Is this a good idea?

I'd lose weight and correct your diet before you get into a hard-core objective-driven exercise routine. From experience, I know it is hard to truly fall in love with a sport when you are carrying around too much extra weight. Get rid of that weight first with a healthy diet. Then, and only then, latch on to a sport!

I lost 130lbs without an ounce of exercise. Now I am ultra-active and LOVE cycling. I would not LOVE cycling if my gut was as huge as it used to be!

LOVE = doing it not for exercise, but because you really enjoy it.

In terms of sports, yellow ball (aka tennis) looks fun. I live 2 houses down from a yellow ball court. Just need to find a rack. I really love hunter seat riding, but alas, horses are expensive to lease. Yellow ball seems more economical. Really, I'm not looking for an excuse not to exercise, in the past I would jog a few miles every day and could not get below 148 lbs (my lowest since 2004), so I know it's going to to a brutal struggle to get down to 135 lbs. In January of 2009, I stayed at 160 for 2 months before I just gave in. Back then however, I was eating foods that my my surprise through allergy testing (and increased reactions) that I'm allergic too, so maybe this time it will be different. (had to omit a bunch of foods from my diet).


Thanks for the support guys, this site rocks.

Allergies definitely would have hindered your weight loss process. A nutritionist I saw a few years ago told me increased histamine levels in the body did cause the body to hold onto weight because the main function at that point is ridding the system of the irritant, not deciding where to get the energy from.

8 weeks is not unheard of for a plateau - if it happens again, I suggest trying multiple things at a time, upping calories, upping exercise, changing the types of food you're eating, the types of exercise you're doing. All of this confuses the body's reactions and it starts dropping weight again.

If your goal is to be healthy - 2lbs a week isn't going to be realistic for the entire 35lbs. Once you hit that plateau, I would move it to 1lb a week and try that for several weeks. The closer you get to your goal weight, the harder you're going to have to work for the losses. I too was a little concerned by your profile and hope that the ultimate goal is health and not just "being skinny".

I agree - this site rocks. The folks are awesome and really care about one another.

So far in nearly 2 weeks, I've lost 5 lbs. Not as much as I'd like to, but I suppose it's a start. This is just from dieting alone, no additional exercise. When the weight loss hits a plateau, I then plan to really exercise in order to get over that hump. I'd done the diets + exercise out of the gate before, you loose 10 lbs fast, and then it's very difficult to loose any more weight. My new plan is just to diet, then hit the cardio once the weight loss significantly slows down or stops.

The first week was 3 lbs, the second week was 2 because I was gone for the weekend and drank a bunch of sugary sodas. I've discovered that pasta is also not my friend (which makes weight loss so hard because I'm poor and eat many a ramen noodles and baked potatoes).

Start off exercising twice per week and then as the weight loss slows, add another session in, when it slows again, add in another session. You may never need to exercise more than twice per week you know.

Don't go all-out exercising in one swoop, not only will you most likely end up injured due to excess stress, because you didn't build up to it, but it is highly likely that you will end up giving up.

Exercising as you go along tones you up as the weight comes off, if you don't do some sort of exercise, you may end up slim, but it can sometimes look a "flabby" untoned look, I am sure that is not what you want. By the way, I say "sometimes" because not everybody who loses weight without exercising ends up looking untoned :flowerforyou: