It kind of sucks tho because EVERY SINGLE time there is a thread about food or weight loss around here someone chimes in and says “I started walking a little bit and dropped 30 pounds. What is your problem, fatty?” or “I walk to work now and I lost 40 lbs and everyone who drives a car is a fat jerk.”
So apparently a bit of walking works for some. Or they think it does. One poster walks something like 7 miles a day and forgets to eat and seriously wonders why we’re all fat. Why can’t we just walk 7 miles a day and not eat too?
You’re welcome :). I’m sure you’re good on the fitness front but she’s cooking Paleo for a bunch of Celiacs with allergies…so I figured it would be a good source of recipe ideas at the least.
Totally agreed - people are indeed all different, and I never intended to make it sound like all you had to do was walk around the block every evening and you’d magically drop all your extra weight. I’m just trying to encourage people to start with a little bit of effort, and see how that goes (in my experience as an exercise hater, a little bit of effort has turned into a walking habit).
For me “exercising a lot” means that I’m training for an event. It’s frustrating when someone says “try walking across the parking lot” or “try taking the stairs” as though those are magic bullets. Those activities don’t hurt, but if I’m doing two short runs (3-5 miles), one long run (6-15 miles), and cross training 3+ days/week as well as just regular activity (I live in a walkable neighborhood and am luckily close to my workplace - walking is par for the course) and not seeing results, walking up a flight of stairs once a day is not a miracle cure.
It’s nice to have a place to vent about how clueless some are about other people’s weight loss efforts. I used to have a very small appetite and found the eating changes to be only a moderate challenge until I started taking a new BC. Now I can relate to what people mean by food addiction. It’s taken an already existing eating problem and made it seem like a Sisyphean ordeal. I can’t tell you how much I feel like I need food, like it’s the only thing in the world that can bring me pleasure. (That’s especially true when I’m depressed.) I’ve started fantasizing about food. I’ve started planning out secret binges (that thankfully I’m aware enough not to act upon.) Just one burst of hormone is apparently what transforms me from the average Fat American into someone at serious risk for developing an eating disorder. If I can experience this much variation within myself, you can bet I believe that such variation exists among the human population.
I’m trying something a bit radical by my own standards - the No S Diet. It’s pretty straightforward. No snacks, no sweets, no seconds, except on days that start with S. Theoretically you can eat whatever you want for breakfast, lunch and dinner as long as it fits on one plate. It’s meant to lead to long-term weight loss, nothing flashy or revolutionary, just an attempt at moderation in a world of excess. I’m on Day 3, and Day 2 ended with the lamest binge in history (4 chocolates, a nutrition shake, 7 crackers, and a piece of cheese - basically I ate everything in sight as fast as possible for about 10 minutes.) So I’m at a 50% failure rate so far, and feeling just fine about it. If I have the rest of my life to get the hang of this, I don’t really need to sweat a single day.
I like No S for a few reasons. First, research shows that the more you have to deliberate over a decision, the more likely you are to give into temptation and fail to reach your goals. No S removes the deliberation aspect. Is it Tuesday? Is it a sweet? Well, then I can’t have it. No more trying to juggle my calorie budget. Second, the structure makes problematic eating very obvious. When you’re counting calories, you can rationalize a lot of stupid eating decisions. With No S, ANY weekday eating outside of meals is problematic. Period. It made my binge so obviously a binge, which in any other diet plan could have been a ‘‘special treat’’ or ‘‘intuitive eating’’ or some other self-delusional B.S. Nope, I binged. I failed to stick to the plan. There’s a kind of liberation in having that much certainty about your own behavior.
I’ve been losing and regaining weight for years. I’m going to keep trying to find a way to make sustained lifestyle changes that lead to my overall health and well-being, but there’s a certain part of me that’s just sick of obsessing over the details. Man, I just don’t care anymore whether CrossFit is better than straight cardio or whether extra muscle mass burns fat or not, or whether I have to work out for an hour or 12 minutes. I like doing cardio and strength training, and I’m just going to do what I like doing.
Exactly. Now, what accounts for these differences? For some, it’s because their dietary habits don’t change, or because these habits change in the wrong direction. For others, it might be because they over-estimate their exertion level or the amount of exercise they put in. For some, they might have plateaued more quickly. For others… who knows?
As an general rule, I do still strongly believe that more strenous exercise is better. You only get what you put in, after all. I also think that most people can push harder than they realize, and that people typically hit the mental barriers to hard exercise long before they hit their physical limits. Does this mean that low-intensity exercise has no place, or that people can’t achieve results this way? Heavens, no.
Even if light activity had no weight loss benefit, there are many other very significant health benefits that make it worth it. Any level of activity is better than no activity. Here’s a cool video which covers some of the benefits from doing light activity:
I know health benefits can be good motivation to many people. Personally, I still can’t get as worked up about doing light exercise in order improve my cardiac health, as I can about doing moderate or heavy exercise in order to look good naked.
Son took me down to the port this afternoon and we walked along the bay. Admired the houseboats while he took pictures. Was mesmerized by the undulating water lapping the pilings. Pigeons were pretty and the gulls struck a pose.
But that was today. Tomorrow it’s around the block. I’m going to use my cane. Great for fending off dogs and actually walking with, I’m told. I’m not good at it. I’m like a grandaddy-long-legs with an extra appendage but I’m going to try to learn. (Have had it for fifteen years. Apparently it’s not biodegradable and I hate for things to go to waste.)
Walking is going to:
Make me happier and hopefully more interesting (depending on whether neighbors have left their garage doors up.)
Stengthen my back? I don’t know but anything would be an improvement.
Force me to use my legs. Having intermittent claudication means I could train for thirty years and still not be able to walk any further than I can now. But seeing’s how I can still walk, I want to.
Ate some food. An adequate amount, I think. I’m already telling myself I should enter the Mrs. America contest so my denial is still safely intact.
I like to look at all the houses and yards in my neighbourhood when I go walking - my neighbours never leave the garage doors up so I can snoop. The yards are a lot more interesting in summer, I have to say.
I just wanted to thank you for this post - I really will start running this weekend now, with this in mind!
I weighed myself again today, looks like my parents scales had been right with the 168lbs, because the good news is I’m now 167lbs, woo
Okay, so at least it’s heading in the correct direction, and I’ve heard that losing a pound or two a week is the sustainable way to keep it off, but I’m so annoyed that it had crept up that high in the first place!
Out of interest, to avoid self deception. Just been to the gym for a cardio day. Did 50 mins at 9.6k/h, avg heart rate 156. Is this low, medium or high effort in people’s views?
that would depend when in the 50 minutes you asked. At the start it’s nice and easy (heartrate in 130s/140s 10 minutes in) at the end it’s all I can do to continue (heartrate in 170s)
If you use the Rate of Perceived Exertion scale, 1-4 is light, 5-7 is moderate, and 7+ is hard.
1-4, you can hold a converstation. You can go at this rate for an hour or more.
5-7, you progressively get more and more out of breath until you can only string a couple of words toghether at a time. You can go at this rate for 30 - 60 minutes.
7-9, means you can’t speak and need to focus to maintain the momentum. You can mainatain this for about 5 - 20 minutes.
10 is all out, pure effort. You can only stay at this level for 30 - 60 seconds.
