Healthy Food, Gyms, Personal Trainers and More

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pippilngstkngpr
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13 Oct 2011, 4:44 pm

I would have put this in the random discussion section but then I realized it has more to deal with Health, Fitness and Sports.

Most of American's are overweight right; it's a crisis. So, why is that whole foods; healthy foods are most expensive to buy? That unless you grow your own which a lot of people cannot do due to where to are located. I am allergic, beyond allergic to the pesticides though I love fruits and vegetables. It's hard.

Do you know most public school in New York City don't have gyms and most of the students are overweight? I am overweight and have been since end of 7th grade. Even though I was overweight we had gym and I was at a stable enough weight that wasn't obese.

Why is that most gyms are beyond expensive? Or maybe a gym like Snap Fitness isn't expensive but the personal training to get fit is beyond what you can imagine. Why? Why can't someone make it easier for those that are overweight to be healthy.

It feels like the only way you can is if you are on a show like Biggest Loser or win a contest to have a personal trainer. It's just something that irritates me.

I used to play basketball for 6 years when I was younger and it kept me more fit; but still was a few pounds overweight. It kept me healthy than I stopped. I wish I didn't.

What would your opinion be to do? To help those; like myself who want to loose weight but money is an issue?



Sonicthesneak
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13 Oct 2011, 4:58 pm

Funny how you mention how half of the public schools in NYC don't have gyms. My old High School (in NYC) didn't have one. Our "gym" was just a big room. It had pillars inside too, so if you tried to play something like football, you could hit the poll or hide behind it.

My biggest issue with America and the whole Overweight issue is that for the middle and lower class, you can't AFFORD to be healthy. Cheaper foods and drinks are cheaper then the healthy stuff. Fast food is guilty of this too. Burgers and stuff are cheaper then the Salads and healthy alternatives.

But the best tip(s) to losing weight are these: eating right is one part, exercise is another. There is no quick fix, it takes months and years of a sustained diet. And you need the drive to do it. Last but not least, a "diet" has to be forever. Because if you go back, the pounds come back just as quick. You can still exercise without going to a gym. It's just harder. You could buy some equipment and some dumbbells and do those work at home videos. Aerobics tends to help people a lot. That's how people lost weight on that Wii Fit game. Crazy, huh?

Also, having a buddy do these workouts with you is also a big help. Doing it alone is so much harder.

So I hope some of these ideas help you out or at least get you going in the right direction.


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pippilngstkngpr
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13 Oct 2011, 5:17 pm

It's better to eat foods that don't have a nutritional fact; but most food does which is hard to do. Did you know in the Western half of American they are healthier over there?

So it's not a diet that will last forever it's a new eating lifestyle that will.

I have an elliptical I hope to get an exercise bike. :)



Wolfheart
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19 Oct 2011, 7:26 am

It's simply because most people aren't educated or knowledgeable on how to train, they think they need fancy machines and luxury diets.

You can build muscle using a small set of dumbbells and your body weight if you know what you're doing. Focus on body weight exercises such as plyometric, triangle or knuckle push ups, there's plenty of variations of push ups you can do. For instance, buy a chinning bar and do variations of chin ups, you can also do these exercises explosively or statically. This video shows many variations.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw4jh-7yo28[/youtube]

As for the nutritional side, it's fairly cheap to buy rice, peas, pasta, potatoes tuna, chicken, oats. Most of those foods are free from saturated fat and you can easily budget yourself on them to create a 4000-5000 calorie diet, however you may need to buy weight gain shakes for your protein intake and to get extra calories in. You just need to know how to budget yourself correctly.



Jojoba
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19 Oct 2011, 1:42 pm

Yeah, it is odd that America subsidizes many crops, making them cheaper at the grocery store. At the same time many consider these subsidized foods unhealthy, and behind our growing obesity issue.

Saw a video you might get a kick out of. It is of an exercise trainer that instead of getting in shape, is making himself fat. The before and after pictures are surprising. The trainer really has plumped up quickly after eating junk foods.

"How A Fit Trainer Got Fat"

http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/ ... r-got-fat/

part of Tom Naughton's article:

Quote:
I admire Mr. Manning for making the effort to understand what his clients go through, but I’m not sure making himself fat for six months will do the trick. He may, unlike many of his clients, still lose weight easily once the experiment is over. It’ll be interesting to see if there are any follow-up stories once he starts trying to shed the pounds. Maybe Jimmy Moore can get him to talk about it on a future podcast.

The most interesting part to me, of course, is how Mr. Manning is making himself fat. Here’s what he had to say:

To some extent, all of these foods that I’m eating (sugary cereals, granola bars, juices, white breads, white pastas, sodas, crackers, chips, frozen dinners, mac n cheese, etc.) taste delicious. But then I feel like crap later on and I get hungry again and crave those same foods.

What, no bacon? No sausage? No cream? Replace the sodas with 1% chocolate milk, and the diet that put 70 pounds on this guy could pass for the lunch menu at your local public school.

I wonder if Michelle Obama and the other obesity experts are following this story …



1000Knives
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20 Oct 2011, 1:45 am

I find this...poppycock. Gyms are cheap!

It's a matter of priorities and motivation. I can sorta speak from experience. In March, I was 215, I've dropped to 185 (gained some muscle, I think, was 180 before I started doing complimentary lifting...) My gym membership is costing me only $27 a month cash, no contract (well there is, but you can cancel at any time by just writing saying you're cancelling.) In this gym, I get my ice skating rink I go to everyday for public session, a swimming pool, aerobic studio, cardio machines, weight machines, and free weights, and a basketball court. All for $27 a month. That's a steal.

Other gyms around here, Planet Fitness most notable, is $15 a month. Planet Fitness is for little girls, though, but still, my point stands. Other gyms aren't charging much anymore, YMCA is $20-30 a month, again, has a pool year round. That's actually really cheap for all that's offered, imo. Xbox live alone from Microsoft month to month is $8 a month, I know people who easily spent 30 a month just on Xbox live and DLC (like Rockband songs) every month, nevermind games they bought on release date or something for 60 a pop, or their new Android phone they just needed, etc.

Me, I love going to the gym. It's like sorta a playground for an adult to me. I don't look at it with the attitude of "I need to be in shape or else..." I just was like "sweet, a punching stand, I wanna punch and kick stuff." I ended up doing the punching stand to compliment skating, then ended up doing slideboard, bench jumping, and then eventually a little bit of weights (lower body stuff mostly) to compliment my ice skating. I found something I liked, and ran with it, more or less. I just show up to the gym in my jeans and tshirt, wave to the guy at the desk, and do my thing, whatever I feel like doing. Weightlifting, punch the hell out of the punching bag, slideboard, arm bike, play basketball with an 8 pound medicine ball basketball, whatever I feel like. To me the gym has become a "I'm bored" sorta activity, just like "I'm bored, I'll go the gym." It's really fun if you don't take yourself too seriously there, just pretend you're training to, I don't know...be Bruce Lee or something. I pretend I'm Baki the Grappler (anime character) a little bit when I go. Just have fun, or make it fun. A lot for me, was just finding exercises I liked. You couldn't make me do bicep curls or tricep curls, but I loved the punching bag. I also found out today I love Olympic style clean and jerk lifts. I did some reading, and I found out what everyone else at the gym was doing, bicep curls, etc, would be useless to me anyway, as I'm looking for strength alone, and am not trying to be a bodybuilder.

As far as personal trainers go, again, as I said above, not needed. I just tended to ask random people at the gym advice, but I also just did lots of reading. In this way, I think my NVLD was an advantage to me. My verbal IQ basically compensates for the rest of me, so it's very easy for me to acquire lots of knowledge about stuff and just sorta store it. I just spend time looking up lifting videos, reading about protein intake, etc. With skating, the same way, I've had like 40 minutes of coaching from a coach who was on the ice for her first time in a couple months after a car accident. That and some random old guy I asked for advice, well, gave me advice on what I was doing. Other than that, lots of reading and watching youtube, and I'm pretty much at the adult level 3/4 test level right now. It's just like any other skill you try to learn, you do lots of research then you do it, gurus, etc, are helpful, but it's not like a personal trainer is a god or anything. A lot of the time, a personal trainer is more of a "rent a friend" than anything. They can give good advice, but in the end, the best way to do things is research and tailor what you want personally for you.

As far as diet, yeah, the "trend" has been toward unhealthy foods. But really, healthy food is actually cheaper. You don't need super duper organic stuff from Whole Foods, just get real food. Brown rice is available at any grocery store for like a dollar a pound, a pound of rice usually has like...2 cups of rice? 2 cups of rice is 6 cups cooked. Same with legumes, dollar or less a pound, 3 pounds cooked. For green vegetables, again, cheap, cabbage is like 59c a pound. Even meat's not terribly expensive, it's like 2 bucks a pound for chicken. Once you learn to cook, a whole world opens to you.

It's a mixture of lack of motivation and lack of knowledge. I can go on and on. I was out of shape, and finally, I found something I liked and it helped me. There also just came a point where I was fed up with what I was eating, my mom would only buy processed food, and I gained weight and felt terrible. Finally I just learned to cook, and again, ran with it, now I can cook better than almost all of my friends (except for my friend who's Pakistani.)

I mean, the world around us sucks and is unfair, but I guess you just gotta learn to break the game instead of playing along with it.

Also, I mean, I think as far as school lunches, bad stuff. But really, the government subsidizes working out to a large extent. Just like a quarter mile of me down the street, there's a 3 mile walking trail and park. The trail is smooth enough to rollerblade on with no issues at all. There's one state park with a lake and waterfalls just at the other end of town, and there's parks all inbetween everywhere. All these parks are completely free. I mean no, it's not a Nordic track machine, but it's fun and actually enjoyable to go hiking like that. If you're just starting, hiking is perfect exercise to do. Even some parks that charge admission, like Killington Peak in Vermont, will let you hike them and mountain bike them for free if you don't take the gondola up the mountain. I find it amazing that you can just go see random mountains and waterfalls and stuff for free, and the government supports it enough so the grounds are clean and admission is free.

-----------------------

However, after my whole post of "You're not trying hard enough, just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and toughen up!" I do have this to say. Schools and society in general don't do enough to make kids realize physical activities they like and are good at. When I was a kid, I actually tried hard to be athletic. I tried baseball, football, swimming, judo, and hockey. I liked judo and hockey the most. I failed at baseball and football, was OK at soccer, but didn't terribly like it, and at the time, my parents didn't have enough money for me to continue judo (it sucks, I would ranked up to the next belt after yellow if I stayed for another like 5 months) or get into hockey beyond the "learn to play" class. So what happened was, I had no drive to do anything athletic anymore, now that my sports were taken from me. School gym class just made me feel bad because it seemed to be all about things I couldn't do, that, and during the divorce my parents had, my mom's "cooking" consisted of giving us hot pockets compared to my dad who cooked only healthy food all the time, so my health suffered greatly.

I feel like, school especially, should try to train the kids on a more personal level. I also think school is sort of a somewhat necessary evil. Really, parents should be involved with their kids, and personally work with them on fitness, along with like, every other thing taught in school. But, because parents are irresponsible, the government has to step up and fill in and be a surrogate parent.

Anyway, school gym class, imo, should be more asking individual kids their fitness goals. What does the child like to do? What if the kid hates playing basketball with the kids in gym class, but loves martial arts? I think it'd be much better, hell, even more cost effective, if you just sorta worked gym class as a "fitness voucher" kind of program. Have the kids pick an activity they really wanna do, even something like traditionally "expensive" like figure skating, gymnastics, martial arts, and enroll them in the training for it with the education budget, then have their gym class be recommendations from their coach in that sport in either general training they can do with just the PE teachers supervision, or exercises to directly help in that sport or activity. That's partially why the USSR was so good athletically. In the USSR, while this is a super harsh and extreme version of what I'm describing, if a "scout" observed a kid that was good at something, the government would end up taking them off and paying for their training, just to compete nationally and internationally. Obviously Russia was brutal on athletes, so a middle ground would be sort of the ideal in my plan.

And for food in schools, ugh. I have a friend who came over here from Poland, in Poland he was skinny, fit, and cool, and here in USA, nerdy and fat. He said in Poland, the food at school lunches was great, and was served in a real bowl, etc. Real food, here, school lunch food is honestly only marginally better than prison food (having tried both.) The "food" served in school is no more "food" than cardboard is dietary fiber. I find the policies of banning bagged lunches in some schools simply appalling, too. If a school I sent my child to did that, and I couldn't resolve it with a note or talking to with the principal, I'd withdraw them.

But yeah, for adults, you're...adults. While giving out free gym memberships or whatever might help .001% of the population, we've already got tons of state and national parks that sit deserted because people don't use them. I highly doubt giving everyone free gym memberships would help anyone, because as an adult, since you're in control of your own destiny. If you don't got the motivation to spend 30 bucks a month on a gym membership and work out yourself, then I highly doubt the government or some outside force intervening would change the situation at all. However, as a kid, you're more or less, not in control of your own destiny. Adults are. So as adults, I feel like we have an obligation to keep kids fit and healthy.

I wish to say more on this issue, but really, it would have been so cool if I was allowed to just keep pursuing my athletic things I wanted to pursue as a kid. Now I'm an adult, and it's cool, I sorta...caught myself early. I feel like I'm playing catchup, though. I'm doing at 20 what should have been done at 13, and at least in my sport, at 20, you're almost too old to start or be at all serious about it. Most people quit around my age, and I'm just starting. It's tough. I really wish my mother, even if she couldn't keep me playing hockey, just took me to public skate and spent $5 on public skate once in a while, like once a month or whatever. I guess everything works out, I mean, going with the Bible verse of "God makes all things work for good for those who love him." I guess things are working out better, and God is a great contingency planner, but still, it's tough not to entertain thoughts about how great I would have been at whatever if I just started earlier.

Oh well, sorry for my long essaylike post. oops.



mv
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20 Oct 2011, 8:44 am

1000Knives wrote:
I find this...poppycock. Gyms are cheap!

It's a matter of priorities and motivation. I can sorta speak from experience. In March, I was 215, I've dropped to 185 (gained some muscle, I think, was 180 before I started doing complimentary lifting...) My gym membership is costing me only $27 a month cash, no contract (well there is, but you can cancel at any time by just writing saying you're cancelling.) In this gym, I get my ice skating rink I go to everyday for public session, a swimming pool, aerobic studio, cardio machines, weight machines, and free weights, and a basketball court. All for $27 a month. That's a steal.

Other gyms around here, Planet Fitness most notable, is $15 a month. Planet Fitness is for little girls, though, but still, my point stands. Other gyms aren't charging much anymore, YMCA is $20-30 a month, again, has a pool year round. That's actually really cheap for all that's offered, imo.


Um, it really depends on where you live. My YMCA costs about $80-$90 a month. The gyms downtown can cost anywhere from $100-$200 a month. A basic, no-frills gyms is still around $40-$50 a month. Personal training costs from $60-$120 a session. You need to take into account the cost of living of places where people other than you live.

I've always lived in or around major metropolitan areas, and these costs are pretty standard.

Also, I eat healthy, but I can't buy all the organic food I want, it's just way too expensive. There's a reason people nickname Whole Foods Market as "Whole Paycheck". Last night I went in there and bought 4 things (that were not available at my Stop & Shop or at the local farmer's market) and it cost me $27. None of them was meat, either.



1000Knives
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20 Oct 2011, 9:44 am

mv wrote:
1000Knives wrote:
I find this...poppycock. Gyms are cheap!

It's a matter of priorities and motivation. I can sorta speak from experience. In March, I was 215, I've dropped to 185 (gained some muscle, I think, was 180 before I started doing complimentary lifting...) My gym membership is costing me only $27 a month cash, no contract (well there is, but you can cancel at any time by just writing saying you're cancelling.) In this gym, I get my ice skating rink I go to everyday for public session, a swimming pool, aerobic studio, cardio machines, weight machines, and free weights, and a basketball court. All for $27 a month. That's a steal.

Other gyms around here, Planet Fitness most notable, is $15 a month. Planet Fitness is for little girls, though, but still, my point stands. Other gyms aren't charging much anymore, YMCA is $20-30 a month, again, has a pool year round. That's actually really cheap for all that's offered, imo.


Um, it really depends on where you live. My YMCA costs about $80-$90 a month. The gyms downtown can cost anywhere from $100-$200 a month. A basic, no-frills gyms is still around $40-$50 a month. Personal training costs from $60-$120 a session. You need to take into account the cost of living of places where people other than you live.

I've always lived in or around major metropolitan areas, and these costs are pretty standard.

Also, I eat healthy, but I can't buy all the organic food I want, it's just way too expensive. There's a reason people nickname Whole Foods Market as "Whole Paycheck". Last night I went in there and bought 4 things (that were not available at my Stop & Shop or at the local farmer's market) and it cost me $27. None of them was meat, either.


Oh, sorry then. Here in CT it seems all gyms cost around that price, personal training I think is a tad bit less. I don't know, I had a personal trainer try to teach me exercises for like a 5 minute demo, and I didn't particularly find what he was teaching useful, and decided to not bother really. Then again, my goal is more like "be as strong as Bruce Lee" not "I wanna look good at the beach."

I think you kind of missed my point, which is understandable as I wrote a lot of boring stuff. My point was, you have to do what you CAN do, not what you can't do. Yes, you can't afford Whole Foods, but you should still try eating as healthy as you can, regardless. Just make sure you're eating real unprocessed food, that you cooked yourself. For me, I learned to make lots of Asian food and Indian food I liked, and my food budget if I'm handling everything is actually cheaper than my mom's budget of boxed rice, hot pockets, and other frozen crap.

But, my opinion, the attitude of "I only wanna be healthy/fit/good looking," is sorta wrong. I mean, I had that idea, and I couldn't motivate myself to do anything. You really just need to find a sport or some kind of physical activity you really like doing, devote yourself to it, and then you'll find you're in shape without trying, as working out won't be a chore, but be actually useful to you as you'll use it day to day. Could be the Aspie "function over form" in me, though.



mv
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20 Oct 2011, 11:19 am

Nope, didn't miss your point at all. And I'm 44 years old and very healthy because I make a point of doing what I can do, even with limited means. I know a ton about nutrition and exercise, too.

By the way, rice and pasta are crap, non-nutritive food.

I was just pointing out that by saying, "That's ridiculous, such-and-such is cheap!" you may not be considering the vast differences in cost of living in places. I know people in the Midwest who have a $400 mortgage for a huge 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom house. I couldn't get a 4-bedroom, one-bathroom house for less than a $4,000 mortgage where I live, and I don't live all that far from CT, by the way. :wink: Even within CT there are very expensive places to live and very, very cheap places to live.



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20 Oct 2011, 11:36 am

mv wrote:
Also, I eat healthy, but I can't buy all the organic food I want, it's just way too expensive. There's a reason people nickname Whole Foods Market as "Whole Paycheck". Last night I went in there and bought 4 things (that were not available at my Stop & Shop or at the local farmer's market) and it cost me $27. None of them was meat, either.


Eating healthy on a budget is a challenge, no doubt about it!

Here are a few tips:

If you can't afford a 100% organic diet, then ask yourself "what are the most pesticide-sprayed crops?" Google "dirty dozen foods" or similar and either spend your organic dollar on these items or eliminate them.

Buy locally and in season. For example where I live pumpkin, squash, turnips, apples, etc are cheap and abundant this time of year.

Buy in bulk.

Try shopping at Asian/Latin/etc. markets instead of Whole Foods. These stores often have very fresh produce at a fraction of the price.

Embrace a diet that you believe to be healthy and inexpensive (for me it is 2 large vegetarian meals a day, but I wouldn't force that upon someone else) instead of being pressured by what you're "supposed" to eat

Learn to cook the way our grandparents' generation did. Cook from scratch using basic pantry ingredients, learn how to recycle scraps into soup, avoid "convenience foods" etc.

Work 1 day a week for a co-op, farm, or grocery in exchange for free/discount groceries

Find other expenses you can cut (going out to eat, daily starbucks coffee, cable tv, new clothes, etc) so you don't have to compromise on your health and diet. :)



Last edited by mushroo on 20 Oct 2011, 11:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

mv
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20 Oct 2011, 11:50 am

mushroo wrote:
mv wrote:
Also, I eat healthy, but I can't buy all the organic food I want, it's just way too expensive. There's a reason people nickname Whole Foods Market as "Whole Paycheck". Last night I went in there and bought 4 things (that were not available at my Stop & Shop or at the local farmer's market) and it cost me $27. None of them was meat, either.


Eating healthy on a budget is a challenge, no doubt about it!

Here are a few tips:

If you can't afford a 100% organic diet, then ask yourself "what are the most pesticide-sprayed crops?" Google "dirty dozen foods" or similar and either spend your organic dollar on these items or eliminate them.

Buy locally and in season. For example where I live pumpkin, squash, turnips, apples, etc are cheap and abundant this time of year.

Buy in bulk.

Embrace a diet that you believe to be healthy and inexpensive (for me it is 2 large vegetarian meals a day, but I wouldn't force that upon someone else) instead of being pressured by what you're "supposed" to eat

Learn to cook the way our grandparents' generation did. Cook from scratch using basic pantry ingredients, learn how to recycle scraps into soup, avoid "convenience foods" etc.

Work 1 day a week for a co-op, farm, or grocery in exchange for free/discount groceries

Find other expenses you can cut (going out to eat, daily starbucks coffee, cable tv, new clothes, etc) so you don't have to compromise on your health and diet. :)


These are fantastic tips, all! I heartily endorse them (and live most of them).



Jojoba
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20 Oct 2011, 12:44 pm

A little different than what is being mentioned, but saw this bit of sad news about eating well, and food prices.

"Another DC Bait and Switch"

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/ ... nd-switch/

Quote:
Lawmakers must be hoping voters are lost in a corn maze somewhere and can’t figure out what Congress is doing with their money. That’s the only explanation for the slick double cross that a bipartisan group of integrity-challenged senators are trying to pull. The NYT nails this disturbing story:
It seems a rare act of civic sacrifice: in the name of deficit reduction, lawmakers from both parties are calling for the end of a longstanding agricultural subsidy that puts about $5 billion a year in the pockets of their farmer constituents. Even major farm groups are accepting the move, saying that with farmers poised to reap bumper profits, they must do their part.
But in the same breath, the lawmakers and their farm lobby allies are seeking to send most of that money — under a new name — straight back to the same farmers, with most of the benefits going to large farms that grow commodity crops like corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton. In essence, lawmakers would replace one subsidy with a new one.



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24 Oct 2011, 3:24 pm

Honestly, even if you can't afford a gym it doesn't mean you can't be in shape. Eating right and working out doing aerobics or things you can do without weights or with small dumbbells together can keep you thin and reasonably fit, if not necessarily outright ripped. But yes it is harder to eat right on a budget and eating right is probably 3/4ths of the equation because unless you are going to spend all of your free time working out, its difficult to burn off the calories that come from not eating right. I was doing 45 minutes on a treadmill an average of 5 times a week and not eating outright horribly but was not eating very health maybe 40% of the time and I was putting on the pounds like that. It was hard to start eating right again and doing more intense workouts but I can see the difference already and its only been two weeks.



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27 Oct 2011, 10:42 am

With all due respect for those posting above, I don't think having access to gyms, has much to do with being overweight or in shape. The bottom line is how many calories you eat, and how many you burn. Period. If you have a metabolism that is a little more likely than some peoples' to gain fat, you need to work harder, or if severe enough a problem, you might need to see an endocrinologist to check your thyroid, cortisol, insulin, and other hormone balances. Otherwise, it's self-discipline.

Things that help A LOT include the kind of calories you take in, and if you drink alcohol, your body will convert carbs to fat much faster and store more fat. If you have a lean musculoskeletal makeup, you will put on fat before building muscle. If you work a little harder to build some lean muscle mass (men and women alike), you will burn more fat in your sleep, and you will have a much easier time keeping the fat down.

There are MANY MANY more factors, but honestly I would hate to see anyone claim failure as a result of not having a gym at hand.

Charles