Every Step You Take

For nearly the whole first year of my weight loss, I didn't exercise.
I was initially losing between 4-6kgs a month and I thought 'Cool! I don't even need to exercise!

But I was wrong....

I didn't find that out until I went to my osteopath with a sore back late last year. I was so disappointed as I though my back pain would have subsided after losing so much weight.

While he was happy to hear about my weightless progress, he explained to me just how important it is to exercise while losing weight.

As I lose weight, by not exercising, I am also losing muscle, and therefore getting weaker. My muscles are not getting the workout they were used to when carrying my old weight around.

Although it made perfect sense to me, it came as quite a shock to me as i always somehow assumed that if I ever needed to, I could just get up and run 10kms with ease now that I'm so much lighter...

Well that's certainly not the case!

Simply put, exercise can be broken up into two different categories, cardio exercise and resistance training.


Cardio is walking, running, skipping anything that keeps you on the move. Resistance training is muscle strengthening, generally from lifting weights or using your own body weight for resistance to build muscle.

Both of these are as important as each other, not just for weight loss but for general health as well.
I hear a lot of women don't want to lift weights as they don't want to 'bulk up'. Unless you spend 20 hours a week at the gym, that's not actually going to happen. You will begin to tone up and also increase muscle mass which in turn helps burn more fat.

In the past, when I would jump on the latest crash diet, I'd always join a local gym,  convinced that I would be in there every other day working out, and I would ....
...for at least 2 weeks.

So, after I heard from my osteopath that I needed to exercise, I knew going hard and hitting the gym wasn't going to work for me long term.

I started by walking. I bought a FitBit which is pretty much a fancy pedometer that counted my steps and relays the info back to your phone app. By counting my steps for the day I was also able to count how many calories I burned, which automatically syncs into the myfitnesspal app.
(I love technology!)

My goal each day was to walk 10,000 steps. Having the FitBit clipped onto me was a great incentive to want to take the stairs, or park further away at the shops so I could reach my target each day. If I'd had a lazy day, I'd walk around the block a few times at the end of the day to make up for it.

You can buy a basic pedometer from eBay for $10 so you really don't need the top of the range one, although it's good motivation when you have the fancy equipment like the FitBit.

Obviously, there are so many different levels of fitness to consider, but at this point I'm just sharing what was my introduction into exercise.

I will go into detail next time about my simple, yet effective resistance training regime, and list a few exercises you can do at home too.