Losing weight with limited options?

[Rooskie1993]

Ok so I am looking to lose more weight but can only do two things right now because of recently coming out of hospital, the two things I can do is.

Walk around my neighborhood or walk up and down my stairs, I was wondering if walking up and down my stairs a lot would be the same as walking around my neighborhood?

[Tradewind]

Why not both?! Mix it up a bit. Walking around the neighborhood probably more enjoyable though.

Stairs are generally more work over a similar period of time.

[Gestopft]

Stairs will help build more leg strength, but will be harder on your knees if you do it too much. You'll have to be more specific as to the nature of your hospital visit and why your options are so limited.

With what sounds like limited mobility, most of your weight loss will have to come from proper dieting. Count your calories; be honest with yourself, keep a deficit, and you'll start shedding some weight.

[Blueobelisk]

If you're physically hurt then don't exercise, just diet.

[The One Percent]

Burn more calories than you consume.

[Tradewind]

Burn more calories than you consume.

* just don't eat less than you need to function.

[MannDuo]

As long as you stick to a decent, well balanced diet, then there is no reason you can't lose weight over time from just walking around the neighbourhood.

As stated above though, mix it up a little!

[cynedin]

Some general considerations:

Excercise
While walking up and down stairs would expend energy faster, I'd say walking around your block for an hour a day could provide more beneficial and less tedious. Avoid strenuous time on a stair walk exercise as it puts strain on parts of your body not used to continuous stair climbing at the outset. You'd also be getting out more.

Diet
Diet and exercise go hand in hand - from experience I've found you can eat whatever you want, as long as you don't eat too much, otherwise you'll have a lot of extra energy being stored as fat if not expended (carbs to glycogen to fat and what-not). That being said, it's still a good choice to avoid heavy carb meals all throughout the day - you should mix it up.

I'm no expert, so take the information as you will, but it's worked for me.

[Rooskie1993]

eh diet and stuff is fine ive been losing weight for about a year now just had personal stuff that i had to have surgery for and doctor said i can only do walking so those are my 2 options really for a few weeks until I recover and can go back to the gym.

[Terridon]

Stairs will help build more leg strength, but will be harder on your knees if you do it too much. You'll have to be more specific as to the nature of your hospital visit and why your options are so limited.

With what sounds like limited mobility, most of your weight loss will have to come from proper dieting. Count your calories; be honest with yourself, keep a deficit, and you'll start shedding some weight.

Was going to say about the same as this. Specially if you're overweight it can be hard on you, so normal walking around is probably the best for you. Besides it's more fun to walk around outside, than find some stairs and walk up and down of them, making it easier to go on.

Apart from that it's about food.

[Taffer]

You should definitely make sure that "only walking" actually includes prolonged periods of stairclimbing before you set out to do it. Doing little to no exercise for a few weeks is a much better experience than overdoing it and needing more time to recover, or, worst case, even needing additional trips to the hospital.

[Notorious]

It's excellent that you are starting to exercise, go for it! However it has very little impact on actual weightloss, it's about calories in vs calories out.

[Puupi]

If you are injured or had a surgical operation, I wouldn't suggest any kind of dieting. I'm not a doctor, but it doesn't sound right that when you are recovering from an injury/surgery you are starving your body.

When you are recovering, you should definitely eat more than usual so your body has the building blocks and energy to heal itself.

[Blueobelisk]

If you are injured or had a surgical operation, I wouldn't suggest any kind of dieting. I'm not a doctor, but it doesn't sound right that when you are recovering from an injury/surgery you are starving your body.

When you are recovering, you should definitely eat more than usual so your body has the building blocks and energy to heal itself.

I'm not trying to be offensive but its probably likely the OP had a heart attack? In which case when I say diet, I don't mean starve yourself, I mean switch to healthy foods.

Again, I suggest against exercising if you did have a heart attack. Minor, and I mean MINOR cardio like very light walking may be appropriate, but you wouldn't want to risk raising your heart rate too high or you could have another heart attack.

Would be easier if I knew what you were in the hospital for.

[Deleted]

If you're only out of the gym for a couple of weeks, just don't worry about it too much. Obviously stick to a healthy diet and go for short walks when you feel like it, but don't stress about it too much. Since you've been losing weight for a while now, you should be familiar with how to deal with a period of less exercise.

[Adsertif]

You don't work out to lose weight, you expend more energy (calories) than you consume from food. It helps dieting be more comfortable because you can eat a little more, but you are going to need to cut out food if you want to lose weight.

[Zantera]

What you eat is really more important than how you work out to be honest.

[Rooskie1993]

People really didn't understand this thread at all, and I already said I have been dieting for over a year now, I don't need people to answer with it's about calories in vs out etc etc.

[Frozenbeef]

I did the stairs thing and all it did was cause my knees to make clicky noises when they bend :S I would suggest walking would be easier on the knees due to less impact >.<

[Deleted]

In terms of cardio excercise yes is almost the same. Climbing the stairs is a bit more challenging to your leg muscles, they have to lift your upper body against gravity and stabilize more. Pay attention to hips, knees and ankles tho