K, I am really fat. I am 5’11, 203 pounds and only 15 years old! Gosh, I am really a fat ass. I sit on my ass all day. So one day I thought, what if I get off my fat ass and start excerszing ( sorry I am a bad speller )? I want to work on getting rid of my fat ass and that tummy! I also want to get rid of my fat thighs and fat arms. Today I started out. I jogged for 2 min and 30 sec and walked for 2 min and 30 sec. After that I did 20 sit-ups, next 5 push-ups, and 10 crunches. Then I did 15 jumping jacks. I did all of this in the same order and could feel my heartbeet and acutally sweted a little. Is this how you do the excersie for building muscles and be like one of those muscular men you see in the boflex comercials? I will steadly increase the jogging and walking min and the number of sit ups, pushups, jumping jacks, and crunches. Should I also use those pills that have all the vitamins and nutrients ur body needs? Thanks. If there is any web-site that has a program or something like that please post here. I searched on the web and couldnt find very good webpages.
The best advice I can give you is to see a doctor before you start working out. You want to make sure you are healthy enough to do the exercises I will speak about here - this is VERY IMPORTANT. Also, if you can afford to, meet with a fitness expert a few times to set up goals (also very important), do some personal assessment, and learn the proper techniques for exercising. In the mean time, here are some general guidlines to think about:
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Don’t mess with your diet too much. Eat what you want, but make sure your portions are about the size of your fist. Eat some fruit between meals. Your metabolism will slow down if you reduce the amount of calories you take in by too much right away. A better approach is to spread your caloric intake across the day by eating 6 smaller meals instead of three bigger meals. Think about the total amount of food you eat per day right now, and try to reduce it by just a little bit.
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Build some muscle mass. Muscle requires energy to exist, and the more of it you have, the more energy you will burn just sitting around. There are about as many theories about weight lifting as there are people who do it. Basic guideline is not to over do it right away. Work the biggest muscles in your body and you will achieve results faster (back, legs, chest). Start slow, use low weights and don’t expect to see results right away.
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Do some cardio exercises (running, biking, or swimming). The key is to get your heart rate up, but not too high. You should be breathing fairly easy. If you are huffing and puffing, you’re working too hard. All that will happen if you do this is that your body will start using muscle to fuel itself. Try to run or swim or bike for 25-minute increments.
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Stretch!
In the beginning, start off lifting twice a week, with 3 days in between each workout. You can move to more efficient cycles once you have gotten into the habit of working out. Try to do the aerobic exercise every other day as well. Again, all of this can change when you get into better shape. You have to be very careful not to over do it - you can hurt yourself if you try too hard right away!
It isn’t that hard to do this - just take one step at a time and remember that even if you don’t see results right away, your body will thank you for what you are doing.
BTW - as long as you are in fairly good shape, you should be happy. Trying to look like the people from muscle mags is OK for some, but it is important to realize that they are not average people. Set realistic goals for yourself and reward your self when you reach them.
Good luck!
First of all, can I get a mod to move this over to MPSIMS? I think Kriss could get more useful advice over there, as well as some support. All she’s gotten in 24 hours over here in GQ is one response. (And BTW, Kriss, I’m assuming you’re female because I’ve never seen a guy spell it with two Ss, so don’t go ballistic if you’re carrying around the opposite set of gonads, just clue us in. And I’ve never heard a guy worry about his fat thighs. 
Anyway, health advice is equally applicable for both sexes.)
Okay. Kriss, first I wanna say that 203 lbs. for Five Eleven is not “fat”. What makes you think you’re fat? Did somebody tell you you were a “fat ass”? You need to look up “body mass index” and find out what that means. Basically, it means the proportion of your body that’s actual fat, as opposed to the proportion of your body that’s bone and muscle.
Don’t go by what the Five Eleven girls in the Kohl’s flyers in the Sunday papers look like. (And don’t go by what the guys in the muscle mags look like.) Those girls are fashion models, and they’re getting paid to be thin. So they go on all kinds of weird strict diets and take pills to keep themselves artificially thin.
'kay? Got this? 
Trust me, sweetie, normal women do not look like the Kohl’s models.
If you really do want to lose some weight, like Heembo said, first go to a doctor, make sure that overall you’re in good shape, heart, blood sugar, etc.
Ignore all the diet pills, herbal remedies, nutriceuticals, they’re all just a waste of your money. Stick with regular vitamins, the kind they sell at Osco for about 3 bucks with the big generic label that says “VITAMINS” on it. That’s all you need. One a day. Eat a balanced diet. Exercise, but don’t try to push it. 'kay? Don’t try to pump up, don’t “go for the burn”, just work out. Get the heart rate up. Walk up the stairs instead of using the elevator. Park a little bit farther away when you go to Wal-Mart and hike in.
Because, here’s the thing. You’re only 15, your body still has a lot of growing to do, a lot of pieces need to be put into place in the extraordinarily complex organic construct known as “Kriss’s Body”. If your body is being stressed by a heavy workout program, with a lot of weird diet pills and too many of the wrong kinds of vitamins, your bones and hormones and stuff can’t finish growing properly, and you’ll end up at age 30-something with odd physical problems. Do a Web search on “bulimia”, “anorexia”, “teenage girls exercise”, things like that. Here’s a link to my favorite search engine.
Keep in touch and let us know how you’re doing. 
Hi Kriss,
Even though I’m male, I just wanted to share some thoughts with you. Feel free to ignore as much of it as you want.
First of all, please don’t think of yourself as fat. I know I don’t have a picture of you, but 200 pounds at nearly six foot doesn’t sound fat at all. Your weight isn’t a good indication of whether someone is “fat” anyway.
Changing your attitude about your self-image is probably one of the most important things you can do in this area. Accept yourself for who you are, don’t look down on yourself, but realize that you want to make changes to who you are. Make sure that those changes are for the right reason.
After that, as Cecil has written, the best way to loose fat is to burn more calories than you take in.
Read the article… it’s got a lot of good information in it. It’s from Cecil after all!
As far as excercising goes, I can’t add much to what’s been mentioned above. Start a routine that consists of weight training and aerobic excercise. You want to build up your muscles in order to burn more calories; don’t worry about “bulking up”… it takes a long time to do that. If you do find that you are putting on too much muscle mass, don’t stop lifting weights. Instead, keep the weight at the level you are working with and just keep doing repitions. Remember, if you don’t use a muscle, you’re going to loose it.
Another thing you want to do is keep from adding more fat on. This means cutting back on junk food… especially fast food: burgers, fries, soft drinks. They not only contain tons of calories, but also tons of fat, which get converted to a large amount of calories. And if you don’t use those calories right away, they’ll become fat.
Eating foods with more fiber also helps slow the amount of sugar that’s released into the blood at one time, and thus the amount that gets converted to fat. Stuff like real whole wheat bread (I like sprouted wheat by Alvarado St. Bakery), brown rice, or whole wheat pasta helps. It may take a little getting used to, though.
Sorry if I’m rambling… basically, it comes down to:
- Feel good about yourself, no matter what.
- Eat less sugar and sugar-filled foods
- Eat less simple-carbohydrates and starches (which get converted to sugar almost immediately)
- Eat more fiber and fiber-filled foods
- Eat more vegitables and legumes
- Increase your muscle mass
- Increase your aerobic excercise
- Drink lots of water
If you keep this up, you will loose fat. You may not necessarily loose weight; muscle weights more IIRC. Plus, muscle is more shapely looking. The main problem is being consistent and not cheating. It’s often helpful to get someone to do this along with you. (I’m doing it with my fiancee.) You also have to find ways to make it exciting… do a variety of excersices. For me, boredom is the greatest threat to consistenancy.
My fiancee and I have changed our lifestyle to this about a year and a half ago. We haven’t lost much weight, but we have lost fat! Her thighs, hips, and waist are thinner and my face and stomach are thinner. We’ve measured to be sure :}
I wish you the best of luck and hope everything goes well!
You’ve gotten lots of good advice here, Kriss. I echo the comments that everyone has made about not beating yourself up over your weight.
My one real critique of what you’ve gotten started with is that it looks like it probably took you about 10 minutes for this workout. That’s a good start, and is certainly better than no exercise at all, but that amount of exercise is not going to show noticeable results any time soon.
The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that we all exercise 3 to 5 days a week, for 15 to 60 minutes of continuous aerobic activity at an intensity level of about 60 - 90 % of our maximal heart rate. (I won’t go into the heart rate thing here — on a perceived exertion scale, that would translate to working “somewhat hard” to “very, very hard.”) For those trying to lose weight, the duration of the exercise is considered more important than the intensity — that is, try to make your workouts longer and more frequent.
You might want to start with a 20 minute walk, and then add on the situps, crunches, etc. If you feel like adding in some brief intervals of running during your walk, that’s fine, too. How do you know if you’re working hard enough? Take the talk test. If you can carry on a conversation while walking without gasping for breath between words, you’re probably doing OK. (On the other hand, if you’re able to sing an aria, you’re not working hard enough, and you need to pick up the pace.) As you get in better shape, you can make your walks longer.
Don’t be surprised if your shins start burning when you begin a walking program. That is VERY common. The tibialis anterior, the muscle you use to flex your foot and lift up your toes when you walk, is not really used much in any other activity. Consequently, when you start asking it to really work by doing a lot more (or faster) walking that you’re used to, it will start complaining. As you walk more, though it will strengthen and stop being a problem. (In the meantime, if it bothers you while you’re out walking, try turning around and walking backwards a little bit if you’re in a place that it is safe to do so. This works your legs in an entirely different way and lets that muscle relax.)
When you start out any workout, be sure you warm up slowly first. Spend the first 5 minutes or so moving at a fairly slow pace, so your muscles can wake up and be prepared to work hard. This, along with stretching at the end of your workout, will help prevent injury.
Here are a couple of sites I like:
This site has some really good articles on exercise, and has a free newsletter you can subscribe to. I don’t think you need the supplements they sell, but their info is excellent. Look under Free Tools/Newsletter to see some back issues of their newsletters.
This site has lots of info on walking. Its forum has a lot of other people in the same boat you are, too.
Good luck!
The most important things are not to worry very much about your weight and not to expect to lose a lot of weight very quickly. Different people have different metabolic rates, meaning that some will lose weight faster than others. I’ve been running for about three months and have only lost about ten pounds. The important thing is that you feel better. I started out being able to run only about 3/4 mile before I had to slow down to a walk. Now I can go up to 3 miles. My friends are challenging me to run a 10,000 meter race this summer, but I still haven’t decided. Be sure to stretch properly before running. The great thing about running is that it gives you a huge sense of accomplishment every time that you reach a new distance.
And no, those pills are not necessary as long as the rest of your diet is well-balanced. You don’t have to completly eliminate high-fat foods such as ice cream, just try to not eat them at every meal.