The Biggest LOOSER -- running weight loss thread

[The Big Ragu]

To defend the anti-walking sentiment (but only to a point)...

I don't think anyone disagrees that walking is better than nothing. It surely is.

But you will not lose all of your weight and you will not get into great shape by taking the leisurely 45 minute stroll around a quarter-mile city block.

People who believe you are going to drop 50 pounds doing that are the ones that quit too.

Anyone who believes that is an idiot. I thought we are beyond that.

Anyone who needs to lose 50 pounds and doesn't look at it from a holistic diet / exercise point of view is not going to have success.

When that is your starting point for the discussion -- and it is where the discussion should begin -- there isn't a person in that situation who shouldn't start out reassessing their diet and walking.

Even if that person never progresses beyond walking, it is still a healthy endeavor. Especially if you start eating mostly produce and fruit, not too much, and sticking only to real foods -- the foods your great grandmother would have recognized as food--which rules out 50 percent of the supermarket nowadays (minus the ones that have labels with ingredients you can't pronounce or that you have no idea what they are==for example, bread should be wheat, yeast, salt, water and any whole grains added. If you see 10 other ingredients that you can't pronounce, it is not something your great grandmother would have recognized as food). Alter your diet and walk and you are ahead of 95 percent of people. You will not only lose weight at a sensible place, you will get yourself into good enough shape to do more strenuous exercise. It's not that I am not a proponent of working out. It's just insane to counsel people that walking is useless. It's what 75 percent of the people in this country SHOULD be doing and aren't.

 

[Dick Whitman]

No offense, but anti-walking posts are ludicrous.

1) A lot of people are ghastly out of shape. You don't start wind sprints, a heavy rowing regimen and 45 minutes of knee-busting, calorie-burning exercise because you woke up one day and said, "I am going to stop smoking, stop eating twinkies and drinking soda and lose weight." You have to ease into it. The worst thing you can do is go too fast, too soon. It increases the chance you won't continue, because when you are out of shape and tax yourself beyond what you can handle, you are likely to just quit. It also increases GREATLY the chance you will injure yourself. Walking is the basic building block to building up your stamina and general shape so you can handle more strenuous workouts. Anyone who is overweight and not used to exercising is an idiot if they don't start simply -- walking every day.

2) Walking *is* good for you. Even if you do no other exercise. If you eat sensibly and walk, the walking part DOES burn calories, as opposed to doing nothing. Especially if you walk vigorously. Even more important, while the focus here for some has been to lose weight quickly and measure quarter inches off their waist, the real benefits to the more common-sense advice on here are that you are making yourself healthier -- not that you are going to model for GQ. And walking every day gives your heart a workout. It might not be the workout you get from running, but for most people it is light years beyond the sedentary lifestyle they live. If more people in this country a) ate REAL food (and diet coke doesn't qualify), mostly plants and not to much, and b) did something as simple as walking for 45 minutes every morning, our healthcare costs from the reductions in heart-related problems and diabetes-related problems (which is past epidemic proportions) would be eye-popping.

I hope no one in horrible shape reads some of the posts on here and thinks, "Walking is useless. I am going to try to run a 10K." If you don't hurt yourself, I guarantee you will quit your exercise regimen soon afterward.

I look at quarter inches because I'm at the point now where that is the only way to measure progress. I'm down to those last 5-10 pounds.

From busting my ass.

Not from walking to get the newspaper.

 

[21]

Come on, deck, a quarter inch or a pound on the scale is a gas bubble and a handful of blueberries before you hit the men's room with the morning paper.

If you're doing weights on a regular basis, you're going to add inches, and probably some solid muscle weight. The scale is irrelevant if your body is getting where you want it to be.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Come on, deck, a quarter inch or a pound on the scale is a gas bubble and a handful of blueberries before you hit the men's room with the morning paper.

If you're doing weights on a regular basis, you're going to add inches, and probably some solid muscle weight. The scale is irrelevant if your body is getting where you want it to be.

I don't think weights would add inches around your waist, though. That's what I'm talking about.

But you're absolutely right about the minor variations from day to day. I wish I could stop checking so much. I have this irrational fear that if I stay away from the scale for a day, then I'm going to blow up like Violet in Willy Wonka.

I think you and Ragu have decent points about the merits of walking for beginners or the obese.

But I think, at some point, you have to put in the effort if you want more results.

 

[oscaroscaroscar]

deck, if you recognize the points made about walking, it might be a good idea to show that better than saying crass things like you've lost weight by "busting my ass. Not from walking to get a newspaper."

That's great for you, but not everyone is where you are. There is plenty of context to go around. How long since someone has worked out? How old is the person? How overweight? To demean their efforts because you've now busted your ass to the point where you're fretting over quarter-inches is great for you, but, I would think, goes against the point of this thread.

I know people who would be thrilled just to start walking because, as 21 said, it's a start. (By the way, 21, I agree it's not right to call someone out for being too "skinny" though I have to disagree that it wouldn't happen to folks who are overweight. You'd be amazed at how rude folks can be when you've put on a few pounds.) And for them, simply walking would be putting in an effort. A tremendous effort.

Congrats on your progress, but be careful not to trivialize the effort of other folks just because it may not match up physically with your own.

 

[HC]

I now regularly ride 60 to 100 kms. Two years ago my fitness commitment was to walk to the streetcar stop instead of taking the bus and transferring. This was a distance of slightly less than 1/2 km and it WAS a commitment for me to do it.

Think of walking as a gateway fitness drug.

 

[Dick Whitman]

deck, if you recognize the points made about walking, it might be a good idea to show that better than saying crass things like you've lost weight by "busting my ass. Not from walking to get a newspaper."

That's great for you, but not everyone is where you are. There is plenty of context to go around. How long since someone has worked out? How old is the person? How overweight? To demean their efforts because you've now busted your ass to the point where you're fretting over quarter-inches is great for you, but, I would think, goes against the point of this thread.

I know people who would be thrilled just to start walking because, as 21 said, it's a start. (By the way, 21, I agree it's not right to call someone out for being too "skinny" though I have to disagree that it wouldn't happen to folks who are overweight. You'd be amazed at how rude folks can be when you've put on a few pounds.) And for them, simply walking would be putting in an effort. A tremendous effort.

Congrats on your progress, but be careful not to trivialize the effort of other folks just because it may not match up physically with your own.

This is fair.

I guess I just get irritated by people who are only 20-30 pounds overweight, and think they are going to walk their way to fitness.

I think there is a difference between starting out at a level you can handle, and walking because you're afraid to feel a little pain and discomfort.

 

[21]

A gateway fitness drug, that's awesome. 8)

 

[The Big Ragu]

A gateway fitness drug, that's awesome. 8)

Are we talking Diet Coke here?

 

[oscaroscaroscar]

deck, if you recognize the points made about walking, it might be a good idea to show that better than saying crass things like you've lost weight by "busting my ass. Not from walking to get a newspaper."

That's great for you, but not everyone is where you are. There is plenty of context to go around. How long since someone has worked out? How old is the person? How overweight? To demean their efforts because you've now busted your ass to the point where you're fretting over quarter-inches is great for you, but, I would think, goes against the point of this thread.

I know people who would be thrilled just to start walking because, as 21 said, it's a start. (By the way, 21, I agree it's not right to call someone out for being too "skinny" though I have to disagree that it wouldn't happen to folks who are overweight. You'd be amazed at how rude folks can be when you've put on a few pounds.) And for them, simply walking would be putting in an effort. A tremendous effort.

Congrats on your progress, but be careful not to trivialize the effort of other folks just because it may not match up physically with your own.

This is fair.

I guess I just get irritated by people who are only 20-30 pounds overweight, and think they are going to walk their way to fitness.

I think there is a difference between starting out at a level you can handle, and walking because you're afraid to feel a little pain and discomfort.

Fair enough.

 

[WriteThinking]

I guess I just get irritated by people who are only 20-30 pounds overweight, and think they are going to walk their way to fitness.

I think there is a difference between starting out at a level you can handle, and walking because you're afraid to feel a little pain and discomfort.

Methinks you need to not get irritated so easily.

Starting an exercise regimen with walking (or continuing only with walking, for that matter) is about doing whatever you can do, and about whatever is workable and livable for you.

The idea of "taking it easy" on the exercise is more about a long-range viewpoint -- what is an activity, and a level of activity, that you can live with, and that you will do, and continue to do, long-term, and preferably, for the rest of your life.

The concept is not to be taking the easy way out, it is to make a true lifestyle change, a commitment, that you can and will keep.

An exercise regimen like the one on, say, "The Biggest Loser," of which I am a big fan, by the way, is not realistic and will NOT be maintained long-term.

Even a more conservative routine -- probably something like yours -- is unlikely, or at least, a lot less likely, to be maintained once all these numbers, measurements, goals and objectives that you post about have been met.

What happens once you've lost those last five or 10 pounds? What happens once you no longer have quarter-inches to rejoice over?...Because that point WILL come.

Healthy maintenance, not weight loss, is the real litmus test of somebody's commitment, motivation and long-term lifestyle.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I guess I just get irritated by people who are only 20-30 pounds overweight, and think they are going to walk their way to fitness.

I think there is a difference between starting out at a level you can handle, and walking because you're afraid to feel a little pain and discomfort.

Methinks you need to not get irritated so easily.

Starting an exercise regimen with walking (or continuing only with walking, for that matter) is about doing whatever you can do, and about whatever is workable and livable for you.

The idea of "taking it easy" on the exercise is more about a long-range viewpoint -- what is an activity, and a level of activity, that you can live with, and that you will do, and continue to do, long-term, and preferably, for the rest of your life.

The concept is not to be taking the easy way out, it is to make a true lifestyle change, a commitment, that you can and will keep.

An exercise regimen like the one on, say, "The Biggest Loser," of which I am a big fan, by the way, is not realistic and will NOT be maintained long-term.

Even a more conservative routine -- probably something like yours -- is unlikely, or at least, a lot less likely, to be maintained once all these numbers, measurements, goals and objectives that you post about have been met.

What happens once you've lost those last five or 10 pounds? What happens once you no longer have quarter-inches to rejoice over?...Because that point WILL come.

Healthy maintenance, not weight loss, is the real litmus test of somebody's commitment, motivation and long-term lifestyle.

I'll be fine. Trust me. I'm in it for good. There's always a new goal to go after. It doesn't have to be weight loss.

Personally, I couldn't "maintain" the walking-for-fitness lifestyle. I'd be more apt to drop out of that than I would going hard. Because I'd get bored. It's not challenging enough. I'm not exactly an adrenaline junkie, because I don't sky dive or do anything silly like that, but I am a challenge junkie. And walking just isn't challenge enough for me that I would stick with it.

You raise a good point, though. I probably need to start concentrating on performance as my tangible indicators - things like how fast my miles are or how much I'm lifting or how my nutrition is, rather than body measurements. Because those changes are going to slow to a crawl. In fact, they already have.