Exercise...?

ilovemyhorse

How important is exercise? I have the diet under control. I can eat less, but when it comes to working out- I hate it.

I know the term skinny fat, but how often should I be working out, and for how long? I ride my horse 3-5 times a week and that's all I do right now.

Is it possible to lose weight without exercise? ( I will work out, just curious on this one)

Thanks :]

ajbeans

Someone asked this a few days ago, and I'll paraphrase what I said there.

Diet is the most important part of weight loss. Work out all you want, if your diet is screwy you won't lose weight. But for me, I'm 2 lbs away from my goal weight, and I'm nowhere near having the body I want because I've been unable to do any strength exercises for a few months due to illness (and also laziness in between illnesses). So starting January, I'm moving my calories to maintenance and doing strength exercises.

If you get to your goal weight and still dont' like the reflection, don't lower your goal weight, just start doing some strength training. Cardio isn't what's going to get that body either. You need to work on the muscle if you want to burn that fat.

stevwil41

Even though I still have a few pounds to go I like the way I look both in and out of clothes much better now that I'm strength training. Also, I like to eat so I'd rather do some exercise to both earn a few more calories and generally look better.

brit49

Its important, last year I was a size 2 but I was skinny fat no muscle tone no nothing I was still flabby, this time around I don't expect to be that size it didn't look to good at my age idk. I'm more toned and less flab, more energy. my body looks so much better and defined no six pack but I see a little muscle on my stomach. I think it improves your health, and food choices. Just my 2 cent my mfp friend:)

apriltrainer

Ditto on the diet being the most important part! I use diet for weight loss and use exercise for body shape. I know exactly what you mean by skinny fat! I was once that girl. I used to run ALL the time(before pregancy) and was thin yet totally shapeless.

Now I have guys at the gym ask me how I work my shoulders!

I lift heavy and do weights 3x a week 20-30 min . Cardio? I usually do Hiit training once to twice a week for 15-20 min. That's it.

I try to not get my body used to too much cardio. My body became way too efficient at burning fat(sounds great but not so great when one realizes the only way to burn more is to go longer!) So I concentrate more on weight work and i'll throw in cardio to shock my body. Ever heard of carb cycling? I sortof do a version of cardio cycling. One cardio session will be 15. The next time I do it will be 20. And every 4th week, I don't do any cardio although I do keep up the weights.

When I first started on my journey of weight loss after pregnancy all I did was try to eat right and weights. I did no cardio and dropped from 160 in June to 120 in Sept.

Combined with good eating, my pregnancy weight just melted off!

I just added in cardio in Oct to push myself a bit further. But my loss showed my that diet was the most important and cardio not very necessary at all!

Hope that helps!

housegirl2

Simply put the purpose of working out - cardio helps you burn calories faster in real time- strength training helps build your muscles so they can be burning calories even when you are slacking off. So some level of working out should be part of your weight loss journey at least 3-4 days of cardio and 1-2 days of strength workouts a week only need 20-30 minutes a day minimum to do some good.