I am a chronic yoyo dieter. I have lost and gained 3.5stone to about 5.5stone at least five times in life. (1 stone is 14lbs)...
I've never kept it off! I have to make a confession. I hate exercise. Any form of it. Gym, walking, anything at all...I've never done it.
I am now back at top weight (about 85kg!!) and I'm really in a very downward spiral. I feel horrible about myself as last year at this time I was at goal weight (about 68kg). I'm 5'7" and a mom of two, aged 40.
Being reasonable about it, I can do the diet thing (have proven that)...I did it relatively healthily (WeightWatchers, lowfat, low carb, low GI) before but I really never got the full benefit as I had flabb thinness. I want to be fit. Fit and healthy.
Where would you suggest I start. Honestly, I cannot even walk up the stairs without getting winded. I am totally muscularly and cardiowise UNFIT.
I don't have money to start with a personal trainer at the moment, though it's something I could likely benefit from. I have bought a few work out tapes, but I seriously lack the consistency to stick with it.
Please help if you can! I know I sound pathetic and hopeless, but I really am ready to do this right this time.
Can you help?
Is there any hope for me?
Moderators: Boss Man, cassiegose
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cassiegose
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- Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 6:06 pm
- Location: Prineville Oregon
Hi there,
A couple of things (and I'm going to be completely honest here so please don't take offense).....
1) There is absolutely 100% hope for you if you are absolutely 100% willing to make and maintain permanent lifestyle changes. The first step is believing that you can make these changes the next step is figuring out how to go about it. If you go into this doubting yourself and your ability to succeed then you are setting yourself up for failure. DO NOT give yourself an option to fail this time.
2) The reason that you yo yo diet and continualy lose and gain your weight is because you haven't found a healthy diet that you can realistically maintain for the rest of your life. This is not about temporary diets and weight loss... this is about PERMANENT healthy lifestyle changes. A starvation diet is not realistic. Eating 1200 calories a day is not realistic. Putting a point value on every single food that you put in your mouth is not realistic. You need to adopt a healthy diet and you will be able to keep that weight off.
3) Have you ever been in good physical condition? The kind of physical condition where you can go run 5 miles, bust out 100 jumping jacks, do 20 REAL pushups... If you've never been in good physical condition then it makes sense that you don't like it. I'm going to be totally honest with you, the process of trying to get into shape SUCKS, however once you get to the point where you are starting to see improvement you will learn to enjoy working out. If you're going to lose this weight and keep it off YOU MUST MUST MUST exercise regularly. There is simply no way around it. And, if youre going to exercise you have to give yourself a month or two to give it an honest chance. It will be hard at first but it will get easier. I promise you that. It is going to hurt, youre going to be sore and tired and you're probably going to want to give up. MAKE yourself exercise atleast 4 days a week for one month and I guarantee you will start to enjoy exercising.
Ok, what does your current diet look like? For working out, luckily you don't need a trainer. You can get started on your own perfectly fine without one. For your workouts, I would recommend 4-5 days a week of exercise. You MUST do both cardio and weights for best results.
For cardio... walking, hiking, swimming, walking up stairs, jogging, jumping rope, bicycling... all of these are great exercises.
For weights... do you belong to a gym? You can do a lot of exercises with just your own bodyweight. Pushups (pushups on your knees are fine if you can't do a real one), dips, lunges, squats, pull ups and inverted rows can all be done using body weight. If you're just starting out you might have a hard time with the pullups. You can always grab some weights and do some row variations and military press to work your back. If you're not sure how to do the exercises, go to shapefit.com to the exercises section. The site has a wide variety of lifts and shows how to do them so you can see the proper form.
Your workout schedule could look something like this:
Monday: weights
tuesday: cardio
wednesday: weights
Thursday: cardio
friday: weights
saturday cardio
sunday: off
or you could do
monday: weights
tuesday: cardio
wednesday: off
thursday: weights
friday: cardio
saturday: off
sunday: weights
monday: cardio.... and so forth
I hope I haven't overloaded you here.... Let me know what you think and we'll go from there...
I hope this helps!
Cassie :)
A couple of things (and I'm going to be completely honest here so please don't take offense).....
1) There is absolutely 100% hope for you if you are absolutely 100% willing to make and maintain permanent lifestyle changes. The first step is believing that you can make these changes the next step is figuring out how to go about it. If you go into this doubting yourself and your ability to succeed then you are setting yourself up for failure. DO NOT give yourself an option to fail this time.
2) The reason that you yo yo diet and continualy lose and gain your weight is because you haven't found a healthy diet that you can realistically maintain for the rest of your life. This is not about temporary diets and weight loss... this is about PERMANENT healthy lifestyle changes. A starvation diet is not realistic. Eating 1200 calories a day is not realistic. Putting a point value on every single food that you put in your mouth is not realistic. You need to adopt a healthy diet and you will be able to keep that weight off.
3) Have you ever been in good physical condition? The kind of physical condition where you can go run 5 miles, bust out 100 jumping jacks, do 20 REAL pushups... If you've never been in good physical condition then it makes sense that you don't like it. I'm going to be totally honest with you, the process of trying to get into shape SUCKS, however once you get to the point where you are starting to see improvement you will learn to enjoy working out. If you're going to lose this weight and keep it off YOU MUST MUST MUST exercise regularly. There is simply no way around it. And, if youre going to exercise you have to give yourself a month or two to give it an honest chance. It will be hard at first but it will get easier. I promise you that. It is going to hurt, youre going to be sore and tired and you're probably going to want to give up. MAKE yourself exercise atleast 4 days a week for one month and I guarantee you will start to enjoy exercising.
Ok, what does your current diet look like? For working out, luckily you don't need a trainer. You can get started on your own perfectly fine without one. For your workouts, I would recommend 4-5 days a week of exercise. You MUST do both cardio and weights for best results.
For cardio... walking, hiking, swimming, walking up stairs, jogging, jumping rope, bicycling... all of these are great exercises.
For weights... do you belong to a gym? You can do a lot of exercises with just your own bodyweight. Pushups (pushups on your knees are fine if you can't do a real one), dips, lunges, squats, pull ups and inverted rows can all be done using body weight. If you're just starting out you might have a hard time with the pullups. You can always grab some weights and do some row variations and military press to work your back. If you're not sure how to do the exercises, go to shapefit.com to the exercises section. The site has a wide variety of lifts and shows how to do them so you can see the proper form.
Your workout schedule could look something like this:
Monday: weights
tuesday: cardio
wednesday: weights
Thursday: cardio
friday: weights
saturday cardio
sunday: off
or you could do
monday: weights
tuesday: cardio
wednesday: off
thursday: weights
friday: cardio
saturday: off
sunday: weights
monday: cardio.... and so forth
I hope I haven't overloaded you here.... Let me know what you think and we'll go from there...
I hope this helps!
Cassie :)
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PandorasVise
- HIGH FLYER
- Posts: 443
- Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:15 am
Of course you have hope, you just have to have the right fit. If you were in shape to do whatever sport you wanted, what looks like it would be a blast to do? Vollyball? Tennis? Skiing? Waterskiing? Dare to dream and pick...now find out how to get a taste of it. Some big girls get ashamed of themselves, think people are looking at them when they are doing skinny people things. Well they are, except for the very few rude vocal people, everyone else is thinking "Good for her!"
kids were finally old enough that I didn't need to watch them every second of the day, so I tried tennis three years ago. 240 pounds of a blond blob running about the court. I was so winded but I had so much fun. I kept going back. Last year I had third season of tennis and even joined the local tounament, lost, but had so much fun.
After that I couldn't stop, now I cross country ski as soon as there is enough snow, hike, climb boulders, play with the kids, mountain biking, all the things I wanted to do but thought I was too fat.
Here is where it gets scary, I like to sweat now. I like to feel it the next day. I like to hear kids yell for me to wait up for them. About two months ago I started thinking about tennis coming up this summer. I really want to kick butt this year, so I found weight training. Now I have had a taste of it, I am so all into the diet, the schedule, the yearning for it not to be a rest day.
I lost 40 pounds in three years, not trying, but just playing. Now I want to get in shape and have lost nearly ten in a month. It's not all roses, mind you, I am still cardio-phobic, but I think I may learn to like that after a while too.
You can do it, I know, because I have and I am so darn lazy... well I used to be.
kids were finally old enough that I didn't need to watch them every second of the day, so I tried tennis three years ago. 240 pounds of a blond blob running about the court. I was so winded but I had so much fun. I kept going back. Last year I had third season of tennis and even joined the local tounament, lost, but had so much fun.
After that I couldn't stop, now I cross country ski as soon as there is enough snow, hike, climb boulders, play with the kids, mountain biking, all the things I wanted to do but thought I was too fat.
Here is where it gets scary, I like to sweat now. I like to feel it the next day. I like to hear kids yell for me to wait up for them. About two months ago I started thinking about tennis coming up this summer. I really want to kick butt this year, so I found weight training. Now I have had a taste of it, I am so all into the diet, the schedule, the yearning for it not to be a rest day.
I lost 40 pounds in three years, not trying, but just playing. Now I want to get in shape and have lost nearly ten in a month. It's not all roses, mind you, I am still cardio-phobic, but I think I may learn to like that after a while too.
You can do it, I know, because I have and I am so darn lazy... well I used to be.
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Anahita4444
- STARTING OUT
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2009 2:26 pm
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. It means a lot. It is all about the attitude; I fully agree that that is the catalyst. I'm working on that. As weight gain of such large amounts is clearly visible to others (friends, colleagues, etc) it is daunting to have everyone watch your growing and shrinking when it's such a drastic amount each time. This has made me highly self-critical at the moment, and I'm working on that now.
I'm going to try cassiegose idea of cardio/weights/cardio. I'm going to start with a walk today, which is more than I'd do normally, then Wiifit weight training and balanace tomorrow. I'll keep you up to date.
Pandoravise, I read about people like you and I think it's really motivating, thanks so much.
I'm going to try cassiegose idea of cardio/weights/cardio. I'm going to start with a walk today, which is more than I'd do normally, then Wiifit weight training and balanace tomorrow. I'll keep you up to date.
Pandoravise, I read about people like you and I think it's really motivating, thanks so much.
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cassiegose
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- Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 6:06 pm
- Location: Prineville Oregon
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taniaaust1
- STARTING OUT
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Fri May 29, 2009 10:38 pm
nods.. i was about to say the same thing to you. i like yourself used to be all over the place with weight. ive varied from Aussie size 16 (almost an 18) to a size 8 and back again from yoyo dieting.cassiegose wrote: 2) The reason that you yo yo diet and continualy lose and gain your weight is because you haven't found a healthy diet that you can realistically maintain for the rest of your life. This is not about temporary diets and weight loss... this is about PERMANENT healthy lifestyle changes. A starvation diet is not realistic. Eating 1200 calories a day is not realistic. Putting a point value on every single food that you put in your mouth is not realistic. You need to adopt a healthy diet and you will be able to keep that weight off.
The key is what cassiegose said and finding a healthy eatting plan you like and can permanently stay on.
best luck