every OTHER time i'd tried to lose weight it followed the same pattern - restrict everything good and exercise 5 days a week -- this time i went with the old saying that you're fool if you do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result -- that result being frustrated at not being able to do all i want right away, and quitting!
So this time I got my food under control, did a bit of therapy to get my head under control, and finally broke down the silly FEAR i had about exercise. It won't kill me, I don't have to love it, just like laundry and housework and washing windows - i don't have to love it, i just have to do it!!
I started with Walk Away the Pounds vids and could get thru 10 minutes before wanting to pass out - but did another 5 because i think you need to push yourself a BIT, and it got better and better and better!
I am one of those people who never really knows just how to adjust my diet without feeling completely deprived, so for me, the exercising just made sense. I had been sedentary for so long that I knew I needed to get up and get moving to motivate myself. It has been hard, but I truly believe it has made all the difference this time, that I got off my butt and forced myself to move every single day. Making BETTER food choices, rather than dieting, has been easier now that I'm excercising every day.
When I started, I just promised myself I would avoid binging on bad stuff, take one less scoop of the food I eat (because I know I over eat) and I would move every day. It felt like a decent compromise. As time has gone on, it's easier to eat less overall, make better food decisions overall, and the moving every day keeps motivating me to work harder.
Had I chosen to do one at a time, I think it would have been a lot easier to backslide into my bad habits.
I started with food but tried to be conscious to add movement whenever possible, but not necessarily 'exercise'.
I'm 5 1/2 weeks solid with a 14 lb loss, which I am happy about but ready to see iches go too, so I recently got paperwork for a gym mebership and loaded my Netflix Que with fitness DVDs.
Last time I was serious about weight loss (2 years ago), I lost by eating an incredibly strict diet - it was all I could do to just focus on what I was supposed to be eating, I walked occasionally but did not incorporate any other activity. I lost 30 pounds and I felt great but didn't actually LOOK any different. SO, lesson learned. I KNOW I have to focus on working out as much as food, but I'm glad I took at least a few weeks to just get into the routine of planning, preparing and counting.
It was both for me. After a few years of not working out and eating total crap, one morning I woke up and I was over it. That day I got up went to the gym at my apartment complex and vowed to eat better and stop drinking soda. I was consuming a 6 pack + a day of dr. pepper. I slowly weened myself off the soda and added fruits and veggies to my diet. Then I cut out fast food. Then I added whole grains instead of plain white bread. Then I started regularly eating breakfast. It's a process. I workout 5-6 days a week, working out keeps me motivated to eat healthy because if I workout and don't eat healthy the workout is wasted (in my opinion). So putting two and two together really helped me.
When I started, I was in extremely poor health. I had applied for disability because I was unable to work because of the symptoms (mostly because I couldn't stay awake or concentrate on any task for more than a few minutes at a time. I'd get distracted and fall asleep at my desk - almost narcoleptic. Reading emails at my desk, a task that would take 5 minutes only months earlier, would take more than an hour, because the information wasn't sinking in. I'd have to read an email three or four times to absorb it's meaning).
You could say that I started with both diet and exercise, but you could also say that I started with neither, because my first changes were so small.
If you define dieting as eating less or eating better, and exercise as moving more - then I did both. But most people wouldn't consider my changes to have been large enough to call either. Stretching during a commercial, trying to walk a few steps further than I had before (I bought a step counting pedometer, and every day wrote down the number of steps at the end of the day).
Initially, weight loss wasn't my primary goal. I knew I'd failed so many times in the past, that I wasn't confident that I could make big changes, so I made small ones. I made changes I was willing to stick with forever whether or not it resulted in weight loss. I was pretty pessimistic about my ability to lose weight, but I thought with every pound that I could at least keep off whatever I had lost and maybe "just one more." For me, the specific health improvements I needed were more important than weight loss itself. I knew that finding a way to prevent giving up was more important than the specific weight loss. For the first two years I lost no weight, but I did make amazing health improvements. If I had been only concerned with weight, I would have given up and wouldn't have seen those improvements. Ironically, taking weight loss off the "first priority" table, I've been able to lose more than I ever did dieting to lose weight. Weight loss was the reward, not the goal. And weight loss wasn't the only reward (in fact, it's been the least important one. Losing almost 90 lbs is an amazing acheivement for me. I've never lost so much, or continued losing so long, but it doesn't impress me nearly as much as the other changes, the improvement in strength, stamina and immune function, and the decrease in pain, fatigue, and asthma attacks).
It's been slower weight loss, but much happier weight loss.
I am at the point that I have to diet, rather than just make small changes. And I focus more on diet than exercise, but I don't really call exercise "exercise," I call it "play." I do find ways to play more.
I love swimming and water exercise, but I need to use the warm water therapy pool. In the winter I don't go as often, as I have more health issues in the winter.
I love animals, and hate walking with no purpose, so in the past (even before this current weight loss attempt) I have volunteered as a dog-walker (Since my balance has worsened, and since a bad experience with walking a dog too strong for me to control, I've hesitated to go back, even though I know I could choose only to walk the tiny dogs. This spring, when there's no snow on the ground, I want to go back).
I love my stability ball. I don't really "exercise" on it. I sit on it. Sometimes I put on my headphones and sway back and forth on it to the music. It doesn't feel like exercise. I'll even use it while I'm at the computer (not today, because I'm having a pain flare, and I lack the balance. I don't want to fall on my butt, so I'll save it for a day I have better balance).
The first time I used the stability ball, sitting on it was so fun, I watched tv on it for about two hours. I could barely walk the next day. I was using calf and thigh muscles without realizing it.
I know I've rambled as usual, but I think that there are so many different ways and places to start that it's interesting and all to hear where everyone else started, but in the scheme of things it doesn't matter where you start as long as you start and keep going. Whatever you need to do to keep doing, that's what you need to do.
I jumped right in and started exercising and trying to eat healthy all at once. Now I realize I probably took on too much, because I have major food setbacks often. I'd say sort out your food first and not focus so much on exercise. Maybe exercise about 20-30 minutes 3 days a week to start out, but put most your effort into planning your meals and snacks. My biggest issue is snacking.
In the past, I always started with diet first and then later tried to add in exercise (because it's not my favourite thing to get moving). I always did okay with the weightloss part without exercise, but usually at about 3-4 months of being on plan, I'd get bored and fall of the calorie-counting and exercising bandwagon.
I'm currently on-plan for the longest consistent period I've ever been i.e. 7months. And I can say the difference this time has been EXERCISE! I haven't lost weight as fast, but I've lost inches faster, but that's not even the point. What I did was, I started watching my portions, whilst eating the same things, but not necessary calorie counting. Then I started exercising with a goal-oriented program. I did C25k and 30 Day Shred at the same time, both of which were time-bound programs. So I told myself, as long as I finished them, I never had to do any exercise again. I did C25K on a treadmill and I found it HARD!!! But after the 20-30 minute workout, I'd look at the calorie burned value on the treadmill and it'd be like I'd burned like 150 calories or something... and everyone knows that workout machines tend to give overly generous estimates. I could have cried!
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that exercise has kept me on plan. It has given me a whole new perspective on what a calorie is and what it takes to burn one and has definitely made me more sensitive to what goes into my mouth. If I'm tempted to have 2 servings of a treat, it definitely makes me put one back down, or makes me think of how that will affect my plans for dinner etc. Exercise has made me stricter with myself and sticking to plan. For me, if I can be on plan with exercise, it's usually easier for me to stay on plan with food.
Thanks for the replies guys! it's really helped me a lot. i guess i'll just take it as it comes and try not to get so disheartened so easily lol. I love aqua aerobics but we don't have it up here (i've moved) I think i'll get myself an Exercycle and start on that (with my hip problems and all)
I like how a couple of you said that you started with just the food first and as you lost weight you just moved more, which really does make sense. Being this big is trying at the best of times lol
I'll get there! i'm really happy i found this forum as well. Such great advice and support.
You can add me to the "sort out the food first" camp. I was about 3 months and 30 lbs in before I started a very mild walking program. Just at the beginning of January (8 months in) have I now started really amping up my exercise, and it was because I was feeling so much better without as much extra weight and was actually ready for a challenge. I am already feeling GREAT about the exercising, it has become almost like an anti-anxiety drug for me. I literally feel like I'm burning off excess nervous energy (which I tend to have a lot of). I'm loving it, but I do think it's because I took my time working up to it and didn't pressure myself. Doing it because I WANT to!
hi guys when you frist started your weight loss journey did you exercise right away or did you just try and sort out your food first? I'm really struggling this time around, like REALLY struggling. I feel like maybe if i just focus on teh food first, and then exercise a bit after? will i still lose weight? i'm thinking of doing shakes as well. i can't get out of this food binge thing i do..
I did exercise at my known heaviest ( 278 ) and it was HARD. I went about 2.5 miles on the treadmill, and I've worked my way up since then. I am now addicted to exercise. I need physical movement daily or I start to feel sluggish if I miss a day.
I'm not very far along. But I've made a million false starts. And with most of those I tried to do exercise and food from the brining. The thing was that I found when I would skip out on workouts ( which would start to happen after a week or two, with out fail) I started eating worse too. I think I felt like 'well I didn't work out I might as well binge, today is already a failure' kind of the opposite of what everyone else has been saying about not wanting their work outs to go to wast. I have a very negative all or nothing streak. So this time I thought I should seperate the two. Try to get out of that mindset. Make eating healthy a habit so that when I do start to incorporate exercise, and I miss a work out, which I inevitably will, it won't throw me off completely. so I guess what I'm getting at is if you think it'll be beneficial for you to start with food. Then go for it.
I didn't do 'real' (moderate or heavy, scheduled) cardio for the first 5-6 months, actually. My weight loss was steady, great, and I concentrated on my new food restriction. I did cut my calories quite militantly, but if you have a lot to lose, enough to be feeling like you are in the 100 lb club, then you should see steady loss without exercise -- for now. I did try to move more, walk, introduce "floor exercises" (pushups, etc), even dance during the first half-year. For tone and to get fit for real exercise. Besides the reasons everyone listed for not exercising at first, I suppose I was also was intimidated by the gym and wanted results before I invested in a $200 piece of home equipment.
At 50 lbs down I celebrated with a re-vamping of what I was doing, and a re-commitment to the next 6 months (this was probably also the time I got it in my head that I'd lose 100 in exactly a year...). I bought an exercise bike and started a moderate-to-heavy routine 6 days/week. I also joined 3fc then. A few months later, I bought hand weights.
Now I can't live without exercise, but I think I did what I had to do, for me. If I had change something, I think I could've gotten the weights sooner, actually. The weights were 3fc's influence.
I also was all about the math and the weight losss results as my primary goal, so even though I cared about other aspects of health, they were more slowly introduced. My foods changed. I stopped eating WW yogurts and low-fat snack packs and now crave spinach, greek yogurt, beans ...
When people extol the virtues of exercise re: weight loss and health, I couldn't agree more. And I came to exercise a lot. I still do. But sometimes I really feel our culture overemphasizes exercise to those who are just starting out and have a lot to lose.
I have seen people who have a lot to lose tie it up in one big bow and then lag on food when they miss workouts. Conversely, I know that it's easy to overestimate one's caloric burn and thus overeat.
I'm not talking about on these boards so much -- would have to stop and evaluate that one -- more, in my own family. If you want to master the food intake first ... then I think that's perfectly okay. You should want to move a lot and be overall as healthy as you can right now, but you don't want to burn a couple hundred calories a day at the expense of a greater eating deficit.
i'm thinking of doing shakes as well. i can't get out of this food binge thing i do..
