I am sorry to hear about your back problems. That is naturally going to limit your exercise options for a little while. Did the doctor suggest some forms of exercise that you can do in the meantime? Has the doctor suggested a time frame for being able to widen your scope of exercise options?
I understand that walking on stairs causes you some pain. How is walking on the flat for you? Any movement is beneficial as all exercise helps one way or another. Walking was my first (and main) form of exercise - although I naturally have progressed on to do other things too.
Maybe swimming would be an option. Also some resistance exercise would be better than none - so it may be that you could focus on your arms until you are able to do more. Your doctor should be able to give you guidance.
Exercise is great for a number of reasons. It burns
calories both at the time and later. It builds muscles which cause your
body to generally burn more
calories.
Another main benefit for me is that it is a great distraction bringing in a window when you dont eat - even if you are having one of those binge days when you want to eat everything in sight - irrespective of whether you like it or not. It can therefore give you an opportunity to retake control on the food front. If I go out walking for two hours - that is two hours where I will not eat anything. If I want something I just have one piece of sugar free chewing gum and that is it for the next two hours. It is also a great opportunity to get away from things and think for two hours. When I am walking I tend to walk pretty quickly. Even if I am on the
treadmill and someone else is in the same room as me - I am walking too quickly to be having a conversation with them. That doesnt stop me thinking things through though.
I found that another great way to break up a binge was to get people to phone me or distract me in another way for a few days. If we tell our nearest and dearest that we are having a bad day with our food and would welcome some distraction I have found them more than happy to give a few extra phone calls. All you need is several people making several phone calls and you feel like you have never been off the phone...
I have now trained myself to only ever binge on fruit and raw veg. There are times when I eat far too much of it. I always have plenty in the house. I can eat it way beyond getting the full signals which is far from good. I figure that it is low calorie so not going to do much harm. It gives vitamins and if I am lucky - a lot of it will pass through on the way to the toilet...
As far as Alli reminding you to watch what you eat goes - have you tried logging your food on
FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal ? Many of us find that planning and logging (and indeed honing) our
nutrition reminds us to watch what we eat. It has the added benefit of ensuring that we eat really healthily (and gives us great
weight loss) too. This places us well for eating a healthy
diet as we get to
goal weight (having taught us how to control and hone our
nutrition) which means that we are less likely to gain weight at the end and give ourselves the same problem again.
For the record - I am not a great believer in medication like Alli either. The same reason as Kara outlines (re vitamins / healthy fats) - also I would rather find the willpower than risk the embarrassing consequences... Medication like Alli also leave people high and dry and risking a yoyo effect as they get to
goal - since they are not going to take Alli for the rest of their lives.
You do not mention your current weight - so it is hard to comment further on your statistics.
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