Getting Started...Again

Welcome back.

Welcome back! I am just starting back too, so feel free to add me!

Good luck! I did C25K and it is an amazing program. Started in July and have been sticking with running ever since.

Hi Martina
You don't have to teach your daughter, she will just do what she learns from your example, despite what you tell her. Don't spend your time trying to lecture her about stuff, it won't work. It will just make her feel guilty when she fails to carry it out and may lead her into a whole miserable life of weight issues. Focus instead on making sure you and your family are eating right and leading active lives.

I would strongly share with you a lesson i've learnt and know to be true and reliable. Not only from my own experience but also from the mouths of scientists or health experts who have done the research or read it all and summarised it in their books.

That is, its not about doing exercise. You don't have to. Weightloss is about what you put in your mouth and how much.

Exercise is for general health - body strength - bones, muscles, blood vessels and other quite subtle things.

Its much easier to lose weight and keep it off without exercise than to do exercise. A lot of people get themselves into a mess by the way they rely on exercise to do the job of weightloss. They take on too much, get the guilts when they can't do it, blah blah blah. So if you do it, be moderate about it because more is not necessarily better.

I'm saying this as someone who always in the past lost weight successfully and easily by doing lots of exercise. The problem was i would eventually stop doing whatever it was i was doing. Like in your story above, circumstances would change and i would be unable to adapt to the change and would soon regain it all. I know many people keep the exercise going much longer than i've ever been able to but in general, it seems that if you rely on exercise to lose weight and keep it off, you are bound to fail eventually. Most people when they stop exercising suddenly, keep on eating the same amount. Its actually really difficult to cut back on the quantity of food when you've been eating for exercise. I've thought about that a bit lately. I don't know exactly why it is, even when you know you should need less. The body seems to demand more. I guess it takes a concerted effort to cut back if you stop and awareness of the need of a transition period and close monitoring to make it work.

On the other hand, exercise is good for you. And its especially important that children grow up doing lots of it. The best thing for both kids and adults is to be engaged in sporting activities that sustain us in other ways apart from just the matter of keeping our weight under control.

See if you can get your daughter to try out different sports until she finds something she likes. Maybe there are things you can do as a whole family. Or at least if she's playing the family can come along and watch to support her. I just think taking your daughter to the gym or getting her to go jogging is a bad move if she's a teenager.

For my part, i've recently taken up tennis and been doing a bit of running for reasons other than weight loss. The tennis i like because of the social element. Its so much better when you have a few coaching sessions to learn the basics of how to hit the ball. Just wish i'd been taught as a kid. I also like the skill acquisition aspect and its not actually expensive here either.

In 2000, i took up triathlon which i loved but i damaged my knee from over training. I did most of my training on my own but i joined a group and although they were quite cliquey, it helped to be part of a group. I got to do one race before it all ended. As a result of my experience my sister took it up and she was heavily involved in it for quite a lot of years. I am not sure she's able to keep it up where she is right now. She loves her exercise so even though she finds it hard to fit in she does go swimming in the sea but other than that, her daily life is quite busy and active so she's not really likely to put on weight. She eats healthy food anyway, although like me she's got a sweet tooth. She'll probably make herself cut back on that stuff now that she can't run it off so much as before.

Next year i'm going on a bike tour. It will be havoc when i get back as i won't be able to keep up the activity when i get home. And before hand, i have to worry about getting fit but that's another matter.

Anyway all what i'm doing now is now that i'm so much closer to goal and its really not about losing weight but just about being healthy because most of the rest of the time, i do extremely little physical movement.

I've lost all my weight this year by adjusting my diet to eating only healthy foods and making it delicious. I recommend focusing on perfecting your diet so that its healthy and sustainable and not so easy to overeat and regain. Eat lots and lots of vegetables and fruit. Plenty of protein, cut back on carb foods. Minimise sweets significantly. Make sure you food tastes good and that means it needs to contain fat.