Getting fit & healthy in this situation!

theoretica

gemmajenkins0208 wrote: »

On the days I do work, walking between my house to public transport, public transport to work, around work and back home again I've estimated that I probably make a good 2 mile(at least) round trip

Walking 2 miles isn't actually very far. One aim for basic health I have seen is to walk 10,000 steps every day, which is about 5 miles, but if you are on your feet at work that counts too.

What really matters about exercise is that you do it regularly - so best if it is something you like. Plenty of things can be done without expensive equipment - walking up hills, running, skipping rope...

Cutting out the squash, pop and any sugar in coffee would be an easy improvement to make to your diet.

gemmajenkins0208

Thank you theoretica

I'm thinking of getting an activity/health tracker when I get paid next week. Nothing expensive like a fitbit or anything, just one that only counts steps or something.

As for the cutting out things, I don't drink pop unless it's on the very rare occasion I go out for a meal or something, we don't have squash in the house anymore and I can't function unless I have a coffee in the morning! Haha but I want to transition over to green tea sweetened with honey, but just have one in the morning and one before bed and drink water throughout the rest of the day. Does that sound good?

alleycat`

My advice would be to pick 1 or 2 things and do those until they become habit. Then pick another thing and so on and so forth. If you try do a million things at once it all falls apart very quickly.

If you can switch pop to water and start moving about more, such as the couch to 5k, then you are well on the way.

I had a small notebook i used for my 1st year of getting back into exercise.
It made me concentrate on what i was doing without having to invest a huge amount of money.

I don't really need it so much anymore as it's become a habit to exercise rather than a "chore" but i found it helped me at the start as i could see/record my progress.

Sometimes it's hard to see how you are improving without a record of where you started from.

Best of luck

indesisiv

Remember that when exercising it doesn't have to kill you to help.
90% of all my runs are run at a pace that allows me to have a conversation without breathing heavily. When I started running in October last year I found it hard work, whereas now I just go out for a gentle 5-10k most nights.

Can you not use your phone to track things? I know when I first started running I just used to use strava on my phone. Till I spent £30 on ebay for a garmin. I still use Strave and Garmin Connect to compare with other people that i have met through running.

I second @alleycat` with the don't try and do everything at once as it is a bit hard to stick too. its a bit like these crash diets, works for a bit then you fall off the wagon.
For me, its all about moderation, you can have a good ale, pizza, crisps etc and I frequently do. But since October I have been more interested in building in exercise into my routine and giving up smoking. I will get round to the eating healthy in due course.

You will get there you just don't need to rush into everything at once.

gemmajenkins0208

Thank you for the tips guys

I want to start with the eating part first I read somewhere that fitness is 80% diet 20% exercise or something and also, my personal favourite 'abs are made in the kitchen' :rotfl:

I have eaten so much crap in my time and I want to give my body that nutrition it deserves now, I'm doing it in small steps, such as adding lettuce/tomato/cucumber to my ham and cheese sandwiches and swapping white bread for brown bread and then add in something else once I've mastered that

lovehackney

glad you are motivated to make changes!!

I just want to point out though that fitness isn't 80% diet and 20% exercise! That might be true for weightloss, but certainly not fitness.
you won't get fit by eating salad!

similarly, the saying "abs are made in the kitchen" relates to the fact that you can have the most amazing abs in the world, but if they are covered in a layer of fat you can't see them - so you need to workout to get the muscle in the first place, at the same time of dieting so you can see them.

hope that helps!

gemmajenkins0208

Oh thank you lovehackney, much more clear now haha!

I know I won't get fit just by the changes I'm making right now, but as I incorporate more and more changes, surely that's a good starting point and I'm setting my body on the right course to be overall healthier?

fairy_lights

I've just re-read your original post OP and it's not clear if your aim is solely fitness, or also weightloss?
As lovehackney has pointed out, exercise will improve your fitness but it's mainly diet that controls your weight.
If weightloss is one of your goals I would recommend logging your meals on myfitnesspal - the cheese sandwiches you have for lunch could have a lot more calories in than you expect. I used to have cheese sandwiches for my lunch and was horrified when I weighed out all the ingredients and realised my tiny sandwich was over 600 calories! :eek:

gemmajenkins0208

Way ahead of you re: myfitnesspal fairy lights

But yeah I have inputted some meals and the calorie content made me :eek:

I'm trying to take on healthy changes a bit at a time, else I'm one of those people who if I take on too much, I'll give up

I love coffee, but could never drink it without milk or sugar(already tried on my last weight loss try!), so I want to come off it altogether and stick to drinking water all day, with a cup of green tea with no milk and sweetened with honey with breakfast and maybe a small lemonade if I go out for a meal, which is basically never

I want to look at weight loss first, and then maintaining and keeping fit

Gloomendoom

gemmajenkins0208 wrote: »

I want to look at weight loss first, and then maintaining and keeping fit

If your primary objective is to lose weight, you might want to consider the 5:2 diet. That way, you wouldn't need to persuade your mum to buy or cook anything different to what she normally does.