Working out OR Dieting vs Working out AND Dieting...
DOUBLE POST!
OMG ladies...what a bad eating day for me. Geez, it was a cataclysmic fail. Wow. BUT I am on my way to the gym and I am praying that I will see a lower number on the scales in the morning.
I really want to start an eating program that is structured but everytime I put restrictions on my eating my mind says "F*ck you, I do what I wanna do" and I end up eating whatever I see. When I'm not worried about eating "diet foods" I generally eat healthfully with a few extras tossed in at the end of the day. Example:
Normal eating day for me:
Breakfast: Kashi, oatmeal, or a engl muf w/ PB, starting to do egg whites in the morning too (I can microwave them at work!)
Snack: string cheese, piece of fruit, or a fiber bar
Lunch: Fake ham sandwhich with tons of veggies, slice of cheese and pita chips or a big salad usually w/ lite italian or just lemon juice.
Snack: Almonds and craisins, mmmmm
Dinner: This is where **** gets ridiculous sometimes. I haven't been cooking since I moved. Dinner usually consist of some kind of pasta dish (bad pasta) and almost never consist of veggies. This is always the point where I kill my day.
Eating the above menu has helped me maintain a 15 pound weight loss from last spring but I think not exercising has kept me stuck...
QUESTION:
- Is it worth it to exercise without dieting? I definitely think so but I think at this point I need to make up in my head and focus on one thing at a time - eating right or working out and I think I should focus first on working out.
I think I just figured it out. Gonna focus on JUST working out for a week and see how it goes. This will keep me from throwing the whole towel in if I slip up and cheat on the eating.
If you're eating the way that you listed, your portions are under control, etc. you may be able to lose weight from working out and not changing your eating habits. However, the scale will definitely move faster if you do both. I've read and heard that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise... diet is a huge part! But I think your normal eating habits are good. Maybe you can tweak one thing at a time. Make it a priority to cook at least twice a week for awhile. Then make a new goal to have at least 2 veggies with your dinner. Make small changes. Doing things a little at a time may help your mind and body stay on track rather than rebelling like you say it has in the past.
Well, i have also been thinking about this-- after about a month of recommitting to counting calories/points, and doing pretty well but with the scale going NOWHERE i was getting really frustrated and also starting to feel really terrible about myself and in an unhealthy frame of mind, as of tomorrow I will be booting up the exercise a lot and just focusing on trying to eat sensibly. I am the same as you- bad sweet tooth and whenever i tell myself no, i just want to eat junk more. So i am going to try and focus on getting in shape (which certainly is a goal i also need to achieve) so i'll let you know how it goes :-)
I just started Mid-May. What works for me is making small changes at first. I was ready to commit to exercising, but not changing my food initially. After 6 weeks of working out consistently, I am now ready to do an overhaul on my eating. I'm tried of putting in all this work and not seeing as good results as I should. I also naturally found myself making small healthier changes with my eating, but nothing drastic.
So with just exercising, I"ve lost many inches, and it provided the motivation to start losing weight with all my effort to include food as well. I went from a 36dd to a d, and a 14/16 to a 12/14.....I absolutely believe that exercise is worth doing even if you're eating crap, but obviously, to really see results, changes in food is very very important.
I'm looking forward to eating even healthier and getting more energy, and feeling better, and continuing with exercise! However, if I would have started doing both at once, I likely would have felt overwhelmed, like it was too tough, and may not have stuck with it. If you're feeling ready to do both at once, go for it!! But if you're like me and want to dip your toes first, making small changes ANY small change is awesome!!
Last edited by pinkflower; 07-06-2010 at 02:36 PM.
If you arent losing weight, your body is not in a caloric deficit. Period.
Someones tagline says " You cant outexercise a poor diet"
That's nelie's signature, I love it. It's a constant reminder that just because I'm working out, that doesn't mean I should go eat whatever I want.
If you feel you can only do one, I would choose exercise but also exercising portion control with foods if your not going to watch what specific foods you eat.
But that's just the way my body works, and that has worked for me (But now I eat healthy and watch portion control )
Echoing a lot of pinkflower said, for me exercise is super important and has done wonders for my weight loss journey.
After a year of pretty much no commiment to neither eating well nor exercising, I gained about 15 lbs back from my total weight loss. Around mid-May for me as well, I decided to rededicate myself back to getting healthy, both physically and mentally. The truth was that I felt like crap.
For me the transformation really began when I decided to start running again. In my case, I have a very clear tendency to binge, especially when I'm feeling down. As much as I had tried to stop the binging over the course of my "year off", I couldn't do it for the life of me. However, when I started exercising and feeling stronger, I began to realize that my eating habits were changing as well. I stopped binging, then started counting calories, and then started concentrating on making sure I was eating the kinds of calories that would get me through an intense work out at the gym. Exercise made me feel STRONG and helped me to approach food with a healthier mindset.
With this being said, I didn't REALLY start to loose the weight until I started eating well and exercising. Eating right is so, so important. For me personally I can't maintain my good eating habits unless I'm doing some sort of exercise.
From my personal experience....and believe me I haave been at this a loooong time......DIET is close to 100%. I used to work out at least 3-4 times a week and kept my diet the same. Sometimes I even ate more cuz my mind told me that I was exercising so I needed the extra calories. Guess what happened? I put on weight! I was devastated.
Not until I started counting calories and watching my portions did the weight start to come off. I have lost 12lbs already and I started watching calories on May 20.
Just make small changes...try including a little veg, eating just a little less rice/pasta, instead of 2 pieces of chicken have 1.5 pieces and you will start to see results.
For me what I eat is UBER important to my weight loss. Once I have that in check I work out every day and taht actually keeps my energy up and my diet in check!
And girl I'll tell you that the South Beach Diet is how I lost ALL my weight in a couple of months before I got pregnant last year. It works for me and I'm hoping to be back to where I was in a couple of months and continue getting into shape again
I've been doing South Beach since March 1 with no excercising. I have lost 22pounds so far. So diet without excercise can work but I think I would look better with a combination. I'm smaller but things are still flabby.
Working out OR Dieting vs Working out AND Dieting...
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