Time for me to chat about exercise a little, and why it didn't used to work for me. This is the part where I talk out my ass about things on which I am not an authority - so bear in mind my facts here come from doing some personal research and reading in various places. ;)
All last year, I went to the gym 2-3 times a week for an hour or so. Treadmill or bike for cardio, followed by an assortment of resistance machines. It was a good workout, but sort of useless when my eating habits were still poor. I never really lost any noticeable amount of weight. I had the right idea, but was only doing half of what I needed.
I kept telling myself I was not losing pounds because I was building muscle, and it balances out. That's true, of course, but only to a certain degree. So I did develop much stronger legs and arms, and worked my chest a bit, but I wasn't taking off any weight.
The fact that I did this for that long without losing weight and didn't go.. "Gee, I'm not losing weight," is a pretty standard side-effect of being a little too in love with bad eating habits and not realizing what I was doing to myself.
I also started a very good habit which I still practice. I get a couple of 15-minutes breaks during my work, and I use both of them to walk. A brisk, purposeful walk intended to be a little bit of exercise. So, for the last almost 2 years, I've been getting 30 minutes of walking, 5 times a week.
At a moderate pace (3mph), at my weight, that's enough to burn about 215 calories. Not bad for an easy addition to my day. Taking a 30 minutes walk in the evening doubles it but I only started doing that recently. So my daily walking was burning up about 1075 calories per week. Assuming 2 days at the gym, for an hour, where I'd burn more like 500 or so - add on another thousand. So I was burning approximately 2000 calories/week exercising, to round if off and make life easy here.
Here's a little very basic dietary info, and I do mean basic. I learned this from my diet book, and reading a bunch of weight loss sites, etc. Ever notice on food labels your ingredients have your % of daily recommended? Look closer and you'll see that it is based on a 2000 calorie a day diet.
There's a pretty simple reason for that number - an average person uses up about 2000 calories daily just by doing their normal activities like sitting, standing, walking, driving, reading, writing, talking on the phone, showering and sleeping.
Hey! 2000 and 2000. So if I was an average person, that means I eating 14,000 calories a week (7x2000) - and burning the same amount, just by being alive and not a complete couch potato. Better yet, I'm burning through another 2000 calories by walking and going to the gym, aw yeah. Eating 14,000 and burning 16,000. Sounds like a recipe for weight loss.
So. Why wasn't I losing weight?
To lose 1 pound of stored body fat, you need to burn 3500 calories in a week, beyond what you need to do important stuff like, say, remain alive, etc. Whoops. Even if I was eating a 2000 calorie/day diet, I was falling a little shy. Math says I should still have been losing weight, even if it was very slow (at that rate, approx .5 pounds a week or 2 pounds a month. In a year of this routine, I could expect to lose about 24 pounds then.)
I was therefore doing just enough exercise to either maintain my current weight, or very slowly ease some off, at a barely noticeable rate.
However, the truth is, we're surrounded by food in our culture and quite a lot of it is not good for you at all. Even if you skip fast food, it's easy to eat too much, too often, and too recklessly.
I won't belabor it, but take a brief look at this and see if you dig into any of these. Food for thought, pun intended.
Needless to say, if you saw my 10 eating sins post, I was well above a 2000 calorie a day diet.
Weight loss and healthy aren't just about calories, of course, but they are the basic benchmark and a good first thing to understand. What you eat to make up your healthy amount of calories is a whole other discussion.
Boiling all this down: Eating a proper diet, and exercising lightly is really all it takes not to gain weight. To lose weight, though, you have to make a daily effort. Not 2-3 times a week. You have to change your lifestyle in terms of food and your relationship with that food. Become aware that you can make healthier choices. All it takes to gain 1 pound is eating 3500 un-needed calories in a week. Burning off those 3500 calories is far, far more difficult. Remember - a hefty guy like me burns only 215 calories in a half hour of daily walking.
Tips:
Look at food labels! Just takes a second. Pick the version of whatever you are buying that is healthiest.
Watch the serving sizes. A bottle of coke has '2.5 servings' so if you are going to chug that thing, you better mentally multiply the nutrition facts on the bottle by 2.5. Or maybe by 7.5 if you drink 3 bottles of it a day.
Walk! - Do you walk much? If not - get to steppin!
Curious how many calories you'd burn while walking? Check this out as a rough idea.
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