Need help with exercises

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karrade
karrade Posts: 2 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello I am new here, my wife and I have recently taken a hard look at ourselves and realized how overweight we were which was bad (trouble breathing from tying our shoes).

So we completely changed our diet, we cut beef besides about 3 or 4 times a month. Same with pork, cut mostly all sugars including giving up pop, candy, chips, most alcohol (still gotta have some fun). As well as started eating more fruits and alot more vegetables, oh and cut our portion sizes down a massive amount. Didnt realize how much we would eat.

Breakfast before: 3 eggs 4 toast 5 bacon or 2 bagles with alot of cream cheese.

Breakfast now: 2 eggs 1 apple or 1 serving oatmeal and fruit.

So thats the rundown so far and we feel amazing we also have shed alot of weight which brings us to the next problem i am hoping for help with. We need to learn how to exercise right and some way that suits us.

We are lazy people, we enjoy the computer, campfires and lounging in the pool. On the other hand we enjoy kayaking and camping our goal is to be fit enough for a 3 day trip.

We do not own a scale and dont count calories we dont want to bulk up just tone up in this priority.

1. Stomach (mostly flat now)
2. Arms (she wants to lose skin under arms)
3. Legs (enough for hiking)

Any good exercises anyone could suggest for lazy people who want to be semi in shape or at least not bulked up would be amazing. We dont care if we have abs like on workout commercial s. Thanks in advance

Replies

  • Colectable93
    Colectable93 Posts: 38 Member
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    You mentioned pool , I do aqua exercises both cardio and strength training , easy on the joints and a great source of exercise . Tons of videos on you tube , I watched them and then wrote them down , my mom and now have a routine we do 3-4 times a week . Down 15pds and 27 inches
  • strength_n_song
    strength_n_song Posts: 13 Member
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    Find an activity you both enjoy doing, and just have fun together. How about while you're lounging by the pool, jump in and swim some laps? It sounds like you enjoy nature--take short hikes together and build up to longer hikes. Go kayaking regularly--start easy and short and build up to longer and more challenging.
    Good luck to you both!
  • StealthHealth
    StealthHealth Posts: 2,417 Member
    edited July 2017
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    It sounds like walking could be right up your street.

    Believe me, walking is a great form of exercise; It's low impact, cheap/free, and you can do it almost anywhere at any time.

    You see the thing is, the primary driver for losing fat is your diet (and it sounds like you've made a pretty good start on that front), exercise, although good for your health and well-being, is not required for fat loss (although you can use it of you choose).

    You'll hear people recommending strength training, I often recommend this also, it's a very effective way of minimizing muscle loss when losing weight. But, in your instance, as someone who is not naturally inclined to exercise, I'd recommend you approach it as more of "increasing the activity in your life" rather than "exercising" and to that end I think taking a 30 mins walk a few times a week would be a great start.
  • karrade
    karrade Posts: 2 Member
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    Thank you collectable99, we will look into aqua exercises.

    Thank you strength_n_song, we are planning at least 4 or 5 more 4 hour kayak trips this year. The pool is only 18ft round so it makes laps not an option as i am almost 6ft and she is 5'5. We are going to look for places to do some small hiking together because we do like nature.

    Thank you StealthHealth, we have tried walking in our neighborhood and it always starts out good but then we end up losing motivation. We would like to walk about 30 minutes 3 days in a row with a 1 day break so 3 on 1 off.

    Do you think that will be ok for our muscles? We heard abiut recovery time but it doesnt seem like much. Also any tips on staying motivated to work out?

  • amrita14sri
    amrita14sri Posts: 11 Member
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    Walking is definitely the best exercise. It can be indoor also at times. Many times wen i watching tv, i start walking. try to target 6k steps daily atleast. and ofcourse outdoor walk for 30-45 mins would be jus perfect.
    I completely agree with Stealthheath that "increasing the activity in your life" is important. Divide the 60 mins walk to 20 mins, 3 times a day. ( medicine with no side effects :smiley: )
    Club all the other exercise u like whenever u get chance. From my experience , its works. I used to hate walking, but wen u start seeing results, u start loving it :smiley:
  • StealthHealth
    StealthHealth Posts: 2,417 Member
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    3 times a week is a good start but if you can manage and stick with 3 days on 1 day off, then so much the better.

    Walking is not going to give you big muscles, but it is great for posture. I wouldn't worry too much about recovery, just get the adherence nailed: if you say your going to do 3 a week, do 3 a week - every week. Then as you get used to that and it's embedded as a habit, maybe ramp up the distance or frequency.

    Motivation is a tricky one and to some extent needs to come from within but personally I feel that you would be better served by thinking of it as "us" time or something that you do together, rather than exercise. Tips on making the habit stick: it seems like the first couple of weeks are crucial - let nothing stand in your way during that period of time. If Mrs Karrade says "I don;t want to go for a walk" then your reply should be "I'm going, are you coming or not".

    Best of luck with it.

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