Just walking around or going for a short hike is a good start. But, spoken from my own experience: the best first step is to stop getting high. Usually helps with depression and anxiety as well. It did so for me. It’s not easy, but it should be the first thing.
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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Seconding walking. I had gained 40lbs and eased back into fitness slowly over 2 years. My issue with hiking is the prep time and driving and felt like extra steps. Stepping out the door with a good podcast on was the most accessible for me (recognize that I’m lucky to live in a place with sidewalks and some paths). If the nature part of hiking makes it more interesting to you though and more likely to follow through, go for that!
Swimming may not be an option depending on where you live, but it has a very low risk of injuries and exercises the whole body
It's also such a damn efficient workout.
Walking. If youre overweight, don’t need the vest. You live with it. Work up to a fast shuffle/jog, and/or longer walks over a period of weeks.
At the opposite end of the intensity spectrum, Burpees are also great fun. They build upper body and core strength, as well as being cardio. Do the full chest and thighs to ground version, step back, step forward and experiment with jumping back as you get better. Try something like on the minute for 5 min. Set a timer for 5:00, then burpee until it says 4:20 - at a moderate pace. That number is your target for the next 4 min. When it says 4:00, do that number of burpees again, and at 3:00, 2:00, and 1:00. Work up in number of burpees and number of minutes, over a period of weeks. If it’s getting too easy, make it burpee box jump overs (be conservative because missing a box hurts).
You don’t need equipment for either of these things.
With both these things, as you lose weight, it’s going to get a lot faster.
I’m not here to tell you how to live, but if you’re getting high every night, it’s almost certainly making your anxiety, depression, and motivation issues worse.
Walking, and add a weighted vest or backpack. Start light, like 5lb/2.5kg for a week or two, then increase by that much a week until you get to 40% of your body weight in a few months.
I find that 30lb/15kg is a great place to stop though, much more feels pretty rough.
Then just walk around. You can listen to music, podcasts, nature, bird sounds.
Do that 45 a day and you'll be significantly healthier in a few months.
Thx I’ll look into it. Currently no money to get a weighted vest or backpack tho
Fill up milk jugs with water
It even works for winning gold in the Olympics https://barbend.com/olympic-weightlifter-hidilyn-diaz-quarantine-training/
Start eating high fiber foods.
It'll save you money and make you lose weight because it takes forever to digest. That makes the walking easier, and won't hurt your joints as much.
Like, if you're gassed after walking 20 minutes, you don't need a weighted vest for a while.
When you can walk 20 minutes and have the same level of energy as you started, then start thinking about stuff like carrying a heavy book, or anything that's roughly 5-10lbs.
Don't overthink it. You're just making it slightly harder everytime what you're doing gets too easy.
You can get creative. Put water bottles or something heavy in a backpack.
Bottles of water in a backpack is weighted for what it's worth, It's called rucking.
If you're just starting regular walking up to 20,000 steps a day is a great first goal.
Depending on where you live, a bike can do wonders. I hate the gym too, but being able to ride my bike and see different places and things at my own pace is really motivating for me.
This is big for me. I used to go to the gym daily for 8 years. Now i cant stand gyms, but my bike is the best thing for me. Just hop on and ride for and hour and take every street possible just to see it all.
Walking is a very good start, yes. And start slow.
When you get high at night, go for a walk. Night walk is lovely.
Also whenever you think about it, stand on one foot, sounds odd but it's good for your body. Little exercise breaks, go up the stairs and back down a couple of times.
Mostly I want to say - building a habit takes six weeks. Force yourself every day for six weeks. After that it gets easier because you will feel better on a day you exercise, than a day you don't, and because you will have found the time of day that works. Habit works a lot better than willpower, but you have to power your way through those first few weeks. Commit to six weeks of daily something. Push ups, walking, whatever.
I would strongly recommend trying Couch to 5k. There are a bunch of free apps for it. It's a program that can get basically anyone from doing zero exercise, to being able to run 5km. I literally never ran until my 30s and now I do 5km 3 times a week, and even did a 10km race.
It's very gentle and achievable but all of a sudden you'll realise you've finished the program and you're a runner haha.
Daily walks. From there I'd recommend getting a bicycle.
Pick a time of day and just step outside and do a lap around the block or two
I'd agree with all of these. But most importantly: LISTEN TO YOUR BODY
This can sound confusing, but the more you do it, the more it feels right. It's the whole idea behind "sports" like yoga and the key to athletic performance, even if only done for fitness.
It's gonna be difficult at first, but your body will tell you. If you're done, you're done. There's no point in doing more. Get rest, even if it is a week, which can happen in the beginning. Especially during skeletal adaptation, which I've actually had happen recently after I changed from normal running shoes to minimal. If you feel any soreness that lasts too long, stop, rest. If you feel winded, stop, rest. Anything sus? Act on it. If you don't have an unhealthy level of paranoia then you need to listen to your body's pain signals. Sometimes pain signals even tell you to go into the pain. Be careful, but do that. If you're freaking out because you don't know what you should do about a feeling that's new, take some time and see how it develops. It may just go away and not come back without effort that feels appropriate. It may come back the moment you go into activity. Just take your time, and I mean reeeaally taje your time, and try to listen.
And whatever you do, do not trust what your head feels about you bodily fitness. Trust what your body feels.
When we grow up sports get more of a focus about how to not injure yourself, which will make sure you maximize your potentential or minimize time spent, which is in contrast to it being mainly play for younglings. The play part never disappear of course. :)
A tip on the overweight/depression part: You become healthy once you act like a healthy person. Doesn't mean you are, just means you become. Also doesn't mean you should crash diet down to a perfect bmi. A healthy person cares about themselves deeply. They want to eat the right things, which is different for everybody, they want to have a healthy gut, be able to run around in joy, even though they may be 45. If you don't then you have other issues to fix too. In parallel. Mind and body are often described as separate, but the truth is, that the are inseparable. It's totally fine to be depressed, just as it is fine to have a high body fat percentage. But I do not wish it on anyone for an extended period of time.
This is based on a life full of exercise and biomechanical optimisation. I have recovered from a partial meniscus tear (weird mix of bucket handle and flap), a partial patellar tendon tear and smaller ouchies. The big ones are not gone, of course, but hardly noticeable. I have also come to know that physical wellness is nothing without mental wellness and vice-versa.
If you want further details, hit me up. I don't cost, I'm not a coach. I also don't have the technical knowledge of one, so I guess that's the reason I don't cost.
I have tried minimal running shoes and that kill me. I am using Hoka now and they are working for me.
Well, I'm still young, so it's easier for me, but even I has to adapt by going normal shoes -> Altra shoes for walking -> Altra shoes for running -> barefoot shoes for walking, now I wanna make the switch to barefoot shoes for some, but not all, running.
The hardest thing is to just do it regularly. Whatever it is. Have a set time every day you do it. If it's walking, do it rain or shine at a certain time every day.
Count your calories and try to burn more than you consume. There are lots of apps out there to help but I used omnom and it is great.
Lots of people say to take progress pictures in front of a mirror so you can see your progress. It can be motivating.
I always say, get a dog. Youll walk every day, you play in the park or backyard. Plus dogs are just awesome companions and help with positive attitudes.
Its a commitment, but i couldnt imagine not having a dog with me. Humans and dogs belong together.
I would say that's a good idea, but I've seen too many horrible situations with dogs to believe that adopting a dog means those things will happen.
That's a horrible idea, I've seen too many cases where this dog just ends up overweight bored and badly behaved. While this can work for some, a lot of people who have trouble getting into any kind of routine (be it fitness, eating habits or whatever) are not going to suddenly change. They maybe start out really motivated, but then they fall into old habits just this time an animal suffers the consequences with them.
I have a weird suggestion: work out high. Nothing intense - a walk or some floor exercises would be good. Go very easy for a couple of weeks at least.
When i was super depressed it was so hard to get started that working out high was just easier. Eventually, the exercise became more important and i even started to play some sports. Pretty quickly i was exercising more than getting high. These days, i refrain from smoking weed so that i can do better in the leagues i eventually joined.
Bonus: through the leagues i met some nice people.
https://leisureguy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/rcaf_xbx_5bx_exercise_plans_text.pdf
All you need is a stop watch. 15 minutes a day, and you advance at your own pace.
There's a reason it's been around for so long, it works.
Yes! This is called 5BX if anyone wants to look for books and modern resources. There are apps for it, too.
I think walking once a day, even if it's just for 15 minutes is one of the most essential things that most people can do.
Just bear in mind, you probably need it all: mobility, stretches, strengthening, cardio. I'd guess especially your core muscles and harmstrings are short and weak and gonna need some attention.
Yoga is incredible for me. And I find it easier to follow-through if I do it in a small group or 1-on-1 to just listen to whatever the person in front says and follow.
"Walking" is even good for highly trained athletes. Especially those with rough joints. It provide unqieu regenerative benefits.
- pull-paradigm, &
- combined-arms.
One. pull-paradigm: don't do what you hate: you'll stop returning to it!!
Find exercise you LOVE doing, & then MAKE it have regular-place in your life, see?
Two. combined-arms: combine the same pull-paradigm in your diet, your fitness-practices, your friendships, you HEALING, see, and make there be sooo-many dimensions in your pulling-your-life-into-healing, that you can't help but be healing/becoming more!
( :
For the depression, get outside-in-daylight for at-least 30-mins every day, if you can ( or use a SAD light, when it's gloomy ).
I had to live "in a lightbox", with 500-watts of fluorescent daylight lighting, in my room, to keep me functioning at all, after I ditched the anti-depressants..
but it worked.
Make your waking-up alarms be lights, which are silent, instead of noisemakers:
warm-white, 1st, then a 2nd timer, 5+mins later, with daylight: it alters your melatonin balance ( the researchers who discovered that yes, in fact, light does alter melatonin, in spite of them not having accepted that as true..
shone lights in behind people's knees, & even without "light receptors" in the skin there, the effect kept being measured.
Light is THE wakeup-input that people SHOULD be using, not noise! )
The details that you put on those 2 principles, are your details, but getting those-2-principles right massively improves your odds of holding-to-it for the entire-season it takes to gain usable-momentum.
Wishing you well,
_ /\ _
Have you ever heard of frisbee golf, or disc golf? It's popular in places. Perhaps there could be a course somewhere near you? Then just talk a friend into coming and soon you won't even notice the exercise you're getting on accident because you're looking for a throw that kinda went wrong and now you're having to find the damn disc because youre definitely not going to give up on finding your best one.
But also when you succeed, it's fun.
At one point I was 275 pounds, type 2 diabetic, and it was hard just walking upstairs. I was perfectly content to let my diverticulitis slowly kill me and let my ex-wife reap the benefits. That’s how miserable I was. That was about twelve years ago.
When she decided that she would rather start fucking other people, it was my time to gather some self-esteem and slowly work my way out of my problems. I bought a trailer with a piece of land using a secret 401(k) account that I’d had, and that began the long journey to where I am now at 63.
I quit smoking a pack to two packs of cigarettes a day and started dieting and exercising. It was excruciatingly hard. There were stretches where I quit and gained back some of the weight. What I started with was walking. There’s a greenway where I live, and the first time I walked it I thought I was going to die. It’s mostly flat, but it was July, and there I was. It’s four miles from one end to the other and then back to my truck. I didn’t make it all four miles the first time. I turned around almost near the end and walked back very slowly. It turned out to be about seven miles round trip.
Through that health plan I started using my gym membership, using the exercise bike a few days a week, and continuing to walk. Then I started adding in hikes. There was a point where I got down to 196 pounds. I’d really like to be 180, but time will tell.
It has been a long, long, long struggle because I was a schoolteacher and a bus monitor. I would get up at 4:00 a.m., and during wrestling season I would get home at 7:00 or 8:00 at night, go straight to bed, and do it all again every day during the school year. The weight would come back slowly because I wasn’t exercising as much. Then I’d have the summer off, bust my ass losing weight, and continue the cycle.
Here I am now, 63 years old, and stuck around 203 pounds, taking 1 mg of Ozempic a week on top of Metformin. I still have type 2 diabetes, but I’ve learned to control my diet much better. I cut out all sodas, which was a big one, and other processed sugars and foods. Will I occasionally go to Village Inn and have a buffet? Yes, sure, once every three or four months. Will I occasionally stop at Bojangles and get a biscuit and Bo’Rounds before I go hike? Yes, I will. The thing is, you need to be consistent and push yourself when you want to quit.
Now that same greenway I can run from one end to the other and back. I’m not running fast, but I can. I’m now doing 5Ks and an occasional 10K, and fall is my favorite time to do those. To add into my hiking, I’ve taken up fly fishing, which I’m almost as bad at as golf. But the bottom line is that I’m getting out and doing something every day.
Today I’m going over to Lenoir to run the mountain bike trail, which is preparing me for the Dirty Santa five-mile run in December. Granted, I’m retired and have way more time on my hands than I’m used to, but that’s what I did and still do. It may not work for some people, but it’s working for me. I also have an exercise bike, a mountain bike, and a gravel bike. Sadly, the running is taking a little bit of a toll on my joints, so I’m slowly transitioning to bike riding.
My suggestion to you is be consistent, and when you feel like you want to stop, push yourself a little harder. I always pushed my wrestlers to be in the best physical shape they could be in, with the most endurance they could possibly muster, because to win matches you have to be stronger and faster than your opponent. I didn’t take my own advice very well until about ten years ago when I realized that I was going to die if I didn’t get my shit in one sock. That, and I couldn’t bear to think of the soldiers who had worked under me when I was a military officer seeing me as a weak, body-fat tub of lard.
Now get out there and get to it. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you’re doing something.
The best way to start is to find little bits of extra activity in your day: park at the back of the lot and walk a few extra hundred feet. Get to the store early, grab a cart you can use to make the walk easier, and do a few laps around the store. If need be, there are workouts on youtube you can do in your bed, if you've gotten big enough that walking is difficult.
That sort of thing.
Once you notice these activities getting easier, increase your difficulty and begin training harder.
Start with walking or other gentle cardio.
Add in a body weight exercise routine, start light - https://www.hybridcalisthenics.com/programs
If you want to lose weight eat less, if you're not bothered enjoy ice cream.
Get a little high, pick a high energy album to put on headphones and go for a walk/jog. I used the Zombies Run! app to get from walking to running. Having a voice directing me when to run or walk helped a lot and it is designed to build you up from walking. The story is whatever, but I think having any narrative to follow makes a huge difference over just basic instructions
I had this during covid and free home workouts videos helped me out a lot. Started with just a yogamat (or towel) doing easy beginner friendly workouts of only 15-30 minutes. No need to go out, noone sees you and there are apartment/small space/downstairs neighbour friendly options. I used the fitnessblender workouts and the sense of accomplishment at the "workout complete" screen is magical.
Swimming, cycling.
Swimming works for me. I joined a gym at a hotel that has a pool, reasonable price and usually fairly few people. I like to swim lengths, thinking of nothing at all, for half an hour to an hour. Good for general fitness, stamina.
Basic cardio. Walk 30 minutes at a 12 degree incline, 2.5 - 3.0 MPH, 5x a week.
Legit, if you do ONLY this, you will lose weight.
After two weeks of doing this, add on 30 minutes of weight lifting 3-4x a week. Nothing crazy, just get your muscles working.
Do that for two weeks. Congrats - you’ve been exercising for a month. Keep scaling up but listen to your body. Stay hydrated through the day, and 1lb of protein per lb of body weight that you’re supposed to weigh.
I don't think you mean "1 lb of protein". I think it's a around 0.5 grams per 1 lb?
I meant 1g per ideal (goal) weight in lbs. If you’re starting at 200lbs and want to be 150lbs, eat 150g of protein per day.
It's biking for me, specifically mountain biking. Though, if I'm particularly busy or not feeling well I'll still try to just bike around the neighborhood
I'm baffled by the amount of people who recommend to take drugs to exercise.