I love it.
2nding what others have said - definitely read the stickies, they'll help a lot.
For me, what has worked to lose weight is a combination of exercise (and anyone at any weight can exercise) and healthy eating. Everyone finds their own path, so I can't say that my way is "best" .. but it is best for me. Just to give you an idea of one way, here's what I did and still do:
I made a decision several years ago to remove as many processed and packaged foods from my life as I could. I make an effort to eat "clean" ... whole, natural foods. If it has artificial ingredients, added nutrients, added sugar (or sugar/sweeteners like HFCS, etc.), I avoid it. Now, I'm not a fanatic about it - there are a few obvious exceptions. I still drink
Diet Coke a couple of times a week. And my weakness is potato chips. But as a rule, I eat as "cleanly" as possible.
Within that guideline I use calorie counting to help me figure out how much to eat. I use a very basic formula. For most moderately active (as in exercising a couple of times a week) adults, you can estimate 15
calories per
pound of
body weight will keep them at the same weight - in other words, your maintenance
calories. For me, that would be 2655
calories a day. If I knock 30% off of that, I get 1858
calories to lose weight at a healthy rate. So that's what I try to each each day - around 1800
calories. Usually I wind up somewhere between 1600 and 1800, which gives me some wiggle room and I don't have to freak out about being a few
calories over. Obviously the more weight I lose, the more I have to drop that number. When I first started losing weight, I weighed nearly 250 and I was eating about 2500
calories and losing weight.
Then, I try to make sure that of the
calories I eat, 40% of them come from complex carbs, 35% of them come from protein, and 25% of them come from healthy fats. So my
diet consists of things like Greek yogurt, frozen wild blueberries, hummus with veggies, peanut butter on whole grain bread, tuna salad, baby spinach (I add it to everything), lots of chicken and fish and seafood, some lean beef, some pork, brown rice, orzo, quinoa, steel cut oats, cheese, and low
fat milk (but not skim, because I think skim is disgusting!
).
I also drink about a gallon of water per day, throughout the day - in addition to my cup of coffee in the morning, a
Diet Coke in the afternoon a few days a week, and usually a glass of wine with dinner.
That's the
diet part. For the exercise part, I lift
weights and I do
cardio. Right now I'm doing the Stronglifts 5x5 program (you can Google it) 2x a week and then I am training for a 5k 3x a week (using the Couch to 5k program). Sometimes I'll throw in another workout on the weekend, but usually my weekends are pretty busy and I manage to keep active enough that I'm ok with taking 2 days off. Unless I"m shooting a wedding (I'm a photographer), in which case my Saturday activities count as a pretty decent workout.
I have a good friend who teaches Kenpo Karate and I'm going to be taking private lessons with him at some point - I'm really looking forward to that.
ANyway .. that was long winded, but I hope it gives you an idea of one possible way to approach losing weight and getting fit.
) and I KNOW that im going to have to be in shape to 1: actually be able to participate in said training, and 2: make use of what it is i learn.
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