What exercise should I be doing - a lot of weight to lose.

litup

Hi,

Age: 24

Sex: F

Height: 5'6

Weight: 17 stone 13 pounds.

I have finally admitted I am obese and need to sort my weight out. I have changed my diet dramatically (using weight watchers so I have something to 'stick with') and so far have lost 13 pounds in 3 weeks.

I am seriously unfit and so need to start slowly, I want to create a healthy lifestyle that is sustainable and not just a crash diet/training program.

I have started being more active generally (taking the stairs, walking to the train etc) and using a cross trainer at home 2/3 times a week (I can now do about 17 mins flat out).

What exercise would you recommend I should be doing?

tribulus

Just keep exercising tbh! Progress is the key though, it's not much use if in 2 months time you're still doing 17mins on the crosstrainer.

Every week try to go a bit further/faster/push harder in general, whtever exercise it is.

Best of luck

litup

Thanks tribulus. Thats exactly what I have been doing - when I first started I could barely manage 10 minutes slowly on the cross trainer, even a flight of stairs was a struggle!

I was just wondering is there something else I should be doing instead/as well as the cross trainer?

Cadrach

Sounds like a great start. Check back over threads here the past few months and you will find lots of advice. One thing I will mention is about sustainability. As you have seen, weight watchers, or indeed any positive change in the diet, is good at the start. But bear in mind that a diet which is predominately focused only on calorie counting might not lay down good long term habits. It might be worth posting your diet here to get better advice. Need to make sure that you're eating enough healthy food to form a balanced diet and to get your metabolism to speed up to meet the increased exercise you're doing.

mack1

First off - congratulations on deciding to make a change, and best of luck with it.

Second everything that trib said, dont worry about specific exercises etc, just keep doing what you're doing - adding a little each week. Dont forget to mix it up a bit too, your body gets used to an exercise and that exercise is less efficient for losing weight - so go for a brisk walk or cycle aswell.

For weightloss diet is key, I'm not a fan of things like weightwatchers etc but you do what you have to do - just make sure when the WW thing is over to keep eating clean, cut out sugary foods, eat lots of veg, keep the carbs low, get plenty of protein!

litup

I think weight watchers is working for me at the moment as it gives me a focus but they do focus on healthy eating as well as 'points counting' (at least at my meeting).

It also gives me something to work with while I am learning about healthy eating and nutrition - this site has been a big help with that - and obviously I have a lot to learn because I got into this state!

So basically I'm happy enough to stick with WW diet but am a bit lost on the exercise front as I have no framework to work at.

Anyway diet is usually:

Breakfast: Apple/bananna and handful of grapes or weetabix

Lunch: Ham sandwich or homemade veg soup and brown bread. Fruit

Dinner: Small portion of pasta with lean mince and tomato and veg sauce
or Chicken breast with veg or
veg omlette.

My downfall is still a few drinks at the weekend.

Hanley

Tbh the WW diet isn't as bad as everyone will probably make it out to be for your cause. Right now you wanna just focus on routine, relatively healthy eating with a calorie deficit to get the fat moving off ya.

Combine that with what Trib said and you're on the right track.

When you stop making progress, that's when it's time to get into a more specific plan of action.

yop

Best of luck with it lady, hard task for you but you are goin about it the right way.

WW is a good start because it will give you the encouragement of a goal to achieve and also the support of the meetings, if you have masses of will power though you could probably save yourself the money and not go.

Take a load of measurements now also, legs, arms, waist, gut, neck etc note them down and do the same again in a month. Seeing so many reductions not just the weight dropping will also encourage you.

As the lads said read the stickies here, they are excellent. Maybe reward yourself every few week (or week), takes the "pain" out of the diet.

Even setup a fitness log here to give you an extra kick and for encourgment.

ecoli

i would recommend if you get the bus to work/college try gettin off one or two stops early to walk the rest of the way it a good way for addition exercise without you feelin that it has to be so structured as it alot easier to exercise when it incorporated into every day life and jus try to get addition various exercise in when ya can durin the day

best of luck with it!!!!!!!

litup

Thanks for all the support folks.

Ecoli - the train station is just under 2 miles from where I live, so walking that far is enough of a challenge for now!

I will take on board all of your excellent advice and post back in a few weeks to let you know how I am getting on.

Thanks again.

MikeHoncho

Alot of people are very down on the WW thing but it really worked for me. I managed to lose 4 stone in about 6 months. What it does is to help you assign a value to what your eating. I dont count points anymore but I know what foods I should and shouldnt be eating and know what healthy alternatives I can have against the foods I crave (take aways etc). I have managed to keep most of the weight off and am now back in the gym to try and tone up a bit. I wish you all the best. Just make sure you attend the meetings every week and remember every small step is an achievement and they all build towards your ultimate goal.

Colm_OReilly

The benefit I've noticed from WW is the community support and advice, over the diet prescriptions. If you've a good leader who's passionate about helping people that will be the biggest gain you can get out of it.

litup,

PM sent.

litup

Hi folks, just wanted to let you all know how I am getting on and let you know that all of your advice does actually go towards a good cause!

I am still attending weight watchers meetings and took on board all of your great advice re exercise and am continuing to make progress.

My weight loss to date has been 41 pounds. Still a long way to go but I'm heading there and as I said, this is a change for life not just a crash diet.

While exercise is still a big effort (there is a lot of me to move around!) I have kept at it and continue to push myself further every day.

I am learning more about nutrition and diet (and how to cook!) and so I don't even have to actively 'point' for all my food anymore, my brain seems to have changed the way it think about food!

Thanks again for all the advice and support, I will report back again as things progess.

Trev M

41 pounds since mid october, super acheivement ! Congratulations.

Whats would say has been your biggest contributing factor to your success? Ya might aswell share your experience with us all eh?

Well done !

litup

Thanks Trev! It is actually since the start of Oct, when I first posted I had been in WW 2 weeks.

There was no one huge change, more like lots of little ones. I cut out the crap in my diet, started making dinners etc from scratch and eating more fruit. I find writing down what I am eating really helps control it.

I have generally become more active and walk pretty much everywhere now (within reason!). Then I either crosstrain or cycle a couple of times a week and do a little weight/resistance training. Nothing extreme really, but as I said, I want this to be sustainable.

Oh and water, water, water. As much of it as I can possibly get into me!

GerryRyan

As the others have already said - well done on making the choice and stick with it. I stumbled across an article on another site and remembered this thread - worth a read even if you're just taking a few ideas from it

http://www.t-nation.com/article/bodybuilding/complexes_for_fat_loss&cr=

flaka

Good job on WW!

I've had to reduce my exercise due to an injury so I've started focusing on diet to avoid putting on fat. I never really paid attention to what I ate as I was active enough not to have to worry about it.

I've gone from 3 meals a day (massive dinner at 9pm) to more smaller meals. I find I eat based on the time rather than when I'm hungry. I don't ever go being starving for hours anymore.

What I've learned is:
Eat more carbs in the morning and less in the evening

The carbs you eat in the morning should be low Gi - so they release over long time. Rather than releasing quickly sitting around not being burned and being stored.

Porridge & Bran Flakes are lower Gi than Weetabix. I vary breakfast between these three on different days - usually based on how late I am for work! Porridge takes longest to make, Bran Flakes take longest to eat!

Get some almonds or tub of mixed seeds and bring it to work. Good source of unsaturated fat - you want this and protein. I usually have a yogurt or fruit with me too.

Evening time - I'm doing more planning ahead and bring in a portion of previous day's dinner to eat about 4-5 pm. Then I eat again about 8-9pm.
People will probably say this is too late.


I've cut out high GI carbs from these meals - as I don't want an energy spike if I'm winding down.

Hardest thing for me was cutting sugar out of my tea off my weetabix and Foxes double chocolate biscuit after dinner (AKA meal #5)

I lost 2 pounds in a week and I was not doing any exercise - which is great as I'm trying to avoid putting any fat on.

I have a day where I don't care what I eat - its usually on the weekend.


Actually I've learned more cooking techniques and expanded my larder to include spices that I never knew existed. I guess I took ownership of my diet and turned it into something I enjoy planning, cooking and discovering.

I hope this gives you some ideas about what you can do to change eating routines.

Take what works for you, drop what doesn't.

randomer

Congrats OP. That is a really impressive achievement.

I definitely think, and you have shown, that diet is the incredibly importatnt when you have a lot of weight to lose. Exercise alone will not get the results you have achieved.

Keep up the good work!

litup

Thanks for the tips and support folks - more ideas to keep me going!

GerryRyan - that looks interesting, if a little technical for me! I will spend a bit of time reading it over the weekend to understand it better and try to put it into practice.

Flaka - some good tips in there, some I am already using such as the nuts and fruit. I will look at changing my breakfast to lower GI. I tried the smaller meals more often but found it took too much planning for me. I am better with 3 square meals and fruit and nuts in between (different strokes and all that!).

randomer - thanks! It is definitley a combination of both diet and exercise that is working for me, I think one without the other would be much slower in giving results.

rubadub

litup wrote: »

so far have lost 13 pounds in 3 weeks.

A lot of this is body fluids too as well as fat. When you start out weight loss can be dramatic. In the coming weeks it will be a lot slower, so do not get upset by that. In fact it could well go up, and that is fine too. Keep track of all the overall losses. If you even do go up say 2lb in the next 2 weeks, that is still 11lb lost in 5 weeks, which is very good.

You want to be aiming for 1-2lb weight loss per week from now on. I personally would recommend less, 0.5lb per week would be good, slower it comes off the more likely it is to stay off.

I would strongly suggest resistance training, this is excellent for fat loss, and very suited if you are not able for more aerobic exercise. By resistance I usually mean weight training, but bodyweight exercises are fine for the moment. Like body squats, and pushups. You can do pushups at an angle against a wall as you will need to develop strength first, and of course the extra body wieght you have will make them harder too. Try and find an angle at the wall where you can do 8-12 pushups at most, take a 1-2minute break and do another 8-12. You can do as many body squats as you can manage. One you are able for 8-12 you might want to hold some weight, this could be a few books or a container or water. Resistance training will increase your metabolism and make you stronger so more capable of doing things in daily life, lifting stuff, walking etc. Overweight people are in effect lifting weight around all day, it will help your walking ability.


The main issue I have with WW is that from what I hear it focuses on only weight. While doing resistance training you can be adding muscle and losing fat at the same rate, so it could be disheartening for people doing resistance training combined with WW, while in fact you could be making excellent fat loss progress. I was 12stone constant for well over a year but lost a lot of fat during that time.

Maybe take photos, and take measurements too, to track losses.

litup

Thanks rubadub. If you read the rest of the thread you can see that my original post was back in October and I have continued to lose weight since then at a slower rate.

As I said earlier I have also incorporated some resistance training into my excercise (thanks to Colm OReilly for the tips!) and have indeed found it very effective.

rubadub

litup wrote: »

Thanks rubadub. If you read the rest of the thread you can see that my original post was back in October and I have continued to lose weight since then at a slower rate.

Sorry, I got distracted and thought I had read it all! And thought it was all only posted today! daydreaming or something...

Good going on the weight loss, good to see you are taking a good sensible approach and no crash diets. The point/calorie counting does come second nature after a while.

litup

Hi folks,

Sorry to drag up an old thread but I just wanted to let you know how I'm getting on and make sure you realise how much the help the advice given out by members of this board is.

My weight loss to date has been 70 pounds. Still a way to go but I'm getting there and reading this forum (and nutrition and diet) has played a big part in helping me on my journey.

So thanks!

I will report back again as things progress.

Hanley

litup wrote: »

Hi folks,

Sorry to drag up an old thread but I just wanted to let you know how I'm getting on and make sure you realise how much the help the advice given out by members of this board is.

My weight loss to date has been 70 pounds. Still a way to go but I'm getting there and reading this forum (and nutrition and diet) has played a big part in helping me on my journey.

So thanks!

I will report back again as things progress.

Holy sh!t. That's incredible. Fair play to ya!!

I love hearing the success stories.

Fatloss08

5 stone wow " Im speechless " and not often im that

well done and stick with it , im jealous now

DéiseGirl

Well done litup, that is great work!! Very inspiring

littlefriend

Jesus, that is an incredible achievement - you should be delighted with yourself. Well done

tribulus

Well done, keep it up.

litup

Thanks a mil for all the kind words guys. I still have a way to go yet but will keep you all posted.

Pugsley

This forum made me lose 5 stone too, great feeling isn't it?

Graceland

Well done for losing so much weight.
I know how hard this can be. I've been on numerous diets for years but this time I think I've finally managed to do something. I've lost 2st 7lb so far. This is only my opinion - but I think the best way to lose weight is not to be too strict on a diet/exercise. I know a lot of people who think you can't eat anything decent and they only stay on the diet a very short time becaue they get bored. But I have my treats which keeps me going and I do a certain amount of exercise - I don't overdo exercise at all. I just take it nice and easy and so far it has paid off.
So good luck with the rest of it and stick with it, you are doing really well.

snickerpuss

Well done that's fantastic!

Caroline B

well done, a fantastic achievement and it's all down to you!

I used WW 8 years ago and lost 6 stone in total, and my weight has crept up only 1 stone since then, which I'm currently trying to lose (promised I'd do the marathon this year!)

Naturally slim people often underestimate just how difficult it is to lose the weight, and even overweight friends do not believe I lost that much!

Keep on going litup, you're bloomin brilliant!!

rainbow kirby

Congratulations, that's really great!

*is jealous*

Roper

You've probably just lost Victoria Beckham in weight from yourself. That's incredible, well done!