I have lost a considerable amount of weight in a short period of time without exercise, but I'm thinking about adding in moderate exercise to help speed up the weight loss a bit more. I just took a 15 minute or so walk, which isn't much, but I have hardly exercised a day in my life. Even when I was at a more normal weight, I couldn't run because I was so out of shape. I mostly sit all day--literally ALL DAY, from when I wake up to when I go to sleep, and have done this for years. It's very hard for me to exercise because I get out of breath so easily and get unbearably tired after very minimal amounts of moving around.
This being said, I have a few questions that would be easier to ask in a list:
How long does it take to work up to walking for longer periods of time? Should I expect to only be able to walk for 15 minutes for a few months, or maybe a week or two?
Does adding in moderate amounts of exercise improve health and weight loss, especially for somebody who has gone most of their life being completely sedentary? I read online a few moments ago that walking for short periods of time does pretty much nothing, but I guess it does help me work my way up.
My upper arms are a HUGE problem area. What can I do to tone them and prevent loose, sagging skin? Lifting small weights every day?
Thank you to anyone you can help. Please keep in mind I am a complete novice to any type of exercise and doing too much is difficult. I just want to know how to work my way up to doing more.
1: Every situation and person is different, but you should know that even if you can only walk 15 minutes now, you'll improve in time. Everyone moves at their own pace. If you commit to walking there will be a time when you think "hey, I wonder if I can walk for 30, 45, an hour."
2: Yes! How could it not? It's good for you and you may become addicted. Plus any exercise means calorie burning greater than if you were sitting.
3: You might have some loose skin no matter what since you aim to lose 155 lbs. However, lifting small weights (perhaps even building up to heavier ones) and eventually introducing pushups and other things will help.
I hope you do follow through with exercise, first for you for loss but even more important than pounds lost but for a healtheir you. It will positively affect everything in your life, sleep/hormones balance/sugar/blood pressure, greatly reduce heart disease/cancer! I too lost about 45 lbs through nutrition changes alone and then in January of this year I knew I had to find something to get passionate about. Tried out running and it worked for me!
Ohh, what you're describing is so familiar to me--even down to the big upper arms.
When I started walking in late October, I got out of breath after half a block (about a quarter of a mile, in my neighborhood). I now walk about a mile to a mile and a half, depending on the weather, before I start feeling a little winded. The improvement was a matter of weeks, not months. However, it was still gradual--an extra eighth or tenth of a mile per day that I could go without panting--so you might get a little frustrated with yourself some days as I did. Don't let it get you down--just keep walking and your stamina will improve.
Even minimal exercise makes a HUGE difference in how you feel. Anyone who claims there's no benefit to shorter or less intense exercise sessions hasn't had to carry an extra sixty, eight, or hundred-plus pounds throughout every move they make during a day.
Before I started taking better care of myself and moving more a couple of months ago, I...well, this is embarrassing, but I was SO lazy. Sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, laundry--all that stuff got pushed aside until it was an absolute necessity because I found it physically tougher than I cared to admit (even to myself).
Now I kind of enjoy cleaning the house; it gives me a feeling of accomplishment, not a feeling of "Oh geez, I'm going to pass out on this freshly-mopped floor." I walk to the grocery store half a mile away if I'm only buying a few things. I was able to help my husband move our heavy TV around with relative ease. I can carry in more groceries.
There are literally dozens of things I find easier during the course of a week now that I am in better shape--and this is only slightly better shape so far. I've only been at it for a couple of months and lost sixteen pounds, so I'll only improve from here.
It's hard to say how much of a part exercise has played in my weight loss; I don't have a sedentary weight-loss span with which to compare it. But I can definitely say that it's improved my life more than I ever expected it to. I'd keep walking, lifting, and biking even if I completely let my eating go just because of how much I like the results.
I've read that you don't want to work the same set of muscles every day, but every other day is good (that extra day gives your muscles a chance to repair themselves and be 100% ready for your next workout). You can't really spot-reduce, as you know, but building up some muscle can help take up some of the slack skin.
I've come to terms with the fact that I will probably embrace long sleeves for the rest of my life. There are worse fates.
Thank you guys for the information, it really helped a lot.
Nola Celeste: I'd love to be able to wear sleeveless dresses or spaghetti straps in public without being embarrassed, but I know that probably won't ever happen. My upper arms are HUGE! I'd probably look 20 times smaller if I could slice the hanging fat and skin off of my arms! I'm glad to hear that the walking gets easier fairly quickly. It would be discouraging if I walked every day for two months and would still get tired after 15 minutes. I'm going to make a commitment to walk regularly for a month and see where that gets me. I'm also in the process of looking for a job, so I'm sure being on my feet a lot at work will help tremendously.
I also know how you feel about normal every day tasks being tiring. I've actually felt myself feeling a bit tired after raising my arms above my head to wash my hair in the shower (super embarrassing to admit!!). I need to get into better shape but sometimes it's discouraging.
I was not in a state, even at 360 lbs, where I got winded much from walking, unless it was uphill, but I have always been relatively active. I couldn't run, though, when I first started, more than a few steps before feeling like I was dying. I just kept at it, a little further every day, and tonight I did a 1.75 mile loop, ran the first 1.25 and walked the last .5
I'm a big walking fan.
Back at the end of May, even the walk into town to do the shopping (30 mins round trip) left me with aching hips and back for the rest of the day. If I want to eat/feed the dogs/clean the house, I don't have any options, though, there aren't any local shops, so I just plugged away at it. One day it wasn't so bad. One day it felt good. One day I had to double the distance to get to the bank. One day I positively enjoyed it.
It's not that calorie-intense but it certainly burns more than just sitting there; and for me too, it's spilled over into the housework, I just have more general energy.
In about ten months, I've gone from getting winded and worn out walking less than a mile to being able to walk 9-10 miles and I'm revving up to do a half-marathon in January. If you just keep at it, that 15 minute walk will become a breeze in no time and you'll be moving onto 20 minutes, 30 minutes, etc. Every person is different, so the timeline will really depend on you, but just keep up with that 15 minutes and once it starts to feel less difficult, see how you feel with 20.
You will definitely notice a difference with walking, and your body will start to want to go longer distances. I started with 30 minute walks around my neighborhood, and am up to about 50 now. Some days I just want to keep moving so I find an extra street to go down, take an extra loop around the Common, etc.
Same with the weights, start small and increase. I am up to 10 pound hand weights at home. Also, exercises where you are using your body weight like pushups or yoga will help. And losing weight all over. You can't tone fat, so you've got to get that off so that they muscles you've been building can pop out!
Thank you guys for the information, it really helped a lot.
Nola Celeste: I'd love to be able to wear sleeveless dresses or spaghetti straps in public without being embarrassed, but I know that probably won't ever happen. My upper arms are HUGE! I'd probably look 20 times smaller if I could slice the hanging fat and skin off of my arms! I'm glad to hear that the walking gets easier fairly quickly. It would be discouraging if I walked every day for two months and would still get tired after 15 minutes. I'm going to make a commitment to walk regularly for a month and see where that gets me. I'm also in the process of looking for a job, so I'm sure being on my feet a lot at work will help tremendously.
I also know how you feel about normal every day tasks being tiring. I've actually felt myself feeling a bit tired after raising my arms above my head to wash my hair in the shower (super embarrassing to admit!!). I need to get into better shape but sometimes it's discouraging.
Don't give up on those arms!! I have never liked my arms, even when I was thin! But I had never lifted weights before either. When I was a size three in college I looked horrible in sleeveless things. Now, not quite a size three, I am so proud of my arms! I love to show them off. I am more proud of them than I am my waist and I've always had that hour glass shape. It's about lifting, and I like to lift heavy. Light works too with high reps. I personally like a mixture, but I detest the word "light". Maybe "medium". I never lift "light". I lift something that is doable but which really stresses the muscle by the 20th rep.
I separate exercise from weight loss. I diet for weight loss and I exercise for health. So are there health benefits from walking? Absolutely! Within just one month of exercising I had brought down my blood pressure, blood sugar and resting heart rate significantly! And like Nola, household tasks became a breeze.
You'll know how fast and how much to build your program. Walk out your door each morning with a goal. Sometimes that goal will be to do exactly what you did the last session. And sometimes that goal will be to increase distance, speed or both. You'll know. And don't be afraid. Try to use perceived exertion and make sure you are exerting yourself each time. If it becomes easy, and it will, you must change it up to continue to improve.
When I started exercising, I could only do about 5 minutes at a time--so I did that twice a day, every day. I inched it up in tiny increments, but pretty steadily--once every couple weeks, but only a minute or two. Eventually I got to where I was exercising an hour at a time, twice a day, plus weights every other day (I've dialed it back because we are in the midst of infertility treatments).
There are huge benefits to starting an exercise program, many of which have already been explained. But I want to add one more: it's an investment.
The exercise you are doing right now may not be burning that many calories. Early on in a diet, especially when one is very heavy and out of shape, it is MUCH easier to cut another 100 calories out than to burn an extra 100. But, as you lose weight and build stamina, that balance changes.
I'll put that in terms of numbers: when I was 300 pounds, my maintenance calories were around 2500 with no exercise. Pretty easy to cut that down to 2000 calories and feel satisfied. But at that point, exercising off 500 calories would have been simply impossible: I'd have fallen over dead before I reached that point. The extra 100 calories or so I was burning was a drop in the bucket compared to the diet portion. I doubt I would have seen any change in my weight loss if I'd quit.
Now, I weigh 160. Using the same site, my maintenance calories are 1700 with little/no exercise. Cutting 500 calories out of that would leave me at 1200, which is pretty tough to stick to: your choices are really limited and you can't socialize and you're hungry all the time. But now, after a year or more, I can burn 500 calories a day without much pain. My exercise is now responsible for most of my calorie deficit. If I couldn't exercise now--because I didn't have the stamina it took months to build--my weight loss would be SO SLOW. And starting exercise now would have felt like starting over: it would have disrupted my diet plans instead of growing as part of them.
This has huge implications for maintenance. My exercise routine gives me 500 extra calories a day. That's the difference between surviving and living. With exercise, I maintain on 2300 or so. That means I can save a few calories throughout the week, and on the weekend there can be cake and ice cream. There can be enchiladas. There can be alcohol. This week, there can be Christmas dinner. Long-term maintainers tend to be daily exercisers, and I am convinced it is this little extra room that exercise gives one, because that little extra room makes all the difference in the world when you realize this isn't a phase, this is the rest of your life.
So exercise now as a gift to your future self. Right now, the most important thing is to establish the routine and build your stamina. Make it something you do every day like you brush your teeth or let the dog out. Don't worry about doing it perfect, and don't push yourself so hard that you are miserable. Just get used to it and build it slowly, oh so slowly.
As far as basic "how tos", I spent a lot of time watching Youtube videos. There are tons of them about everything from walking to weight lifting to pilates. They aren't all equally good: I watched a ton more than I actually tried to do, and came away with a good understanding of the underlying ideas. If you try something and you can't do it yet (pilates and running, for me), put it aside and come back to it in a few months. Don't let a specific failed experiment derail everything.
Sway to the music. It will work your core muscles. Exercise does get easier. Just get over the initial hump of fear...you can do it, no matter how long it takes you. The benefits are enormous in body and mind.
When I started exercising, I could only do about 5 minutes at a time--so I did that twice a day, every day. I inched it up in tiny increments, but pretty steadily--once every couple weeks, but only a minute or two. Eventually I got to where I was exercising an hour at a time, twice a day, plus weights every other day (I've dialed it back because we are in the midst of infertility treatments).
There are huge benefits to starting an exercise program, many of which have already been explained. But I want to add one more: it's an investment.
The exercise you are doing right now may not be burning that many calories. Early on in a diet, especially when one is very heavy and out of shape, it is MUCH easier to cut another 100 calories out than to burn an extra 100. But, as you lose weight and build stamina, that balance changes.
I'll put that in terms of numbers: when I was 300 pounds, my maintenance calories were around 2500 with no exercise. Pretty easy to cut that down to 2000 calories and feel satisfied. But at that point, exercising off 500 calories would have been simply impossible: I'd have fallen over dead before I reached that point. The extra 100 calories or so I was burning was a drop in the bucket compared to the diet portion. I doubt I would have seen any change in my weight loss if I'd quit.
Now, I weigh 160. Using the same site, my maintenance calories are 1700 with little/no exercise. Cutting 500 calories out of that would leave me at 1200, which is pretty tough to stick to: your choices are really limited and you can't socialize and you're hungry all the time. But now, after a year or more, I can burn 500 calories a day without much pain. My exercise is now responsible for most of my calorie deficit. If I couldn't exercise now--because I didn't have the stamina it took months to build--my weight loss would be SO SLOW. And starting exercise now would have felt like starting over: it would have disrupted my diet plans instead of growing as part of them.
This has huge implications for maintenance. My exercise routine gives me 500 extra calories a day. That's the difference between surviving and living. With exercise, I maintain on 2300 or so. That means I can save a few calories throughout the week, and on the weekend there can be cake and ice cream. There can be enchiladas. There can be alcohol. This week, there can be Christmas dinner. Long-term maintainers tend to be daily exercisers, and I am convinced it is this little extra room that exercise gives one, because that little extra room makes all the difference in the world when you realize this isn't a phase, this is the rest of your life.
So exercise now as a gift to your future self. Right now, the most important thing is to establish the routine and build your stamina. Make it something you do every day like you brush your teeth or let the dog out. Don't worry about doing it perfect, and don't push yourself so hard that you are miserable. Just get used to it and build it slowly, oh so slowly.
As far as basic "how tos", I spent a lot of time watching Youtube videos. There are tons of them about everything from walking to weight lifting to pilates. They aren't all equally good: I watched a ton more than I actually tried to do, and came away with a good understanding of the underlying ideas. If you try something and you can't do it yet (pilates and running, for me), put it aside and come back to it in a few months. Don't let a specific failed experiment derail everything.
I feel like this post should be a sticky. This is really great advice.
How long does it take to work up to walking for longer periods of time? Should I expect to only be able to walk for 15 minutes for a few months, or maybe a week or two?
Does adding in moderate amounts of exercise improve health and weight loss, especially for somebody who has gone most of their life being completely sedentary? I read online a few moments ago that walking for short periods of time does pretty much nothing, but I guess it does help me work my way up.
My upper arms are a HUGE problem area. What can I do to tone them and prevent loose, sagging skin? Lifting small weights every day?
Gread posts here.
I agree about the investment, and separating exercise from weight loss. I feel like the good exercise does for my body has been wonderful.
I'd say the amount of time it will take you to build stamina will depend on several things, the shape you're in now, the amount of effort you put into it, and your persistence being three. My experience was that persistence made a big difference. The more persistent I was, making a habit out of whatever routine I developed, the better I did. I walked by distance to start rather than time: 6 blocks, then a mile, etc.
My upper arms are big too. I work with weights and it has really changed the shape and look of my arms and shoulders and chest area.
I consider it an overall process, getting the eating and diet to a good healthy place, getting my exercise and activity levels to a good place, and thinking about my health in total.
find exercises that you enjoy doing, and try new stuff, machines or activities. what suits your lifestyle and personality. those elements will help you stick with it over time.
Walking to speed up weight loss
I never lift "light". I lift something that is doable but which really stresses the muscle by the 20th rep.
