From Fat to Fit: How to Start From Nothing

You’re obese, you’re weaker than a kitten, and you can’t walk for 4 minutes without getting winded.  Basically, you’re below ground zero but you’d still like to somehow move into the realm of being in shape.  This blog will lay out the groundwork.

The first step is the mental/thinking hurdle.  Realize that you want to make a life change and not just a get in shape change.  You want to make a permanent change in your life for the better of you.  You know this will take some time, but if you’re ever going to become fit, right now is the best time.  Go ahead and set some realistic goals on where you’d like to be in 3 months, 6 months, and a year.

Next, you want to plan out some subtle switches in your day-to-day habits.  This is where most people get tripped up.  They think they need to go from couch potato to Rocky Balboa training montage overnight.  This is absolutely wrong and one of the times where less is going to be more.  While intense workouts are great, you don’t want to discourage yourself with a ton of hard work to start out with.  Start slow and build towards more as your body can handle it.

An example of a switch out could be replacing 1 hour and 30 minutes of idle sitting time (say TV or Internet) with 3 30 minute sessions of walking in the week.  This could be your simple first phase.  No, it’s not going to make waves but it will get you started on the right track.  Imagine going up a flight of stairs.  You need to start at the bottom before you get to the top.

If you’re thinking ahead, you know that after 2 weeks of your first change, you’ll want to make another healthy, positive switch in your lifestyle.  This could be adding another 30 minute session each week, doing sit-ups before you go to bed, or taking your diet up a notch (such as eating grilled instead of fried).

You’ll continue this process every 1-2 weeks until you reach your goal dates at which point you can check your progress and get a black and white indicator of all the progress you have made.

When you start from nothing, just remember you can’t undo 3 years of overeating and stagnant living in a few days.  However, what you can do is slowly become a healthier person until you’re replacing the majority of your bad habits with good ones.  Eventually, the good habits will become your lifestyle and not an on-again, off-again fad.

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