Lots of people already mentioned that you lose the weight in the kitchen, not the gym, but I still don’t see many or any recommendations for counting calories. Truth is most people have no idea how many calories are in the stuff they consume and when I decided to lose weight using a calorie counting app was the number one thing that helped me out. After a while you learn and don’t need to keep logging anymore but at first it was invaluable in my journey losing 35kg.

As others have said in this thread, the single most impactful thing you can do for fat loss is changing a bad diet into a good sustainable diet.

Nobody has mentioned this yet, keto is the key. Removing all sugar and carbohydrates from your diet will make you lose weight faster than anything else you could possibly do. Every time you eat carbohydrates, you pause your body’s fat burning for about 2 to 4 hours. So if every meal you’re eating carbs, and you’re having a carb snack, you’re pausing fat burning all day, the only time you have to burn fat is when you sleep.

This is how intermittent fasting works, that’s why people see good results, they’re not eating the carbohydrates during their fasting window, and they can burn fat.

The good thing about low carb eating is you don’t have to calorie count at all, your bodies normal hunger signals will work properly, just eat when you are hungry and stop when you are not.

Working out with a bad diet, will most certainly make you gain weight, especially fat. If your diet is carbohydrate heavy, heavy processed foods, heavy in sugars, when you get hungry after working out, you’re going to eat more of the bad food. Which is going to make you fatter. You need to fix the diet first

The gym is great, it’s great for your overall health, it’s great for longevity, but it is not the key to fat loss. You can’t out exercise a bad diet

If you can swing it, get a continuous glucose monitor, and monitor your glucose all day, keep that number as low as possible. It’s great immediate feedback for every meal. Of course you can go to the gym! Just cut the carbs

Without reading the comments, working out is just a part of getting in shape but not the entirety. To have the entire focus is multi-pronged.

Caloric Discipline is an important part, you should burn more calories out than you take in and to assist this, you need to set a fitting calorie number for yourself. Some intermittent fasting can help but that’s only recommended in a pumping-the-brakes fashion and not something you should rely on full-time.

Definitely agreed on gym memberships, they are a scam. I would know, I kindof am in one and was roped into it quite deceivingly in fact. The only way out of it is to pay the remaining amount of my time which is too much right now. The gym facility is not the problem, the distance isn’t the problem, the people aren’t the problem even (except when they hog up a lot of the equipment by deciding to sit around or on them while tinkering with their phones. Like, seriously?)

The problem is their business model and even the attitude of some gym facilities who push these contracts and their business sense. Definitely ugly people.

Building muscles is more effective than cardio to burn fat. The more you have, the more calories you burn passively just by having them. Kind of like compounding interest. Cardio is healthy and good, but will ‘only’ burn fat during and right after the workout.

So people are going to bury you in all types of routines and talk about alternating muscle groups, and using reset cycles and diet information.

ALL OF THAT IS LOST ON YOU NOW

Believe it or not the most important thing you can do for at least 6 weeks is JUST GO TO THE GYM ONE DAY A WEEK.

You see you don’t work out/go to the gym because you have not fit it into your life. You have not made it part of your life.

I have religiously gone to the gym three times a week for 35 years. And I have seen so many people who never go to gym, show up going to do three times a week, do this routine and make it happen. They last less than three weeks. Because the demands of life do not stop.

Once going to the gym is the same as going to grocery store or getting gas, then you can worry about routines, muscle groups, diet, rest cycles, equipment etc etc.

As your general nobody slob who has occasionally tried to exercise. Since its twice a week I would prioritized what you can do there and not elsewhere which is likely weights. So I would do weight training and figure you can take some walks or do aerobics at home with youtube or such. I know you said you don’t care about muscle but cardio is pretty easy to do anywhere.

Can recommend calisthenics / body weight fitness. It is easy to get started, hard to get wrong and the results are the best I have experienced.

I know, reddit. But search for ‘Recommended Routine’ on reddit for a good place to start.

Training with weights combined with diet is the best way to lose fat. Cardio exercise is good for cardio respiratory health and helps with calories in/out calculations but adding muscle increases your bodies caloric demand, meaning more fat burn.

As a complete beginner a simple routine of hitting weights twice a week with cardio (30 minutes 2-3 times per week) in between will be plenty. You want to hit each muscle group with 3 hard sets twice a week. A hard set is when you get near (within 2 reps) failure (which means you can’t complete another reporting with good form) with a range of repititions anywhere from 5 to 30.

For a basic full body routine, you want to think about pushing and pulling with arms, legs, and chest/back/shoulders. So bicep curls (pull) and tricep extensions (push), for example. Chest press/fly (push) and rows (pull). Leg curls (pull) and extensions/presses (push). If the gym has a set of circuit machines, use those to start with so you get a feel for the movements.

Look at the Hevy app, which has a free version and has a library of workout routines broken down by beginner/intermediate/advanced and location/equipment (at home, at gym, travel, bodyweight only, dumbbells only, etc). It also has a bunch of community-shated routines.

Diet is going to determine if you lose fat or both fat and muscle. Target about 1 g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day to maintain/gain muscle Split the rest of your calories between unsaturated fats and carbs in whatever way you can maintain. Avoid added sugars. Switch to drinking mostly water, or at least diet soda or carbonated water. Fruit juices, even without added sugars, are loaded with sugar but lack the fiber that is in the raw whole fruit to mitigate the sugar. So don’t switch from soda to an equal volume of fruit juice.

There’s also a metric butt load of good content on YouTube. Channels I like are:

Renaissance Periodization
Jeff Nippard
Jeremy Either
Milo Wolf
Dr Pak

How tall are you and how much do you currently weigh? What is your overall goal? Just loose fat? Or build muscle and loose fat?

If you strictly want to lose fat then doing some cardio and making some diet modifications is the way to go.

HOWEVER.

If you would consider strength training there are some pretty amazing benefits. If you were to add muscle, and maintain the same body fat, your overall body fat percentage would drop, since there is now more muscle in the equation. Extra muscle Increases your base metabolic rate, as in you burn more calories just existing. So if nothing else changes, your body fat will begin to be burned off, double whammy.

Also, being strong is awesome. And the trick to building muscle is that there is no trick. It is way simpler than the fitness industry makes it seem. If you want to know more let me know, you’ve triggered my special interest and I will nerd out on you

If you want to start running, look at the couch to 5k app for a safe and sustainable way into it. I would still much prefer running outside if you can though!

For everything else there, make sure you understand how to use it, then focus on improving; keep a log (mental or actual) of what you do, and always try to improve on at least one thing.

Fat loss is all about calories in being less than calories out. You will want to eat more after exercise, resist that if you want to lose weight.

It’s an older, classic book, but you’ll want to read Body for Life by Bill Phillips.

It’s a book for beginners to general fitness concepts. And, if you’re not super hardcore “into” fitness or sports, it’s the only book you’ll ever need.

It goes over all the basics: how to do cardio, how to do basic weightlifting, and how, why, when, and for how long to do each. It has photos and explanations of each exercise.

The exercises are designed to be “minimum effective dose,” meaning, they’re designed to be the minimum amount of exercise you need to do per session to actually get good results (i.e., how much weight, how many reps and sets, or, running how fast and for how long).

And there’s not that many exercises. The book omits the fluff and sticks to core essentials. Meaning, you’ll have no problem learning and memorizing all the exercise routines - there’s not that many.

Then, it lays out a basic body recompositioning program for you - cardio this day, basic weight training the next day, and so on, alternating, weights, cardio, weights, cardio. Build muscle, cut fat, improve stamina.

Bill Phillips was a bodybuilder, so he knows how to cut weight and build strength efficiently, so he distilled everything down to essentials for normal people.

The program itself is 6x per week by default - 3 days of cardio, 3 days of weightlifting. If you don’t want to be that hardcore, that’s fine. You could work out only 2 or 3 times per week and still see improvements. Just do the same thing the book outlines - alternate your cardio days and weight training days - whenever you make it to the gym or at a place to do cardio.

Do generally what the book says, stick with it, and you will see results.

Note: the book is also selling you on a 6x small meals per day eating plan (‘90s bodybuilder style). You don’t need to do all that at all. They’re also selling you on expensive protein powders. You don’t need that, either. Just cut out sugar, eat protein and whole foods as best you can, eschew alcohol, and do the alternative cardio-weight training exercise program as best you can with the time you have as many times per week as your life allows for. The diet stuff you can take with a grain of salt. That’s it!

Good luck!

I think you should do some cardio and some weights, as strength training is also beneficial for general wellbeing and lots of other stuff even if you don’t aim to get buff.

Cardio: personally I hate running on treadmills, I like to be outside and find it easier (more stuff to look at and air to get rid of your sweat). But try whatever they have and see what you like. Rowing machines are good because they use all your big muscle groups, or on an elliptical machine or stationary bike you might be able to watch something at the same time. Start easy until your in the habit, then look into intervals and higher intensity stuff.

Weights: I find it easier to use free weights like dumbells if they have them, but the machines can be good too. Find exercises that use your big muscle groups like squats, benchpress, rows. Don’t bother with fiddly machines that isolate one random tiny muscle. Start with low weights, but ideally work towards finding a weight where you can do 3 sets of 8-10 reps, with a 2 min rest between each set. By the end of the last set you should be pretty much not able to do one more rep (but that’s just for best results, not absolutely necessary).

I also find if it’s possible after you work out (and after shower if you’re doing that right away) try to take 5 mins just to sit/lie down and be aware of how nice and tingly your body feels. Really tune in to those endorphins making you feel nice, that helps me come back next time, so you don’t just remember the hard bit.

If you don’t care about gaining muscle and mainly want to lose fat then the fastest way to do that is reducing calorie intake. In other words, diet, diet, diet. And not just as a temporary thing, but as a long term endeavor. Otherwise you will gain everything you lost back.

For perspective, on average running a mile burns 100-150 calories. A plain donut has anywhere from 150-400 calories. So if you have a donut you will need to run at least a mile to cancel it out, probably more. Or you can simply eat healthy by skipping the donut and focusing on lean meats, veggies, and healthy fats. Processed foods and sugary foods are about the worst you can eat for losing fat, so avoid them outright.

I have also found that intermittent fasting helps a lot for losing fat. The longer you go without replenishing calories, the longer your body stays in ketosis, where your body burns fat for fuel instead of glucose. The hardest part is the first week or two, but your body will adjust and the hunger pangs do go away. Pick a realistic schedule and stick to it where you only eat in a certain window of time. 16:8 is great for starting off, where for 16 hours a day you don’t eat anything (water is fine), and for 8 hours you can. So for example you could avoid eating until 11am, and you would have until 7pm to have additional meals. After 7 you stop eating untill 11am the next day.

Also drink lots of water. Often time when your body feels hungry, you don’t actually need calories, you probably need water. Water also helps you feel more full so you will want to snack less. In fact, if you tend to drink sugary drinks like soda, replacing everything with water will have noticeable results pretty quickly. If you’re a coffee drinker, learn to drink it black if you don’t already. There’s virtually no calories in black coffee or tea.

Exercise is great and there are many good reasons to exercise. I highly recommend it. It will help some with losing fat, especially cardio, but not if you don’t change your diet. I would put more effort into changing (and maintaining) your diet at first if you want to lose fat.