Hi everybody
Am I alone who has a deteriorated body by missing a physical exercise? I put on my weight as a result. I bought a membership of fitness club to make a change and to find a middle way. Now I am as a fatty woman in a gym who struggles to breath.
Take care
The Meditator

Exercise is wonderful. Meditation doesn't have to cure everything. I know I have to jog atleast once a week or I feel like a goober

Hey Ivana,

It is so easy to put on weight, our bodies are very good at it. I've been looking into diet lately and it really seems that it is processed foods and sugar that are the enemy here. I've cut out as much sugar as I can, bread, not too much pasta, or too many carb in general. And just cut down portion size a bit.

Turns out that the sugars in fruit and vegetables actually help you burn fat by keeping the body in the 'fat burning zone', so I'm eating a lot of fruit and nuts (cashews, almonds are the best for protein), and I'm feeling a little fitter. This is from a guy how ran a marathon 2 years ago! It doesn't take much to put on weight with our 'modern foods'.

Best piece of advice I read recently was: Eat only things that have one ingredient; themselves!

So things like fish, potatoes, beef, vegetables, rice, fruit, nuts, are all great. Stay away from vegetable oils and lots of sauces on your food, stick with herbs/ spices, garlic, chilli.

the other thing is never starve yourself. If you are feeling hungry, eat. snack on some fruit or nuts. Feeling hungry immediately sends the body into starvation mode and it will preserve fat instead of burning it. I made the point to go to the supermarket in my lunch break and get three days of fruit supplies, as none of the lunch bars sell fruit.

i also bought some dumbells for use at home so as soon as I start thinking ' I'm getting fat' I go and do some weights instead. So far I'm feeling better, and looking a little better but haven't shifted much fat yet. Actually I'm feeling a whole lot better in the last few days (it's been about 2 weeks since I started making an effort)

You can do it if you accept it is a little bit each day. Just like meditation!

good luck, you can do it.

That's very good advice from Andrew.

Here's a couple of points, in no particular order I think you'll find useful. I've studied this stuff quite a bit over the last few years, and Mrs Bagpuss has become somewhat of an expert on nutrition --i still eat too much sweet food though!

• Diets don't work. You will need to completely reeducate your body-mind. You do this by eating good stuff for a couple of weeks. Your body will start to crave vegetables (seriously...)
• Go vegetarian if you can. If you can't, cut down to only having some fish once or twice a week.
• Ditch the dairy. Nothing could possibly be worse for you.
• Like Andrew said, if you're hungry, EAT!
• Plan your meals at least 3 days in advance. Plan your snacks too. You will lose the battle if you shop when hungry

A few things on exercise

• Right now, any exercise will be good for you. Do it at least 3 times a week. Every day would be better, presuming you are just jogging/rowing or doing some similar aerobic style thing
• As soon as you are fit, start lifting weights. Heavy weights. You won't end up looking like a body-builder, i promise.
• When you're even fitter, start doing some high intensity interval training. You'll hate it, and love it.

One final thing: Remember that diets don't work! It's about changing your lifestyle, and uprooting bad habits and replacing them with good ones.

Good luck.

zenhabits.NET has to be the best place for you to read some stuff if you wanna get fitter and healthier.

Also wanted to add: eat fat - good fat. The fat you find in nuts, avocado, olive oil, fat fish (mackerel), etc. Instead of thinking that you should cut back on carbs and therefore eat less, swap some of the carbs for this fat. You'll be satisfied with less food and fuller for longer and therefore eat less.

Fat: 1 gram = 9 calories
Protein: 1 gram = 4 calories
Carbohydrates: 1 gram = 4 calories
Alcohol: 1 gram = 7 calories

Fat will make you fat, but not if you keep your daily calories below the magic number. The magic number is your individual need for calories to neither loose nor gain weight. Taking a stab at this number is pretty inaccurate, but incase you can't be bothered to figure it out, my educated guess for you is 2250 +/- 500 kcal (which is a very wide range).

Calculating this magic number can be confusing for a beginner. Here are some terms for you to google:

- resting daily energy expenditure (RDEE)
- basic energy requirements (BER)
- basal metabolic rate (BMR)
- extra energy requirements (EER)

Hi everybody

I appreciate your replies, I will read properly tomorrow.
Good night
The Meditator

Andrew,
it is nice to hear your encouragement. It seems the you are always writing to me when I need it. I admire you regarding to run a marathon. I have to be careful regarding food and to do an exercise. I need to establish a regular exercise.
Bagpuss
I need to establish a regular exercise to change my life style. You wrote "no diet" but "life style". Four years ago I had a time in my life when I swam 5 times a week. But it is not the best to do when you go to swimming pool with a lot of chlorine and it is not always available to go there. I cycled a lot but my bicycle was stole. Now I go to a health which is expensive but really good. I would like to do yoga as something what I can do everywhere without any other condition and I want to do yoga with connection to mindfulness. I will go to my gym on Saturday for making a plan of exercise.
Stian
You made the good point of reality of calories. I looked at your link and it is really about style of living.
Blue
I thank you for your sharing of your experience.

Take care
The Meditator

No worries, Ivana. I would not have got back into exercise if it wasn't for the encouragement of a friend. Perhaps you can also initiate this with someone you know? If not, it would be good to make sure you befriend some people at the gym. If you know they are expecting you, and they know you will be there, it adds good momentum to the whole thing.

take care

Andrew
I really understand your point only a problem that I am living in an area of Surrey which is a beautiful part of the UK. The gym is a really good one with everything, it is a health club & spa. But it does not seem that I will befriend people there I am not enough "good" for them. There are polite to me but it is all.
Therefore I thank you for your encouragement.
Take Care

I have a program to exercise which I want to stick to my meditation. I think it is something what is really important. To see now a retreats without physical activities is not the best one. The body and mind should be in harmony. I will see how I will be successfully to stick it. I have a plan of crunches, squats, push up, sit up, ... Something what I can do everywhere and without any equipment and every day as meditation. Now it is up to me.
The food habits are necessary to establish but it seems now more clear that I did not take a chocolate because a good reason that of course one piece is not dangerous but I need establish a healthy style of living.

Apart from the crunches, those are brilliant exercises. You might want to buy a very simple pullup bar and fit it to your door. I have one over the kitchen door. Pull ups are a great body-weight exercise and you can give a little jump or swing to do them until you build up enough strength.

Dont buy a fancy one though. They're rubbish. This one is great.

that looks cool BTG, I was only thinking about getting a chin up bar yesterday and that one looks like it won't pull the architraves off my doors!

You can do it Ivana.

Hi
I thank you for your advices but if I clicked at your link I thought that I could buy it to give you and you will chase me with the stick around a river to help me.
I try minimalise my staff I am in a sharing flat so I will not buy it. But I have a flat in the Czech republic and there I have a small gym
Take care
The Mediator
.

Hi Andrew

I did my exercise after work and I feel really good. If I remember my plan it will be more better. I did third day and I suppose day number 1000 I will remember how many push ups and how many squats and what I do after crunches.

Take care
The Mediator

haha, we both get fit then, good idea. I had a big foot long salad roll today at Subway, just veggies. I was amazed to see on the menu that that huge roll had the same kJ as a 6 inch meatball sub!

i went and bought a toaster to get out of the habit of having cereal and milk in the morning, I'm trying to find Barley bread to have dry in the morning (blues brothers style). I was watching a youtube thing about how the ancient gladiators were known as the 'barley men' as they basically ate nothing else, apparently 'wild grains' are pretty good for you.

Anyway, I'm having fun with it, which I've learnt over the years is the only way to stay at anything, have fun!

Andy, I have a fun, it is 11pm I am going to do my exercise I need to go sleep but first I will do my crunches
Regarding barley, I will buy barley
My ancestor ate it and it has a good influence to the blood sugar.

"In medieval Europe, bread made from barley and rye was peasant food" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barley
"Barley contains eight essential amino acids.[36][37] According to a recent study, eating whole grain barley can regulate blood sugar (i.e. reduce blood glucose response to a meal) for up to 10 hours after consumption compared to white or even whole-grain wheat, which has a similar glycemic index.[38] "