Middle-aged fatbloke needs to lose weight

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Recent health epiphany leads me to the horrible conclusion that I need to lose a significant amount of weight and improve my general fitness. Or rather, simply achieve some general fitness…

I eat pretty well and don’t snack on crap, which is good.

I drink too much alcohol and haven’t yet quit vaping since giving up smoking ten years ago, which is not so good.

My caffeine intake is way too high.

I hate gyms, grimace at the very thought of jogging and am generally not looking forward to this at all, but the thought of maybe living a few extra years is quite a powerful motivator.

My initial thoughts are along the lines of an exercise bike, which I could use to build up a sweat while listening to music. Burning calories is the main aim. The satisfaction will come from seeing the pounds drop off gradually. Any further sources of joy are as yet unforeseen (maybe I’ll become an adrenaline junkie and walk around in lycra. I’m not picturing it…)

I’m clueless really. Am I on the right lines here?

I need to find a way to burn more than I consume. That much I understand.

All advice welcome (the more meatmanly the better).

Cheers!

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No need for all that exercise shit. Replace Vaping with Fabreze plug-ins, Alcohol with AF equivalents and Coffee with caffeine free. Won’t actually live any longer but it will sure feel like you have.

My invoice is in the post.

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Yeah, exactly.

All I need to do is stop doing everything that makes life worthwhile.

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Watched a couple of videos of people raving about the Peloton bike.

Fuck me, those things are expensive.

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A disheartening truth to support the cause

To burn off the calories in x1 Mars bar, you’d need to cycle for about 1 hour 40 minutes at a moderate pace

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Burn more calories than you consume.

More small adjustments work better for me than anything else.

Stop eating so much crap.
Eat more veg.
Drink less alcohol.
Do more exercise.
Intermittently fast if hangriness isn’t an issue.

Exercise-wise, I would start by walking if you not used to it. Get a routine for exercise. Do a bit every day. Make it normal.

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And if you do get angry when fasting then all the more reason to get used to fasting.

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I applaud you for taking action and also for reaching out to get ideas :+1:

A few things up front.

  1. You can’t out-train a bad diet, so just make sure your diet is appropriate to your normal activity levels and sustainable
  2. Pick an exercise that you actually like, otherwise you’ll never last and it will be a flash in the pan
  3. Start slowly, don’t go mad or you’ll quickly burn out - your subconscious will just unplug you without you realising
  4. Booze calories are real. They also likely contribute to your blood pressure. This is the toughest bit for most of us, to get our drinking into a space where its not killing us (too quickly!)
  5. This is a loooong journey, so don’t go sprinting at it and expect some setbacks, just keep getting back on the horse

How much do you walk? Brisk long walks are great for gently getting your activity levels up without hammering your joints etc. Also getting outside can also do wonders for your blood pressure too.

Also its a good foundation for doing something more strenuous when your’re ready for it.

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I just wouldn’t go anywhere near a bike or a rowing machine or any other machine until you’d got 3 months of 10k steps a day under your belt.

Even then I’d say swimming is a better choice, again its low impact on your joints etc.

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95% of these contraptions end up gathering dust and/or listed on auction sites.

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A few thoughts, based on my own experiences and what I’ve learned from others doing the same thing over the last 4-5 months.

The golden rule with all this stuff is that the best diet / exercise regime is the one you can stick to. It’s also worth bearing in mind that humans are really quite varied, so what works for one person may well not work for another person at all.

Getting fitter/stronger whilst also trying to lose weight is really, really fucking difficult - not just psychologically, but the two are basically at odds with each other. Your body is essentially pre-programmed to try and preserve resources, so if you put yourself into a calorie deficit (which will mean you lose weight), your body is going to try and avoid giving what stored resources its got towards muscle building where it can. I was initially working on 1800kcal per day, and these days I’m far happier on about 2100-2200kcal per day.

To build muscle, your body needs a decent supply of protein (you’re probably not getting enough) - I aim for 150g of protein per day at the moment. If you can, I’d really recommend trying to log food when you eat/drink anything. Even if you don’t want to count calories (which I totally understand, and there’s ways round that), it’s a really good idea to get an idea of what you’re actually, really eating. Yes, that involves weighing pretty much everything you eat for a week or two, but you’ll almost certainly find that even with the stuff you’ve already implemented, there are some surprises in there. There’s nothing judgy in this btw, this is making sure you’re not doing something that’s sabotaging your efforts without realising it. You then know you’re making a considered choice when you eat/drink something.

Don’t underestimate the benefits of doing some element of the exercise you want to do with other people. That doesn’t have to be an exercise class at the gym, it could be as simple as finding a local walking group. While I do spend some time in the gym, one of my main motivations is to be able to keep up with Sarah when we go out walking - and those walks in and of themselves get through serious calories as well. Don’t underestimate the calorie consumption required to walk up a hill on a non-smooth surface with a modest rucksack on your back. It’s really quite surprising.

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Intermittent fasting is a good way to lose weight fairly quickly, if (as others have said) you can cope with being hungry a few hours a day & don’t binge on crap when you do eat. I lost 17kg in 3 months. I put 5kg back on when I stopped doing it but I’ve been stable for 3 years.
Find an activity that gives you pleasure - country walks/bike rides/swimming classes /etc - if you enjoy it you’re much more likely to keep it up (that’s also a benefit btw :smiling_face_with_horns:).

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PS sugar is a bastard for putting on weight & it gets added everywhere as an ingredient - bread, ham, sauces, …
Check labels & avoid it :man_gesturing_no:t2:

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I was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation and Severe heart failure back in September last year. When I was first diagnosed I couldn’t walk 50m without stopping and gasping for breath.
Aside from the medication I’m on the best thing I’ve done is changing my lifestyle.
I don’t drink alcohol except the odd beer, I’ve cut out processed food and only eat meat a couple of times a week. I watch what salt I have and never add it when cooking. Eat plenty of fresh vegetables, carbs are ok just eat complex carbs brown rice, wholemeal bread, pulses and fruit.
It’s not easy and you can do it.
Think about going to a parkrun on a Saturday morning, they are really pushing it for walkers now as well as runners. There are people there of all abilities.
I walk 3-4 miles at least 3 times a week now some weeks I’m doing 20 miles.
The hardest part is making the decision to do it and you’ve done that.

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On a more serious note and maybe of use here. After my heart attack (nearly 2 years ago) I lost nearly 3 Stones in about 9 months simply by eating less and not snacking. My diet was already reasonable (all home cooked vegetarian) but there was a lot of it and too much cheese and crisps. So, it’s now cheese a max of 3 times a week and 1 small bag of crisps the same amount of times.

I drink about 25% less alcohol than I did (still too much though) and still not much by the way of exercise, though at just under 14 1/2 stone I’m not overly concerned about that.

You can do this.

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I got started on a reply then half way through someone came round and we went for coffee and cake in the local arts centre instead.

In the meantime almost all the stuff I was going to say has been said (probably better) by other people.

Except, maybe: You don’t need to stop doing the things which make life worthwhile. You just need to do them a bit less.

The margin can be surprisingly small. I read somewhere that on average after the age of 35 we gain 0.5-1kg a year, so by age 55 we are 10-20kg heavier than we were.

Butter is fat. 650g of butter contain about 5200 calories so you will put 650g a year on* if you eat just 100 kcal a week more than you burn.That’s 1.5 digestive biscuits. Each week !

*You might add more than 650g a year since human body fat is associated with retaining water too and I think there’s more water (weight) in human fat than in butter.

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Thanks everyone, that gives me plenty to think about.

Today, I have eaten two slices of toast with a very thin smattering of butter and an even thinner topping of jam. Nothing else. Having started the day with a strong coffee, the rest has been water and cups of something masquerading as tea (herbal, fruity and caffeine-free). It was OK.

Tonight, I am making a large pot of carrot and lentil soup and supper will be oven baked sea bass with a few Jersey Royals and a large tomato salad.

I’m trying. My daily step count is fine on days when I’m working (12 hour shifts) as I’m on my feet most of the day. 10,000 steps is a fair target. At home however, I’m rather less active, so getting outdoors more is a change I will definitely make.

I’ll hang fire on the exercise machinery for now, but this afternoon’s trip to Aldi resulted in the purchase of one of those under-desk exercise bike things. The reviews look promising and it has variable resistance. It was £22. It now lives in the space where I keep the laptop and watch Netflix. Keeping active while I do those things seemed to be a no-brainer. We’ll see.

BP is down a bit further today at 168/101, which still isn’t great, but a lot better than 210/110, so the pills are having some effect. The trend is downwards, which is encouraging.

I know myself well enough to appreciate the advice that attempting any kind of regular exercise you don’t enjoy is doomed to failure. It certainly would be in my case, so I’ll need to think carefully about which direction to follow. Long walks in the Northumberland countryside with the dog certainly appeal.

The other thing I really must do is start to generate a better understanding of what I’m eating. I’ve never really thought about the nutritional content of a slice of bread, for example. I know there are apps that will help, and Samsung Health (which I use to track my sleep stats for sleep apnoea) has some basic food intake tracking. I’d appreciate some advice on this.

Cheers!

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I’ve been using an app called MacroFactor for my own logging purposes. You pay a bit for it, but being able to scan a bar code and it (mostly) having all the nutritional info already there really takes a lot of the hassle out of it.

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I’m very snack-prone, so this might not be so relevant for you, but in my case walking has the basic benefit of taking me away from the biscuit barrel and distracting me from any pangs in a healthier way than munching did.

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Get out and walk, the exercise bike will just become a dust collector.
Check out the DASH diet. It’s not a fad diet where you can only eat blueberries 3 days a week. It’s aimed at lowering hypertension, but if you follow it you will lose weight and it will definitely lower your salt intake.
I went from a 43 inch waist to 36 inches and vastly improved cardio using those two methods

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