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I am fat. Now, nobody is to say 'you're not fat' or 'I'm fatter than you', because although it is true that I am not clinically obese and many people are fatter than me, I am carrying rather more than a few pounds over. I am, in fact, ten stone, which is a good half stone more than I should ever be, and it shows. I don't fit any of my jeans. I need to lose weight.
Apparently I shall lose all my excess pounds if I go for an hour's walk every day. I plan to try this, although I have no idea how it will work in term time (I'm presuming for then this means an hour more than the hour I do anyway going in and out of town, and term tends to be short on spare hours). I was vaguely planning to do an hour's swimming a week, as an 'on top of the walking I do anyway' thing, but the plans were quite vague as I'm not particularly conveniently situated for any swimming pools, driving to them seems to be missing the point a little, and I have to find the Motor Proctor on a full moon Tuesday with a following wind (half an hour from 2-2:30 one day a week, or 6-6:30 a couple of others which gives me that little missing-Hall problem) before I have permission to car around Cam anyhow. And I am confidently informed that I don't swim fast enough to lose any weight by it, even though this is because I Have No Muscles and hence am actually putting in a fair amount of effort to not move very far.
Does anyone have any Top Tips For Losing Weight? I haven't consciously decided I need to lose weight before; it's just sort of happened when it needed to. But I have been A Big Lazy Blob over the summer, having gone into it needing to shed a few pounds, and now it's getting kind of serious.
Apparently I shall lose all my excess pounds if I go for an hour's walk every day. I plan to try this, although I have no idea how it will work in term time (I'm presuming for then this means an hour more than the hour I do anyway going in and out of town, and term tends to be short on spare hours). I was vaguely planning to do an hour's swimming a week, as an 'on top of the walking I do anyway' thing, but the plans were quite vague as I'm not particularly conveniently situated for any swimming pools, driving to them seems to be missing the point a little, and I have to find the Motor Proctor on a full moon Tuesday with a following wind (half an hour from 2-2:30 one day a week, or 6-6:30 a couple of others which gives me that little missing-Hall problem) before I have permission to car around Cam anyhow. And I am confidently informed that I don't swim fast enough to lose any weight by it, even though this is because I Have No Muscles and hence am actually putting in a fair amount of effort to not move very far.
Does anyone have any Top Tips For Losing Weight? I haven't consciously decided I need to lose weight before; it's just sort of happened when it needed to. But I have been A Big Lazy Blob over the summer, having gone into it needing to shed a few pounds, and now it's getting kind of serious.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 12:46 pm (UTC)From:There are only four ways I've found to stop myself snacking.
1. Have no snack food in the house. This will result in me walking to the nearest shop and buying snack food, so it does at least include a walk.
2. When I feel like a snack clean my teeth instead. I don't know why but this puts me off any food for an hour or so.
3. The snacking has caused one of your teeth to rot so severly and you've dealt with this so late that the operation the dentist is presently in the middle of has left your tooth sensitive to any eating, with the result that you eat almost nothing for a week, that cuts down on your weight awfully fast.
4. Develop a stomach bug or some illness that's fairly severe and lasts at least a week. Personally I'd rather be fat.
The advice people are giving about exercise I find a little suspicious, surely significantly increasing your heart rate in exercise is a big deal only if the purpose of that exercise is to make your heart healthier. Now that's not at all a bad idea in and of itself, but it's only tangentially related to losing weight. For example, do a steady walk for 8 hours on a days hiking, your heart rate won't have spent any significant length of time much above a normal rate (mountain dependant), but you will have built up an enourmous appitite (which I assume stems from having burnt off a lot of fuel).
I realise that if your heart is working hard it means you're burning off fuel more quickly, but the 'exercise no good unless putting you out of breath' school of thought is I think actually 'exercise no good for heart unless putting you out of breath'.
Anyhow, all you need to do is develop an addiction to celery. No I have no idea how you do that either.
As a final option there is eating nothing for a week. At the end of the week your parents will never again dare to suggest you're overweight for fear that you'd kill yourself.
Of course when you get back to college you could exercise by visiting me regularly.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 01:57 pm (UTC)From:> breath'.
You are right. Any exercise is good, unless it does actual permanent damage. But making the heart healthier is A Good Thing, and can be combined with losing weight since cardiovascular exercise burns an awful lot of energy in a short space of time. It's also highly addictive, but the addiction has no significant negative side effects if you don't join the rowing team or something sily like that.
The other thing is that if you've only got half an hour a day in which to exercise, you want to be doing an aerobic exercise or you won't do more than get blisters and boredom.