I weighed exactly 16 stone on the day before I started this campaign and just before I confirmed a booking for a trip to the Arctic next year on a sailing schooner. I'm 66, have been working from home for more than 30 years at a desk. Very sedentary.
My aims for this trip (end of May 2019) are to be fit enough to descend and ascend a rope ladder from ship to dinghy, walk reasonable distances over various terrain, climb hills etc.
My first instinct was to become more active. I've done this by walking. Which I've found I enjoy and recently have been moved to run a little - just a couple of hundred metres at a time. And I am definitely feeling better for it. Also, I have lost, give or take, a stone doing this. Though it has plateau'd for the last 10 days.
One of the things I did at the start was to measure my "girth", which I think of as, in a horse, the largest circumference. Perhaps at the wrong time (evening, after a few drinks) but it was the same (52") as it was at the start.
Although I'm very pleased that I have really started to enjoy being more active, and I can feel that my leg muscles are responding, I would like some help with losing some of the middle-body bulk. More by exercise than diet...
Hi, Aniseed, Welcome...
If you want to get fit, losing weight would help, but the fitter you get the easier it will be to burn off fat and lose weight.
It tends to be cold in the Artic, so a little spare fat might be beneficial!
I would advise you to be careful about running, as, when any overweight adult runs, it can cause knee problems, particularly if you have had a desk job for thirty years.
My "Thought on reducing fat" might help you lose fat:
healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...
Hmmm... sorry but that's no help at all. Sentence 1 confirms what I have said, and that's what I hope will continue to happen
Sentence 2, well yes, ha-ha, a bit of blubber...
Sentence 3 ignores what I said, which is that I "felt moved to run" for short distances... in other words, it felt good to just change to running for a few minutes. I am quite familiar with my knees and what they do and don't like...
But thank you for the welcome, S11m, and sorry to be negative
Hi, Aniseed
In the context of my reply to your post, thank you for taking the time to reply. I am sorry if you thought I was wasting your time confirming what you said, but I was not only agreeing with you, but also saying that exercise would help weight reduction.
In the context of this (weight loss) forum, exercise is not highly-rated... the wisdom is that only 90% of weight loss is through diet... but, having been an endurance athlete, I know that, for me, that was not the case. ...and the administrators and event hosts encourage us to make supportive, encouraging and sympathetic replies, even if we are not experts on the topic. (Having been a professional Technical Author for years, I like to be informative.) I note that two members "liked my reply".
I think that there are thousands of ex-runners in the UK who had damaged their knees and had to give up.
Even walking can cause injury - I had a "March Fracture" (metatarsal) from step-aerobics, but it was common in infantrymen, hence the name.
Modern footwear is better at absorbing shock.
I hope that you do not prove me right by suffering knee or foot injury!