I'm unemployed at the moment. Have been for three months. I sit on the couch and I eat. It's depressing.
When I was employed, I paid a personal trainer a lot of money to help whip me in to shape. Despite the fact that I worked out with her twice a week and was training for a marathon. I only lost 2 pounds in more than 3 months of constant working out and watching everything I ate.
Now that I'm unemployed I can't afford a personal trainer and have nothing better to do with my time than sit around and eat.
My way of thinking is: if I cant lose the weight with a personal trainer and working as hard as I did, why should I think working out on my own will have better results?
I guess what I need is some words of encouragement. I turn 23 on Tuesday and I don't want to spend another year overweight. I need discipline and I need commitment. I'm hoping you ladies can help me find it.
I have never had a personal trainer. I can't afford one. All I did was put on sneakers and start walking. This worked great for me. You can do it too, it doesn't take money to slim down. It just takes discipline and hard work. Good luck and I know you can do it.
Weight loss myth number 4: If I exercise alot I should lose weight.
Weight loss reality number 4: If a 150 lb woman exercises at a moderate rate for 30 minutes, she will burn enough calories to work off that glass and a half of orange juice she drank for breakfast.
Depressing? YES!!!!
I personally believe that weight loss is 80% diet, and 20% exercise (while weight MAINTENANCE is largely dependent on exercise!).
Really, really, REALLY take a long, hard look at what you are eating. This will, I think, determine your success. Combined with what Lillybelle suggests (who knows her s***, just check her success and her posts) with respect to walking every day, YOU WILL SUCCEED!!! I know you can do it without a personal trainer.
You don't say how many hours a week you spent working out, but I would be willing to bet that even though you weren't losing pounds you were losing inches. It is fairly common for people who start a strenuous exercise program to not lose weight at first, or even to gain weight, because they are putting on a lot of muscle, and muscle is denser (weighs more) than a similar volume of fat. Putting on muscle is a good thing, even if the scale is not showing any weight loss, because you are losing fat and replacing it with muscle. This means that your body fat percentage is going down, even if the number on the scale isn't. Plus that muscle uses about 8 times as many calories as the same amount of fat, even if you're just sitting still, because muscle is more metabolically active than fat.
So basically, if you stick with it, eventually you will see a weight loss. (I'm assuming here that you are, as you said, watching what you eat.)
I don't think many of the people on here can actually afford a personal trainer. Walking, as Lilybelle said, is good exercise. A lot of people use workout videos. I work out at Curves, which costs some money but not a great deal, and it has given me good results.
Don't get discouraged. You can do it! Just make a commitment to stay on a weight loss plan for 6 months. What do you have to lose? Even if you don't lose any weight (which I doubt), you will probably be more healthy than you are now, and at worst, you won't be any worse off than you are now.
I have to agree that weight loss is mostly about diet, not exercise. The only exercise I do is walking. Walking my dog a few times a day. I lost 46 pounds in less than 4 months by simply cutting back calories and walking the dog. Don't worry so much about having a personal trainer, you can do this all by yourself and the best part is, you can do it anytime you can fit in a walk.
I agree, you can do it by yourself. All of my weight loss has been achieved by cutting my calorie intake and exercising for an hour a day. I am about the same age as yourself and for the last three months I have been on a plateau. It is so discouraging, but I continue in the knowin that one day soon that plateau will shift and I will start loosing again. I must admit tho I havent been very strict in recent weeks. I have had the odd biscuit and chocolate bars. Im going to push hard for the coming weeks. If you like feel free to add me to messenger if you need someone to chat to.
Quarter Life Crisis
