Ok so I finally got my butt moving. I joined a gym and have worked out for 3 days straight. I am going to keep working out until 20 lbs are gone. I've already lost 3 lbs since I began my workout!! :huggie: My workouts have been intense!

Ok so my question is, when will I stop feeling completely drained and exhausted by my workout? I know workouts eventually GIVE you energy but so far I am just tired and sore. I want to feel that pumped up energetic feeling! Does it take weeks or will I feel it soon? I need to feel that good feeling soon or I will be SO tired all the time until my 20 lbs are gone.

You sure are hitting it hard and fast! Most often your energy comes after several weeks, so hang in there.

One caution though, there was a season when I excercised, and I just could not seem to recover afterward. Felt so terribly drained. I found out that because of rapid weight loss, I was so low in potassium, I was critical and was compromising myl heart and ended up in E. R. so if you are really tired and cant seem to get your energy up, get a blood workup andhave your potassium checked, for your hearts sake.

Are you doing cardio or strength training?

If you are doing cardio and you are exhausted it means you have crossed the aerobic threshold into the type of training that athletes training for an event do. I would suggest lowering your cardio intensity to the point that you can maintain an even consistent pace without stopping for at least 20 minutes.

If you are strength training, it takes a minimum of 48 hours for muscle tissue to repair. So if you work your arms, you shouldn't do arms again until 3 days later, for example.

If you are doing both, I would do upper body strength one day, 2 days of cardio, lower body strength one day, day of rest and one more day of cardio. That gives you plenty of time for tissue repair.

If you are going to the gym 4X a week, I would do cardio and arm day together but no cardio on leg day.

If you are doing 3X a week, do your cardio on leg day before strength.

Hope you are doing great with your work outs.

Hi,

All good advice listed above. Very often, I still get a tired phase going when I have increased my distance, resistance, pace, etc., when upping my cardio and lifting. I think it's a normal response from your body. I can take 4-7 days to move past that, but remember that as you keep pushing your body, it will take recovery time! Just recently, I moved from running 2 to 4-5 miles and I have had my tired days! GOod job on the workouts!!!

hello all,

Have you tried Water aerobics? It tends to be alot easier on your body. Be careful that you dont over d it in the water. Last spring I was going three times a day and had to stop because the chlorine got to my skin. Now I have been trying to start working out in the water as soon as I get my arm out of the cast it is in for another 4 weeks!

Good Luck on working out!

I think you are going to burn yourself out. Try exercising every other day for now.

Sounds like you are overtraining.

http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/overtraining.html

Here's an excerpt:

It is no secret among athletes that in order to improve performance you've got to work hard. However, hard training breaks you down and makes you weaker. It is rest that makes you stronger. Physiologic improvement in sports only occurs during the rest period following hard training. This adaptation is in response to maximal loading of the cardiovascular and muscular systems and is accomplished by improving efficiency of the heart, increasing capillaries in the muscles, and increasing glycogen stores and mitochondrial enzyme systems within the muscle cells. During recovery periods these systems build to greater levels to compensate for the stress that you have applied. The result is that you are now at a higher level of performance.

If sufficient rest is not included in a training program then regeneration cannot occur and performance plateaus. If this imbalance between excess training and inadequate rest persists then performance will decline. Overtraining can best be defined as the state where the athlete has been repeatedly stressed by training to the point where rest is no longer adequate to allow for recovery. The "overtraining syndrome" is the name given to the collection of emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms due to overtraining that has persisted for weeks to months. Athletes and coaches also know it as "burnout" or "staleness." This is different from the day to day variation in performance and post exercise tiredness that is common in conditioned athletes. Overtraining is marked by cumulative exhaustion that persists even after recovery periods.

The most common symptom is fatigue. This may limit workouts and may be present at rest. The athlete may also become moody, easily irritated, have altered sleep patterns, become depressed, or lose the competitive desire and enthusiasm for the sport. Some will report decreased appetite and weight loss. Physical symptoms include persistent muscular soreness, increased frequency of viral illnesses, and increased incidence of injuries.

thanks. right now its like im not doing much. with work, school n hw theres not much time left for me!

I think you are going to burn yourself out. Try exercising every other day for now.

Sounds like you are overtraining.

http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/overtraining.html

Here's an excerpt:

It is no secret among athletes that in order to improve performance you've got to work hard. However, hard training breaks you down and makes you weaker. It is rest that makes you stronger. Physiologic improvement in sports only occurs during the rest period following hard training. This adaptation is in response to maximal loading of the cardiovascular and muscular systems and is accomplished by improving efficiency of the heart, increasing capillaries in the muscles, and increasing glycogen stores and mitochondrial enzyme systems within the muscle cells. During recovery periods these systems build to greater levels to compensate for the stress that you have applied. The result is that you are now at a higher level of performance.

If sufficient rest is not included in a training program then regeneration cannot occur and performance plateaus. If this imbalance between excess training and inadequate rest persists then performance will decline. Overtraining can best be defined as the state where the athlete has been repeatedly stressed by training to the point where rest is no longer adequate to allow for recovery. The "overtraining syndrome" is the name given to the collection of emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms due to overtraining that has persisted for weeks to months. Athletes and coaches also know it as "burnout" or "staleness." This is different from the day to day variation in performance and post exercise tiredness that is common in conditioned athletes. Overtraining is marked by cumulative exhaustion that persists even after recovery periods.

The most common symptom is fatigue. This may limit workouts and may be present at rest. The athlete may also become moody, easily irritated, have altered sleep patterns, become depressed, or lose the competitive desire and enthusiasm for the sport. Some will report decreased appetite and weight loss. Physical symptoms include persistent muscular soreness, increased frequency of viral illnesses, and increased incidence of injuries.

No Pain No Gain Lol

Honestly, you wont even notice it when it happens but there is this moment where you do the elliptical for an hour and still feel like you could do another one. Its a total epiphany and its beautiful.

I have been swimming now every week day (just about) since Octo. 23. The first 3 weeks were the hardest, I was always tired. But, I continued and now I usually wake up before the alarm and really look forward to the workout.

I always take weekends off, my body does need the time to rest. I also work out 2 times a day on 2-3 days a week, but I "always" swim in the morning. When I don't swim, now, I feel more tired than if I had swam. It is not worth skipping. We had snow for a while, and everything was closed, so I didn't get to go for a week. I really missed it and it wasnt' hard to get back to it because I missed it so much.

I think the most important thing, and this is from all my infinite wisdom LOL, is that you ENJOY what your doing, if working out is torture, it will take longer to not feel exhausted. Mentally, your brain just doesn't want to do it, so it takes a toll. Now that I have been swimming for a while, I'm starting to think that an AM jog might be nice, but I LOVE swimming, so I don't know that I would want to give it up to do anything else.

I wonder if I am overworking myself? I think some days I do. I am only at the gym for about 45 minutes on weekdays only. I do take weekends off. But today when I measured my heartrate when I was on the treadmill it was like 190, waaaay too high and I was only jogging for like 10 mins. I guess I wasn't ready for running?

It sounds like you were running too fast.

If you look at HR charts, then your Max HR should be 220-your age (28) = 192

If you look at aerobic zone training....

If you are at 50% of your max, you are in Zone 1, which is recovery. For you, that is 96. It means that if your heart rate is 96 or below, then your body will still recover.

If you are in Zone 2, that is considered warm up, and is 50 to 60% of your maximum heart rate, so for you is 96-115, 85% of calories burned in this zone are from fat burning.

Zone 3 is general aerobic and is 60-70% of your maximum HR, so for you is 115-134, 85% of your calories are burned from fat.

Zone 4 is endurance training and is 70-80% of maximum HR, for you 134-153, and is good for training for races, 50% of calories burned are from fat

Zone 5 is called threshold training, and is 80-90% of Max HR, for you 153-173 and is generally used by athletes to improve how well they use Oxygen, only 15% of calories are burned from fat.

Over 90% of your heart rate, which is where you were tonight, can usually only be sustained for a very short time.

If you are primarily trying to lose fat, I would try to stay on the treadmill for AT LEAST 20 minutes but keep your HR between 96-134. How fast you go doesn't matter as much as keeping your heart rate in the "zone."

The reason I say 20 minutes (at least) is because it takes around 12-15 minutes for your body to realize you are doing aerobics and to turn on the "fat burning."

So if you go for only 10 minutes and killed yourself then you probably didn't accomplish your goal of burning as much fat as possible. You burned calories, but perhaps not fat.

Supergenius818 (Susan)-

Wow, you really are a genius, LOL. That is very useful information. I knew about the heartrate zones cause they are posted in the gym, but I never really knew what they meant.

So, if I'm 41, I should be shooting for a heartrate of 89 - 103? Is that right for the 60-70% aerobics training? Is that where we should be, do you know, for the most part, in that area?

Deckedout,

Well... I am more like the Wile E Coyote version of a genius rather than the MENSA version.. but I do a whole lot with fitness, nutrition, rehab, exercise, and injuries for my job. Plus I am passionate about it on a personal level (although you would never know it from the way my body looks, LOL. I tell people I am the fittest fat person they will ever meet. I don't know if that is true or not, but I tell people that). In short, I have extensive knowledge both from experience and from my profession about this subject. In my not so secret real life I get paid for this... so feel free to ask me whatever questions you want.

Your max HR is 220-41 = 179... Mine is 185 and the highest I have ever been is 183. For you to be that high you will feel like your heart is about to explode. I am quite sure Hamu was in misery on that treadmill. You will likely only be able to keep that HR for a matter of seconds, should you ever get that high. Which I don't recommend in cardio training. If you were lifting weights and doing something like dead lifts, your HR could get that high... but that is a different question.

Anyway, for you to be in fat burning you can stay in Zone 2 or in Zone 3. Zone 2 = 90-107 and Zone 3 = 107-125.

I am not sure why our numbers were different on the zones though. Your numbers match pretty close to my numbers for Zone 2.

I calculated it by taking your Max HR * .5 to get 50%, Max HR *.6 for 60%, and Max HR * .7 to get 70%.

Anyway, if you stay between 90-125 for at least 20 minutes then you will be in good shape.

Thanks Genius.

My math skills are obviously lacking. Probably basic multiplication problems, that is why I teach English, not math LOL!

HAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Good one.

I don't know what grade you teach, but I am afraid of high school kids. Really. If you teach high school kids then I admire you.