Im 35 and tired of being fat

Question
Hi Dianne,

I've been focusing on my education and now that I'm finished and have the job I've been wanting (Special Ed. Teacher), I have to turn my attention and focus on me.

I am 35 years old and weigh 242lbs.  I do spend lots of time with my 11 and 15 year old, but I get tired quickly.

My question would be "How do I get started?"  I've started walking 1 mile every other day and kind of started changing my eating habits, but let me tell after 35 years of bad habits, they are hard to break.  Please help

Answer
Hi Becky -

Well, congratulations on both your education and on getting started with a good walking program !!

Let's start with the walking - The first step here would be to start to increase the time (vs. worrying about distance) - Your ultimate first goal should be to walk for 30 minutes

Yes, bad habits are hard to break so we will start to think of this as "weight management" as opposed to weight loss. I often tell my clients that weight is a symptom of lifestyle and you cannot change all of your habits at once and expect it to last.

Here are some basic good habits which you should strive for over the next month or so ..

1. Eat breakfast (if you rarely if ever eat breakfast, set the goal to do it 4 of 7 days. When that becomes habit, increase until you are up to eating it every day)

2. Get in 3 fruit servings and 4 veggie servings a day (again, if you are currently getting none, start with one or two each day and work up to your recommended amount)

3. Drink 64 oz of water a day (again start with a bit above what you are doing and work on up- Ultimately you should be drinking around 96 oz)

4. Limit (notice I did not say omit) intake of snack and processed foods to a serving or 2 a day .. which brings us up to

5. LOOK AT NUTRITION PANELS and start to get an idea of what a true SINGLE serving actually is

6. DON'T DIET - I know that this is a funny thing for a fitness professional to say to someone wanting to lose weight but, a diet is something that you go off of and generally means cutting way too many calories and omitting too many foods

I STRONGLY recommend that you do the following

1. go here and figure out your base metabolic rate (add about 10 - 15% to accommodate for daily activities and subtract 500 calories) This way you will be able to give your body enough food to meet it's needs and avoid cutting too many calories
http://www.mypersonalfitnesscoach.com/FTRMRcalc.html

2. Go hear to learn how much from each group you will need to lose weight optimally without losing muscle or messing up your metabolic rate. The average person underestimates their caloric intake by around 800 calories a day, THIS will help you get control of this and allow you enough calories
http://www.mypersonalfitnesscoach.com/InfoServingsizesandPortions.html

3. If you are ready to lose this weight FOR GOOD in an effective and not terribly difficult manner, Read the following articles to help you get a basic understanding about the 6 components of lifelong, effective weightloss and some of the myths that may be keeping you from the body you want


1.http://www.mypersonalfitnesscoach.com/artguaranteeresults.html

2. http://www.mypersonalfitnesscoach.com/22bigfatlies.htm

3. http://www.mypersonalfitnesscoach.com/InfoBasicsExerciseProgram.html

Please keep in touch and let me know how you are doing and feel free to drop me a line if you have any other questions

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