Introducing my self-paced course, the Body Love Mindset Connection Method! Click HERE for details!
Anyone at any weight can exercise! Certainly don’t let being 200+ pounds ever stop you from chasing your health and fitness goals.
At my heaviest weight, I weighed in at 249lb. While there is nothing wrong with being that weight, for me, that just wasn’t who I was. I felt like I was hidden inside my body. I felt limited by my body and mindset. There was so much more that I felt I had inside of me, and I wanted to give that person a chance. And so I did absolutely everything I could think of to change my life.
I adopted a rescue dog, I slowly started changing the way I ate, I removed negative influences from my life, I developed a new mindset, and I started exercising. I talk in few other posts about my first home workout program so I won’t get into that here. But you can check out my P90X experience in this post!
Post contains Affiliate Links. See Disclosure for details. Opinions are my own.
Exercising played a huge role in my weight loss. And it continues to play a big role in my weight loss maintenance.
When you work out at a larger size, it’s really easy to get discouraged. At first, everything feels really really hard. But you get stronger! The key is to always move forward. And to be honest, fitness never actually gets easier, you simply develop the desire to push yourself harder and further.
Fitness Tips If You Weigh 200+ Pounds
Follow A Program
This is my number one fitness tip if you weigh 200+ pounds and are serious about getting healthy. Getting the health results you want isn’t as simple as doing random weights and cardio. Being random with your fitness is an easy way to plateau and stall weight loss.
Also, another truth is that you may not actually be exercising as much as you think you are. When you follow a fitness program, you get a program that is designed, tried, and tested to give weight loss results. And the best programs also come with meal plans and more so that you simply have to follow a guide and watch the results come in.
I continually follow fitness programs to maintain my weight loss. My favorite fitness programs that I’ve tried include:
Wear A Fitness Tracker
Wearing a fitness tracker is important when you weigh 200+ pounds because, again, you may not be working out as much as you think you are. Or not working out hard enough to burn the calories you need to reach your health goals.
When you wear an activity tracker you can see exactly how hard you are working. You can track your heart rate and calorie burn in real-time, and know if you are working hard enough to achieve your goals. An activity tracker also allows you to track your fitness over time and to see where you’re improving.
Walk Before You Run.
Walking is a great way to ease into fitness! A lot of people think that you need to be running to burn serious calories but studies have shown that walking is just as good as running for weight loss. In fact, running burns only 23 more calories per mile than walking.
Aim to walk at least a mile or two each day if you’re just starting your health and fitness journey. Walking even just one mile will burn roughly 100 calories. And the calories you burn increases with speed and intensity. So the longer you walk, the faster you’ll get and the more calories you’ll burn over time!
I started walking when I adopted my rescue dog, Gigi. At the time, we didn’t have a fenced-in yard so Gigi had to be walked twice a day every day. Walking her each day eventually led to me running a half-marathon two and a half years later!
It’s okay to start slow! I started with really short distances that gradually increased over time. The key is to be walking at a pace that will raise your heart rate and bring you into the fat-burning zone. So rely on your activity tracker to ensure you’re walking at a good speed.
Lift Heavy Things
Building lean muscle is a great way to build a healthy body. You don’t need to lift a ton of weight to build muscle, but you do need to lift some weight. If you’ve never lifted any weight before start with 5lb dumbbells and work your way up to 10lb or heavier.
If you want a challenge, try lifting really heavy weight (with guidance of course). This is a great way to build muscle quickly, change your body shape, and torch calories.
Lifting your own body weight is another great way to build lean muscle and improve your overall health! Sqauts, push-ups, lunges are all great bodyweight exercises. Check out my Pinterest board for bodyweight workout inspiration which is updated daily.
And again, don’t forget, you can lift weights at any weight!
Begin With Modifications
When you’re a beginner who is just starting their fitness journey, it can be easy to get injured. This is true of a person at any weight. And really, injuries happen at all stages of a health and fitness journey. Believe me, my worst injury came when I was the most fit I had ever been. Which made the injury a very humbling experience.
Anyway, the easiest way to avoid injury is to do modifications!
Following modifications can be easy if you’re following a workout program (which is partly why I recommend them). Modifications allow you to do the workout safely while building up confidence. Plus, you’re more likely to stay motivated to work out if you’re modifying and not struggling to keep up.
If you’re not following a workout program, you can check out modifications on my Pinterest board!
Know When To Pause
Know when to take a break! This can mean taking a pause during your workout or it can mean taking a day or two off from exercising entirely. When you weigh 200+ pounds, it’s important to listen to your body and not go too hard too soon. Even if you’ve been working out for a few months sometimes it can be important to take small breaks.
Instead of taking a short break after my first fitness program, I lept into a second program right away. It ended up being a big mistake when I pulled a muscle in my leg just a couple of weeks into my new program. And the pulled muscle ended up meaning a full week off. I was overconfident and new to fitness, and the injury ended up really set back to my beginner progress.
So, listen to your body and know when to take a break.
Let me know what you think of these tips by leaving a comment!
- The Unique Differences Between Healthy Active Living And Weight Loss - 12/07/2022
- Why You Need To Develop Body Intuition - 04/05/2022
- Life Update: 100 Pound Weight Loss 4-Years Later - 31/01/2022