"Workout for whales" needed or 15 minutes of something?

Congrats on deciding to take back your life from food.

Yes! Everything you're doing is fantastic! Any movement at all other than sitting is great. I found that exercise builds on itself. The more I do, the easier it becomes and that happens quite quickly. The body is really an amazingly adaptive and miraculous machine if it's worked and fed properly. I'm 70 and I'm active every day but I had to work up to that when I was 80 pounds over weight. Now I've been at a healthy weight for 17 years. Keep doing what you can do.

Focus on logging food, too. That's where you're going to get the most benefit from this site.

DDP yoga? I've never done it, but heard good things.
You want to walk to the end of the backyard and back 10 times? Start with 1/2'way one time, build on that. You can do lots of arm exercises with light weights (or none) while sitting.
Good luck!
Congratulations on your success in losing the first 23!

Lady_Magenta wrote: »

I am heavily overweight (325 lbs) but down 23 lbs from where I started not even two months ago.

Excellent progress: Congratulations!

Someone asked me if I work out today at a different thread. I know I need to but where do I start and is what I have planned even realistic? When I call it "Workout for whales" I don't mean it disrespectful and I don't try to be funny. But at my age (60), with my weight, laying down on a yoga mat is not in the cards (yet). There are some health issues and a bit of pain as well.

My joints are aching and I am huffing and puffing like a locomotive, but less than just two months ago. My doctor wants me to start slowly and to be honest, I have done a lot of research in the last weeks. I bought a pedaling machine because I saw it on TV and it made sense. One of these impulse buys turned out to be not too bad. I can pedal manually or let the machine do it for me, which I dislike because it shows my limitations. I ordered a small, affordable set of dumbbells (not too heavy) and have looked into chair yoga. That's about it for now. Just walking up and down the stairs 10 times, or going 10 times to the end of the backyard and back would be such an accomplishment.

Honestly, that sounds like a good plan. The sweet spot for improving fitness is some combination of things that's just a manageable bit of a challenge, maybe a few minutes of "whew" right afterwards, but energizing rather than exhausting through the rest of the day(s).

Too many people overdo right away, so crash and burn. Gradual, steady progress is the key, IMO. If you have that manageable challenge in the picture, and keep chipping away at improvement, increasing exercise when the current routine gets easy (i.e. not challenging enough) . . . that will create progress. You can increase challenge when necessary by increasing duration, frequency, or intensity; or by changing type of exercise. Mixing exercise types is likely to be more sustainable, so I like that part of your current plan.

I started being routinely active in my late 40s shortly after full-bore cancer treatment. Trust me, I was quite physically depleted at that point! I started with some gentle yoga (community education classes) a couple of times a week, and gradually progressed from there. Over the long haul - like 2-3 years - I utterly surprised myself (and many of my long-term friends) by actually working out 6 days most weeks and even competing as an athlete (not always unsuccessfully). Now, at 68, I'm not competing much, but still active most days of the week, and fitter than average for our demographic.

You can make huge progress, with patience and persistence.

I need to relearn how to walk longer distances. The combination of age, weight, health, and pain has been hindering me in the past, and of course my laziness. I thought I start with 15 min a day doing something out of the ordinary that feels like exercise -even though it might be laughable to many.

How do I log just 15 minutes of something?

You log it as 15 minutes of whatever it was. (No one here will be laughing. We'll be cheering.)

The main point of exercise, IMO, is not weight loss. It's better fitness and health. Sure, it burns a few extra calories, and that's nice. But that's not the biggest payoff. The payoff is in moving becoming increasingly easier and more fun. That's useful in everyday life, and creates a positive spiral of feeling better, doing more, getting fitter, feeling even better, etc.

I was active for a dozen years while staying obese. That didn't make fitness useless: To the contrary, it was a huge quality of life improvement, and improved my heath vs. what it would've been (and had been) without the exercise.

Only at 59-60 did I finally lose to a healthy weight by getting the eating side of the equation under better control. That, too, was a big quality of life improvement: Less joint pain, better mobility, simply feeling better in a variety of subjective ways.

The combination of both, healthy weight plus improved fitness, that was gangbusters.

Go for it. You won't be sorry, I predict. Gradual progress is progress. Overdoing in the short run just increases injury risk, and injuries derail the plan until healing happens. Slow and steady wins the race, for both fitness and weight loss.

Is there anything else that I could do that would slowly help me to work with my limitations toward being more active?

Is it silly that I wish to walk for 1/2 a mile without having to stop or sit down?

It's not remotely silly. Keep increasing your walks by a few feet at a time without resting, as you're able to do so. Stick with it. Good things will happen.

I'm cheering for you to succeed: The results are worth the effort!

Just walking up and down the stairs 10 times, or going 10 times to the end of the backyard and back would be such an accomplishment.

I need to relearn how to walk longer distances. The combination of age, weight, health, and pain has been hindering me in the past, and of course my laziness. I thought I start with 15 min a day doing something out of the ordinary that feels like exercise -even though it might be laughable to many.

How do I log just 15 minutes of something?

Is there anything else that I could do that would slowly help me to work with my limitations toward being more active?

Is it silly that I wish to walk for 1/2 a mile without having to stop or sit down?

1/2 way to first goal. YAHOO!

At your weight and with 15 minutes of exercise, I wouldn't worry too much about logging it, to be honest.

When there is a lot of weight to be lost, it's easy to lose weight and it's okay if you're not getting things logged perfectly at this point. Close enough is good enough. There are plenty of exercise entries in the database. Pick something and log it and move on. None of us get the exact numbers.

It's also okay at your weight to lose a little faster.

It also gets easier - all of it. Logging, exercise, food choices. One of the great things about weight loss is seeing how good habits and good choices build on themselves and lead to better mood and self esteem.

Don't let perfect be the enemy here. Just do it.