What type of exercise for obese women

sympha01 wrote: »

I started heavier than you at a "super morbidly obese" BMI and have recently crossed over into "overweight." Including exercise has been a big part of my success so far (frankly because it helps me eat enough so I don't feel deprived, but also because DAYUM my body has been very cooperative about retaining lean mass while I've lost >145 lbs so far.

Here are my thoughts:

1. Right now, the most important thing for you is establishing a habit you'll stick with. The "effectiveness" should be a low priority. Focus on making sure you do have a stable routine and that you stick to it. Start out with low goals. I started with just a few minutes of stretching every day, but quickly progressed to adding 20 minutes of light cardio, and then built up steadily from there until in a month or two I was doing 45 minutes of light cardio 6X a week.

2. It's gonna suck for the first several months no matter what you do. But that's okay! You can push through. And I promise, once you've got a few months under your (rapidly loosening) belt, it does start to feel really really right. For the first few months, it really actually helped me to workout pretty much every day -- taking days off (planned or unplanned) interrupted my momentum and made me dread getting back to it much harder. Because I wasn't lifting heavy weights and was essentially just doing cardiovascular conditioning and mobility work at first, taking rest days wasn't really as important as it becomes once you're doing high intensity work or lifting heavy. I also made it a habit to "talk myself" into exercising by making myself dress out for it, even if I didn't feel like exercising. It discouraged me from making exercise something I did "if I had time" if I had an obligation to change my clothes at least. But my point is, you may have to play some psych ops with yourself. It's okay -- just keep at it.

3. Threads like this inevitably attract advice from well-meaning fit young people who have never been obese and who give, frankly, terrible advice based on a failure to account for your probable limitations. Unless you're VERY young, you'll probably want to stay away from high-impact activity until you lose more weight. (Generally, that means any exercise where both feet leave the floor from time to time: running and jumping are the prime examples. By the way, "high impact" and "high intensity" are not the same thing. Once you're cardiovascular system is conditioned, you can do "high intensity" work even while very obese.)

4. Understand that while it's perfectly normal and okay that right now you will have limitations in terms of endurance, joint pain, reduced mobility, balance and bio-mechanical issues because your center of gravity is probably located somewhere different than it is for people with standard-issue body size, etc., none of those things mean that you can't exercise. There's always a way to get in some exercise. You'll just have to be open to modifications. Workout vid wants you do do jumping jacks? LOL no thanks but I'll do power jacks instead. Yoga vid tells you how relaxed you should feel during sivasana? LOL not with the junk in my trunk -- I'll have to keep my knees bent and feet on the floor. Etc. A sense of humor and a willingness to experiment will go a long way.

5. Specifically, I started with FitnessBlender.com, which offers tons of free streaming workout videos. The really great thing is that they've tagged all their workouts by difficulty level, so you can just filter to level 1 (those are pretty much stretching only) and level 2 (stretching and relatively easy cardio and "toning") while you're acclimatizing your body to regular exercise.

6. Walking is a FANTASTIC fat-burner when you're obese. SRSLY. Walk as much as your knees will let you. And yes, understand that your knees and possibly your heels will object at some point. Listen to them, and don't push them too far at first. Get a decent pair of walking shoes, and maybe some orthotic inserts for plantar fascitiis (pf is a common complaint among obese people who walk a lot I had it, and it went away after I lost some weight though.) Just gradually work your way up as your joints let you.

7. I got a kettlebell last year and found that was a great way to get in a very sweaty, sweaty low-impact workout using a bit of resistance. Best fitness money I ever spent.