Need tips for beginning exercise and weight loss

[Deleted]

Ok, so basically, playing wow and counterstrike for the best part of the last 9-10 years has taken its toll on my body (wow... i didn't realise it was that long until now).

I used to play rugby 2-3 times a week until around 3 years ago when I suffered a back injury at work. It tends to flare up from time to time but I always just try to deal with it. Unfortunately, Its not the case of just dealing with it when it comes to rugby . Since the injury, I have had close to 0 exercise other than walking and even then I dont walk that far, if its going to take more than 20 mins to walk, I will usually drive it (A habit I REALLY want to get out of).

I'm also on day 2 of my quit smoking plan. So I also figure this is a good time to start establishing some GOOD habits in my life.

Ok, so a bit of info....

Age: 23
Height: 6ft 1
Weight: about 19stone
Picture:
Eating habits: Cereal for breakfast. anything from wheatabix to coco-pops, Lunch usually a sandwich, instant noodles, a salad or some fruit. Dinner is usually something like a stir fry with a sweet + sour sauce, spag bol, fajita's, curry. all home made, rarely any take out food.

What else is needed to be known?: I have problems with my knee's. The doctor suspects its athuritis and im currently having tests and xrays for this. Either way, I still need to start exercising a lot more than I currently do and Just need some hints on how/where to get started and how to build it up over time. Also, I cannot afford to goto the gym, So any exercise has to be free ideally

Thanks!

[saberon]

Swimming is excellent, especially if you have a bad back/knees as it puts very little strain on them.

When you go walking, bring an Ipod and listen to music. It'll help reduce boredom, and it'll keep you distracted from any exhaustion you may be feeling, which will help you walk longer.

Drink plenty of water and stay away from pretty much everything else.

Don't hate your diet. Don't hate your exercise. Hating what you are doing is the quickest way to fail at it. Find an exercise/sport you enjoy doing. Eat foods that you enjoy eating. And, if you have a vice, by all means indulge it. I absolutely love chocolate, so once a week/few weeks, I'll go ahead and eat some. Sometimes I crave one of those ridiculously unhealthy donuts, and I'll go eat one. The trick is to do it sparingly, and to only have a little. It may mean that the weight-loss process takes a little longer, but you'll find it a hundred times easier to stick with your diet.

And most of all, don't give up. You can lose weight. You will lose weight. Don't let anyone, least of all yourself, tell you differently.

[backseattaxi]

Someone is going to come along and say it with me .. simple rule to follow to lose weight: Calories in < Calories out
Now it is likely you can eat your sugary cereals, your instant noodles and your sweet and sour sauce and lose the weight if you follow the above rule. But are these things doing your body good? Definitely not. Start getting some more veggies and less processed foods in your meals that will help you not only feel full longer, but will benefit your health in the long run. Your breakfast for instance, skip the cereal and replace it with *drum-roll* oatmeal. Not the instant crap either - the good old fashioned oats. There are many great tasting, healthy recipes that incorporate oatmeal; for example:

Strawberry toasted oatmeal yogurt parfait

• 1/3 cup oatmeal
• 2 tsp - 1 tbs honey
• 6-8 strawberries, sliced
• ½ cup greek yogurt

1. Toast oats by placing them on baking sheet in oven at 350°F for 10-15 minutes, stir occasionally. Remove from oven, place in bowl and coat in honey
2. In large glass, layer parfait starting with 1/3 of the yogurt at the bottom. Place 4 slices of strawberries on top and sprinkle on 1/3 of oats. Repeat layers until 3 layers are made.

Eggs of course can also be part of a healthy breakfast too - omelette with diced veggies, or 2 fried eggs served with a side of lightly sauteed veggies. In your salad for lunch, toss in some lean, cooked white chicken breast meat for protein or some tuna. I hope you're using whole grain bread for your sandwich! For supper, you should try to get more variety. By the looks of things, seems like you have a lot of rice. Some other sides you can have though are sweet potato NOT regular potato (I'd suggest limiting this to 1-2 times a week though), salad (if you didn't have it for lunch) or some yummy steamed veggies. Stay away from deep frying; opt for steaming and baking your foods in the oven as much as possible. I personally like to stay away from microwaves, but whatever works. Using the frying pan is okay if you use it properly without over cooking your food (keep the heat on low-medium) and/or drenching it with lots of oil.

Once you lose a good amount of weight I recommend following this guide more closely with your work out regimen:
http://static.greatist.com/cms/wp-co...-Nutrition.png

There is something in particular you should notice about the guide -it tells you what types of carbs you should be consuming and when depending on what your activity you're going to be doing. But you can save this for later on.

[KCguy]

Exercise regularly. If you can do some strength training great, but the most important thing is cardio, cardio, cardio and a healthy diet.

First let's look at the cardio. Ideally it's good to do at least 30 minutes - one hour of cardio a day. Start low and work your way up. You want to try and get to a heart rate of 150. That is a good level so you know you're at least trying. You can buy a monitor super cheap and strap it to your arm or whatever. There are many different kinds that clip wherever. If you aren't sweating, you aren't trying hard enough. Try and do cardio 5 days a week. So because you have knee problems, go for short walks to start. Because you have no gym try and do some push ups to start. If you can't do full pushups lay on your knees and do push ups. One push up or 50. It doesn't matter. Go to failure, that's all that matters.

For food, you want to try and eat fat burning foods. Meats like good quality steaks, lean beef, lean turkey slices, fish, eggs, almonds, tuna etc. For breads eat 100% whole grain bread.

Stay away from processed carbohydrates like pastas, sugary things like soda, chocolate, meats that have carb fillers and sugars, refined wheat bread etc) You want to eat 5-6 small meals a day.

And just try and stay on track. You will notice that if you really stick to it, the weight will melt away very fast at first. It's a normal thing. The plateau will come later on, but by then you will have lost some weight so you will stick with it. At least that's the goal.

[Seani]

It sounds like right now you need to focus on loosing weight. Take glucosamine for your joints, (basically crushed shellfish). I wouldnt focus on strength training just yet, because your muscles need glycogen (losts of carbohydrates) to support muscle growth. I myself am a strength trainer, and dont see much or any weight loss when im lifting for strength. If you have a bike use and go for 1-2 hours at a slow steady pace it, you should really consider joining a gym. I had the same problem you have now, when I severed my achilles tendon playing a prop (2nd row forward in rugby) I got up to about 290 lbs, and couldnt hardly do anything in the gym but work my upper body. I can give you some lifting tips if you like.

[Crutos]

For the exercise part, i can recommend moricestreet909 on youtube. This guy has some really great instructional home work out videos, and works for a company called Sixpackfactory. They even have a Diet program.

[Arcangnom]

I always believe in doing small adjustments, so right off the top of my head I would suggest you cut the calorie-heavy cereals like coco-pops and stick to the healthier ones. I'm no expert in food, but iirc instant noodles is very fat food, so you may want to completely cut it and stick to the healthier lunch-options you have. I can't comment on your dinner as I'm very far from an expert on diets.

[Deleted]

I added an answer, but it seems a "moderator" censored it : I'd like to know why.

[inboundpaper]

Do you have a local high school with a track? If you do then your golden. ( I am assuming that you do not have access to a pool)

If you have problems with your knees you are most likely better off walking ( I have crap knees and back problems as well, so running is not what I would do) . I would recommend walking/jogging a lap, then doing some push-up's/curl ups. Rinse and repeat until you have hit a goal with the totals of all three. Stretch afterwards, and drink lots of water.

^that's what I would do if I suddenly needed to exercise more.

Your diet is currently not to bad, If your goal is not to be super ripped, you can keep you diet mostly the same. If you drink soda, replace it with iced tea or something you can aquire a taste for.

[TheWhiteFang]

Once you lose a good amount of weight I recommend following this guide more closely with your work out regimen:
http://static.greatist.com/cms/wp-co...-Nutrition.png

That's a very simple and nice guide, cheers for sharing

[Osyrus]

This is coming from a thin/fit woman- 5'6" 120lbs.

Congratz on wanting to be healthy!

Dont think you are going to run a marathon next week. Go SLOW. If I could give any advice to anyone trying to become healthier- relax, and go SLOW with your exercises.

Dont do 50 situps. Start with 10 for a week. Sounds silly but that first day you work out so hard you can barely move you might not have the will power to keep going at this point. You might take a few days off...then a week...then you are stuck were you dont want to be.

Have a goal and chart it- Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will walk around the block.

And TREAT yourself once in awhile!!! walk to the store and buy a water and HIGH protein candy bar/ protein bars. Sounds silly but depriving yourself from something you like will cause you to crave it more and you might end up bindging on them. But eating something slightly more healthy then say a straight chocolate bar is better than nothing.

[Clevername]

Search around these forums and you'll basically see several of these threads repeated over and over. Good for you for choosing to become healthier but understand just making a choice is not enough you need to make this a serious commitment which will encompass how you allocate your time and view your eating choices. You need to get moving asap. I am a huge fan of cardio + weight training, I feel they go hand in hand to produce the best results. If you have joint problems go for the low impact stuff but still really push yourself. I love crossfit personally, the balance between olympic lifting / gymnastics and intense cardio keep me hooked. Also try yoga, I know it's not as popular with guys but attend one class and see if you're not drenched in sweat. If you are curious you can look into that further if not there are plenty other viable options out there.

Many on here for good reason will explain calorie counting etc. which definitely has merit but if you follow some basic guidelines you won't really have to watch calories super close :

1) lean proteins (grilled chicken, fish, eggs whites, lean cuts of beef) always go with grilled, boiled or baked frying is no longer an option, stay away from deli meats as they are loaded with fillers and sodium, the cheapest filler in this category is going to be your canned tuna (make sure it's in water not oil). Also avoid sauces on them, use salt sparingly if you need flavor go with your garlic powder, red wine vinegar, etc.

2) vegetables, raw, steamed or boiled go crazy as much as you want but again do not load them up with sauces / flavorings.

3) fruits, sparingly, yes they have nutrients but are also packed with sugar.

As for carbs, I generally avoid them to a large degree. I am not advocating this by any means, if you do need them in your diet to stay on it use them very sparingly your priority should be Protein > Veggies > Fruit / Carbs.

I am not trained or certified in any way but have been dieting / training for 15 years of my life. I find when you prioritize your health and give it the real attention it deserves the pounds fly off and the self esteem / general well being greatly improves.

[Fuzzzie]

I added an answer, but it seems a "moderator" censored it : I'd like to know why.

There haven't been any edits or deletes in this thread as far as I can tell.

[Deleted]

There haven't been any edits or deletes in this thread as far as I can tell.

Once posted, it was written that my message was awaiting a moderator's good will for it to be published.

I somehow manage to understand the roots of the decisions that lead to such a strong censorship on subjects like oslo's madman or Britania's looting, but on the fitness forum, it feels really weird.
Since MMOC is a great and popular website, I guess it's some kind of automatic ""control"" *cough*, but it feels really strange. Still, you conserve my trust (great news, isn't it ? )

For I'm in the middle of the same process that op starts, I guess the post will re-emerge by itself.

[Fuzzzie]

Once posted, it was written that my message was awaiting a moderator's good will for it to be published.

I somehow manage to understand the roots of the decisions that lead to such a strong censorship on subjects like oslo's madman or Britania's looting, but on the fitness forum, it feels really weird.
Since MMOC is a great and popular website, I guess it's some kind of automatic ""control"" *cough*, but it feels really strange. Still, you conserve my trust (great news, isn't it ? )

For I'm in the middle of the same process that op starts, I guess the post will re-emerge by itself.

I've checked and there are no moderated posts from you (or anybody) in any of the forums I mod. Even if someone deleted your post I could still see it.

If you find this happening often, PM an Admin such as Sunshine for more help. Sorry for your trouble.

[shoaib]

It sounds like right now you need to focus on loosing weight. Take glucosamine for your joints.if u not aford the jym there is no need of worry.u can maintan your fitness without jym.first of all i recomend u that dont tense and prepare your mind to make fitness.first you reset your food plane.take those dights which your body needs.dont take fat in great number. make habbit to daily walk after your dinner.take keen interest in your daily excersies. but take a suitable excersie which may not effect your back or knees.u need belly excersie daily to reduce belly fat.regularity ll change your fitness.u can achive your goal with regularity and interest.

---------- Post added 2013-02-20 at 09:20 AM ----------

It sounds like right now you need to focus on loosing weight. Take glucosamine for your joints.if u not aford the jym there is no need of worry.u can maintan your fitness without jym.first of all i recomend u that dont tense and prepare your mind to make fitness.first you reset your food plane.take those dights which your body needs.dont take fat in great number. make habbit to daily walk after your dinner.take keen interest in your daily excersies. but take a suitable excersie which may not effect your back or knees.u need belly excersie daily to reduce belly fat.regularity ll change your fitness.u can achive your goal with regularity and interest.












It sounds like right now you need to focus on loosing weight. Take glucosamine for your joints.if u not aford the jym there is no need of worry.u can maintan your fitness without jym.first of all i recomend u that dont tense and prepare your mind to make fitness.first you reset your food plane.take those dights which your body needs.dont take fat in great number. make habbit to daily walk after your dinner.take keen interest in your daily excersies. but take a suitable excersie which may not effect your back or knees.u need belly excersie daily to reduce belly fat.regularity ll change your fitness.u can achive your goal with regularity and interest.

[Kihaishii]

You should find a friend to exercise with. It's a lot easier to get going if you know someone else will be with you. And that way you can't go "Naaah, not today, cba!" because your friend will be waiting for you.

[Deleted]

Why bump a 1½ year old thread?