Many many moons ago I weighed about 290 pounds (I'm 5'8" and female just for reference). I decided to get off my butt and do something about it and got down to a pretty manageable weight - losing A LOT of pounds - that I liked, though something happened that caused me to gain 40 pounds of it back (Health Issues 
), so I'm back on the path to getting back down. Here's some advice I have for you:
~ Don't go too fast. You kind of hear all these things like "Give it 100%!" "Push hard!" "All or nothing!" and, sure, you can do that for 2 weeks, but then it just gets demoralizing and you give up. Figure out how much time you can go for - usually attempt 20 minutes or so to start, then push it up to 30, then to 40, etc etc. You don't need to do it until you puke, you just need to do it at all. Last month I started barely able to make it to 20, now my workouts are about an hour and a half. Go at your pace!
~ Find what you like to do or you'll just give up. Don't like to run? Don't force yourself to run. Find what it is that will give you a little more motivation to want to work out and not "Ugh... ghh....noooo" For me, I like dance. When I was young a took a lot of dancing lessons and that stuck with me, so most of my work outs are dancing mixed in with some toning cardio and strength training. Ellion, on the other hand, likes weights and weaved a work out around that. Both of us decided to try hiking a few of our mountains here in Colorado when summer hits, and that could be really fun, too. Just try to find ways you like staying active.
~Calories are important. Truth is, if your looking to lose weight, Exercise doesn't work all that well unless your cutting your Calorie intake. Too many people are like "Well that workout was 280 calories, time to eat a hamburger as a reward." Workouts actually don't burn that many calories in our current high-calorie world so look for things you can cut down on. I actually don't believe in cutting out completely (Unless you have horrible willpower) because cutting out everything so quickly can be... well demoralizing and hard and you'll just go right back to old habits. Buy 12 packs of Soda? Well now you're only buying 2 liters. Better make it last! Look around for alternatives for soda as well. I have a really hard time with Soda because, while I think most of it is too sweet, I love carbonation. It's the fizziness that pulls me in. So I've learned to drink sparkling water (Add some Mio for flavor if you must). Try to do that with EVERYTHING you eat. It'll still be hard, but it will be doable.
~ Your body is weird. This was a big one for me, I didn't lose weight in 2 weeks I would get sad and give up. Your body kinda decides that your working out when it wants to, and it could be days or it could be weeks. One of the things that kept me at 290 at 24-25 years old was I never saw results fast enough. At 27, even when I didn't see the weightloss I decided to keep going and in about a month my body was dropping a ton of weight. I dunno why, but it does that. My body is weird. Your body is weird, it's gonna do what it do, just keep going.
Everyone else has listed a lot of good stuff on the internet and I agree with those. I never once went to the gym. I don't really like the gym.
Good luck!
), so I'm back on the path to getting back down. Here's some advice I have for you:~ Don't go too fast. You kind of hear all these things like "Give it 100%!" "Push hard!" "All or nothing!" and, sure, you can do that for 2 weeks, but then it just gets demoralizing and you give up. Figure out how much time you can go for - usually attempt 20 minutes or so to start, then push it up to 30, then to 40, etc etc. You don't need to do it until you puke, you just need to do it at all. Last month I started barely able to make it to 20, now my workouts are about an hour and a half. Go at your pace!
~ Find what you like to do or you'll just give up. Don't like to run? Don't force yourself to run. Find what it is that will give you a little more motivation to want to work out and not "Ugh... ghh....noooo" For me, I like dance. When I was young a took a lot of dancing lessons and that stuck with me, so most of my work outs are dancing mixed in with some toning cardio and strength training. Ellion, on the other hand, likes weights and weaved a work out around that. Both of us decided to try hiking a few of our mountains here in Colorado when summer hits, and that could be really fun, too. Just try to find ways you like staying active.
~Calories are important. Truth is, if your looking to lose weight, Exercise doesn't work all that well unless your cutting your Calorie intake. Too many people are like "Well that workout was 280 calories, time to eat a hamburger as a reward." Workouts actually don't burn that many calories in our current high-calorie world so look for things you can cut down on. I actually don't believe in cutting out completely (Unless you have horrible willpower) because cutting out everything so quickly can be... well demoralizing and hard and you'll just go right back to old habits. Buy 12 packs of Soda? Well now you're only buying 2 liters. Better make it last! Look around for alternatives for soda as well. I have a really hard time with Soda because, while I think most of it is too sweet, I love carbonation. It's the fizziness that pulls me in. So I've learned to drink sparkling water (Add some Mio for flavor if you must). Try to do that with EVERYTHING you eat. It'll still be hard, but it will be doable.
~ Your body is weird. This was a big one for me, I didn't lose weight in 2 weeks I would get sad and give up. Your body kinda decides that your working out when it wants to, and it could be days or it could be weeks. One of the things that kept me at 290 at 24-25 years old was I never saw results fast enough. At 27, even when I didn't see the weightloss I decided to keep going and in about a month my body was dropping a ton of weight. I dunno why, but it does that. My body is weird. Your body is weird, it's gonna do what it do, just keep going.
Everyone else has listed a lot of good stuff on the internet and I agree with those. I never once went to the gym. I don't really like the gym.
Good luck!
![[Image: tumblr_n92fndN0EH1rujdn8o1_500.gif]](https://33.media.tumblr.com/449e130ac31106ec8aeda3d0f121d76b/tumblr_n92fndN0EH1rujdn8o1_500.gif)
