The Vine: August 22, 2008
Dear Sars,
You’ve helped me with some Procrastination Issues that I wrote about, about two years ago — thank you very much. I have another issue that I hope you can deal with better than I…
‘Cause it’s a biggie. Just like me. Yes, I really want to lose a decent amount of weight (that’s been creeping up on me since I was 16 years old), but I can’t seem to get off my ass and do it. It’s the most horrid thing, to feel mired in my own sullen indifference. I know it’s my health at stake, I know that I want to do this to feel better about myself, I know that a nice side benefit might be that guys would look twice at me and that my mom and brothers would stop ragging on me behind my back, but I just don’t. know. where. to start.
I was reflecting rather depressedly on this block for a while, recently. Some responses to myself included:
1) You’re lazy. (To which I replied: I might be anemic! and I’m really busy…)
2) You’re greedy. (To which I responded: emotional eating and learned habits going way back to high school cannot be overcome in a week, or even a month…)
3) Exercise is boring. (Which is true. Treadmills are dull, and I get seasick when I try to read, and then I think of all the time just circling the drain while I’m running like a hamster on a wheel, and I could be getting some work done.)
4) Could this be a form of twisted empowerment? (i.e.: guess what, Mom, this is my body, just like it’s my life, and I can do whatever I want with it, and if that includes running it into the ground, then you can suck it.)
5) I am a bit paranoid. (I don’t know whether or not this is normal, but I feel horribly self-conscious about going to the gym, eating in front of people, et cetera. And now that I know what my brothers have been saying, I feel even worse — and self-consciously furious, at that. I mean, what the hell? Brothers aren’t supposed to really look at your body, are they? The thought of them evaluating me like a slab of meat makes my skin crawl.)
Hmm. In sum, I guess I’m asking whether 1) you can administer a benignly phrased kick in the pants, and/or 2) whether your readers have had any experience on this short-of-breath-on-the-stairs section of Life’s Journey.
Sincerely,
Get your eyes off me
(PS Ix-nay on the eight-Watchers-way. I tried them twice, and I couldn’t get past the whole weigh-in thing; it made me feel like a steer in a high-density feed lot. Next stop, Bovine University!)
Dear Get,
You could probably benefit from some counseling, long-term, to deal with the situation with your brothers, which is sort of beyond the scope of the main question, so you might consider that.
But honestly, the laziness, greediness, and aversion to conventional exercise you describe are not unique to you.I would rather lie around watching baseball than cue up a Firm DVD; I would rather eat cheese than salad; I would rather do almost anything than go to a gym.I think you have to accept that these things are your nature, that you like to lounge and you like to eat, and while there is nothing at all wrong with that per se, it may be at odds with a weight-loss goal.
So, you make some changes — little ones that you can actually keep doing, so that they stick.It’s the principle as not procrastinating: break a big job down into lots of little jobs, and start crossing shit off the list, because “clean the house” is too large to manage; “dust bookshelves / clean stovetop / take out recycling” is probably the same end result, but in a more manageable form.
I lost fifteen pounds in the spring to get into a bridesmaid’s dress.I eat like a farmhand; I also drink beer.It is doable.My recommendations are these:
1. Reconsider Weight Watchers.I don’t go to the meetings either; some people are more motivated by that, but I am not.You can join online.The real use in WW, for me, is realizing just how much I eat at one sitting, and trying to control my portions; the points system helped me a lot with that.Another positive is that, for a lot of people, you see results in one week.You drink all the water, you go for a few walks, you rein in your salad-dressing consumption, and when it’s time for you to check in, you’ve often lost at least two pounds.
And the best part of the program is that it builds in some fuck-up points, so if you drink a couple of glasses of wine and it impairs your choices at dinnertime, you don’t go over your weekly budget.
It’s not for everyone, Weight Watchers, but even if you don’t stick to the plan forever (I went off the rez the instant Bean was safely married), it can give you useful tools for eating more healthily and recognizing certain negative eating tendencies you might have.
2. Do not weigh yourself more than once a week.This is why so many of my health regimes in the past failed; I am suuuuuper-impatient and want results yesterday or I’ll just give up and eat a sleeve of Chips Ahoy.You gotta think long-term.
Whatever your reasons for not wanting to stick with it — and “but I want to eat two bagels!” is perfectly valid, in my view — give it enough time to work.Two weeks, a month, whatever.Get a friend, make a plan, and cross off the days; if you’re miserable at the end of the month, quit, or try something else, but I am telling you, even if all you do is cut out eating after dinnertime and add two aerobic sessions a week for a month, you will see a difference.
3. The gym is not the be-all.Here’s why a gym membership doesn’t work for me: it’s a whole thing, with the going to the gym, the changing, the scheduling of the classes, the waiting for the machines…it’s an ass-tear, to me.I have a range of different DVDs at home, or I use Time Warner Cable’s Exercise On Demand to switch it up (the Biggest Loser workouts are killer).Or I ride my bike, or I walk to the park and back.
Find some way to get into working out.Yoga counts.Running stairs counts.Again, give it a week or two to get past the muscle pains and the “I wish I were dead” feeling; you have to get used to doing it, and then your body starts feeling more attracted to water and fruits and veggies.It helps your energy, you sleep better, you’re more regular…I still don’t like exercising for its own sake, but I like the results.
Privation and punishment don’t work.Don’t eat nothing but sunflower seeds and force yourself to run five miles the first day; that will doom you. Go on the Weight Watchers site, see what you think.Look at your daily routine; write down everything you eat and everything you do, and see if you can’t fine-tune it — cut a couple of regular Cokes and swap in a brisk 15-minute walk or something.
But make little changes, slowly, that you can keep doing without praying for the day when you can stop doing them, and set the system up so that the mistakes you make, which will be many and which do not mean you’re a piece of shit but a human being who likes sticky buns (I may be projecting here), let you continue instead of giving up.And after you’ve given it a few weeks or a month, and you see some results, let that inspire you to keep going.
Don’t think it’s only hard for you, though, is a key thing.Not only can I eat a whole pizza, I would rather.But I like sprinting for a bus without a ten-minute recovery time more, so: there it is.
(On a side note: it’s time to use the famous “…Why would you say something like that to me?” response on your family. They’re out of line.)
Readers: any tips?Favored workouts, eating tips, motivational tools?Try not to ramble on as long as I did, please (not much of a challenge, I realize).
Tags: Ask The Readers health and beauty the fam
I don’t think anyone’s mentioned this tip: if you start a food diary, carry it with you at all times and write down what you’re going to eat BEFORE you pay for it/put it in your mouth. If I start to write down an Arby’s value meal, it reminds me that I’m much better off with a small fries. Also, I am the queen of conveniently forgetting all the unhealthy things I’ve eaten if I wait until the end of the day to write it down.
This may seem like a stupid diet tip, but hear me out.
Twice a month (pay day works for me), eat whatever you damned well please. Seriously. Order a big greasy pizza. Go out for ice cream. Bake a batch of cookies. Whatever.
This may seem counterproductive, but when you’re on a diet of any kind, there will always be foods you’re not supposed to be eating, or eating less of, or you’re going to get good and sick of counting calories, points, grams, whatever. You’re going to look at that slice of cheesecake and say “Goddamnit, I want cheesecake! This diet sucks!” and give it up that much faster.
If you have stress release valves (eat whatever days) built in, you’ll feel less deprived, because instead of “I can’t eat X,” it’s “Oh, I’m going to have X on Friday,” and it gives you something to look forward to.
You might be surprised, too. After a couple of months of Eat Whatever Friday, you might end up eating healthfully for most of that day just out of habit, or because you like some of your new healthy recipes, and only throwing a cookie or two on top at the end of the day.
Accountability is key. I third or fourth the Couch-to-5K program, provided you register for a local 5K that’s about 7-8 months in the future. It’s the “well, I registered, I paid the fee, guess I gotta train now” attitude. I was in the beginning of the program before I got pregnant a few weeks ago and the only exercise I’m doing right now is “Couch to Toilet 5-second sprint. Did she make it? Let’s go to replay!” Once I get over the eruptive side effects of the first trimester I’m back to my five-times-a-week walk/run routine, though.
Two more things: reward yourself. I promised myself that if, for 8 weeks, I could exercise three times a week, I could buy myself a little reward for making it through. I settled on a cute purple iPod Shuffle that I loaded with my favorite workout songs. That brings me to number 3: figure out which songs make you want to MOVE, and make an awesome playlist for exercising. Trust me: when James Brown tells you to Get Up Offa That Thing, you might as well do it.
I’m also backing the suggestion of heading over to Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose, especially checking out “But Don’t You Realize Fat is Unhealthy?”.
I’m 5’0″ tall, weigh somewhere around 240 (haven’t weighed myself in months), and I’m happier, healthier, and saner than I’ve ever been in my life (excepting the part where I’m moving tomorrow, which is putting a damper on the sanity).
So glad to see voices from some Shapelings over here!! Love you guys.
I’m going to fifty-third or whatever Weight Watchers Online. I LOVE their online tools- it made logging in what I ate fun for me. I was never able to keep a food diary before I joined. And yeah, I didn’t need the weigh ins or anything like that. It also made me VERY aware (as many others have said) of how much I was eating, and it taught me how to eat healthily and fillingly. I lost 15 pounds in two months, and then got pregnant. But I’m still carrying over many of those eating habits, and you better believe I’m back on it after I have the baby.
I doubt you’ll make it all the way to this comment, but on the off chance you do- GOOD LUCK! If you’re ready to make a change, you can totally make a change! I won’t say it isn’t hard or that it doesn’t suck sometimes- it totally does. But I have complete confidence that you can do it, if you’re ready to try.
Join a women-only gym (no men to be creepy! or judgy!), especially one with elliptical machines with personal tvs. Nothing works as motivation better than getting on a machine at the top of the hour and staying on until you find out who wins this project runway challenge. Plus, time flies. It helps if you don’t have cable in your apartment and the only way you can watch tv is at the gym. Seriously.
Hello all,
I am the letter’s author. Can I just say two things?
1) THANK YOU, all of you, for your thoughtful responses, and
2) I’m going to print them all out to read through with some tea. 72 pages, people. Wow.
:)
Oh, and 3) thank you, to Sars, because she is awesome.
Krista has really great information about weightlifting and nutrition, and training in a way that fits your body-type.
http://stumptuous.com/cms/displaysection.php?sid=4
I absolutely know what you mean about the self-consciousness in the gym.
And I think if they would at least use the stationary bikes in the gym to generate the electricity necessary to run the gym it would feel less ridiculous to move without moving. Okay, lifting and putting down heavy stuff just to lift it again a few days later seems useless as well, but it feels way more interesting.
And I have a strange relationship with my mother regarding her commenting on my body as well. She looked like Twiggy at my age, I am 4 inches taller than her and 40 pounds heavier. So, I re-directed my twisted empowerment behaviour: I go to the gym to become strong and powerful, which is good for me but still does not match what she thinks of as ideal. (And I told her nicely to stop any comments.)
BTW, I read a bunch of fat-acceptance sites, including Kate Harding’s, and it did nothing for me. I still know that the laws of thermodynamics are valid for me as well. I still know that the human genetic make-up has not changed remarkably during the last 4 decades.
Okay, first of all, I’m appropriating the phrase “ass-tear” to use in my daily life, because it’s so perfect. (And god, word, I know I SHOULD join a gym, but there’s no way I’d go. Not because I don’t want to work out, but because I don’t want to GO THERE, get naked in front of strangers, hang around waiting for a few minutes with a stairmaster and then go all the way home. I’d rather just walk up and down the stairs in my building a few times and call it a night.)
Secondly, I lost about thirty pounds over a few months and kept it off by doing pretty much nothing at all. I cut back on the crap I ate, I stopped drinking soda (most of the time), I ate LESS shit instead of none and stopped to wonder if I was actually hungry before I ate. I still have bad eating habits a fair amount of the time, and my weight still goes up as well as down (and right now I keep ending up more or less back where I started – I’ve pretty much failed at taking care of myself these past few months), but for the most part, it’s going easily and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I hate feeling like I’m on a diet, you know? Drinking a lot of water – put lemon in it if you don’t like the non-taste – helps me quite a bit, plus it keeps the grocery bills down. :)
I’ve never been one for fat empowerment. For the people it works for, I think it’s awesome, but for me personally, it feels like I’m making excuses instead of trying to better myself. So don’t let anyone try and tell you what you’re doing is wrong or somehow anti-feminist. (Not saying everyone who is fat and happy is like that, just that there are some and they can be HUGE FREAKING BITCHES about it.) Do what’s best for you, whatever that may be, and do it for yourself. (Let’s not discuss how long it took me to figure that one out. Heh.)
Get, the only way one loses weight and keeps it off is with diet and exercise. A reasonable diet and a reasonable exercise plan. I never mind changing my eating habits to lose weight, but the exercise is a killer for me, because I find it sooooo damned boring. So here’s what works for me:
1. Establish a routine! This is so important: you have to commit to a lifestyle change, to lose weight (even a little bit of weight) and keep it off. And the easiest way to do it, I’ve found, is to create a regimen that you can stick to without thinking too hard about it, like meals at set times, exercise at set times, and maybe even set menus for the week. (For example, chicken breast on Mondays, veggie burger patties on Tuesday, etc.) This is not something you have to stick hard and fast to for the rest of your life, but you need to be able to incorporate your lifestyle change into, well, your life. For ever. A routine is the fastest, easiest way I’ve found to do this.
2. Figure out how to make exercise less boring. I need the discipline of a gym membership to get myself moving (because I’m motivated to make sure I’m getting my money’s worth for the membership). I’ve found that books on tape – in this case, Audible.com novels on my iPod – are a life-saver. Twenty to forty-five minutes of cardio go by incredibly fast when I’m involved in my audio-book! (The Harry Potter series lasts for tens of hours and is very engaging.) My mother-in-law lost about 20 lbs by going for long walks every morning (outside) while listening to books on tape.
3. Vary your exercise! Don’t walk every day, or don’t walk the same route. Get a few different exercise DVDs, join a yoga or pilates class, whatever it takes so that the idea of getting up at 6 a to do another 45 minutes of the Crunch Yoga for Weight Loss DVD doesn’t fill you with so much dread that you just roll over and go to sleep instead.
4. Don’t give up! This is far and away the most important thing. You won’t lose all the weight right away – it may take months or even years. Don’t get down on yourself if your weight-loss isn’t immediate and drastic. And don’t get angry at yourself if you have a burger and fries one night, or gain one week instead of lose. Stay positive. You can totally do this!
Best of luck!
I fully second the stumptuous.com recommendation. I’m using the NO FAT CHICKS! workout plan right now with some free weights I got at a garage sale for $10.
I’ve also enlisted my friends on livejournal.com to kick my ass if I don’t do a daily post detailing my workouts. I feel like I’m letting THEM down rather than myself when I don’t do what I need to. If you want some moral support feel free to friend me. I’m k_olefin.
158 comments later, I hope this isn’t a total repeat, but so much of what’s been said here does bear repeating.
I pretty much don’t doworkouts… it just kills me, that hamster-on-a-wheel feeling. If you can, try a workout that leaves you somewhere that feels like a reward… aceing your tennis opponent is just so much nicer than being ignored by a Nautilus machine. Hiking or walking outside does it for me. And word on the pedometer! Once I saw the numbers adding up on that thing, I started looking for ways to make it go higher. It’s amazing how it helps to make things tangible.
Checkpoints help too: I have a goal of 40 pounds, and started in January with a food plan that’s worked for me in the past. I was a little depressed stalling at 10 pounds, until I realized that is 25% of the way already. It meant more in those terms somehow.
The most important thing is to just start. Do something, even a little tiny thing. Little tiny things totally count! With that, you’ll have a positive (“I did it!”) instead of thrashing yourself about not starting. Positives breed more postives.
Get, you can *so* do this! I saw your comment about reading all the comments… see? You already started! All the very best to you.
If the benefit of WW is that you become aware of what you’re eating, you can get the same benefit with more fun, less peer pressure (ugh, bugger off, other fat people who are better or worse at losing weight than me and want to have chatty-times about it, whether in person or online) and more science at http://www.fitday.com. Oh, I suspect it costs less too, being free.
Two book recommendations for dealing with the emotional eating stuff, both by Geneen Roth: When Food Is Love: Exploring the Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy, and Feeding the Hungry Heart: The Experience of Compulsive Eating. And here’s another vote for talking with a counselor/therapist while you tackle the calorie reduction and the moving your body more stuff.
I did WW myself, and lost 26 lbs a year ago, without exercise, and have kept it off all year. All I did was portion reduction and wiser food choices, and learned when to stop eating. I did the Core plan because I hate tracking what I eat, so I just changed my food choices to fresh fruits and veggies, lean proteins, and minimal starches, and learned with WW’s materials to liten to my body to determine when I was satisfied but not actually “full.” As I shrank my potions week after week, my stomach shrank too, and it look less and less food to satisfy me. Now I eat healthy small portions, I don’t feel hungry, and I am within my healthy weight range. I feel so much better that I finally decided to start exercising. I found a dance exercise class that I love, called Nia (http://www.nianow.com/ ) and it’s helping me get toned and fit. I then started using weight machines (I joined a gym, after I lost the 26 lbs, once I felt more comfortable even walking into the gym!). Then a friend convinced me that running 4 miles with a Women’s 4 Miler Training Program is something that non-runners and mere mortals can actually do, so I ran for the first time ever in May, all of two laps around the track, a half mile. I did the training program all summer long and last Saturday I ran 4 miles. OMG! I also started playing (learning, that is) tennis, and I love it.
All of this would have been unimaginable to me 26 lbs ago, a year and a half ago. But it’s all part of my lifestyle now.
And yes, I did do weekly therapy throughout the whole time, and though weight loss and eating issues wasn’t the primary therapy work I was doing, I did address these issues somewhat with my therapist, and found it to be a really helpful piece of the puzzle.
What works for each person is a bit different, but the main thing is just to pick something, let go of the tendency to make excuses for why it won’t work, and just keep at it until you see results. It doesn’t matter so much WHICH path you take, just that you take one and keep moving your feet in the direction you say you want to head. Sitting there and rationalizing unhealthy behaviors was one of my favorite pastimes, but as the scale ticked closer and closer to 200 lbs (non-pregnant), I got more and more scared of where things were heading and so I finally decided to stop making excuses and to create goals for myself and take the baby steps I needed to take in order to reach those goals. Succeeding at weight loss and fitness has empowered me to make and reach goals in other areas of my life. If I can do it (a lifelong procrastinator) then you can too. Good luck! You won’t believe how much better you feel as you start to achieve results. You CAN do this! Sorry so long.
I don’t know if anyone will read this far down, but I want to share a revelation I had at the gym one day.
I was walking the track and feeling a bit self-conscious–skinny track star girls were sprinting past me in their leggings and sports bras, and I thought to myself, “Ick, I’m the fattest person here.”
And then I realized, I’M THE FATTEST PERSON HERE. I’M AWESOME. Other people my size are noticeably not at the gym. Of course the skinny people are here–it’s easy for them. (This is what we tell ourselves, see?) The fact that I am my size and still working on myself is highly respectable, and that’s the way you need to look at it.
Also, my gym plays VH1 over the treadmills and bikes. Who needs to read?????
Eleventh-ing (I believe) the recommendation for SparkPeople. I have Type II diabetes to keep in check, and SP is enormously helpful for keeping track of carbs and exercise.
I’m late to the party, here, but I’ve got something to add anyway. It’s important to realize that there are different physiological (as opposed to psychological) reasons that people can be overweight, and therefore not everyone will succeed with the same program. I was eating sensible portions of heart-healthy, low-fat foods and working out ferociously for MONTHS, and still gaining weight.
It all turned around when I discovered that, for me (I have PCOS), I needed to be following a lower-glycemic approach to eating. I made a few changes (exchanged jasmine rice for basmati, cut back on heavily refined foods – but not pasta, halleluiah, cut out any kind of soda) and slowly, slowly the weight started to come off – even after I stopped exercising like a fiend. I had been hoping just to halt the inexorable rise in weight, so imagine how pleased I was that it started reversing! I’m pretty stable, now, and much happier. I don’t feel deprived, because I only TRY follow the low glycemic approach for about 75% of meals.
It kind of boils down to, WHAT one is eating can be really important, even if it isn’t something obviously laden with sugar and fat.
Can I third stumptuous? Krista’s approach is dynamite, and the site is a real treasure trove of essays, workouts, articles, inspiration, you name it. Also, she recently quit her job to do stumptuous full-time, and is doing remote training for people. You might want to email her about it – she does both nutrition and workout programs, with checkins either weekly or biweekly. I believe she’ll do either email-only checkin, or video/skype in addition to email. Might be worth a shot.
I also agree with everyone who has voted for finding ways to work out at home. I live in LA, and I refuse to join a gym here. There’s just…no way I can exercise near the beautiful people. Way too much noise in my head around actually getting myself moving to add on the hubris of being surrounded by superhumans and actressy-types. Yuck. A pile of free wights, a stability ball, and a hilly neighborhood are fine for me.
One food recommendation I can make and vouch for is to figure out what kinds of stumbling blocks you know you have and find workarounds. For instance, I finally figured out that 3pm is a killer time for me. I can be moving and grooving through my day, making smart food choices, but 3pm hits and I’m raiding the vending machine for Twix. I knwe I was getting bingey every day, but it took me a little while to realize it happens at the same *time* every day. So I rearranged by meal timing and stocked bmy office with gum. Now, when the 3pm hungries hit, I have some alternatives at hand and (probably more importantly) I *know* it’s coming and can talk myself through it. Same thing with water. I know drinking a full 8 or whatever is great, but I just wasn’t getting there. Then I realized I hate refilling the damned glass all the time. So I got a couple of nalgenes with oz markers on the side. Now, not only does one last me a while, but I can see quantifiable progress (ala “Drained that thing 3 times – that’s 72 ounces, bitches!!”). Whether it’s hard candies in your purse, taking a different route home to keep from passing a Jack in the Box, or filling your fridge with low-fat cottage cheese….figure out proactive ways around your tough spots and you can keep yourself on track with aplomb.
Best of luck – weight loss is a bitch, but it feels really good when you get there. Admire yourself. Love yourself. Believe that you can do this and do it solely for you.
My quick suggestion, try finding an exercise class that you like. I’ve been athletic all my life, but I still need someone yelling at my lazy ass. Plus, once you become a regular, you feel like someone will notice your absence if you miss a class.
If you have it in your area, look into Jazzercise. Yes, it made me feel like I was working out with 30 “moms” but you can’t find a more enthusiastic and supportive group anywhere, and it really is a decent workout.
Oh! I forgot one thing – my husband’s grandmother used to make comments about his weight all. the. time. He finally got sick of it and asked her “Grandmother, you love me, don’t you?” She said of course, not sure what he was getting at. He followed with “then show me by never bugging me about my weight again.” She didn’t.
Don’t make it too complicated.
1. Eat less.
2. Move more.
3. Kill your scale.
4. Stop listening to joykillers. You’re gorgeous.
5. Fill your life with encouraging people.
6. You’re gorgeous.
What helped me was signing up for a charity walk. I was exercising, but slacking because I was bored. So I signed up for a 50-mile walk for MS about 6 months out. I started training like crazy, because there was a goal in sight that was bigger than just my weight. If there is a cause you care about, find out if there’s a walk or bike ride to support it, and sign up!
My comment last night didn’t post, but I wanted to third E. and Alexis on the Hacker’s Diet.
I know it’s the opposite of what everyone else says, but I actually weigh myself every day. I input my daily weights into the excel program from the site (it doesn’t work with excel 2007, I reinstalled 2000 to use it), and get the average trend chart, so I can watch the trend of my weight instead of the actual daily weight. It’s really comforting to me to see the trend stay stable, even when the scale fluctuates by as much as five pounds from day to day. It allows me to keep track of where my body really is, while taking away the power of the scale to make me feel like shit.
I guess whether that helps you depends on your mood and how much you obsess over the scale number.
The biggest help to me on the mental/emotional side of things is Linda(Miss Alli)’s old weight loss essays at “Losing the Cow”
http://tiny.cc/r63PY
This is my Fat Girl Bible. I read it over and over and OVER again, I feel like it explains so much of what I’m thinking and feeling far better than I ever could. In all seriousness I consider it lifechanging.
Good luck, I’m right there with you.
“I counted cleaning up cat barf as a point once, though, so you may not want to be as generous with the definitions as I am.”
Hee!
Coming to this late, but I just wanted to add one thing which might reassure the person trying to get moving and do some exercise: it sucks for everybody, at first. Seriously – I wanted to be a runner for years and YEARS, but would never stick to it because it sucked so much. I could never get to the stage where it was anything other than horrible.
However, my husband got diagnosed with MS, I was stressed and needed some ‘me’ time, I felt helpless and wanted to do something that was slightly worthwhile. So I signed up for a marathon. And I have never been overweight, but I’ve never been fit or a runner, either.
I’m doing my marathon on September 28th. It’s going to suck, but I have stuck to my training for an entire year. You just have to get on with it. Start small – run 30 secs, walk 4mins and 30secs. Build up your running each week. Running is the best thing for weight loss – it’s fully weight-bearing, so your body is going to burn the most energy. Get sorted with proper running shoes – they’re the only thing you’ll have to spend money on. Get outside. Do it in the early mornings if you don’t want to look like a dork (or just get over that whole thing – people look at you far less than you might assume, I’ve realised!)
You will feel so much better if you lose some excess weight and get a little fitter. Stick with it. Good luck!
Bored at the gym? See if you can find one that has TVs. At my college gym, I can flip on the TV, plug in my headphones, and burn 500 calories on the treadmill or elliptical while watching House. If you take your TV shows to the gym, it makes it easier for you to motivate yourself, and it’s less boring.