Weight loss question.

[Emotinium]

Hi,

I want to give it a second change to lose weight again. I have a mental disorder which makes going outside quite hard, so I want to do my workouts at home and do a healthy balanced diet. Being fit and healthy is quite important to ease my issues.

A few months ago I stopped doing my workouts at home, because my energy was so low that I was tired after 5 minutes of some exercises. I also did a diet with 1600 calories a day at the same, so a good change that that was one of the reasons that my energy was so low that I just stopped.

I always wasn’t the most fit kid at school, so I often was holding in my belly so I would slimmer. It wasn't a very great idea after all, because now my stomach doesn’t look like that straight anymore and my underbelly sticks out of the rest of my stomach and I think it looks ugly and I want to get rid of it. Also my hips, but and legs could lose some fat. Also gaining some muscle is important for me. I don’t want to be a big bodybuilder or something, but just want to look and feel healthy and fit.

I ain’t looking for a workout plan which is hard, difficult and provides a fast loss of weight and improvement in strength. I’m looking for something which is easy to hold on and provides a slow but effective way of losing fat and gaining muscle.

I’m 19 years old, 187cm and 81kg. My BMI is good, but I think it is mostly because the balance of my muscle and fat isn’t right.

Hopefully someone could help me out. English isn’t my native language so I hope everything is understandable how I wrote it.

(I (re)placed this topic over here, because I was adviced people where more active on this side)

 

[Llama]

Hi Emotinium and welcome to the diaries!
Eating healthily and building some muscle mass sounds good to me. Losing fat and building muscle simulatenously is hard to do but if you haven´t exercised much up until now you might be able to. If you eat enough, that is. Working on your posture might be helpful, too. That´s a thing I often see younger people neglect but can make a visual difference of around 5 kg in many folks.

 

[Cate]

Hi, again Emotinium.
You will find this a supportive place. Your English is good enough for us. Let us know what a usual day's eating would look like so that we are able to see if there are any obvious changes that we could suggest. Are you able to go for a walk? Even starting off each day with a short walk & gradually building it up is good for you.

 

[Trusylver]

As LaMa said Losing fat and building muscle simultaneously is hard and requires a lot of dedication and a lot of excess fat. you are a normal BMI and you make no mention of your bodyfat % so I am assuming you are not carrying a lot of excess fat so reaching both goals at once is very unlikely. building muscle requires calorie surplus and loosing fat needs a calorie deficit.

The point of strength training during deficit is to maintain your existing muscle, without the strength training you will loose more muscle than you otherwise would with it. Heavy strength training is better than light bodybuilder style training or bodyweight exercises for maintaining muscle while you loose the fat, moving to a lighter higher rep routine when it is time to build size.

muscle definition comes from a low bodyfat %

I don’t want to be a big bodybuilder or something, but just want to look and feel healthy and fit.

You make no mention of your gender but if you are female you probably do not have the testosterone levels to become large and a strength routine builds less size than a hypertrophy routine, getting strong does not mean you have to get big.

 

[Emotinium]

Thanks for your replies everyone,

I am now doing light workout routines at home to build up my condition slowly based on strength. Probably only 20 minutes a day, but a full hour is too much for me atm. I also smoke, so well.. My condition is terrible..

I could give a a example on my daily food and drinks intake. I just started out with a diet which I didn’t specificly started to lose weight, but to feel better. I try to get rid of my sugar addiction, but still I am having some off days. So it quit variable what I eat and drink.

I usually start off with some fried egg with bacon for breakfast with a cup of milk, a cup of tea without sugar and a cup of descafé coffee. At lunch I usually eat some bread with again eggs, filet american etc. I am actually struggling to find a good variery of lunch that is easy to make and healthy. I still live at my parrents house so I can’t really decide what to eat, but we don’t eat unhealthy. Always a lot of vegetables. Well and with the snacks its usually where I go wrong. I could eat a whole bar of chocolate easily in the past, but that bad habbit I luckely have conquered. But still when I reward myself with something nice I have a strong tendency to eat too much. For drinks I actually almost never drink soda’s or juices with lots of sugar. Sometimes a ice tea, but that not daily as well. I usually stick with water, tea and coffee without sugar. I don’t drink alcohol as well.

I have almost everyday small walks, but it isn’t enough. I don’t want to get too much in detail of what I have mentally, but it makes going outside a real challenge and its drowning a lot of energy. It’s coming from some things which I experienced in the past which I am working on with therapy. That’s why I am not ready to go to a gym now or whatever. To be honest I don’t really like ambiance in a gym too, so I want to stick with workouts at home.

And my stomage which isn’t straight is something which makes me a bit insecure, but I don’t know if I could change it. I have this for a long time. I am not 100% sure if it is caused because I really hold my belly down too much in the past, but I think so. Of course it you have almost no fat at all it will be something which doesn’t look that big of a deal anymore, but then I am talking of really really fit.

And I am a male.