your choices can have benefits: you don’t have to spend too much time and energy thinking of what to do. OTOH, you can still have enough variety not to get "bored eating the same". For instance, here are some of the veggies (the list is non-exhaustive) I’m "allowed" to eat in the diet I’m currently following:

As you can see, the list is long enough I don’t need to eat the same things everyday. Though one may find all of the items boring, but that’s another matter .

For carbs, I’m allowed to eat from this list:

 Again, it’s not exhaustive. For instance, butternut squash (not on the list) would also be considered healthy carbs.

[Dominique]

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@battle4ya wrote:

Hey leg lifts and free weights, will that tone or just help me lose weight more?

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Weight loss is primarily about energy balance, i.e. the difference between the calories you eat and the calories you burn. If the net balance is negative (you burn more than you eat), you will lose weight. If it’s positive, you will gain weight. If it’s equal to zero (you eat as much as you burn, or vice-versa), you will maintain your weight.

If eating is the same, increasing exercise will help create a deficit (or make it bigger). Various types of activities burn various amounts of calories: indeed, weight lifting is anaerobic and will burn less calories than aerobic activities like zumba. However, it will still burn more calories than doing nothing (e.g. watching Netflix lying on your couch). You should look at physical activity primarily for their benefits on health and fitness, not their impact on weight loss. The impact on weight loss is more of a fringe benefit.

As to "toning", what it really means is getting rid of enough subcutaneous fat so that your underlying muscles will be revealed. For that, you need to have some kind of muscle mass in the first place. Weight lifting can help increase muscle mass, as long as you exceed the minimum effective dose and you increase the load over time (as mentioned by @WendyB). Legs are just one part of your body, you have muscle almost everyelse, so you’d probably want to train other body parts as well (glutes, arms, shoulders, core etc.).