Walk away or walk it off?

I’m a hedonist at heart, one with depth though. lol
I LOVE food and for me to maintain a good shape takes massive amounts of discipline. I have had years and years of discipline but now, the last 5 or so I have gone soft. I really just don’t care to work at it that hard anymore.

Fuck it, life is short and living on 1,500 calories a day and having to walk 3 miles daily as well, all the while being in a state of perpetual hunger is not worth having a tight ass and ripped legs anymore.
I DO need to harness my discipline again as I have gained weight, but, at this time of life I could care less about impressing anyone with my body any more.
My mind and humor is what makes me really sexy. lol

Walk away.

At the end of the day, calorie intake wins. Exercise, including very vigorous types, burn much fewer calories than most people realize. If someone grossly overeats while hoping that a 30-minute run will negate the bad behavior, that person can expect to gain weight.

If I do 45 minutes of serious cardio work – the kind that leaves me winded and drenched in perspiration – I’ll burn about 450–500 calories. A bottle of white wine contains 600 calories. Just 15 potato chips provide 175 calories (and who stops at 15?).

The intake-outtake math always involves responsible food choices.

I prefer to stick to a good diet and not worry about killing myself at the gym to atone. In the past month, my boyfriend has gotten me to all but stop eating packaged food and junk food, and that has helped a lot.
I’m also lucky in that I now have the metabolism of a 16 year old male, and burn a lot more calories than I used to, simply because of the increase in muscle mass.
Of course, the best way to lose weight is just to live on a budget in Paris ;)

I need to do both to maintain. Right now, I’m on vacation in SF and walking like crazy but eating out. I can feel my belly growing.

A bit of both. I exercise to be fit and for more leeway in my diet, but I don’t work out enough so I can eat whatever I want. I don’t go hungry. I eat plenty; I just make healthy choices. To keep my sanity, though, I take Sundays to rest my body from a week of working out and enjoy myself by eating delicious, albeit fattening, foods. It works for me.

I need to do both :-(

If you can only choose one, walk away. One slice of cake is hours of walking.

The “experts” are saying it really has much more to do with what you eat than the calories you try to burn with exercise. If you are a dancer who trains 8 hours a day, then different story, but the average person who does an hour of exercise or less, you need to say no to the goodies or eat a very veggie based diet that winds up low in cals even when you eat tons of it.

Walk away. Less calories, less exercise required. I’d rather read than eat…lol

I don’t overeat, but no exercise doesn’t do me any good if I want to maintain a healthy body, so it’s walk it off for me. I feel healthier and more alert when I exercise. I don’t have the energy or feel all that great if I don’t exercise and only watch what I eat.

The best choice is to walk it off and walk away if possible. That’s how I got the best results. I tried eating whatever I wanted and then working out extremely hard. I didn’t lose a pound. I actually gained weight in the end. Once I got on a strict healthy food only diet and a workout routine, I noticed results within a week and overall I felt really good. I never realized how sluggish and depressed I felt all the years I ate “bad” food. Healthy foods really do make a huge difference. So if you can, eat right and exercise too. You’ll see and feel the difference.

Definitely walking away. I recently lost ⅓ of my body weight by changing my diet. The only ‘exercise’ I did was to spend less time at the computer.

I have discovered that for me it takes both. I have also discovered that letting myself go doesn’t feel as good as taking care of myself. The last year or so I stopped exercising regularly and pretty much ate what I wanted. At my annual I found out that there is a price to pay! Since the appointment I am back to working out 6 days a week and monitoring my food intake. I feel much better physically and mentally.

Exercise, plus avoid foods with a high glycemic index.

I was an active walker from 2009 through 2012 while I gained 30 pounds. Walking didn’t get me past the 700 calorie cookies, or the bread, or the potatoes.

But active exercise has helped me as I have lost weight in the last six months while cutting my intake down to about 1500 -1750 calories a day.

So put me down as one more for “Both”.

I love exerting myself and eating. Realistically there is a balance. But if I put one over the other the endorphin relase and fulfillment from exercise and the pleasure of taste makes me favor walk it off. It is so refreshing and relaxing. Helps the mind and when you build muscle it takes more calories to maintain as you have a hot engine.

@Coloma Makes perfect sense to me. So long as you get enough exercise daily to keep yourself fit, stay happy as well. A sedentary lifestyle is a killer, though. It takes far longer to wear out than to rust out.

@SadieMartinPaul Mmmmm… Bottle of wine. Nope! One glass is going to have to do. Now where did I put that 1 quart glass?

Sounds like you’re advocating a mix of walk away and walk it off, and I heartily agree.

@bookish1 It’s been decades since I spent any serious time in Paris, but even then eating on a budget with those food prices was a starvation affair. You have my sympathies. Kudos for forswearing factory food. It’s a demon hiding under a deceptive layer of meringue.

@janbb, @livelaughlove21 & @Judi Hear! Hear! for both. I am persuaded that this is truly the best path for health and long term happiness.

@KNOWITALL I’m with you that walk away has to be strategy #1. But you do need some walking it off to stay fit even if your caloric intake is under tight control.

@harangutan Amen to a focus on what we eat. I love cheesecake but I know I could easily OD on it if I eat all I could stuff into my body every day. Fortunately, I love fresh spinach salad as well. It actually takes more calories to digest fresh spinach than your body can get from the leaves, and it’s full of nutrients and vitamins as well as fiber. With the right foods, there’s never any need to be hungry. That’s such an important fact that it’s well worth the effort to train yourself to like the right foods.

@ItalianPrincess1217 Beautifully stated. Great answer.

@bossob If you can choose only one, then walking away is the obvious choice.

@SuperMouse, @josie, @zenvelo & @Unbroken I’m with you guys. Best do both.

My personal experience is, walk it off. I don’t own a car, never have, so I end up walking all over the place. (and public transpiration here sucks, fuck it) I mean seriously, people with cars got it fucking made…But, I enjoy walking even when I have nowhere to go. Sunday afternoons are often spent with me taking treks.
But it has to be said, I eat like a bird. Since I quit drinking, I eat a lot more actually, and have gained some weight, so I guess what I’m saying is probably pretty off. Except for the fact that I was really skinny when I was drinking. Maybe that weight I gained was supposed to be there, for my build. But when I didn’t drink I still walked a whole lot, and always had a ’‘manageable girth’’.

Probably a bit of both I would guess, but walking has always kept me in shape, plus it’s really good for your heart, unless you have serious heart problems, I guess. I also walk really fast though, maybe this helps? I’m not even joking, joggers would have problems winning a race against me if it had to go on for like, five hours. I out walk most people, I love power walking, and I can do it a loooong time. I also have a habit of taking walks after eating a meal, at least when I can. It helps to digest, and it’s better for you than just sitting down in front of the TV and napping after eating a big steak. Look at pilgrims and shit, their biggest meal was breakfast, then they went out to work in the fields and stuff. Those guys were probably way healthier and stronger than us. of course, having to do everything by hand probably helped a hell of a lot, and this is getting off topic, as I do nothing by hand which doesn’t include a video game controller
But still. Obviously you have to watch what you eat, and it has to be said, I don’t. But I end up enjoying a lot of healthy stuff, so that helps, I would think. By default anyways lol. But yeah, for me, walking it off always seems to pay off.
Because I am otherwise so fucking lazy, I do nothing physical besides walking lol. Plus I don’t really watch my health. I’m also a smoker, but it has not affected my walking, least so far. Don’t ask me to run though, fuck running lol