How to lose weight without exercising
While exercise can certainly help a weight-loss regime you can't out run a bad diet.
Many people hate even the word exercise. It smacks of cold gyms, colder showers, brutal PE teachers, never being picked for the team and the hell of cross-country running over muddy fields. Horrible memories of having a huge netball thrown at you and being expected to catch it; hockey sticks that were anything but jolly and the misery of communal changing rooms.
It’s a very long time since I was in a PE class. I managed to miss them from about the age of 14 and swore, as so many of us did, I would never ever again play any kind of sport nor take any kind of exercise. It was torture. Humiliating. Degrading.
A few years after leaving school though I found myself in a dance studio every day doing aerobics, jazz dancing and ballet. A few years after that I became what’s known as a “gym rat”. Then I took up running and ran the London Marathon as well as numerous shorter events: 5Ks, 10Ks and half marathons. Now I’m a killer walker.
It wasn’t exercise I hated at all. It was how it was taught. I’m a babyboomer so maybe things have changed a good deal since I was at school. I really hope so.
There are two main views about exercise and whether it helps with a diet. Some say it’s crucial, others it makes no difference. I’m not a sports scientist nor nutritionist so I can only say what works for me. And I’m sorry if you’re an exercise refusenik but I come down firmly on the it works side. However with a strong caveat…
Do not despair if you really hate any kind of exercise. Because yes, it works, but it’s not that big a part of a successful weight-loss regime. I’d say for me it contributes only about ten per cent of my success in losing weight. The rest is done by eating less. You cannot out run over eating. But it can boost your metabolism, kick start a diet, and shift a plateau. It’s an aid but it’s not everything.
I like walking between an hour to an hour and a half every day going out at least twice because I enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy exercise or come out in a rash at the very thought my advice is, don’t bother. You won’t stick at something you hate. As humans we respond to what we enjoy. Maybe I am fortunate that I love walking. I adore the endorphin high I get from brisk walking. I like getting out the house and I’m lucky I live in a nice area where the scenery is very pleasing to the eye. I also love dancing. You’d be amazed how many steps you can accumulate by bopping round the room to your favourite songs.
I’ve tried losing weight by eating whatever I like while taking plenty exercise. It didn’t work. I gained weight! I used to do 12 hours of dance classes a week and my weight went up because I thought the workouts would burn it off. I trained for the marathon and gained weight. Because the kind of slog you need to get round 26 miles if you’re not a fast runner doesn’t burn off calories. You need much shorter, faster, distances for that. When I switched to 5 and 10Ks I lost weight.
The key to making exercise work as part of a diet regime is to do something you enjoy and something that will burn calories. And not use exercise as an excuse to have cake, chocolate or an extra portion of chips. An hour’s fast walking only burns up about 300 calories, maybe not even that many. A Mars bar eaten afterwards will negate all your hard work. And yes, exercise does make you hungry. So you have to find the right balance. If you want to!
In conclusion you can lose weight without exercising but it’s very hard to lose weight without dieting! Ideally do both but only if you can find an activity you love doing and miss if you don’t do it.
And by the way, in case you were wondering, I did get those four pounds back off! So I’ve now lost 55 pounds in just over 12 months. Just one more pound to go and it’ll be four stone I’ll have lost. And it’s finally showing now. My face has lost most of the chins I used to have. My fat face is no more! I’m still carrying lots of fat around my middle so I won’t leave it at four stone. I’m going for five. If only to see just how much it takes to lose all that middle-aged spread! I’ve no target in mind for when I might get there but it gives me a goal to keep going. And we all need goals in life! Till next time...
Completely agree. When I was running in my late 30s/early 40s, I did lose weight - I think because it makes you feel good and you begin to dislike that overfull feeling. But losing weight when I started 5:2 was purely a factor of eating less. I did no more exercise than I normally did. I've tested that hypothesis a few times in my life and eating less is the surefire way to lose weight, exercise makes barely any difference.