Find a sport that you really WANT to do for all the right reasons. Physical and mental health will then come as a side-effect not a chore.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4574912.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7164030.stm

Walking the average 18 holes is 4+ miles, with 15-20 pounds of clubs on your back.

Then I saw an advertisement for the biggest charity bike ride in my area–the Houston to Austin MS150. I got myself an inexpensive road bike and decided that I was going to enter that ride in about a year’s time. That was the spur I needed to make me work out regularly. I eventually got a gym membership as well for those times it was too late or the weather was too bad for bike riding. This last April, I completed my sixth MS150.

Many blessings,

Art Gonzalez
Check my Squidoo Lens at: Quantum Knights

Good advice. Running is definitely the exercise de jour these days; everyone seems to claim to be, or to one day want to, run a marathon. But it’s not for everyone. It’s much more important to find exercise that you enjoy, like you did, than to try to make yourself like something you don’t. It’s like trying to eat a plate full of steamed broccoli when you hate broccoli. If you do that, you’re going to throw in the towel altogether and eat some french fries. Instead, you should identify some healthy food you do actually like, and eat that instead.

Anyway, I digress. Good call on the rollerblading. My wife is really into it, and she got me to try. It’s really a lot of fun.

Instead, I’ve found that distance-based objectives are goals I can get excited about. I am fortunate enough to live in an area with a long rails-to-trails path that cuts through some gorgeous countryside. It has mile markers and plenty of rest stations with charts that give distances between all rest stations.

I greatly enjoy rollerblading, biking, and cross-country hiking. Using the trail, I can set mileage goals for each activity. I’ve been doing it for a month now, and I am up to rollerblading 15 miles, biking 22 miles, and hiking 14 miles over various amounts of time. I switch up each exercise to make sure I don’t get burned out. But with ever increasing distance as a goal, I don’t even think about burning calories or losing weight. Those come as a primary benefit of the goal achievements.

With exercise, your appetite naturally wanes, so you automatically eat fewer calories. After biking a long distance and sweating hard for two hours, the last thing you want to eat is a heavy, greasy burger. A small salad with some cut-up chicken on top usually hits the spot after a hard workout.

I have so much fun watching the mile markers pass by that I find myself looking forward to my workouts now instead of dreading putting on my running shoes. So, find what makes you excited about getting out. Simply walking two miles burns more calories than sitting on the couch watching TV. That’s how I started. I burned 40 pounds in a few months just by walking (several years ago). One doesn’t have to run a marathon every day to get fit.

@Mark – Good call on the scale. You have to treat it like the stock market really. There will be some minor fluctuations day-to-day and you have to accept that.

How did I get there? With this: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

That is the Couch-to-5K running plan. Works like a charm, especially for you folk that start too quickly and injure yourselves and end up giving up.

Well, I gave her 3 months of doing exactly what she said and I’d try to hit 165. A month later, I was busting past 165 like I was melting off fat with a hot iron… two months later and I was at 155 and getting great definition and lifting more than I had been able to before. Losing fat (lots of fat) and building muscle. In short, my whole conception of the body I had was wrong for so long. My body was able of more, and it was my ignorance, my naive understanding of what I had that had trapped me with the chubbiness I had been unhappy with. What a liberation to realize there were no such destined limits!! What a liberation to surprise oneself in such a glorious way. Soon, my motivation became to surprise myself even further and test the true limits of my body. I’m no olympic athlete, but I’m glad I discovered the hidden abilities of my body that had been untapped for so long. Now I’m sure I’d never let myself balloon, for I’ve learned a valuable lesson through my path.

Basically, whether you’ve always been chubby or overweight, or you were fit and let yourself go, you can attain a far better and abler body than the one you have right now. And believe me, the results, with diligent work, start coming fast! My suggestion is, weigh yourself only one day a week… like, pick monday. It’ll give you something to look forward to at the beginning of the work week. That way, you’ll see the couple pounds you dropped. And before you know it, 4 weeks later, you’ve lost 10 lbs… and if you’re like me, that’s over 10 lbs of fat and gained some lbs of muscle. You’ll notice quickly you can run further and further. Take it slow, but progress comes faster than you realize, especially as your body becomes accustomed to being challenged and you can push it harder each session. It becomes an adrenaline fueling endeavor of improvement and the momentum builds.

Hey, I hope that helps someone… I am just very enthusiastic about the topic as it has changed my life in many ways, and I hope I can help pass that on to someone else, for it is a great gift.