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Yup the hardest thing is the easiest thing in theory.
Just eat less, less calories than you are used to.
That's how that one teacher was able to lose weight and have a healthier blood profile despite eating nothing but McDonald's everyday. Even though he ate at McDonald's, he ate total fewer calories than he used to.
Unfortunately many people in America seem to have been 'conditioned' to eat until their stomach feels like bursting. And then keep eating more. So eating less is hard to stick to.
As has been said, reducing calories is the most important factor in losing weight. Exercise burns calories, but not as many as you can eat. It takes about 15 minutes of vigorousexercise to burn off a 12-oz regular soda, thirty minutes for a small candy bar. Much easier not to have eaten it in the first place.
But the body is designed to hold on to fat--just in case this year is a bad harvest and a long winter--so if you do nothing but cut calories, your body will reduce your metabolism to conserve calories. If you reduce calories too much, your body will even burn muscle to conserve fat. Anorexic people who doen't exercise are often thin--but still "overfat" because their bodies have burned as much or more muscle than fat.
That's where exercise comes in to keep your metabolism high.
I'll add, too, that at 37 your body has switched to an "old" mode of a permanently reduced metabolism that makes it much harder to lose fat and gain muscle than it was when you were younger. For me, it was like someone flipped a switch when I was about 32. For the most part, forget about gaining muscle--it becomes incredibly harder to build muscle in your late 30s and older. But exercise still works to keep your metabolism up...you'll just have to do more than a younger person.
Exercise, though, has two other purposes. One is to improve your cardiac fitness--build a strong heart. The other is to improve your overall strength. So you're exercising for three very important reasons, with cardiac fitness and overall strength being more important than losing fat alone.
One thing that has worked wonders for me is the constant use of a heart rate monitor. I use it for all exercise, including weight training. The heart rate monitor tells me when to start another set. When my heart rate after a set has dropped to the point that it "bounces," it's time for the next set.
I never do cardio without my heartrate monitor. Eventually you learn how your heart responds to various levels of exercise even to the point that you can see when adrenaline kicks in, then again when serotonin kicks in.
It's one way I can tell when I'm ready to start exercising after a cold--if your body is suffering internal stress, you'll see it as a difference (usually thready or rapid)--in your usual heart rate response to exercise.
The most important thing, though, is that your heart rate will tell you the difference between working hard and merely breathing hard.
Slowly realizing this now and this is what's really biting me in the rear when it comes to the weight loss part of things.
At the risk of having to go through the whole OverEaters Anonymous and whatnot, controlling the food-addiction is going to be a big part of the prolonged, and renewed fight to get things back in gear.
And while I like cardio, I keep hearing some muscle training is a must.
But with all the machines and free weights being crowded up by these wannabe MMA guys who like to do things primarily for the sake of getting laid, it's time to find others ways to get that done as well.
That and any advice either asked for, or forcefully given by people in the weight room tells me that they would rather have everyone looking the same(ie,. over-muscled, chiseled) than just plain healthy and able to fit into normal clothes.
Overall when it comes to being healthy, I'm an introverted person and would much rather keep it that way.
But the easiest and hardest thing to do right now is the food part.
Once that's out of the way, I'll figure the rest out again.
Bentstrider - how are you doing with this? I hope your path to better health is going well.
I know it's easier when you are overweight to find people that will berate and shame you, but I want to assure you that you can beat overeating, and you canbe 'the fit and healthy guy'. It's incredibly hard for anyone that has not been overweight, or struggled with overeating to really understand what it is like.
I used to be a compulsive overeater/binge eater, and spent 15 years cycling from fad/crash/starvation diets that initially cause huge weight loss but are not realistic in the long term, to the inevitable binges that follow as your body and willpower deplete...
As a 5ft 7" woman, I went from a skinny-fat 138lbs (zero muscle!) at the bottom end of the strict diet cycle, to 185lbs at the other side (still no muscle!), several times over.
I am now around 156lbs* but with a decent amount of muscle, heading into my 3rd year of healthy lifestyle, after deciding I wanted off that train. (*And to be honest, I have long since abandoned scale numbers in favour of how my clothes feel, and how I look). I have competed in several crossfit competitions, rowed up the River Thames and can do all these things that 5-years ago me would never have believed, and this has really helped my mindset - where I used to think of myself as someone that 'wasn't really into sports' and labelled myself as 'someone that will always be a bit fat', I now think of myself as athletic and healthy, and that is very powerful.
You absolutely CAN do this. Mindset > motivation > action.
(And in answer to the original question - going from zero exercise, pretty much any and all exercise you can do with help you lose weight - just move, sweat and raise your heart rate. Worry about specific programmes once you are a little way down the line).
Best equipment is your own MOUTH how you eat what you eat depend on gain weight or lose weight. Take a balance meal move a lot. And take it easy. All the best !!!!!!
Bentstrider - how are you doing with this? I hope your path to better health is going well.
I know it's easier when you are overweight to find people that will berate and shame you, but I want to assure you that you can beat overeating, and you canbe 'the fit and healthy guy'. It's incredibly hard for anyone that has not been overweight, or struggled with overeating to really understand what it is like.
I used to be a compulsive overeater/binge eater, and spent 15 years cycling from fad/crash/starvation diets that initially cause huge weight loss but are not realistic in the long term, to the inevitable binges that follow as your body and willpower deplete...
As a 5ft 7" woman, I went from a skinny-fat 138lbs (zero muscle!) at the bottom end of the strict diet cycle, to 185lbs at the other side (still no muscle!), several times over.
I am now around 156lbs* but with a decent amount of muscle, heading into my 3rd year of healthy lifestyle, after deciding I wanted off that train. (*And to be honest, I have long since abandoned scale numbers in favour of how my clothes feel, and how I look). I have competed in several crossfit competitions, rowed up the River Thames and can do all these things that 5-years ago me would never have believed, and this has really helped my mindset - where I used to think of myself as someone that 'wasn't really into sports' and labelled myself as 'someone that will always be a bit fat', I now think of myself as athletic and healthy, and that is very powerful.
You absolutely CAN do this. Mindset > motivation > action.
(And in answer to the original question - going from zero exercise, pretty much any and all exercise you can do with help you lose weight - just move, sweat and raise your heart rate. Worry about specific programmes once you are a little way down the line).
Nothing wrong with being the "fit and healthy guy".
If I can get myself back down to that level and stay there, that'll be more than enough for me.
Triathlons and other extroverted sports events are okay if you're into that sort of thing.
But, then comments will go from weight/body related, and back over to "hey, that a-hole is participating again."
Don't like crowds and if I am talking to somebody, it's only with the hope that person "goes away".
So yeah I could train and get fit for that, but I'll be that "loner participant" that people become afraid of.
I've got a commercial drivers license to keep up as well and that means making sure my blood pressure and such always stays within the allowed levels in order to keep my medical card up.
As far as getting back on track, my work schedule is still too unpredictable to get into any sort of habit.
I'm already in the process of trying to get transferred, or getting a job with more uniform hours(as opposed to the different start/end times I have each day right now) in order to make this happen.
Once I've got that down, I'll start owning this thing.
Once again it's all about getting healthy and remaining that way.
Not talking to people, or getting dragged into all the other assorted things that one would expect to happen when becoming physically active.
Changing the way your eat through a low carb/sugar diet will be the fastest and most effective way to loose weight. Building muscles through heavy weight lifting will help you burn it off and look better too, but you are mostly going to have to change your diet.
Good luck! :-)
A variety of high intensity exercise bikes aimed at people looking to get fit. a 15 minutes session is equivalent to a 45 minutes run.
Make it fun. Exercise should bring an element of joy to your daily life. Listen to upbeat music; reward yourself with a relaxing bath. Don't take exercise too seriously. You just need to go out and play.
I lost 5 kilos by using the exercise bike 4 times a week and not changing their diet over 5 weeks.
Read this stayhealthyblog.com/equipment/best-exercise-bike-reviews
and choose a bike for yourself.
Exercise/Diet in losing weight is simply about calories in and calories expended. Often normal exercise say on treadmill for 30 minutes walking is about 400 calories or a little over one normal glazed donut. Better for your heart and muscle tone than loss of weight.
There is no single piece of equipment that's best. Doing a variety is the best. Free weights, resistance, and various cardio, also floor exercises - abs, core, etc. I do about 2.5 hours a week cardio (spin bike, treadmill, elliptical, rowing machine, jump rope) and about 3 hours muscle-building routines. I'm a 61 year old female.
You're exactly right. Changing your routine is key, and doing a combination of strength and cardio training is also essential. The cardio helps you burn fat; the strength training helps you gain muscle. And as always, eat clean. You can't outexercise a bad diet, but you can easily wreck the best exercise regimen in the world with a crappy diet. Diet is 80%+ of your weight loss formula.
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