The best exercise is walking somewhere you can't get back from without even more walking. The corner of Silver Leaf Drive and Green Meadow Drive is six-tenths of a mile from my office; up and back makes 1.2 miles, a 20- or 25-minute stroll. It's uphill yet not steep on the way and pleasantly downhill back. It's far enough for me to lose my desk-job stiffness by the middle and be striding expansively by the end.Hypothesis #1, lightly held and hopefully offered: Any day I eat 3 moderate meals and don't do any late night eating to cancel out all that lovely moderation, I will lose a pound or so.
Hypothesis #2, "yif that I can": Any day I eat 3 moderate meals and also walk to Silver Leaf and Green Meadow, I will do even better.
Stay tuned.
Sounds positive. Sounds good. I would just caution you to be wary of tying in too closely to definitely losing any amount of weight as shown by the scale in any given period of time. You may be making significant changes and find that the scale shows you are heavier by a pound or two. Then what happens to your motivation?
ReplyDeleteHungry? Eat an apple. Still hungry? Eat another one.
ReplyDeleteWhen I go to work in the morning I take several apples and bananas with me. That's all I am allowed to eat during the day. I know eating fruit is good for me but I always pass it up for other things. Not allowing myself to eat anything else at work forces me to eat the fruit. I have no problem getting through the day this way. I usually get an energy burst in the afternoon because I am not using energy doing much digesting. Any time I feel too hungry, I just go right ahead and eat another apple.
When I get home, I have a much more satisfying peanut butter sandwich, which gives me the fortitude I need to get through my workout.
Numbers and Expectations
ReplyDeleteI took a moment to evaluate your hypothesis about losing a pound a day. It sounded reasonable until I thought about it. You'd be losing a hundred pounds in three months or so if that were possible.
I don't want to be discouraging. But having unrealistic expectations sets you up for failure.
My own expectation is that, having lost 45 pounds last year, I will probably lose more like 25 this year, and 15 to 20 the next. I expect it will have taken me three full years to lose 100 pounds.
The good side of this is that you do feel significant benefits much more quickly than that. Fitting into your current clothes more easily is both an early and a significant feel-good.
Yes 1 lb per day is not healthy, but also unrealistic. It'll be mostly water loss at first. 1 pound equals 3,500 calories so it's nearly impossible to burn what you consume each day PLUS 3,500 extra calories.
ReplyDelete