Weight loss and training regime with asthma

[agueli]

Hi. I am a 40 y.o. male who has long suffered from seasonal hay fever and developed mild asthma due to it. Due to the COVID lockdowns I have gained weight and need to lose about 25 kg to return to a proper body mass index.

I am taking all the prescribed medications for asthma and don't have asthmatic attacks at all. Yet I have a major difficulty with HIIT - the volume of my breath intake is 0.8L below the norm, so I can't run for a long time and can't climb stairs fast - my pulse jumps to 150bpm easily and I lose breath.

Yet I have no problems with steady weight lifting in the gym. To help with the reduced volume of lungs I occasionally take a few doses of Salbutamol before a workout. My diet is good (little carbs, no snacking/bread/beer/sugar, I cook myself). Additionally, I am getting a bicycle to ride daily.

Are there any science-based recommendations on efficient weight loss/training for folks like me? Books, articles, programs, etc? Thanks in advance!

 

[ankit]

@agueli I have asthma and need a dose before workout. Doesn't stop me. I started doing 3 days per week full body workouts, and ended up dropping hiit as the full body workouts alone were delivering great fitness and a resting pulse of 60.

 

[agueli]

@ankit I am using a popular /r/Fitness/ "linear progression - based PPL program with some tweaks - I do it 6 days a week + back excercises on the 7th. In contrast to a full-body workouts it provides 2 days of rest for each muscle group and allows much more gym days each week. I am seeing promising results, but thought I could improve - hence my post here.

 

[clevimartin1]

@agueli im a respiratory physician who also put on weight and lost it all. i also had asthma, requiring symbicort maintenance.

so any way, went on a high protein, zero sugar low carb diet with IF 20:4. the two diets are synergistic. interestingly my asthma disappeared as well.

long story short, i lost many kg, put on heaps of muscle at the sametime.

i quickly converted over to calisthenics and no longer lift weights for upper body. i do squats, deadlifts for legs, everything else is calisthenics with swimming, bball and surfing added in for cardio.

you can see body shape [here](https://www.youtube.com/c/drlifepro/videos) and exercise videos as well

also more [info](https://www.drlifepro.com)

sorry forgot to add you should have an exercise stress test, where run on a treadmill etc and ecg and lung fxn are performed.... during exercise

 

[agueli]

@clevimartin1 Thanks. I've considered intermittent fasting, it looks like a good "hack" to limit calories without counting them (which, turns out, is useless). Will definitely give it a try.

my asthma disappeared as well

I took allergen-specific immunotherapy for birch pollen and got rid of hay fever, thankfully, but looks like for me the lung inflammation is here to stay, with Simbicort maintenance.

Thanks for your answer. Basically, I need to continue losing weight and dieting, which will allow me to later reach better cardiac performance and add swimming and other activities, right?

 

[daddyhurst]

@agueli Counting calories isn't useless. If you know what your maintenance calories are, and then lower them slightly to go into a deficit, you have to lose body fat. It's thermodynamics, if you eat less than you burn your body will metabolise fat to make up the shortfall. You might not lose weight, especially if you're weight training as well as you will be going through body recomp and will be gaining lean tissue (muscle).

 

[agueli]

@daddyhurst Most references on calories are outdated; all good apps for tracking food are American-centric and don't include other cuisines. Most people can't reliably weigh the portions. A majority of labels on food are plain wrong. Source: I worked for huge multinational FMCG companies and a global fast-food chain; our nutritionists mostly made up the numbers; they only cared about following the govt. guidelines, not about providing accurate estimates on calories.

 

[daddyhurst]

@agueli So how do millions of people all over the world manage to gain or lose weight using this method then? Pure chance?

 

[mrrawes2833]

@daddyhurst Apparantly so. Guess the 55 pounds Ive lost so far doing it was just me being lucky as all hell.

 

[agueli]

@daddyhurst

Pure chance?

No. It works just as homeopathy "works". Of course, overpriced sugar balls don't have any effect, it is simply the patient after talking to a "doctor" begins to take care of his/her health, becomes conscious about food and lifestyle. If you get a habit of logging every food item you consume, the numbers don't matter (as I said above, they are mostly made up anyway). You just stop snacking and question whether you really need that piece of food every time.

 

[daddyhurst]

@agueli Equating calorie surplus/deficit with homeopathy... Hilarious.
Can you provide a citation for your claim that the numbers are "mostly made up" or is this just anecdotal?

 

[agueli]

@daddyhurst As I've said - I've got several years of experience in new product development in FMCG and QSR, I know how food labels are made (not by the book - freeze-drying, crushing into pellets, and burning in a bomb calorimeter - but using some sort of century-old Atwater reference, or a local analog). I know that two identical steaks cooked a bit differently can yield values that vary by hundreds of calories. I assume you are an American - so you might not be familiar with the fact that FDA allows companies to use reference calorie values published by the Department of Agriculture in 1955. I invite you to check how an average today's supermarket apple or chicken is different from 1955.

So the calorie values are bogus. Yet counting works (as homeopathy works for those who believe in it) - if you observe this practice, you start eating more consciously, avoid snacking, and generally eat less. But there are easier ways to adjust the diet that don't require bogus rituals.

 

[daddyhurst]

@agueli You assume wrong, I'm not American. Just because your country has poor food standards doesn't mean the rest of the world does.

 

[agueli]

@daddyhurst We have better food standards than Americans, yet the sad truth is that no country does this right. Calories on food labels are bogus figures.