I know you can't outrun a bad diet but I'm curious as to when other people started exercising in terms of their weightless journey - I hear some people say they preferred to focus on the food first and others that say they started exercising right away. I'm doing low intensity cardio to ease myself into things right now as my landlord stores his gym equipment at my house so I have a home gym of sorts!
So, when did you start exercising and on reflection would you do it any differently?
Hi knoxie, cool that you have a home gym of sorts! I started exercising along with counting calories ...and I'm glad I did. The exercise stuck as a habit, overall, for about 20 years now. It was always not that much of a problem for me to do a workout, but controlling what I ate? that was the biggie. But the consistent exercise has kept me pretty limber and flexible, and I work in a kitchen or on the store floor for 8 hours a day, and my back never hurts. So I am a big believer in making the exercise a habit for life.
I did both at the same time and it worked out okay. I didn't want a VLC diet and I didn't want this to take 2 years. So, I planned on 500 cal food deficit and 500 cal exercise deficit per day. It worked very well. Good luck in whatever you decide. I am very glad I started exercising again - really makes a difference in ways other than to create a caloric deficit for me.
I started using a Nordictrack ski machine at week 47 or 48 at a weight of 142. By that point I had lost 60 lbs but losses were beginning to really slow down.
It took another 20 weeks to loose the remaining 12-14 pounds.
Biking then took me 5-6 lbs. beyond goal but lifting took me back up to my original goal weight.
All of the above speaks to exercise directed towards the goal of weight loss and does not include being active in sports throughout the entire journey.
Depends on which time (haha) but this latest weight loss attempt - I'll spare you the long story- I went about 6 months on diet alone before I added in exercise. And mentally the exercise isn't to lose weight- it's to get fit. I accept that I'm only going to lose with with diet.
I started it all at once... January 1st, 2017! I cut calories back to 1400 (now I like to fluctuate between 1400 and 1800). I started by walking 2-3 miles 5 days a week. I added Zumba mid January (4 days a week). I then cut Zumba down to 2 times a week and added Couch to 5k (jogging) 3 days a week and added a Pilates day. I have lost 41 pounds in 3 months.
I just started exercising "properly", with a friend that could very well be a trainer. I started gradually, cleaning up my diet and switching from vegentarian to vegan was the first step. That alone made me lose a bit of weight and feel a bit more energetic. I then focused on walking. Not just around the block, but walking everywhere. The first week was awful, but after a month, walking 15K seems like nothing. That number might be different for you, but to give you an idea, the first day I walked 10K steps, I was super sore the next morning.
Now I am doing Couch 2 5K. It's my dream to become a runner, so this program is perfect. You alternate running and walking until you can run for thirty minutes straight. Again, the first few workouts were awfully hard, but now I am seeing progress and feel motivated. I had knee pain and asked at my local running store what I could do, and they said strength training was the best solution. So this week I am starting a short circuit that I am adding to my Couch 2 5K (which I do first). I do 10 squats with a kettlebell (I'm at 15 lbs), 10 deadlifts with the kettlebell, 10 lady push ups (I can barely do them but I try), 10 tricep kickbacks, plank as long as I can hold it (my first was about 21 seconds, I'm at 40 now). My friend wants me to aim towards 6 sets, but doing 2 of them sometimes is all I need.
That said, all of this wasn't built in one day and I encourage you to find something you're motivated to do (it could be yoga, running one mile without stopping, rock climbing...possibilities are endless). Not for weight loss, but just a fitness goal you'd like to reach and taking steps for you to get there. Mine is running a 5K. That's it. Weight loss is great, but it's not enough motivation for me to go in the gym. I hope this helps and if you have any questions feel free to PM me!
I focused on food first and then my roommate at the time convinced me to buy a membership at the gym (There were 3 roommates total and we all went together). I've struggled to maintain going now that I've moved out but lately I've been doing much better and enjoy that I can eat a bit more.
I typically baseline myself at 30 minutes on the elliptical and like 10-20 minutes of whatever strength I'm doing for the day (arms/legs or abs) and usually whenever I finally manage to resolve myself to doing exercise I just push myself to the max and get into it.
So far I'm day 4 into going to the gym daily and I'm trying to beat (smash, really) my original best of going 12 days in a row. I'm trying to teach myself that even if I go to the gym and walk it's better than nothing!
I believe that everyone is different. You can lose weight without exercise. However exercise is very beneficial to your overall health and I believe it makes lose weight easier/faster. I believe in make one change at a time. I started exercising about 3 weeks after I started dieting. I was getting a good handle on portion control and eating the right foods and moved on to exercising.
For most of my life, I've been at a healthy weight. I've twice gained about 40-50 pounds. Both of the gains were primarily due to becoming inactive.
The first time I gained, it was about 10 years ago. I started losing weight by walking to and from work. After about 9 months, I dropped about 25 pounds mostly just from that. So for me, the exercise came first. I did get a little more mindful during that time about what I was eating, but I didn't change my diet all that much. My diet's never really been the problem for me. I can sometimes eat portions that are too large, but eating intuitively (so long as I'm also moderately active) lands me at a healthy weight. I only need to be strict with my diet for vanity pounds. Anyway, that other time the first 25 pounds pretty much fell off from walking. At that point, I also started playing around with calories and macros and more challenging exercise to get the remaining 20'ish pounds off at a quicker pace.
This time, I combined exercise with calorie restriction right from the start. Again, for exercise I was just walking at first. After two months, I lost about 10 pounds. Then I got badly anemic and couldn't exercise for a few months. I had a large gap where I mostly took a break from weight loss. Now I'm losing again with exercise and calorie counting. Calorie counting alone can never be enough for me to lose that much because it just doesn't create a large enough deficit for me, since my starting calorie base isn't all that high.
So it really depends a lot on where an individual is starting from.
I'm probably always going to need to remain vigilant about staying physically active.
Last edited by Chunkahlunkah; 08-04-2017 at 04:12 PM.
When did you start exercising?
