Lift weights two or three times per week, and walk just barely enough to avoid being completely sedentary. Nothing crazy, I'm talking about using the weight machines at a gym, and walking just ~8k steps per day with a pedometer watch to gamify it.
I'm a naturally obese person, and I've read a thousand of these threads over the years. Nearly every comment is either:
* Telling you to "hack your body", with keto or whatever the latest low-carb fad is called. They are so adverse to exercise, that suggesting exercise seems offensive to them. They emphasize that it's entirely about diet.
or
* Telling you to "just eat well and exercise". Which is about as useful as telling drug addicts to "just stop using drugs", and is usually more about the speaker smugly moralizing to feel superior.
There are two things that ARE really useful for obese people to hear, and that hardly anyone says:
1. Exercise helps you eat well. When I was 100% sedentary, I had constant cravings for all kinds of junk. And the portions that I ate at mealtime were double those of a normal person. When I'm lifting weights (has to be lifting weights, I don't see this benefit from cardio alone)... the cravings magically disappear and I have a normal appetite at mealtime.
2. It... takes... so... LITTLE! You don't have to go full ham, with extreme workout advice that you find in bodybuilding magazines and forums. A 30 minute workout, two or three times a week is sufficient (i.e. hit 6 or 7 machines, for 3 sets each). If you're just trying to keep your hormones and appetite on a healthy track, then you don't have to go "to failure" either. Just enough to feel like a mild challenge.
I'm a naturally obese person, and I've read a thousand of these threads over the years. Nearly every comment is either:
* Telling you to "hack your body", with keto or whatever the latest low-carb fad is called. They are so adverse to exercise, that suggesting exercise seems offensive to them. They emphasize that it's entirely about diet.
or
* Telling you to "just eat well and exercise". Which is about as useful as telling drug addicts to "just stop using drugs", and is usually more about the speaker smugly moralizing to feel superior.
There are two things that ARE really useful for obese people to hear, and that hardly anyone says:
1. Exercise helps you eat well. When I was 100% sedentary, I had constant cravings for all kinds of junk. And the portions that I ate at mealtime were double those of a normal person. When I'm lifting weights (has to be lifting weights, I don't see this benefit from cardio alone)... the cravings magically disappear and I have a normal appetite at mealtime.
2. It... takes... so... LITTLE! You don't have to go full ham, with extreme workout advice that you find in bodybuilding magazines and forums. A 30 minute workout, two or three times a week is sufficient (i.e. hit 6 or 7 machines, for 3 sets each). If you're just trying to keep your hormones and appetite on a healthy track, then you don't have to go "to failure" either. Just enough to feel like a mild challenge.