OooOo I was looking for a section like this! Sweet.

[Jemm]

It's about time I got my butt in gear too I suppose Or else I'll be one very very very unfit person in 5 years.

So I'm looking for some advice on what should be done about this so I'll describe as much info as I can.

Daily activities = schoolwork. sleep. schoolwork. Eat. schoolwork. Go to work, sit, work, eat, come home and repeat. I sit at the computer between 14 and 20 hours a day and I basically never move. My profession is computers. Been that way for the past 5 years, not a very smart thing at all, and I'm aware of it, but there's not much else I can do because of my ridiculously tight schedule. If I'm not sitting on my butt at home it's on my butt in a classrom. Daily I'd say I've got between 2 - 3 hours (this is maximum, on a good day) free time and I'll like to do something healthy with it. I'd say from my legs go down pack almost 2/3 of my body weight, I'm bottom-heavy (due to the eternal sitting on my rear). haha.

My main goal is just to be healthy, sure looking good is a bonus but that's not my goal. I'm comfortable in my skin as it is. My fear is that this same comfort won't motivate me to do something about my weight. I'm a short girl (5'4") and my BMI is 25.2 according to http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ (147 lb). Which means I'm pretty much overweight. Even regardless of the weight, I know my lifestyle will carry me downhill fast if I'm not careful. I come from a stocky, weighty family.

Symptoms I'm experiencing are very very cracky joints from since I was very little, I've had that condition for as long as I remember. Just like you can crack your knuckles, imagine that being every single joint I have :s I can control it and it causes no pain but it still worries me and I don't know if it means bad news or not. No one else in my family except my dad experiences that kind of thing.

Both my parents have diabetes, I'm the last child.

My diet usually consists of whatever I get to eat at the time, but things excluded from my diet are cheese snacks, and all meats besides chicken and fish. I don't eat fast food, I don't drink soda. I rarely drink alcahol, once a week max. I also dislike things like cake, brownies and other ridiculously sweet things (besides the occasional ice cream) because they taste horrible. I eat chicken between 1 - 2 times a week, and fish even rarer. I love legumes of all sorts so I eat those pretty regularly. Bad parts in my diet is I love pasta and would eat a lot of it if I could, at times I find myslef eating the college diet for a straight week in a row. I've been a chronic coffee drinker since I was about 9, I drink between 2 and 6 MUGS a day. Sometimes I eat nothing and only spend my day running on hot coffee (my gosh this sounds more terrible as I write )

Overall I eat very little, 0-2 meals a day, but when I do eat I try to keep it sensible. I'm not a snacker and I don't have lots of space for food. I'm easily satisfied with a low volume of food.


SO any kind of advice for what better I can do to get myself back into fitness with just 2 hours a day to spare? What changes to my diet do you suggest?

[Laura]

First off, you've got a good diet. Staying away from sweets and red meats is a big plus. How are your vegetables? Do you eat any -- particularly dark leafy greens?

If you increase your exercise, you're going to have to increase your food intake. No more no-eating days. In fact, I would say no more 0 meal days at all; not eating and living on coffee is a bad thing. Try cutting back on the caff to just 2 mugs, and increasing your vegetable and protein intake (beans, tofu, chicken, fish). Do you like spinach? Apparently spinach has a lot of protein in it, so it works as both a leafy green (fiber, nutrients) and as a protein -- although meats and beans have more protein per gram.

What do you eat with your pasta? I'm assuming that you don't just boil a pot of pasta and eat that by itself. Cheese? Sauce? Butter?

As for the exercise...start by walking. Walking is the best way to begin from not exercising at all. It's great for toning up those legs and improving your heart rate. Rob can probably give further advice for some resistance type stuff, but I'd say at least try walking at least 20 minutes a day. make sure you have good shoes! Don't be taking walks in flip-flops.

-- Laura

[Alex Sollazzo]

Sounds like you may actually need to eat MORE. If you eat nothing all day, your body will get used to having no energy input and will conserve any it gets as fat. History of diabetes is a definate reason to get to work on being healthy right away.

The simple answer is to eat a balanced diet (40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat) and eat around 1750cal per day (more if you start doing exercise), walking each day for atleast 45 minutes will help burn off some fat and is easy for anyone to do anytime/anywhere. Consistency is very important so you should never miss a meal, force yourself to eat if you have to or just have something very calorie dense (natural peanut butter, nuts), Ideally you want to split your 3 meals into 6 smaller meals per day, but thats probably abit ahead of where you are atm.

Further down the track if you're upto it you may want to add some higher intensity cardio and weight work.

[Jemm]

Laura: that's what I forgot to mention - I adore the leafy stuff and will eat it whenever I can but at the same time it's difficult for me to get them because they're crazy expensive. I'd say 1 in every 2 weeks honestly is when I can get my hands on something of that nature to eat, perhaps even more. I love spinach and ate a lot of it just 2 days ago.

What I eat with the pasta it's often legumes, like red beans or lima beans. That or some sort of tomato-based chicken sauce. I am not a fan of butter and margarine so the intake of cholestorol-rich stuff is really small in that respect. The coffee - I know it will kill me at this rate, no doubt about it. The only reson I'm still relatively healthy (or alive for that matter) is because of my age, and that for sure isn't something on my side for much longer at all. I'd not be surprised if it's doing some serious damage to my nerves. Lessening the intake is definitely something I'm working on so I'm going to do my best to keep it down to at most 2.

Walking - my most hated yet recommended excercise. But you're absolutely right. I guess it's time to make friends with the old sneakers again. haha. Thank you!

Alex: Diabetes scares the living daylights out of me. My parents are fortunate to not be amputees or having to take insulin shots but nothing guarantees I'd have that same type of luck. My mom will be 61 next month and neither of them have to date suffered any serious symptoms except my mom went blind from cateract when I was in my early teens. It was expidited by the diabetes. She's had surgery now though and her sight is better than mine, thankfully.

6 smaller meals per day sounds difficult for me to maintain but I definitely see what you mean there, I'll make an effort to eat more. Peanuts and me are pals so that's not a problem to do, I can start from there and work my way up.


Thanks for the advice guys, all sounds pretty solid and I'll be making a move from today to change my bad habits.

[Jemm]

Oh finally I forgot to mention - 1: my eyesight sucks, I cant' see a meter ahead of me without glasses and 2: I barely get any sleep (I'm working on it but circumstance just is making it hard for me to get sleeping time). That means between 1 and 5 hours a day. Do not want.

[Zombie Dave McCaig]

Walking - my most hated yet recommended excercise. But you're absolutely right. I guess it's time to make friends with the old sneakers again. haha. Thank you!

Walking isn't really a very beneficial exercise unless you're going long distances or up steep hills, but it's a good gateway towards other stuff.

What sorts of things do you like to do? Hiking? Kayaking? Biking? Jogging? Tennis? Badminton? Swimming? It's a good idea to pick a sport you like to do and train for it specifically. Gives you more of a real goal as you see yourself improve in your sport of choice.

Start exercising, and you'll find you're more efficient at all of your other daily tasks. Health makes room for itself.

As for the glasses, you know that's no excuse. Just wear them. You can even get prescription swim goggles pretty cheap. ($25 us) http://www.aquagoggles.com/

[John Rauch]

Walking is never a bad idea, but don't think it counts for cardio unless you're walking *fast*. There's a little area of overlap between walking fast and jogging very slow where you could actually burn as many calories walking. So, if you just can't run at all, it's possible to make walking work, but you still need to break a sweat.

[Alex Sollazzo]

Walking is 100% cardio assuming you do it for long enough, its just not as time efficient as running/swimming etc. If you really havent gotten any exercise for the past 5 years like you say definately do not jump to any high intensity cardio and start just by walking (you'll find it too hard and it may put you off exercise).

Getting no sleep is bad for weightloss, you really want to aim for a consistent 8 hours sleep, but thats not always possible.

[Jemm]

Dave - fine, fine I'll wear them lol!

I love swimming and was very heavily into sports as a teen. I walked, swam a lot, did gymnastics, I was a bike rider and also a hiker.


It all came to an abrupt end faster than I could say 'college fees'. :/ one by one they dropped off of my schedule in rapid succession before the end of my very first semester. I still have the old love for swimming in me though and there's a public swimming pool not too far from me now. I'm considering getting back into it, I'd do that before walking any day. haha.

John and Alex, yes I suppose the walking will help but a good burning wallk needs time and safe environs, neither of which I have. Not making excuses, I can look for a place that I can walk in, perhaps a park. Shouldn't be much of a problem, how's 1 - 2 hours of walking sound? I don't have a whole lot of stamina for more :s

[Zombie Dave McCaig]

Does your pool have a track? Walking/light jogging and swimming are a great combo.

[Jemm]

unfortunately they don't, it's a medium-size training pool. nothing super professional yet BUT they have a gym upstairs with all those shindigs of equipment and such. I tried going to the gym for a couple months a few years ago but it was located too far from my new campus to continue.

[Alex Sollazzo]

Start off small, 30mins-1hour of walking a day, all of this is going to be a large lifestyle change and you have to start somewhere

[Jemm]

sensible enough, thank you I also think I should post my daily changes here so I'd be forced to keep it updated

[robbdaman]

I know you could use some stress relief at times so beginning a workout regimen is a good idea for sure. As others have said you need to vary things more often beyond walking and all, although walking is reasonable low impact exercise but in order to get much out of it you'd need to do an hour a day at least. It elevates the heart rate though not enough to really increase your cardiovascular endurance as much as jogging or running would. Still it's exercise and burns calories more than sitting on your duff and pushing a pen around a Wacom pad. Of course if you do it during a hot day, then the heat alone will raise your heart rate. Some form of resistance training is recommended if you want to be healthy and strong. It's kind of hard to tell you what to do without knowing what you have available to you but you can do a lot with pretty much nothing.

Also as others have stated your nutrition is not conducive to a healthy eating pattern especially if you want to undertake an exercise program. There are a bazillion nutrition plans out there and really it's best to find what works best for you but I say get at least 4-6 small meals a day and make sure they are balanced. Balanced nutrition is key for health benefits and for the body's needs. This means lean protein sources, vegetables and carbohydrates in each meal. If all you eat are starches and veggies you're likely not getting enough micro and macro nutrients including vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids that your body needs, this can lead to low energy levels as well as uneven mood levels and lack of sleep none of which I'm sure you want. Drinking as much coffee as you do I would expect it certainly effects your sleeping. Coffee is not a substitute for proper nutrition. Anyway you all know I could go on and on but just make a plan, WRITE IT DOWN and schedule it in like you would a business meeting.

[Jemm]

Rob: what can I say but you're right. Agreed with everything you said, the help's greatly appreciated man.

Okay so today I'm making sure to have 4 meals... this morning I had me some cereal. Small start but it's a change, I don't usually eat breakfast.

Also it's 11: 30 and so far I've only had 3/4 of a mug of coffee. I'm about to eat lunch but not quite sure what to choose.

Edit: right now I'm having a half-glass of http://www.pacificfoods.com/our-foods/n ... y-beverage

It's milk but not really milk, and it tastes like nuts. It's definitely something new but I can probably get hooked on this, I'll think of drinking this every time I feel for coffee.

I like it.



I am not responsible if the above statements are taken in a number of gutterminded ways. ;D