How do i start- advice on exercise and making a start.

Options
2»

Replies

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Options
    Quasita wrote: »
    You don't have to start with a long workout. In fact, you don't have to start with a workout at all. When you are truly 100% sedentary, your first step can be simply making sure you move more than usual. Walk extra aisles at the grocery store. Get up and move around the house during commercials. Set an alarm on your phone to make you get up every hour and walk around.

    This. When I started I was really out of shape, and I just decided to walk everywhere I could. I was 80 lbs above a 25 BMI and had an ankle injury that interfered (aggravated by weight, I believe) and our sidewalks were consistently covered with ice and snow (this started last January, during a terrible winter), so I wasn't able to go the distances I thought I should at first, but still, once I started, it soon became second nature and even enjoyable.

    After a little I added in the stationary bike and started easy, for a half hour, during a show I liked. I gradually moved it up and started adding in other things (swimming, eventually running and biking outdoors) as I lost weight. Lots of people seem to think you have to be working out like crazy from the beginning. You don't have to work out at all--although I think it makes it a lot easier--but you should teach yourself to enjoy it, and how to do that is go at a pace that makes sense for you and focus on activities that appeal to you or that you can make fun (listening to music or podcasts while doing it, perhaps).
  • tracylbrown839
    tracylbrown839 Posts: 84 Member
    edited October 2014
    Options
    Jazz_2014 wrote: »
    I could not jump in with both feet (so to speak) when I started. I approached my "start" as changing one habit at a time. I picked one thing and found a way to improve on it. I would only work on that one thing until it was a habit.
    I enjoyed sweet tea, I changed to artificial sweetener, then to just lemon and tea, and then I moved to water with lemon. Each time it took me about a few days to several weeks to change.
    It has always been little changes for me, whether it was exercising or food selections.
    The new habits are way to many to list now. But examples would be such as no more fried chicken, but baked or grilled. Less beef, more fish. Less showers more Epsom salt baths. Less television, started yoga and zumba. Much of it adaptable to my own personality.

    I think most people change everything at once. I did that in the past and I was just overwhelmed with improving on all my bad habits and became disappointed with struggling with the drastic change.
    So that's how I decided the one habit at a time . . . so far so good. And there is always room for improvement so I never feel trapped in any dietary restrictions or activity. I just keep making improvements in small increments.

    My biggest problem is how to answer someone when they ask how I have lost my weight so far. No fad diet . . . just changing one habit at a time.

    Best to you in your efforts

    This! ^^

    Almost everything we genuinely achieve in life is built "brick by brick". Small things add up. Habit requires real time to form.

    Exercise is absolutely no different. Just "a little bit" - see my post - a tiny walk - but regularly, begins a life changing event.

Categories