Yes. You can lose weight just by exercising and not changing your eating habits, it'll just take longer to lose the weight. You can also lose weight by improving your diet instead of exercising, but again it'll take longer.
I do both. The first thing I do on the road to better eating habits is to stop going out to eat. I make all my meals and take all my lunches to work.
For breakfast: I'll eat yogurt with homemade granola and frozen fruit like blueberries or sliced strawberries. If I'm eating plain nonfat yogurt, I'll add honey because I find it fairly unpalatable without it. I also eat things like oatmeal with a bit of brown sugar and I add milk if the oatmeal is heavy and too thick. When it starts getting warmer outside I'll probably switch to fruit smoothies for breakfast, which usually consists of frozen strawberries, frozen pineapple, canned peaches or canned mixed fruit, blended with soy milk. Just a word of caution, blueberries blended with soymilk tends to gel together, so if you don't drink it right away you might have to eat it with a spoon.
Lunch: My husband or I try to cook something on the weekends for lunches during the week. Maybe spaghetti with ground turkey and tomato sauce, roasted chicken, omelets filled with mushrooms or tomato and cheese, etc. I just make sure to include two vegetables with my meals and no, mashed potatoes don't count if you're using milk and butter to make it, and if it doesn't include peels because that's where all the nutrition is. My omelets are usually filled with vegetables that I sauté separately, so I usually just eat them with rice or salsa.
Dinner: For the last meal of the day we try to eat light and early, at least 3 hours before we go to bed. Things like baked bean burritos that we make with nonfat refried beans which we eat with salsa, light soups, or ramen soup with shrimp or sliced hard boiled eggs and leafy green vegetables, etc.
Snacks: Dried fruit, apple with cheese, strawberries, orange, bowl of cereal, bowl of yogurt, etc.
4 comments:
Hey! I stumbled on this through gardening channels and read back through the last month or so. I relate to much of what you're talking about, and you've inspired me to stop being lazy this winter and get my muscle back and my cardio back up.
I'm in ok shape and used to run very regularly, but 2017 was a lazy year and this winter exercise (apart from garden work) just never happened. I like to run outside, and when it's cold and dark, who wants to do that, right?
And those first few weeks are all pain, no gain (or should I say, no loss?). I definitely gain weight at first each time I get back into running. It's discouraging. But I know if I can stick with it, at about 6 weeks (for me) there's this 'flip' -- and suddenly everything starts to suck in, tighten, and tone. And it happens quick from there. But boy, those six weeks can take a lifetime...
Long story short, hope it's cool if a quietly stalk this blog as inspiration for my own quest to get back into my former shape. Two years ago I was running 25 miles a week, every week. I'm ready to be in that body again!
Hi Day,
It's hard to run outside when it's dreary and cold. I see hardy souls out there during the winter and all I can think is, better them then me. It's great that you were running so consistently and logging in all those miles. It takes me a long time to catch my second wind, almost 40 minutes, so I don't like to run until I'm in fairly good shape already.
If only we could speed up time when it comes to the initial weight gain that happens when people start working out. My thighs have definitely gotten bigger since I started exercising again, ugh. I think a lot of people quit exercising at this point because they get discouraged. But I know that'll go away in a few weeks, and then the weight will melt off.
I ran yesterday - ouch ouch. Didn't go far, didn't go fast, but I got out and got it done. Thanks to you! I had intended to get back into running once the weather warmed up more, but stumbling across your blog made me realize that's just a stupid excuse I made up. It was low 60s yesterday, hardly too cold to run. So I stopped dodging the issue and just went.
When I started running for the first time years ago it was absolutely hell. I couldn't breathe at all, my joints hurt, I got muscle craps constantly and in the weirdest places. I wanted to throw up. I had zero running muscles and had to build them all from scratch.
Since then, over the years I've flirted with running, stopping and starting again, but NEVER been as hard as that first real attempt. I'm not a natural runner. Building the basic muscles, forming the mental mantra (I can breathe, my legs are fine), and developing the sense of balance needed to run effortlessly were all so so hard. At the time, it felt like fighting a losing battle.
Oh it wasn't, it wasn't at all. I was too blinded by discomfort at the time to see how it was going to change my life forever, in the best way.
I think when people start working out for the first time, especially running, that feeling of 'I'm dying' combined with the getting heavier as your body struggles to quickly build the muscles you need, does exactly what you say -- it discourages them.
I swear it is never worse than that first attempt, those first couple months. Once you build those running muscles, they may get weaker without use, but I swear they never go away completely. Everything in the world becomes easier with good cardio. Breathing, sleeping, getting stupid chores done around the house. It's taken me years of this 'on and off' relationship with running to realize how much it affects everything in my life, for the better.
Hi Day,
It's fantastic you started running again. I consider running to be an extreme cardio that has some of the same effects as weight lifting. It shapes and changes your body quickly like nothing else.
But starting out is definitely the worse. It's so hard in the beginning because you're changing your body, building up and breaking down tissues. But there's nothing like being in good shape, that light fast feeling when everything is working optimally. Like you said, it really does make everything better.
I actually found Cher's step aerobics video on youtube, so I went ahead and ordered a step. It's a great workout but the lace, bodysuits, and black stockings just take it over the top. So wonderfully crazy.
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