Workout routines where there’s an active goal?

[tronald45]

I know this is a weird question, but please stick with me.

A little background first. I’m overweight (not heavily so, just enough that I have to pull my shirts to be looser), just got off a year long stint of being homeless, live paycheck to paycheck, not a good cook at all, basically all the worst things when trying to get in shape. I’ve wanted to lose weight for years, but the monetary setback for a gym and lack of cooking skills makes it agonizing, and thus my best attempt was just not eating hardly anything (which, when working hands on jobs, isn’t super great so I abandoned that). I’ve been in gyms before, and they weren’t awful, I just couldn’t get down with the repetitiveness of it all. You pick the weight up, you put the weight down. You pull on the bar, you let the bar go. You run in one spot on a treadmill for 20 minutes. There wasn’t ever any goal.

I’m looking for a type of workout where I can actually have some sort of short term goal. For example, when I was younger and bored, I would go cut down a small tree from the forest behind my house, chop it into logs, then split it for firewood. There was a simple, straightforward goal that would help me track active progress in the activity. Do you all have any other recommendations for this type of workout? A lot of people have told me cardio, but I have exercise induced asthma, which makes it really difficult to try and run for such an extended period of time without feeling like my lungs are going to burst. Also cardio sucks.

Thank you guys for any help. I really want to start on my weight loss journey, but it seems like every card is stacked against me and it’s difficult to find the motivation to get started.

 

[limetree5]

@tronald45 I'm going to be honest. If you want to get in shape, money isn't a deciding factor in the slightest.

There are many body weight exercises you can do, you can go for a run. When it comes to eating healthy, there are a million cheap recipes for healthy food.

Don't crash diet, that always fails. Just make healthy choices. Yes, it's slower, but it is what it is. And it's the best way.

Drink coke zero or diet soda instead of soda. Learn to love water. Snack on rice cakes with greek yogurt rather than chips. Reduce condiments heavily. Track calories.

Want to know what I had for dinner? 200g of egg whites with turkey pepperoni (80 calories for 22 slices!), onion, and cheese. Made it into an omelette. For lunch I made a chicken sandwich. Nothing special, air fried with a sauce I made with half greek yogurt, half low cal mayo and hot sauce with some spices for taste. These tasted amazing. There is extra thin bread slices that are 50-60 calories per slice rather than 100. This drastically reduces toast and sandwich calories.

I weighed everything and I'm full and my calories today are 1600. I still need to eat but I'm incredibly full. All of this was cheap. Found the chicken breast on sale. Could've easily not made chicken and found a cheaper meat. Lean ground beef can make you like 10 burgers for 10-15 dollars. I'll probably have popcorn for a snack instead of chips. Find low calorie popcorn, no added butter. It tastes good.

Anyway. For working out, I'd recommend getting a cheap step tracker, or just use your phone. Try to get 10k steps no matter what, each day. You don't need hard cardio. Just get 10k+ steps.

There are loads of calisthenics programs for free online, but even just finding a body weight HIIT work out on youtube is a great start.

I'd maybe start with lunges, you can put heavy things into a backpack and put that on while you do them. You can do squats like this. There are variations of push ups from knees to putting your feet up on a chair and doing decline push ups. Planks, leg raises, sit ups, pull ups and dips at a park. Even dips on a counter in your kitchen or buying a very cheap pull up bar that hooks onto a door way.

There are answers. You're bring pessimistic for no reason. Money can't buy an amazing figure. Hard work and dedication is the only way to get it.