Ask HN: How did you start exercising after being completely out of shape?

or if you can afford it find a fitness trainer. they will work out a plan for you.

But seriously.

"Maximum results" is nebulous. I always recommend starting off by understanding that what you're seeking is a long-term process: it takes time.

First: start moving. Doesn't matter what. Don't overstress joints and ligaments unused to strenuous activity. They develop an order of magnitude more slowly than muscles. Walk. Take the stairs. Favor self-motility over technology. Take breaks from sitting (or if you have a standing desk, take breaks from standing). Explore your range of motion. Stick to bodyweight exercises (pushups, pullups, planks, and squats).

Try Nerf Fitness if you lean that direction (the FB group is highly supportive).

Once you've been walking, try something like a couch-to-5k/10k. Zombies, Run! is fun. Try something like the Primal Blueprint (also has a 21-day "reset" plan which can be beneficial).

Enlist partners (not necessarily "gym buddies", but people who will hold you accountable on the days you cannot).

Plan for the long haul.

I got fit by doing martial arts. I always wanted to do some but I thought I had to be fit to start doing them, error.

Then I got fit again by dancing, I found an style I loved and did it non-stop.

Now I have to get fit again, we'll see what it takes.

Of course, if you do what I didn't (control what you eat) you'll have an easier time, both getting and staying fit.

3-4 days a week now I do about an hour of cardio split between the arc trainer and the elliptical. I think the psychological and pain relief benefits of exercise really kick in around the equivalent of 45 minutes of running.

I think most people don't find cardio is effective for weight loss unless they are doing more like two hours a day. The main thing you have to watch is diet. You can put 1000 cal into your face in a few minutes, but you have to work hard for an hour to burn that many calories.

I started refereeing futball/soccer. Since exercising doesn't appeal to me, I framed it as training. Because it's for money (but not much) the incentives to maintain fitness are partially linked to professionalism. The money also pays for 'my shoes' so to speak.

Some other dimensions that have work for me well enough that I continue to do it after six years are:

1. It's athletic and therefore there is a physical performance dimension. The athletic performance is non-competitive. It's more like dance than rugby.

2. Other than scheduling, there's very little organizational overhead. I find some games, show up, hang out around some soccer fields, get paid, and go home.

The downsides include being somewhat seasonal and the behavior of adults at youth matches. It isn't exactly for everyone.

Good luck.

Mine was rock climbing, but cycling, snowboarding, surfing or pretty much anything will work, provided it is captivating, addicting and you genuinely consider it fun. Eventually you'll want it to be the thing that takes up your weekends and that you find yourself booking flights to unexpected places just because that's the place where the best "X" is.

But nobody does this. Instead, they go to a health club and lift a few weights or spend half an hour hating the stairmaster. Twice. Then they give up.

So don't do that. Buy a mountain bike, take it out in to the woods. Get muddy and come home sore. Wait until you're not sore anymore than go back and see if you can get farther down the road before ending up in the bushes. Make sure you always come home with a smile on your face, and repeat until you find yourself researching powerful LED headlamps so that you can get out after work in the winter.

Then you've won.

If (after an hour or two after your walk) your legs don't hurt, try it with a longer walk the next day. Whenever your find your temporary limit: Don't surpass it every day. Start slow and see if you can surpass your "last temporary limit" a week later.

In my personal opinion: If you don't like walking: Try to like it (try it for a week). Otherwise try to find something that you like. For me it was bicycling (also to technical stuff like tuning your bike). If you have the impression that you are to overweight for most sports: I think you will have to like swimming ... ;-)

Some people also like this "Gamification" Stuff (Smartwatches etc.) ... depends on if you need to motivate you every day.

For me i found a simple rule: Just do it (not a sponsored catchphrase). Just get up and do your little 10, 20, ... 60 min workout. Don't think about it. Think about something else that you are keen on. Think about your work (most ideas i had for software problems came while i was on my bike).I think ist also OK to get a nice sweet after your workout (of course: be fair to yourself!).

So whatever you are going to do: Do it, don't think about it every day, let it be a habit, but find something that you like somehow. People that are walking are mostly liking the nature and the quietness.

By the way: don't stress yourself with "getting fit fast". If your getting fit fast, probably your bones will suffer.

AAAANNNNDDDD now the benefits: 1: If something got a habit, its not so easy to get rid of it! 2: If you are sporting outside (fresh and clean air) you will probably soon notice that your are not getting thick so much. 3: Mostly (if you are not exhausted every time) you will experience a "sharper" mind. First, just some seconds and later on for longer (like an hour or two). I was amazed when i actively noticed this. Its like the programmers flow... but without actually programming. 4: You know the other stuff: self-esteem, mental vitality

Ah, by the way: Try to eat something healthy. I think its always hard to completely change your eating habits, but change it step by step. For example: Eating a banana and an apple after your workout. Nothing more. You will also soon experience a difference if you "accidentally" missed your banana and apple ...

Greets,

Chris

2) Move. Doesn't matter what you do really . Get a Fitbit, or use your phone, and just try and move more steps today than you did yesterday. You can start out walking, and over time to beat your record you'll have to jog, and then run. Competing against yourself, I found, is motivational. Keep a fitness log.

You'll see improvement inside of a week with how you feel.

I like to get up and do a quick routine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECxYJcnvyMw), then walk my dogs for 30-45 minutes (and to get all this done, I need to go to bed at a reasonable hour the night before). Cook a few eggs for breakfast -- eat more things with ingredients you can pronounce. Pack my lunch (or eat a salad if I go out to lunch with co-workers), and then do whatever for dinner. Carbs -- especially sugars -- are the enemy.

On habit consistency - start small. People get super depressed because they didn't work out three times that first week. Start with once a week, see how that works for you. Can you build in a second time that week? Do you need to change what time you do the activity, like before work instead of after? Try that and see how it works for you. Make things easy for you by setting your clothes out the night before so there's limited inhibitions on doing the thing you want to do.

You'll also need to find something that you enjoy. I'd personally favor a less optimal workout (in terms of working muscle groups, not increased risk of injury) that you enjoy over super-max-get-shredded-tomorrow that's a slog. You'll slowly build into it. For me, my activity was martial arts, I moved away from the dojo and got into weight lifting. I really didn't care for bodyweight fitness, and would find myself looking for excuses to skip or cut the workout short. Be careful when you compare yourselves to others, they could be much further along than you and had different constraints.

The third thing is diet. There's tons of articles on proper diet, and for me that's too much stuff to get into at the beginning. What I did was write down and calculate calories for two weeks at the beginning. The first week I ate normally how I felt like. The second I tried to make slight adjustments, still within the realm of things I would eat (basically the "eat this not that"). Those changes were enough for me to get to my desired calorie intake. I don't count macro nutrients, I don't weigh food. It was super intimidating to jump into that, and I didn't want to drag my significant other into my food changes. That being said, maybe entering everything you eat into MyFitnessPal or similar would be helpful for you. Maybe a defined diet regime with preplanned meals is something for you. A friend of mine pays for FancyHands or similar and just sends pictures of what he eats to them and they'll rough out the calorie count into his calorie tracking app. My relative preps everything on Sunday for the week, weighs food, and will not deviate from the diet even for the holidays. It's a bit of an experiment, going back to consistency of habit and something you enjoy.

I'd check out /r/fitness, /r/bodyweightfitness, /r/MealPrepSunday/, Strong Lifts, and maybe 4 Hour Body (a friend of mine swore by it, lost 25 pounds) as just different resources you could expose yourself to. You could also decide to do martial arts or basketball or tennis or whatever other sport.

At my worst, I was 250lbs..

Here are a few things I realized: 1. All these modern fads only work short term. Once you lose your motivation.. It'll be way harder for you to start all over again.

2.Forget all the scientific blabbing, there is no way you're going to lose all your bulk by just intermittent fasting alone or just changing your diet to these new paleo or whatever they're called. You'd lose motivation long before you start reaping the fruit of your labour.

3.The biggest "trick" to staying fit is called consistency. There is no other way around this trick

4. The fastest,safest,healthy way to lose weight is a combination of consistent exercise + consistent clean eating)

Here's what I did(I wouldn't recommend it to anyone):

1. Switched to a hardcore fruitarian diet for 30 days, while jog/walking for 5 days a week. Lost 13kgs in the first month.

2. After 30 days eased into half raw veggies and half fruitarian diet,while jogging 6-8km for 5 days a week. Lost another 10kgs that month

3. Added a calisthenics routine (3 days a week ) to the previous program. Can be found on reddit r/bodyweight fitness. Lost another 12kgs, stomach flattened, loads of stretch marks started appearing everywhere, had no clothes that fit properly etc

4. Refined my method after. Settled on a healthy diet mix of fruits,vegetables and occasional carbs and protein (twice a week) while still running daily and doing calisthenics 3 times a week. Slowed down to 5kgs a month (cause it got harder to lose weight) till hit my target weight of 75kg.

I do understand this method was dangerous to me and I could've gotten injured from muscle overuse, but I didn't. I never pushed myself beyond my limits, I only made sure I remained consistent and motivated. You can find motivation from reddit forums or YouTube videos or even a guy you'd like to look like when you finally lose the bulk. The key here is consistency

Move. Just move. I started going for MWF 5k walks, they took almost an hour at the start. Pick a shorter distance if that's too intimidating. A lap around the apartment complex at my old place was 1km. Do that once or twice each night after dinner. Make this a habit, a routine. If it's not, you can't take the next step to making a weight lifting or sports routine.

I also played soccer, badly. But I was moving. I'd give it all I had, get gassed, sub out, come back, repeat. Pick a sport that you enjoy and do it. Especially if you can find a group you like to play with. Going to the games was as much about seeing and being with my friends as playing the game itself.

Diet. My initial massive weight loss, I also quit sodas and candy. I eat and drink those now, but in moderation, as treats. This made the first 20lbs fall off fast.

Don't get frustrated by lack of weight loss. I'm back to 200 lbs (220->170->200 over two years). I got stuck at 195 on the way down. But I also added in BJJ which built up some extra muscle at that point, so I was trading muscle for fat. The way back up, it's been strength training (bodyweight) that's built up my chest and arms. I'm still fitting into 33" waist pants, so those 30lbs have been useful (170 was also too low for me, I looked emaciated, 180 if I'm just running, 190 with BJJ, 200 with those and bodyweight training are about right).

Accept that you may have many false starts. I "took up" running once a year or so for 5 or 6 years before it stuck. I took up bodyweight training with about the same frequency of starts and failures. This will be frustrating, but keep trying. And try new things. If you can't stick to the activity (for reasons other than injury or severe time pressures from other obligations), then you probably aren't enjoying it. Find something else.

Listen to your body and have good partners. I do BJJ, it's dangerous (NB: if everyone does everything right it's fine, but an armbar can easily screw up someone's shoulder or elbow if done wrong or taken too far). I started with a shoulder injury (soccer accident, body slammed by a teammate and landed on the shoulder). I didn't use that arm much. I tapped as soon as someone got it in anything resembling an armbar. I talked with my partners and told them the limits of my body, and they respected that. They'd avoid that arm during drills (or do it very light) and rolling. If you do something like this, and you don't have respectful, considerate classmates and instructors, FIND A NEW GYM.

Activities that can be fun to start with that get you some exercise, but you'll want more to get really fit and strong (if strength is your goal in particular):

Walking - easy to do, aim for 30+ minutes at a moderate pace to start. Then start shooting for distance once the 30 minutes is easier, and then reduce your time on that distance back to 30. That's why I do 5ks. It took me 50+ minutes to walk the distance, started jogging and got it to 40, started running and got it to 30.

Cycling - this will get you fit on its own. It's easy on the joints, slightly expensive (need a bike) and harder to do in inclement weather. But do the same as walking: 30+ minutes, then distance, then reduce the time back to 30-45 minutes (or whatever you can afford) at that distance.

Hiking - requires travel, but as almost as easy as walking, and probably more interesting scenery. Can be a fun social activity as well (let's go to the mountains this weekend!) or, if it's located near where you live, a nice thing to do with an SO paired with a picnic or something. Making being active fun is really helpful for sticking with it.

Dancing - ballroom, tango, they're challenging but fun and will help with impressing your partners in the present or the future. These can be harder due to needing to learn new skillset...

Everyone is very helpful and supportive in each other's progress.

I would repost this question there.

I go to the gym every day, 7 days a week for 1 hour and 20 minutes and lift weights (machine and freeweights). Start off with machines, they're safer. When you get stronger use free weights as well.

Buy yourself OP Whey Protein and have 1 scoop per day, I mix it with water. Also get some fish oil and a multivitamin.

Consistency is key. Same time, every day.

Don't bother with cardio - you're fat enough that lifting weights is going to do more than enough. Cardio is boring and just improves your cardiovascular system.

What worked for me was doing 5 reps of 5 with high weight load, keeping control of the weight, never cheating form. Increase by 5 to 10 lbs every couple of days. You will plateau but always try to keep doing more weight.

High reps (10-12) are for volume. And right now you're weak so aim for low-reps high-weight (5).

PS: Don't listen to people recommending Starting Strength - it's a meme. http://i.imgur.com/83aOStc.png

It really helped that my apartment had a gym that was available to me practically any time I wanted.

First, it is critical that you understand that you need to commit to this for the long haul. There are no quick ways to lose the weight. Ignore anyone or any product that tells you otherwise. To lose it and keep it off you need to take a hard look at your lifestyle and change that.

Second, start small. I used to quit out of doing various routines because I tried to emulate people who were already in shape. I tried running, biking the gym but could never commit to any of them because I was too out of shape and it felt like work. Find something small you can do reliably and stick to it. For me, I started with walking a few extra blocks to the next subway stop instead of getting on at the one right in front of my office. Now if I can walk somewhere in 45 minutes I'll do that instead of taking the subway or a cab. This is how I get my cardio instead of running on a treadmill. You can never outrun the calories that you put into your body.

Soon after I changed my eating habits. I used to have burgers, burritos, pizza and everything else unhealthy every day for lunch. I changed those habits. It took a few months for me to find a rotation of things that were healthy for me, but also left me satisfied. I first found a deli that did a great chicken wrap that tasted delicious, filled me up and was far healthier. Then I found a place that made a chicken salad that satisfied me on every level. Slowly over the better part of a year, I replaced all of the unhealthy lunch options with healthier alternatives. I started asking fast food places to give me half a cup of soda in the smallest size cup they had and then months later I just opted for water where I could. It didn't happen overnight, it took time.

I also started just eating less. Not all at once, but slowly. I noticed that in the past when I went to a salad bar I would need to spend ~$9 for lunch to feel satisfied. Over the course of a year, I managed to get down to spending ~ $5 - $6 and still feel full and happy with lunch. Take one less spoonful, piece of meat etc over time.

Dieting is not something you do for a few months to lose weight, it's a lifestyle change. If I want a burger or burrito I'll still get one, the key is that I won't get one every day.

By this time with just adding walking and adjusting my diet over the course of a year, I noticed I was losing weight. I got a scale and a Fitbit. I checked my weight in the morning and at night, logged my calories consumed and calories burned. It became clear to me that a simple formula of consuming fewer calories and burning more helped my weight drop quickly. This made it easier for me to keep up with my new diet.

Next, I added a home workout routine. It started with just pushups which I could barely do 5 without feeling dead. The key is that I did the 5 I could do every day and kept doing it. Now while I watch TV at home I do as many as I can push myself to, take a break and then do some more when I feel like I'm ready. I can usually do 100 during commercials for a 30-minute broadcast. I've also added in sit-ups and squats. I have no set time to workout, I just do it in between my down time at home.

It's been almost 3 years since I first started paying attention to weight and now I feel better, have more energy and I'm down from a size extra large to medium, and sometimes small depending on the manufacturer.

Find what works for you, start off with small changes and stick with them. Even if you lapse for a week, just pick yourself up and continue pushing.

Once you feel like the time it takes is more of a limit than the energy, find something that's more energy demanding.

For me that was cycling.

As everyone says, consistency is one of the key things to keeping the habit. I made it a M-F thing, with weekend rest days.

The other aspect is obviously diet but that is harder to suggest without knowing more about you/your lifestyle/etc.

I do think food is an easier one habit wise: if you treat yourself (or slip, however you see it) one day, I think it's easier to get back into healthier foods the following day (unless you buy everything the day you eat it?)

Anyway good luck, it's definitely worth the work.

Since you don't know what you're doing, hiring a professional is a good move. They'll start you off at the right intensity and target your entire body. They'll also teach you what you need to do on your own.

I am just like you and finally just jumped in, went to the gym, and hired a trainer.

* I was bedridden for 3.5 months. This was followed by getting out of breath if I walked to my kitchen or stood too long. I imagine you are in better shape than that. I now walk 2+ hours a day.

When I first wanted to start running (despite being completely out of shape), I made the following pact with a friend:

1. I have to go out running every day. It doesn't matter how long or far I run for, I just have to run at least one step.

2. Every day I don't go running, I have to pay them $20. No exceptions.

It worked really well for me. I didn't feel as bad as I expected about not running very far when I got started and I inevitably found myself pushing to go farther each time.

I'm not a self-help type of guy, but the Tony Robbins documentary on Netflix made me start to think about my life as something that can be designed, the same way I would design software.

Fear and anger are much stronger motivators in my opinion than love, fun, or sense of accomplishment. So I'm not afraid to leverage those at least in the short term. Find the person or thing that really pisses you off, even if that is a version of yourself.