Well, I lost over 40 kg and this is the rough outline:
First I walked five times per week to work, for 4 months (lost 8 kg)
Then I continued walking to school for the rest of the school year (4 months), plus I used a stationary bicycle three times per week for 45 minutes (lost another 8 kg)
Then I started to play football and to do some simple home exercising (bicep, situp, and burpee), and I lost another 8 kg in 3 months
So, now I had lost 24 kg in 11 months, but unfortunately my military service started - at the end of it, I had gained 5 kg of fat
(Finnish miiltary...
)
After military, it was back to exercising. Lots of football and slightly changed muscle exercise routine with more things added (improvised chest fly, back, press up), and at the end of the year (11 months), I had lost a total of 30 kg
The next year was pretty much just holding the weight while still playing football and doing the home gym stuff.
That's pretty much how I've continued until today:
- Football/futsal 3-6 times per week depending on how many practices were available (no overlapping practices - I played in three teams
two school ones, and one through my friend)
- Various gym things, and real gym for the entire 2010, currently I'm doing home pilates stuff with kettlebell snatches and ab roller, plus bicycling to work (30 km per week), since I moved and don't have any football groups anymore
- Occasionally something else, like paintball, floorball, or rollerskating
So, in my experience, these are the most effective methods:
In the beginning: walking
After a while: walking + some muscle training (it really boosted my weight loss!)
Once you are getting to some shape: some group exercise, like football, basketball, floorball, etc
Later on: just a lot of heavy exercise, 5 times per week
And of course, you should also pay attention to what you eat. During the first 5 years, I ate following the low glycemic index style. That is, prefer dark pasta, wild rice, rye bread, and so on. Avoid excessive sugar and white flour-based foods (white bread, "normal" pasta, etc). I also ate following a very stable schedule, like this:
Breakfast (7:00) - a bowl of All Bran and milk
Snack (9:00) - rye bread with ham and cheese, or a mandarin/apple
Lunch (11:00) - normal food, but avoiding the things mentioned earlier, keep the portion reasonable - no seconds!
Snack (15:00) - rye bread with ham and cheese, or a mandarin/apple
Dinner (17:00) - normal food, but avoiding the things mentioned earlier, keep the portion reasonable - no seconds!
Snack (20:00) - cottage cheese and tuna
But nowadays I've been following low carb style. Not for losing weight, but for its many health benefits, and practicality (I only eat twice a day, and I'm never hungry...).
Oh and after a few times doing kettlebell snatches, I can tell it is extremely effective! When was the last time you had the taste of blood in your mouth, and straining your lungs when doing
weights? :zombie: And this is for a quite fit person!
Very effective, but the technique for it is quite difficult to learn properly. And if you don't, you can do some serious damage to your wrists. Here's a video:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vXEqmkI5YA&feature=related[/ame]
The difficult part is when the kettlebell is on top of your head. It's very difficult to get it right, so the kettlebell doesn't slam against your wrist, creating one helluva big bruise after just one session! And if you continue it, your wrist will be in pieces in the long-term
So learn the correct technique with a low-weight kettlebell (8 kg), before moving to higher weights. Most of the videos are quite bad at explaining it, so here's one tip I found useful: instead of flipping the kettlebell, like you see in the videos, just let it turn around in your hand, so it swings "sideways".
Here's a decent guide: