Hey there,
So after trying (and failing) several times to go to the gym (the 30 minutes ride both ways turned out to prevent me from keeping the habit), I've had some success with doing a rudimentary home workout for the last month and a half (daily runs + squats, situps and pushups before going to sleep). Total daily time commitment +/- an hour (20-30 minutes runs, the rest for the exercises)
Now I'm not delusional, I don't expect to grow big and all with this kind of workout; my objectives are actually quite simple:
-Better cardio and breathing; I've struggled most of my life with being borderline asthmatic, some breathing problems and I want to at least improve on this.
-Generally get a healthier lifestyle; I've never really been into sports, been quite sedentary until I moved last year which forced me into a lifestyle change.
-If I can look a little better, that's a nice bonus but not a primary focus.
-I'm not looking for strength training. Don't have the space, motivation or time to do this, and it's not a priority in my life. Not a strong guy, never will be and I'm comfortable with staying mostly as I am in this regard.
So I'd like two pieces of advice from you guys:
1)I find that I'm always hungry since I started this workout habit. I'm having trouble adapting my diet to this. I've always been a stick so I have a high base metabolism to boot (I'm actually underweight at 6'1, 139 lbs), so I'm looking for advice on good snacks or things I could eat easily to build around my meals or improvements to said meals. I find yogurt usually does a great job, so do nuts. As for drinks, I'm a water guy mostly (no soft drinks, barely any fruit juice. 90% of what I drink is straight water. )Anything else you guys find might help in this regard?
2)Any suggestions for additional exercises I could do at home to make my makeshift workouts better/more complete? Exercises that I could do with little to no equipment (buying them isn't an option, my apartment is extremely small), and rather quickly (I know if it takes too long I won't stick to it).
Thanks!
Here's some advice from a fellow skinny bastard:
1. Force yourself to eat breakfast every day. For me this started out as 2 hard boiled eggs, a thing of Fage yogurt and a piece of fruit. I eventually subbed the eggs out for a Quest bar instead but I don't know what your budget looks like. 500 cal is the goal. If you're poor, hard boiled eggs and Quaker nukable oats are a good way to go.
2. Make sure your lunch isn't a fat and/or sugar filled disaster. Otherwise you'll sugar crash in the afternoon and feel like shit the rest of the day. Make this another 500 cal.
3. Get yourself some decent quality protein and mix it with peanut butter and whole milk in the afternoon. A big tub of the good stuff is 50 bucks but it'll last you months. I use Optimum Nutrition. 1 scoop of that, 2 big spoons full of peanut butter (make sure it's natural and not sugar filled if possible) and a banana, the rest with milk. Should be another 500 cal right here.
4. Bulk cook your dinners once per week and count the calories for this at 1000cal if you can stomach that much. Suggestions for what to do here are things like soup, pasta (use whole grain noodles,) stir fry (use brown rice) or ala carte Mexican dishes like fajitas or burritos (watch out for salsas that have sugar as the second ingredient.)
The idea is to consume a meal every 2 hours from the time you wake up until dinner. With dinner depending on the size of your stomach either eat 1000 cal. and use the last 4 hours digesting or eat 2 dinners at 500 cal.
My workout routine is 1 hour every other day of exercise time. This does not include regular outdoor fun activities like riding my bike, swimming or hiking, which are at least one day a week during the summer.
Start out simple. Get yourself a chin up bar and some of those bands. Then go thrift store spelunking and buy yourself a bunch of cheap exercise videos. Run through them all and figure out what works for you. This is different for everyone.
For me, about 6 months later this type of exercise was no longer sufficient and the gym at my apartment didn't cut it either, so I moved somewhere that had one across the street. It was a really great move because now I don't have an excuse to hit the heavy stuff on a regular basis.
Really, the best advice I can give you is that you should be focused on CREATING A HEALTHY ROUTINE and not be worried about "going to the gym" or "getting strong" or "what you weigh" or any of that stuff.
Be honest with yourself as to why you want to do this. For me, it started out as a way to relieve tension from my failing multiple years long relationship. That's not a sustainable reason to do this though. If your reasoning is similar, start thinking long term as you get stronger.
