Exercise, Diet, Gym

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I need to get more exercise, I don't really do much at all. There is a convienient nearby gym that I could join, but I've held back because it seems very much group orientated and I would find this difficult and intimidating.

I've tried exercising before, going for runs and walks alone but I often find it difficult to make it a habit and generally lose motivation and stop pretty quickly after starting.

The same goes for dieting. I'm just slightly over the healthy body mass index for my height, but I would feel comfortable losing some weight and generally improving my health.

Does anyone have any sort of advice?

If you find a certain type of food that helps you lose weight, eat that as a meal, once a day. Soup does it for me. I make sure that it's not a cream based soup.

I don't think you have much of a choice...you either A) go to the gym and work out alone. Use the treadmills and bring an ipod or other mp3 player. or B) do the exercise on your own at your local park. You don't have to do group exercises at gyms, its not how they make their money. You are a paying customer and have every right to work out the way you feel is best for you.

My tip regarding exercise is to just make it part of your routine and start obsessing about it.

I HATE gyms. Well, it's not the gyms I hate; I wouldn't mind them if they were empty and I had them all to myself. What I hate is all the other people being there. So I exercise at home.

There are loads of things you can do. You can either go outside, and go for a run or a walk or a cycle, or you can stay indoors. I tried lots of different cardio exercises before I settled on the ones that were right for me personally. I have to enjoy it and not be bored by it, and also not get regular injuries. Also I have decided I prefer to do it where I'm not going to be seen (indoors). Those are my criteria. Everyone has different things that they enjoy.

If you want to spend money you can buy cardio equipment such as a bike or treadmill. If you want to do it for free you can go jogging or walking or skipping or do step aerobics on the stairs or use a workout video, or any number of things.

For upper body, try resistence training (press-ups, dips, chin-ups, etc).

For dieting: I don't really have any tips other than the usual, obvious things, like eating healthily, eating reasonably-sized portions, limiting yourself to one treat per day rather than binging, etc.

I go to a 24 hour gym to workout at around 11 or 12 at night. There is usually almost nobody there and no employees just security cameras. I worked out there last night, and I was the only one in the building.

It all starts with you motivate yourself belive in yourself dont tell yourself that you cant do something I try to stay in shape I started a no carb diet and it has worked wonders for me so far ive lost 8 pounds im getting into weight lifting to I want a nice body to gain self confidence in myself

I would suggest investing in a set of adjustable dumbells with extra cookies (weight discs) that you can add on as you get stronger. Youtube has lots of videos suggesting correct technique.

here are 2 good sites for motivation to do exercise
http://bodyforlife.com/
http://www.transformation.com/pages/public/welcome

both of those sites have good nutrition info and exercise video clips.

As ive gotten older im more into my physical health and the only reason I wana get into shape is to look good im in love with myself

First off, I hate gyms. I find that they can be noisy, stinky, intimidating, basically everything my Aspie brain hates.

When people commit to an exercise program, they are always over-ambitious and unrealistic at first. People don't realize that rest days are just important as workout days. The thing is that after a workout, your muscle tissue will sustain minor damage and you will feel a bit tired, physically and mentally. This is especially true if your body isn't used to physical stress. The mistake that everyone makes is that they go too long and too hard for those first few days. If your body doesn't know how to process all this unfamiliar stimulus, you will start feeling the symptoms of over-training: no desire to exercise, moodiness, muscle fatigue. Your body is trying to tell you to stop, and this is of course when alot of people fall off of their training plan. If you really want to stick to a training plan, make it really light at first. For example, you can maybe do two days of cardio and then one recovery day. Then you can very gradually increase the length of your cardio workout as the weeks pass. In general, your training plan should increase in intensity for about three weeks, then use the fourth week to allow your body to recover. You will feel much stronger and healthier after the recovery week. Just remember it's very important to "pepper" your exercise plan with rest days for every 2-3 exercise days, otherwise you will be more likely to quit.

Also, if you're trying to loose weight, it's worth the money to purchase a continuous heart rate monitor (the kind with the chest strap). It's a great way to measure exercise intensity. I don't know your particular fitness level, but I would keep it at light cardio for now to build a foundation. Then when you are feeling more confident after about 2 months, you can work on increasing muscle mass and your lactate threshold.

One more thing: don't diet. Eat balanced portions of complex carbs, vegetables, and fruits but don't pay attention to diets that tell you to exclude any one food group. Those are always dodgey. Just stay away from the normal culprits, like mayonnaise and pop. Also, don't eat anything with "lite" or "diet" on a label. Those foods are laboratory concoctions that contain chemicals that fool with your endocrine system, which in turn affects how your body regulates energy expenditure and fat storage. Stick to non-processed, organic foods as much as you possibly can and keep it slightly under 2,000 kcals.

Eat 6 little meals rather than 3 big ones
Exercise for 45 mins since after that catabolic hormones are released
As rabidmonkey said rest days are important since your muscles don't grow during exercise or right after, but during the days they are recovering.
Exercise Mon-Tues-Fri, but make sure you get 30-45 mins of cardio every day.
You should join the gym, I dunno what you mean by group orientated since it's mostly everyone minding their own business unless say you're spotting for someone doing bench presses.
Research has shown that sticking to something for 21-30 days makes it become a habit.

I also reccomend doing taebo dvds. its quite a butch dvd so 'man friendly', my lover enjoys doing taebo with me when he visits.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Billy-Blanks-Ta ... 52&sr=8-10

http://www.billyblanks.com/

here is billy blanks, at his scariest

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y86Jsv-o9rQ[/youtube]

That's good advice...
...if you've got lots of money to blow and you are sure you are going to keep using your new fancy dumbells and they won't just go to waste once you've lost motivation

Resistence exercises are just as effective. As an added bonus, they're free. You use your own weight to do them. Everyone has a floor and a chair and a pair of arms.

I do press-ups, dips and negative chins (I did invest in a chin-up bar, but it no longer works on the doorframes of my new house, so instead I go down to the playground at night, which is free).

+1 to the idea of joining a 24 hour gym and going either really early in the morning (5-7 A.M.) or really late at night (11:30 pm or after), it tends to be pretty empty then and the people who are there then are either hard core and don't have time to notice/bother you or they're there at that time for the same reason that we are and are likely to stick to themselves, gym etiquette tends to be pretty poor during these hours however (e.g. people not unracking barbells/machines, doing ridiculous exercise in the squat rack for no reason and so forth.)
As someone who generally used to try to begin long term work out programs during manic/hypomanic phases let me say that frank evaluation of what your goals are and what you're willing/able to do long term is really the key, make sure you have somewhere you're trying to go and that you can see how you're realistically going to get there. For a workout beginner I would definitely recommend a program of strength training, its the foundation that makes other fitness more possible, Starting Strength would be a good program to start on, but really anything that gets you doing something and sticking to it is great.

I got some dumbells (with extra discs) in asda for £10, so i dont think that is 'blowing' money. I find doing just push ups is boring and prefer a variety of exercises to keep me motivated. I also would not want to hang round childrens playgrounds at night lol.