Healthy habits

[ChestaDroors]

Particularly interested to hear from people who were very overweight/obese and have turned it around.

If you are healthy and consider yourself to lead a healthy lifestyle, what habits and routines do you have? What are your food norms for breakfast/lunch/dinner? How do you exercise?

I am currently a size 20. BMI is near 40. This is a from combination of a sedentary job, family stress, limited cooking facilities and significant health issues that are behind me now but was when the weight went up a lot rapidly.

I am trying to overhaul my life to become healthier and therefore (hopefully) happier. As well as sticking to non UPF foods (which is largely about planning for me), I am reducing caffeine, increasing water intake and reducing my hours by 25% to allow me more time to exercise and also keep busy with with cooking and housework.

I believe the evidence shows that exercise doesn’t make a big difference in obesity, but I know it will reduce my risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia, depression, etc. so that’s my motivation there.

I am really stuck on deciding what exercise schedule to have. Bearing in mind I have very poor fitness levels, feel self conscious about my size everywhere I go no matter what I’m doing and have limited experience with exercise.

Would it be silly for me to try beginner’s yoga at my size? Any other recommendations for obese beginners to increase fitness?

TIA for answers 🙂

Absolutely try yoga. If you have a set and paid for activity, you're more likely to do it than not.

I would suggest you start by incorporating walking into your daily routine. It's low impact, and you can decide when you're ready to pick up the pace. If you're fairly seditary, then I would suggest a low target to begin with, i.e., 6000 steps. Also, little things like using the stairs instead of the lift, pak at the back of the car park at the gorcery store, put music on and put away the gorceries of vacuum to the beat of the music.

Stretching when waking and before bed is a good way to get blood flowing and loosen tight muscles, you could try this 2x a day before committing to yoga.

Once you've established a routine in getting moving, try lifting weights 2 to 3 x per week. They don't need to be heavy, and you can often pick them up reasonably cheaply second hand.

Weight loss and healthy living can be a lot of fun. Give yourself realistic goals and celebrate every achievement. When I was losing weight I would put a £10 in a jar every time I hit a goal and I used that money to treat myself to new (smaller clothes) make up and a trip to thr hairdressers.

Congratulations on the start of your journey

Thanks @MillshakePickle I forgot about weights!

My sister got down from 18 stone to 9 stone over 2 years. And has maintained it for about 5 now. She didn’t do anything particularly weird, just decided to start walking every day for an hour. Tracked her calories, measuring out food.ate normal food, protein, veg (lots of it) and carbs. But 90% of the time it was stuff she cooked herself.

she knew it would take a while but she just kept going.

I’m 1 stone into losing 3 stone and moving more, eating less is working. More veg has definitely helped as has cutting out crap and mindless eating. A proper breakfast, whole meal toast, poached egg and fried tomatoes. Lunch is often big bowl of homemade lentil or bean soup, dinner is chicken veg and potatoes. Banana for a snack.

I was 12.5 stone at age 19 and had tried dieting all through my teenage years ( without success). I really did diet without cheating and I lost about half a stone at most each time which always came back. At 19 I tried again although also walked for say 45 minutes a day ( no other exercise) and I lost 4 stones in about five months ( although I did restrict calories too). I'm now 46 and about 9.5 stones which I maintain pretty well- still walk each day and try not to snack and eat loads of veggies with meals. I will admit I weigh myself each day and do cut back a bit for a day or two if I've put on any weight (above the upper limit I have in my head) but I don't have to do that often.
By the way I definitely do think exercise matters. After having my DC I lost the extra weight I'd gained just by doing loads of DIY on our house and no dieting!

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