Current weight: 282.4 lbs,
Total weight loss: 23.4 lbs.
Incorporating Some Exercise
It seems obvious that some form of exercise is important for optimal health and wellness. I think few people would argue that.
I sometimes wonder how many hours of exercise – treadmills, and bikes, and weights (oh my!) – I have done over the course of my life. The many gym memberships, products and gimmicks, and the many, many dollars spent (=wasted).
Um….Buns of Steel anyone?? I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I still remember being semi-obsessed with the Steel exercise series as a teenager in the 90’s. Obviously my time, energy and money could have been better spent elsewhere. The best my buns got was more like a firm down pillow.
When I started this wellness endeavor, I decided not to worry about or focus on exercise. In fact, the only exercise I committed to was checking some non-scale fitness markers every 2 weeks. This includes some exercise activities – like a 12-minute endurance test and a 3-minute step test.
And even though I know exercise is incredibly important, I don’t think it’s best used as the primary tool for weight loss. This is especially true in the setting of such a bad diet.
You Can’t Outrun (or Out-Slowly-Walk) a Bad Diet
I used to think that exercise was the main way to lose weight, and many of my diets in my past focused mainly on this. I can remember doing 2 hours of cardio daily for months. 2 hours!! (Just crazy). This was sometimes followed by some core or strength training.
I would restrict the calories I ate, and count the ones I burned. I became obsessive.
Did I lose some weight? Yes – I always lost some. But never as much as expected based on my strict (and very scientific!) mathematical calculations of calories in versus calories out. Of course I was in better physical shape than I am now. But I was often tired and hungry.
I expected my body to perform even though I didn’t always give it the necessary basics. In fact, sometimes it was worse than neglect, it was abuse.
This time, I wanted first to focus on changing my diet, habits and my overall relationship with food. Without these elements, permanent success would always elude me.
Although important, exercise for me at this time is secondary. But when I started, I was also confident that exercise would follow as I started to change some of the other elements. After all, I’ve always been active and for most of my life as an adolescent and young adult I was pretty athletic.
Incorporating Some Exercise
And I was right. I have started going to the gym and walking on the treadmill. And I started this not because I had to, but because I wanted to.
I’m not sure where the urge came from, but as some weight has come off, I have wanted to use my body more. To feel it stretch, move, and exert itself. It feels good to feel my heart rate rise and to sweat. And to feel like I’ve physically accomplished something. Even if it’s only for 15 short minutes. (And even if the 80 year-old man next to me is going twice as fast…)
Right now, I have been going to the gym about once or twice a week. I know this isn’t going to break any Olympic records, but it is an activity that is good for me and one that I enjoy completing. I will continue organically incorporating exercise and movement in this wellness endeavor.
But not because I have to. Because I want to.
Day #47:
Current weight: 282.4 lbs
Total weight loss: 23.4 lbs
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