How I gained weight while exercising (and started dieting to fix it)

Getting fit is a funny thing. There are all kinds of rules and tricks that you don’t know when you first start out, and you can go in the wrong direction pretty quickly if you don’t know what you are doing. I wanted to start exercising to lose weight, but ended up putting it on instead. In the end it was my diet that helped me shift it again – and here’s how.

Stop eating the wrong foods

My biggest mistake was thinking that exercising meant I could eat whatever I liked. So long as I was spending a couple of hours at the gym, I thought it was fine to go home and eat a pizza or a huge bag of crisps. At the end of the day, if you eat unhealthy food, you are going to get bigger. Some men actually use this technique to bulk up as much as possible – the food they eat is converted into muscle mass, so even as they get heavier, they also get stronger. But for some like me, who wanted to get slimmer, this was the wrong way to go. Instead of eating as much as I wanted, I should have been controlling my calorie intake in a measured way.

Nutrition matters

I actually ended up taking a short nutrition course with StudySelect to figure out where I was going wrong. It turns out that the kind of foods you are eating is really important – as important as how much you eat. If you want to build muscle and get fit, you should focus on eating protein, but avoid fatty foods. You could simply go on eating a normal, healthy diet, and remember to drink protein shakes before and after you work out. The important thing is not to eat lots of extra food just because you think you can, and not to ignore your fruit and vegetables.

Eat at the right times, and do the right exercises for your goals

As I mentioned above, eating a lot and then working out means that your muscles will grow more quickly. For me, this wasn’t actually ideal (well, honestly, it was terrible!), because it meant that my weight went up. While it’s great to have stronger muscles, I wanted to focus on reducing my extra body fat, so it was important to use my diet to achieve this. Instead of eating protein-heavy all the time, I only had protein before a workout. This helped to let my body develop in the right way. I also made sure to stick to more cardio-based exercises rather than lifting weights or encouraging muscle growth too much.

Avoid eating fats and sugars

While exercise is really important, your diet is actually the area where you can make the most headway if you want to lose weight quickly. I made a lot of switches, with a focus on fresh vegetables and fruit in my diet instead of elements like bread, pasta, or sugar. This really helped me to get the weight off – not only what I had put on since starting to exercise, but also the weight I wanted to lose in the first place. They say you are what you eat, and it’s true – fats and sugars will end up making you balloon in size!

Losing weight is always going to be an uphill battle, but with the right diet plan in place, you can definitely lose some kilos. Make sure to plan your meals ahead and prepare meals on the weekend, and it will be all the easier to stick to a diet. Well, at least it was for me! Have you got any similar stories?