Gonna take up exercising regularly.. no idea what im doing.

[Enigma]

Hey. I'm a out of shape 19 year old who's decided to get fit. I'm not grossly overweight but I could really stand losing a few pounds.

 

Here's the thing. I have no idea how to set up my excercise schedule.. Atm the only excercise im getting is walking an hour a day back and forth from school. I need something I can do easily when I wake up and before I go to bed. That doesnt take too much time. 10-30 minutes morning and evening would be great but I have no idea how to plan this at all.

 

So if someone here has experience with this kind of stuff and some free time. Help me out

[littlekitty]

Are you looking to tone up or simply loose a few pounds?

 

To have any effect, you're going to need about 30 mins.

[Enigma]

Well.. my main priority is weightloss.

[SILLYRABBIT]

I think the best way to lose weight is not to focus on the exercise, rather, make a commitment to better health in general. Exercise is good, but in my experience if you just concentrate on that, and over do it, you can get burned out quickly and fail. My suggestion, work on your diet first, your walking an hour to school is great exercise for now. Do you drink soda or sugar drinks? If so, stop and get in the habit of drinking water and Green tea and low sodium V8. Eat breakfast like hard boiled eggs without the yoke, oatmeal, fruits, Eat little meals spread throughout the day. Tuna is great for you. or any fish really. You get my point here.

You will start feeling better within the first month and will probably lose about

3-5 pounds watching your diet alone with the walking. The second month, Walk more than to school, walk around the block a few times, or ride a bike a bit still watching your diet. After you feel great, you can get into what ever exercise you want

 

Try to stay away from packaged, prepared meals, soups and so on. they have a lot of sodium in them and that makes you swell up.

 

most of the quick fix diets don't work or work for only a short period of time and then you gain it back. Take slow and steady steps to better diet and exercise and you will keep it off and feel better all the time. I can't stress the drinks enough, stay away from soda, and high sugar drinks.

 

Well, I wish you the best. This worked for me, all I do is walk for around an hour a day also, eat well and I lost 20 pounds and it stays away.

 

 

Silly Rabbit.

[littlekitty]

Yep Sillyrabbit has pretty much said I would have done. Focus on making a lifestyle change. In order to achieve weight loss you need to look at both your diet and exercise. Small changes will have an impact. If you can't commit to changing your whole diet, do one challenge a week. Like week 1, cut down soda and drink more water. Week 2, make sure you eat breakfast. Week 3, bring another healthy eating rule in etc.

 

Also since your goal is weightloss, stick to cardio. Walking, skipping, swimming, cycling are all good for this. About 30 mins every day would soon see some results.

 

Good luck, and any questions, just ask!

[Candied-Heart]

A good idea diet wise is to start 'logging' the amount of calories and other nutrients in the foods you eat on regular basis. In doing this you'll be amazed at how much calories you're wasting on one small can of soda [152cals] or a bag of potato chips. These things are [clearly hehe] what you should be reducing. You can use some helpful sites online that show you how many calories you need to eat at your current weight to lose this extra weight simply by entering your height and weight and your current exercise status [none, mild, heavy amounts]. Usually it will show you how to lose weight by minusing 500cals a day off your daily intake. It really works and it's purely healthy. As long as you eat enough. Don't go eating 400cals a day and exercising like crazy, this will only make your body go into starvation mode and commonly this causes people to gain weight / or hold onto the excess.

 

Regarding exercise. Try to change it up frequently because many of us get tired and bored with the same routine, and our body will start to get too used to this action and unless you make it more intense or stretch out the amount of time you do such exercise, you will start to hit a plateau both with weight and tone.

 

What sillyrabbit has suggested are excellent examples of high energy but low cal foods. Aim to lose 1-2 lbs a week, nothing more, to treat your body safely!

[Outcast]

However, if you're not grossly overweight, for sure tweak your diet to cut a lot of fat (trans fats and saturated fats - unsaturated aren't as bad) and other unhealthy foods but increasing exercise is perfectly fine. It can be as simple as walking an extra half-hour or hour a day.

 

Does your school have people who do fitness counselling for students? If so, that would be your best resource. If not, then figure out what sort of exercises you would like best and then take classes in them - again, your school probably has fitness classes but if not community centres usually have them.

 

There's a zillion possibilities - you need something aerobic (brisk walking can be that), something for strength, and stretching for flexibility. Swimming is a very good all-round exercise, actually, if you have access to a pool and like swimming. You can get some small weights to work on strength but talk to someone at the gym at your school to find out how not to lift weights; you can hurt yourself if you're not careful. A lot of people like yoga. Others are into ball exercises. The trick is finding something you like doing so that you'll enjoy it and keep doing it.

 

The problem with dieting is that you can reset your metabolism so if you are already eating a normal amount of calories and you have a healthy diet, exercise is the better option to lose weight.

[Dawn82]

I pretty much agree with everything said here.

1 hour a day of walking is more then enough activity

for the purpose of weight loss. the main thing

is keeping your diet clean and your calorie intake

lower then your maintaince level.

 

good luck.

 

Shahar.

[Cool Chick]

I agree with everything that is said here. Eat less, excercise more is the best way to loose weight. A lot easier said than done however.

 

Have you considered taking up a sport to help loose some weight? It's a great way to get out, meet new people and stay focused on your goal. I did exactly that at your age and have had fantastic results. My sport of choice was to learn martial arts, it was a tone of fun and I'm still at it. There's tons of possibilities and you would be amazed at how much you enjoy it once you start and find something you really like doing.

 

Cool Chick

[jerbear]

Pretty much what everyone says.

 

I picked biking, avoiding caffine, avoiding fizzy soda, high fruitose corn syrup, and stress.

 

Mixing biking and swimming works works wonders. Also as on ages, the metabolism slows down. So a combination of activities work, food intake, excercise, lifestyle changes, etc...

[fishtaco]

Some very good advice here. The most important thing is to stick with it. Even if you make the best diet/exercise plan in the world, but you quit after 2 months, it won't do you any good.

 

Pick something fun, like Cool Chick said. There are tons of things to try. In addition to "sport" sports like basketball, tennis, etc, there are also others like rock climbing, mountain biking, boxing, dragon boat rowing, surfing, snowboarding... etc. Basically get out there and move around and break a sweat, and have a good time doing it. Then it won't feel like you "have to" put in 30 minutes a day. Instead it'd be like that's it? Time to go home already?

 

And also whatever you do, if you could find a buddy to do it with you, it'll be even better.

 

The most effective method I feel is still going to the gym and do cardio/lift weights. But it's boring and a lot of people quit after a bit. Getting a buddy helps. But what I found is that if you get into a sport seriously, it will make you go to the gym in order to excell at whatever sport you're into. I started lifting because I was really into hockey and I didn't want to get muscled around in the rink. I don't play hockey any more, but I'm still lifting at the gym.