ExRx.net

I've told myself for the past half year now that I will start going to the gym everyday and actually getting healthy again, but It will last a couple weeks then die off. Currently I've been going for almost a month and a half strong of lifting, but my eating is HORRIBLE and I get lazy when it comes to cardio. Whenever I think about eating healthy or the shape I could be in, I get motivated for maybe a day then lose the motivation. Any advice on how to keep focused and eat healthy/lose the weight I'm trying to?

Most people need a reason to keep going, some sort of wake up call. When I was 19, I was getting out of breath walking up stairs so I quit smoking cold turkey and never went back. At 45, I failed a military PT test. Now I stay in shape. I haven't missed a workout for more than 2 weeks in the last 6 years. I have hardly had any pop or french fries in that time either. The bottom line is you have to want it. It doesn't come easy. Some people don't wake up even after a heart attack. My own father had emphysema and he knew that exercise was the cure but he couldn't bring himself to do it. It was easier to just give up. He died at age 58. Is that what you're doing? Are you giving up or do you have a reason to stay healthy?

Stu

Is it possible for you to get some equipment for home use? Nothing terribly fancy to start, just a bench and at least some dumbbells. You can get a 40lb set of plate dumbbells (2 spin-lock handles and 40 lbs of plates) for 19.99 at Wal-Mart. There is a TON of work you can get done with just DBs and a flat bench. You can get a good flat bench inexpensively, and can often find them at Thrift stores (Salvation Army and other similar stores).

Also at thrift stores, you can often find concrete weights. Concrete weights may not be the fanciest thing in the world, but a pound is a pound is a pound.

A gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. A tree branch makes a great Chin Up bar.

Have you got a bulldog????? ;-)

(Note: Thanks to TimD for posting about the "Bulldog Complexes" video he found on YouTube. That was awesome!)

There’s a lot you can do at home, and it is often easier to workout at home than to psyche yourself up for going to a crowded gym. I’ve found that sometimes going to a gym is more like “work” than the FUN that weight training should be. When I went to a professional gym, I found it pretty easy to make excuses to just go home after work.......but when your gym IS at home, you’re more than likely to stick with your routines. Plus you can play any music you like when you workout!

If you want to lose weight, have you got an older picture of you when you were slimmer. Or maybe a pair of pants that are a bit too small now. Hang those items up where you can see them daily! Make it your goal to get back in those pants or to look like that picture again!

When you lift weights, also have goals. Look to add one more rep each week to each exercise. Look to add 5 more pounds every 1-2 weeks for your compound exercises. Look to cycle/walk/run 1 minute longer next time. If you ride a bike, wear a watch and time yourself for 10-15 minutes in one direction then turn around and make sure to get back home within the same amount of time.....or even faster!


As for your diet, what is wrong with it? Are you eating out a lot? Over-eating? Can you elaborate?

Thanks for the tips, yeah the gym is a good 5-10 miles away and don't feel like going out there sometimes and I fell awful the next day if I didn't go. I am 19 now and the main reason I want to do this is to get back to the weight I was and live a lot healthier because I have a "low" grade form of cancer.

As for my diet, I gained nearly 30 pounds in 6 months (after losing weight dangerously by not eating or drinking much) and I seem to binge eat and eat until my stomach hurts to a bad point. When I work out I get scared then to eat at all and go skipping meals or eating once a day. Also the things I eat......I like fruit like crazy but almost hate all vegetables. I can get away with some broccoli and spinach but everything else its been a struggle. Mostly because of texture.....and I absolutely love chicken so I try to eat skinless breast a lot now for the protein. My overall "goal" is to fit in the clothes I was wearing, regardless of weight, and eventually look "cut" and feel good. It just seems that I will eat well for 2 days or workout for a good week straight, cheat for a meal, then go down hill the day after or just feel too lazy to go to the gym.

Summer's coming up. You don't want to look tired at the beach do you?

With our busy lives it is difficult to stay focused. I have been there, I know how it is. I strongly believe that best way to commit to something, whether be diet or something else, is to make it part of your life, and not to think of it as something you HAVE to do. You must WANT to be commited, and try not to force yourself into doing it. Once dieting and being active becomes a lifestyle (and not a chore), come up with short term, and long term goal. Making sure the goal is feasible is important, as failing to reach that goal could have negative outcome. As far as diet goes, you only have to get through first few weeks. If you have a solid meal plan, you will start noticing changes (physical, and psychological) within first few weeks. Once that happens, you will like what you see, and will want to coutinue with it. Have a cheat meal, or a cheat days, every couple weeks!!!

If you approach things with an "all or none" attitude, it's easy to get discouraged. To "get healthy" might be a big task, but to improve one thing about your exercise habits and one thing about your diet should be do-able.

Maybe it would be hard to get to the gym every day. How about 3 days a week?

It might be a big task to change to a "perfect" (whatever that is) diet, but is there one thing you can change? I think that the best thing you can do is to eat more of the good things. First of all, that's a positive approach, which is usually easier to maintain. You like fruit, so eat more fruit. Eat it at the beginning of the meal so you'll be less hungry for the other stuff. If there are a lot of "bad" things in your diet, look for ways to reduce them. Maybe you're not ready to cut them out completely yet, and it might be discouraging to think that you have to.

Also, I'm a real believer in having a partner both for exercise, and to encourage about diet. If you have a friend that you can do things with, that might help a lot.

Most of all, keep it up. Don't give up, even when you slip up.

I personally have failed several times in the past, and at one point was over 290lbs. I think what keeps me personally focused is that, being that I work alot on computers, its nice to do something physical. It's like a complete switch from my IT repair and digital art that I'm usually working on. Once I realized why I liked it, I had a much stronger bond to working out, versus the past reason of say, losing weight to look good or whatever.