How do you keep yourself fit and healthy?

Ask:

I was pretty active and thin when I first met my bf. Now, 5 years later and 25 pounds heavier I feel like a big fat jello ball. Nowadays I don’t even have the energy to drive to the gym. I want to get back to the way I was and I’m having a hard time. I need some advice and really want to know how some people do it. How do you get yourself to the gym everyday? How do you say no to the chips and ice cream?

How do you keep yourself fit and healthy? 

Thank you!

Answers:

Answer 1:

Almost same story here…I gained 15 pounds after getting married and I hated myself. I had no energy to exercise and it just kept getting worse!! I think my rock-bottom moment was trying on bathing suits for an upcoming trip to the beach and almost crying because of how I looked! Here is what I did and it has really worked for me so far.

Plan some sort of trip or goal you want to work towards. For me it was that beach trip, when I knew I would have to be in public in a bathing suit. That was enough for me to get off the couch and get moving.

Get a calorie-counter. You can do a web search for calorie counting programs to find free ones. Then calculate how many calories you need per day to get to your goal weight and stay as close to that limit as you can. For me, seeing how many calories I was eating per day was really educational. That super value combo I got from McDonald’s for lunch was my entire calorie allowance for a day. Yikes. It really made me accountable for what I was eating.

Get moving! I know it is hard to get started, believe me, I know! But once you get into a routine, you really look forward to exercising because it makes you feel great! On days I couldn’t exercise, I really missed it! I do about an hour of cardio a day after work.

Be realistic, you are not going to drop all of the weight in a month. I wish someone told me that when I first started working out and eating right. I wanted to give up when the stupid scale wouldn’t move. But be patient and don’t give up. The weight WILL come off. You just have to give it time. And don’t weigh yourself every day, you will only get frustrated. Weigh once a week.

Hope these tricks work for you. I have lost 3 pounds and 2 inches off my midsection in a little over a month doing this. Just don’t give up and you will see results. Good luck!

Answer 2:

Give yourself small goals to reach first. For example, you can say, “This week, I’m going to jog for 20 minutes every other day.” Then, you can move to the next week and tell yourself “What’s 5 more minutes? I can run for 25.” Then, you will slowly work up to a 30-minute workout.

Go for 2 pounds a week.

One thing that my gym did that motivated a lot of people was coming up with this stamp program. For every time you went to the gym and worked out, you got a stamp. Then, once you accumulated about 15 stamps, you got a prize! After 15 more stamps, you get another, better prize. It really helped me get into the habit of working out. If you can’t do that, you can also have maybe a friend or a family member do it for you. Say, once you do a 30-minute workout, you get a stamp, check, etc. It may seem silly, but it really does help with the motivation. It’s better to have somebody else do it, but you can do it yourself it you want.

Don’t overdo it when you start excercise. I go to the gym regularly and I see people who come regularly and those who try every now and then, but have trouble keeping it consistent. I’ve noticed that a lot of people who seem to “drop off” or not come regularly seem to push too hard when exercising. So, just do a nice easy jog. Just enough to get your heart rate up, but not enough to make you miserable. Otherwise, you probably won’t stick with it.

I lost about 30 pounds like this! I also used to try to exercise regularly, but couldn’t stick with it. This is how I finally started sticking with it. I have now been excercising regularly for a year and a half. These same techniques ALSO worked for my mother and my neighbor.

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