This is very depressing. I find it incredibly difficult to lose weight dieting. And now it's telling me I just wasted all this money on a treadmill (and the effort it took to get it down into the basement).
> I find it incredibly difficult to lose weight dieting
Me too, and so many people do. I hope the treadmill helps, because it can.
FWIW, the article is making intentionally controversial statements and implications. Don’t let it convince you that exercise is wasted; it’s not.
Building a new habit, whether exercise or diet, is the hardest & most important port. I think it’s 90% mental, figuring out how to not give up and not let myself get depressed.
Might not work for you at all, but some tricks that helped me… I resisted counting calories for decades while I exercised a lot. Then I finally tried counting calories, and somehow managed to hold it and it worked. A coworker had lost a lot of weight and when I asked him about it in passing, without stopping to talk, he flashed his phone and mumbled “counting calories, man”, as if it was the easiest most obvious thing ever. That hit me a bit hard and stuck with me. So, it took time, many months. I set my calorie goal to my goal weight, not below. This meant it took longer than necessary to lose weight. I was interested in making sure I knew what it felt like to eat the right amount every day, forever. It helped me mentally to save room in my budget for a small treat snack at the end of the day. Starting with tracking but not restricting calories is a good way to put together your tools (e.g. a phone app) & daily workflow without worrying about being hungry. Calorie counts don’t have to be perfect, just doing it for a while and trying to be accurate, and you’ll get a very good sense for how many cals things have.
If you find dieting difficult because you get hungry, look at the keto diet, which reduces hunger.
When you eat carbs your body turns them to sugar because that's all it can do with it. Then your pancreas notices there is too much sugar in your body and tells it to store it in the fat cells for later use as energy. When the sugar is cleared out of your body, you become hungry again. This process only takes a couple of hours which is why people who eat carbs get hungry between meals.
Instead, eat healthy fats. They don't cause your sugar levels to spike so they don't cause you to have that sugar crash and hungry feeling. You can remain feeling full for 8 hours on fat.
Of course you also need proteins so make sure you get enough. Proteins do cause your sugar levels to go up some, but no where near as much as carbs do so they don't cause a crash either.
If you have a low sustaining calorie level due to past diets, you might want to look up reverse dieting to make the whole thing easier. But even with a low level you shouldnt have much problems once you manage to track your input and arent dependent on junkfood. At the end of the day its an invisible red or green number.
If the problem is with self control, remember that torturing yourself and viewing it as a battle can be counterproductive. If you just starve yourself you will likely bounce back directly afterwards. Its about making an actual change and normalizing your eating. For that i found it helpful to first stick to my sustaining calorie level, so planing what you eat at the level you dont gain or loose weight. You can then build on that structure with cutting out the addictive stuff, eating slower and figuring out being full vs not hungry.
Personally i found a week of just boiled potatoes incredibly helpful (you will have to work really hard to gain weight with just plain potatoes) to kick the addictive stuff and break with bad habits. Its like with any other drug and abstinence wont kill you in this case.
Dont beat yourself up, its one step at a time and with better planing you can make the steps a lot easier.
You did not waste that money if it helps you exercise. The body needs to move to stay healthy. Never mind the weight, get your heart going a couple of times a week. When this is a habit, start to push a little. I think you will find that you feel a lot better after.
I find that I eat a lot healther when I'm not stressed out. Exercise helps with that.
The reality of exercise and diet is sort of depressing: it is much, much harder to get in shape than it is to stay in shape.
You can spend months with completely different habits, and see almost no difference. Your muscles build up from the inside, and your fat burns off from the outside. Muscle is also denser when you get on the scale.
There is a silver lining. Muscles burn calories faster than other cells in day-to-day life. If you're persistent and patient, you will get there eventually.
Alcohol also trips a lot of people up. It'll run you about 100-200 calories/drink, and it metabolizes like sugar.
I've lost 40 kg (88 lbs) just by exercising: never counted calories, lots of pizzas and whatever. When people say "you can't exercise out of a bad diet" my first question is "What do you mean by "exercise?". And then you discover that exercise in their mind is 30 minutes of brisk walking, 3 days a week and nothing more. That's not exercising, that a sedentary lifestyle.
Cardio is great for general health, and cannelloni shave off a few extra calories even once you’re good at it. Buy some weights, and put on a few pounds of muscle. The muscle costs more calories to maintain, so for your same diet you can shift you body composition a little. For a beginner you can see a lot of results in about three lifting sessions a week in only a handful of weeks.
There are plenty people who are skinny and who don't exercise and are not healthy. Exercise helps you get more healthy, it's not all about how thin you are. Walking/running is great exercise and great for you in terms of your overall health even if they doesn't help you lose weight directly. It does help your mental health.
