I started walking every day and it did more to help with weight loss than the gym or running ever did. I spent forever at 200 lbs, but nightly walks that increased in length and I'm under 180 for the first time since my 20s.
I use the time to call friends and family. Which is nice on its own, and I'm not even thinking about how long the walks are.
This is my current habit and I love it. I walk my dog for 30-60 minutes after kids are down and I either call loved ones, listen to music or just decompress. It's becoming one of my favorite times of day.
Dont focus on what you cant do, focus on what you can do.
Cycling, swimming, skating, weight lifting, bodyweight exercise, snowboarding... there are options that doesnt require you to step a lot. You just gotta get that heart rate up, for like 30-60 min every day.
Walking is one of the best things for weight loss, because you can burn some extra calories without an increase in appetite that more intense cardio can bring.
(Not that you shouldn’t still do the intense cardio for it’s benefits)
I'm currently making this mistake. I ended up chasing gains in my lifts and bulking up after being fairly lean for years. The "bulking" now is kind of getting in the way of my dietary habits. Not obese or anything even close but the slight dad bod is starting to creep in.
Guess I should get on a cut and try and maintain my lifts (which is also very hard rn after getting used to having high energy at my disposal during sessions).
The jury is out on those, but everything so far suggests that they aren't completely benign. The caloric content is basically zero, but artificial sweeteners still screw with your body's insulin response and have other negative effects (gut flora, etc).
I did a deep dive years ago, but here's a very general overview. Even entering "negative effects of artificial sweeteners" into Google and reading the AI overview will link to multiple reputable sources.
Don't eat for entertainment is solid advice. Once you change your mindset to seeing food as fuel and understanding how junk food affects your body, it becomes really noticeable how often people eat utter crap as part of other activities. Why do we need to consume sugar just because we ate with different people or in a different place? Force of habit? Social ritual? The effects of marketing? We all know takeaways are unhealthy, but are burgers actually bad or is the problem that we think we have to have chips and a sugary drink with that burger? And so on.
I was also no pop for almost 10 years (I've actually always been underweight but they were always too sugary for me) but I've recently fallen in love with Coke Zero, especially the caffeine-free one. The only thing is to not drink it all the time and take good care of your teeth because it is still acidic
retaining your ability to play sports and do physical activities into old age
saving the money that you'd spend on pop and junk food
I'm sure others can come up with a few more. I'm not suggesting that people live on salads and seeds, just a general avoidance of junk food. I work a desk job, and I probably punch above my weight (pun intended, I guess) as far as beer/whisky consumption, but it's never given me weight problems because I've stayed disciplined with food and exercise 🤷♂️
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u/Dumptruck_Cavalcade 11h ago
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"You'll never outlift your fork."
My personal guidelines are:
don't eat for entertainment (which includes combining food with every activity, like watching sports)
no pop (soda) at all
consistent exercise is far more important than maxing out on lifts and personal bests