I need help. I have made a decision that one year from now, I am going to play mas in Trinidad’s carnival. I turn 40 next year and I really want to do it before that.
Now to play mas, you have to wear a bikini and I am a self-confessed couch potato. I HATE exercise. I have been trying to eat healthier and I don’t think that my diet is too terrible but I do need to lose at least 30-40lbs. That’s doable in a year, right?
I plan on joining the gym at the end of the month (hence my earlier question about leaving my daughter home for an hour while I go to the gym).
Is it better to go to the gym in the morning or in the evening? What exercises should I be doing? Money is tight so a personal trainer is out of the question. I really dislike cardio like aerobics (I am very uncoordinated).
My main suggestion is simple: walk. If you have to go to the corner store, walk there. After dinner, take 15 minutes to walk around the block. Just this little change should help shake you out of your inertia and it will start you into burning calories (around 3 per minute, give or take) without it seeming like a bunch of yucchy exercise. Plus it’s free!
Exercise is great, it will help your weight loss and make you feel better. But, most weight is lost in the kitchen, not the gym. Exercise will help, but you can easily out eat the calories you burn in the gym.
I’d start by tracking what you eat, write everything down and calculate the calories you eat every day. Work on making better choices, portion control, and identifying which foods are filling and satisfying for you. This is what will help you lose significant weight and make the lifestyle changes that will allow you to keep it off.
I used Weight Watchers and lost 60 lbs in about 7 months. I was exercising a lot during that time and it helped, but it was the change in diet that really made the difference.
I agree that diet is more helpful for losing weight than exercise, although exercise can really help keep the weight off once you lose it, and both are important.
I have just started the South Beach diet (again) and am having good early progress. I did very well on weight watchers a few years ago, and think they also have an excellent program. I feel that I am getting to an age where carrying extra weight has fairly negative consequences, so feel quite motivated to make changes and keep the weight off.
I have been following a ketogenic diet for a little over a month and have dropped about 20 lb. I highly recommend it. It’s fairly simple, avoid carbs (starches and sugars), eat plenty of protein (about .75 gram per lb of your target weight), and eat fat to fill in the rest of your calories for the day (butter, fatty meats, olive oil, etc.). It is really simple to stay under my target calories for the day after I got adjusted to it (it took about 3 days of feeling slow and lethargic). Now my energy levels are higher then they ever were, I’m feeling healthy and alert for the first time in years, and dropping a lb or two every two or three days.
I really like playing video games and arguing on message boards. I could do it all day. Well, I did it all day a few years ago, and put on weight and got weak. I got sick of being weak and heavy and joined a gym. I went three or four times a week, for about an hour (I still do). I looked at it as the price I had to pay in order to spend as much free time at my computer as I liked. It worked. I lost weight and got stronger. I did treadmill for 20 minutes and lifted weights for 40.
I’m still overweight and I’m not a hardbody, but I am a LOT healthier than I was, and able to do what I need to physically, whenever I need to do it. You CAN be a couch potato, three or four hours a week at the gym is all it takes. Think of it as the price you have to pay for being able to do the things you enjoy most. Cause your body can’t handle just sitting there. It needs the exercise.
Oh, the people who are telling you to focus on diet? Nothing wrong with dieting, but it will not make you stronger and more fit, and MUCH harder to do than exercise. I’d advise just working carbs down over time.
I followed low carb off and on for about 10 years. Yes it worked, but I never found it liveable for life (for me).
I am now doing a plan called JUDDDD (Johnson’s Up Day Down Day Diet) and finding it to be fantastic. I do it a little different than the actual plan, but the essense is that you only diet every other day. So if you think you should be eating 1600 calories a day to lose weight, you eat 500-600 on Down Days, and 2600-2700 on Up Days. The semi-fasting on down days is tolerable, because you know that “tomorrow you can eat anything”.
It never feels like a neverending sludge of dieting, and I’ve been able to eat all my favorite foods, as long as it is on an up day.
The first couple weeks were hard getting used to the down days, but now I am 6 weeks in and they are easy. I belong to a support board for others doing this plan.
I’ve lost 10 pounds since January 1, which is great when you think that you’ve only “dieted” half of those days.
