Hello WLF people!

[Nienos]

Hello. I'm a 26 year old guy and I weigh 120kg. I'm also an artist....which means I spend most of the time drawing stuff and not moving much, aside from the time when I have to go meet clients. My family has a history of high blood pressure and diabetes. My doctor advised me to get into low carb diet and I've been going at it for 3 weeks. There's no problem so far, aside from craving something sugary once in a while. If anything, the diet made me more aware of the nutritional value of the food I eat.

I'd like help and advice regarding what kind of exercise routine I should do to get my weight down with my current diet.


Anyhow, I'm looking forward to be a good part of this community! Cheers!

 

[Omega]

Welcome to the forum.

Our bodies are designed to move a lot more than we do nowadays... Basically - your diabetes and blood pressure would probably be a lot better if you were able to have a healthy weight - and any form of movement would help with that.

Whilst the exercise threads will doubtless be frequented by people that could suggest a heap of exercises that you could do - you would actually benefit dramatically from simple things like walking more. Walking is an excellent form of exercise and does not need special equipment or spending money on gym fees.

Lots of people find that wearing a pedometer helps to encourage them to fit extra steps into the day. I wear one.

I am firmly of the opinion that the best form of exercise is something that you enjoy - so try lots of things and see if you enjoy any. I found out that I love dancing (no-one would have guessed when I was an enormous lady) and now do salsa or zumba classes almost every day. I would never fit in the amount of exercise that I currently do if I hadnt found something that I really enjoy.

The following link may help you to settle in.
http://weight-loss.fitness.com/threads/57955-My-advice-to-newcomers

Good luck with your project

 

[Nienos]

Thanks for the reply! I've been walking around the area close to my house since I've started the diet. Its a hilly area and I usually go on about an hour. How long and how often should I actually do it?


I'm interested in doing some muscle training but I fear that attempting it without the proper know how I might end up injuring myself.

 

[Omega]

Regarding how much and how often - the simple answer as I see it is "the more the better"...

Most authorities recommend that we would all benefit from getting our daily step count up to 10,000 and that would make a great target (although there is nothing to say that you should not do more)...

Get a pedometer and wear it and see what your step count is. I suggest that you wear it for every step of the day and that way it can encourage you to be more active generally in your daily life - not just on the one exercise walk that you may do.

As a rule of thumb - 10,000 steps is roughly about 5 miles.

There does not have to be any sort of upper limit. I set 15,000 steps as the minimum that I shoot for - but Tuesday last week I did 30,249 steps. Tuesday tends to be a big dance day for me...

You could combine walking with your art. Take art things with you and have a far greater choice of subjects to paint or draw. You could end up seeing things while out walking that could inspire you

When I started walking I was very big and very unhealthy. It took me all my time to walk 0.6 miles. I pushed myself to walk further as soon as I felt that I could - and I got stronger, healthier and thinner and pretty soon I was walking quite amazing distances.

I must admit that as far as muscles go - my first step was that I got a fairly light pair of wrist weights and started wearing those for maybe a mile of walking near my home - just swinging my arms as I walked along...

I also took some keep fit and pilates classes where the only weights involved were based on leaning my own weight. My current muscle exercises are all in the keep fit or dance arena.

I know that there is a great exercise section of this forum - and I am sure that there will be postings on more advanced stuff involving weights - and we have forum members with a lot of experience in that whole area.