Losing Weight Through Diet Alone?

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  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
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    Just to chime in with encouragement :) I'm 66, and between a severe injury and the flu last year I was almost completely sedentary for four months. I continued to lose weight as expected by eating at my sedentary calorie goal, and honestly I was prepared for a weight gain since that's what always happened pre-calorie counting. You can lose weight just fine without exercise if you are precise and honest in your logging. Hopefully as you get smaller you will feel more energetic and will want to add some more activity into your day, but it's not necessary to lose weight. Best of luck!
  • htimpaired
    htimpaired Posts: 1,404 Member
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    kimlee1807 wrote: »
    rickinnercirclebet wrote: »
    20 YEARS OLD AND EXHAUSTED? REALLY?

    You are literally the reason I can't step into a gym without bursting into tears at the sight of other people.

    I've never been physically fit and get tired very quickly, not helped by my asthma which leaves me unable to breathe after small amounts of exercise. Doctors always diagnosed it as 'exercise induced asthma' when I was growing up, which was super fun - but I've always tried. But when I do get to the gym, I'm out of breath and absolutely red in the face sweating like anything after about 5 minutes.
    I walk up the stairs and I'm out of breath. I suffer with severe pain in my knees (long drives each day don't help too much). Not to mention the anxiety and depression.
    So yes, actually, at 20 - I am EXHAUSTED at the end of each day. Not just physically with the joint pain, but mentally absolutely knackered. Cheers for your input though. Much appreciated.

    - To everyone else, thank you! Some super ideas and so many of you do so so well, and all I want from this site is a little bit of motivation and some like minded people to help me to get where I want to be. Have added a few of you and spoken to some lovely people on here already and am desperate to lose this weight. Good luck to you all! xx

    I actually wanted to mention something that came to my mind about the exercise induced asthma. There is a kettlebell athlete I follow on facebook-Lorna Kleinman, who had exercise induced asthma. I can't recall all the details but the skinny of it was that by working out with the bells, she managed to out-exercise her asthma, and she's broken records in kettlebell competition.
    My point is, when you figure out around the anxiety and the stressors from life, don't let the asthma be a reason to hold you down. It's workable. Hang in there :-)
  • cheryldumais
    cheryldumais Posts: 1,907 Member
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    kimlee1807, you can absolutely lose weight without exercising. Just eat less than you burn. You made a couple of comments that were very familiar to me. I was exactly like you when I was younger. Kept telling my doc how tired I was. They tested my thyroid and told me it was normal. Some days I just wanted to cry because I was exhausted all the time. The other thing was joint pain, headaches, constipation, dry hair and skin. Does any of this sound familiar? If it does you may have a thyroid condition. What happened to me was that I finally ended up having a test after a trip I took where I thought I had, had a mini stroke because I felt I was struggling to speak. My doctor said he hadn't seen a thyroid that bad in years. I am now on synthroid and all the issues have disappeared. I didn't lose a bunch of weight from the meds just felt better. I may be completely out to lunch and you definately need a doctor to diagnose it but if you haven't been checked might be worth a look. Hope things get better my friend.
  • rickiimarieee
    rickiimarieee Posts: 2,212 Member
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    cheryldumais wrote: »
    kimlee1807, you can absolutely lose weight without exercising. Just eat less than you burn. You made a couple of comments that were very familiar to me. I was exactly like you when I was younger. Kept telling my doc how tired I was. They tested my thyroid and told me it was normal. Some days I just wanted to cry because I was exhausted all the time. The other thing was joint pain, headaches, constipation, dry hair and skin. Does any of this sound familiar? If it does you may have a thyroid condition. What happened to me was that I finally ended up having a test after a trip I took where I thought I had, had a mini stroke because I felt I was struggling to speak. My doctor said he hadn't seen a thyroid that bad in years. I am now on synthroid and all the issues have disappeared. I didn't lose a bunch of weight from the meds just felt better. I may be completely out to lunch and you definately need a doctor to diagnose it but if you haven't been checked might be worth a look. Hope things get better my friend.
    I have the same symptoms and I asked for my thyroid to be checked as well they said it came back normal. My sister has hypothyroidism. This helps!
  • JoLightensUp
    JoLightensUp Posts: 140 Member
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    kimlee1807 wrote: »
    Is it possible to lose weight through diet alone?

    I'd love to go back to the gym a couple of days a week, but the way I used to burst into tears when it was busy and not even walk in was awful. I don't know what else I can do.

    You've had a lot of great advice, but this part of what you said really jumped out at me. Yes, you don't need to exercise to lose weight and yes, you could workout at home to avoid the gym, BUT...if you love the gym I would suggest maybe trying to find a way to get back into it.

    One suggestion is that you may be able to find a friend or relative who is also looking to get fit that might go with you, at least for a while. You might find it less daunting going with them perhaps. Another suggestion might be to arrange a few personal training sessions at the gym so that you are not alone and also have a structure and purpose when you arrive. Maybe plan to keep the first few sessions short and build from there. Or maybe there is a gym near your workplace that you could go to at lunchtimes or before work with a workplace buddy?

    I'm just brainstorming here but I'm really encouraging you to not give up on the gym if you love it. What I am really talking about is not letting your anxiety boss you around, and finding ways to ease yourself back into it without feeling overwhelmed. I have felt anxious about starting to swim at a new pool. What helped was even just going and getting familiar with the layout, the location of the change-rooms etc and going swimming a few times with someone else as company. Of course this all seems silly to some, but fellow worrywarts - and there are lots of us out there - know what I'm talking about even if the specifics of their challenges are different!


  • katsheare
    katsheare Posts: 1,025 Member
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    kimlee1807 wrote: »
    rickinnercirclebet wrote: »
    20 YEARS OLD AND EXHAUSTED? REALLY?

    You are literally the reason I can't step into a gym without bursting into tears at the sight of other people.

    I've never been physically fit and get tired very quickly, not helped by my asthma which leaves me unable to breathe after small amounts of exercise. Doctors always diagnosed it as 'exercise induced asthma' when I was growing up, which was super fun - but I've always tried. But when I do get to the gym, I'm out of breath and absolutely red in the face sweating like anything after about 5 minutes.
    I walk up the stairs and I'm out of breath. I suffer with severe pain in my knees (long drives each day don't help too much). Not to mention the anxiety and depression.
    So yes, actually, at 20 - I am EXHAUSTED at the end of each day. Not just physically with the joint pain, but mentally absolutely knackered. Cheers for your input though. Much appreciated.

    - To everyone else, thank you! Some super ideas and so many of you do so so well, and all I want from this site is a little bit of motivation and some like minded people to help me to get where I want to be. Have added a few of you and spoken to some lovely people on here already and am desperate to lose this weight. Good luck to you all! xx

    @kimlee1807 - I hate exercising in front of other people. May be a hangover from my early childhood days of always being the uncoordinated one in PE who was openly mocked by her classmates, may just be that I don't like attention in general, but I get not wanting to walk into a gym. Even though I KNOW that everyone else who's there will be concentrating on themselves. I'm the one who's always in the back corner at Zumba.

    The NHS in the UK has put together some fantastic 10-minute exercises http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/Tenminuteworkouts.aspx that I have incorporated with MFP and calories in/calories out. You can do them at home, almost all require no equipment except you, and because it's not following a video, my carrot to get myself using them was watching some old favourite programmes that I knew my partner would not be interested in. I am now doing C25K (at 6 in the morning, no one else out there!) but really do enjoy these.

    I will also say that for me, taking control of what I ate, monitoring and manipulating my CICO was incredibly empowering. I started with that, and added the movement in after about 7 kgs of loss, and that was because I wanted to move more, and more easily. Give yourself time on all of this, don't expect swift or miraculous changes, and be kind to yourself.

    Yes, you can lose weight with diet alone.
  • ejg1010
    ejg1010 Posts: 48 Member
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    You can definitely lose weight with diet alone as long as you are eating fewer calories than your body needs to be sedentary.
    I do think that exercise is important for health and wellbeing and so, as other people have posted, if you are able to do some online workouts at home or arrange a personal training session, that would be really great. I know it's easier said than done, but try not to worry about what other people think when you're out exercising. Most people will be too wrapped up in their own business to worry about what you are doing and I'm sure anyone interested would regard you positively for taking the time to walk/cycle. You could download an audiobook/podcast, put your trainers on and go out for a walk. You'll be amazed at how quickly time passes when you are occupied.

    It might just be me but I feel that exercising, in any form, gives me more energy in the long run. The good feeling I get after exercise, caused by the endorphins that the body releases, makes me feel more positive. No matter how tired you feel from working at the office all day, it might be worth giving some light exercise a go at the very least. For me, it's a different kind of energy that I use and I never regret making the effort to do a workout that my mind sometimes tries to talk me out of if I feel de-motivated that day.

    It's hard to establish a new routine, whether that is being more mindful of what you are eating or adding in exercise. But once you get going with that first step it becomes much easier to stick to it, promise!
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
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    In the past I've been doing weights and 30-40k of running along with cycling.

    This year I've been told to avoid all exercise and managed to lose weight just as well.

    Calories in vs Calories out is all that matter for losing weight.

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