Often ignored aspects to exercising as an obese person are that it plain sucks, is difficult, and likely to result in injury; it&#x27;s <i>harmful</i>.<p>Whenever I see obese people out running in public, obviously attempting to lose weight, these thoughts come to mind:<p>1. Impressive; that&#x27;s a lot of hard work, not to mention embarrassing.  Nobody <i>fit</i> I know could do the same carrying the equivalent weight in a backpack full of sand.<p>2. Doomed; you&#x27;re killing yourself, imagine the long-term effects of such stress on your lower joints.<p>3. Futile; you&#x27;re probably just going to eat too much of the wrong stuff now with all the appetite stimulated by the hard work, combined with the comfort sought in the immobilized and depressed days of joint and muscle pain.<p>Lose the extra baggage <i>before</i> you start exercising!  Your body will thank you.<p>I used to weigh ~225# in my mid 20s.  That weight was dropped to ~170# in under a year by simply removing sugars and refined&#x2F;processed carbohydrates from my diet, which is a good weight for my build and height of 5&#x27;9&quot;.  My experience was the desire to be active and exercise simply emerged once my weight was down, because doing physical things became fun and easy again, which also meant it was perfectly safe.<p>In my mid 30s now and ever since that initial drop I&#x27;ve stayed around ~165#, but with more muscle now that I&#x27;m more physically active.  I continue to diligently avoid sugars and processed carbs, processed foods in general really, and exercise every day for the fun and fitness, because it&#x27;s easy and seems to combat many of the negative effects of aging.<p>Exercise seems optional to me.  If you eat correctly, without even exercising you&#x27;ll have a normal weight, and preserve the ability to be physically active.  If you eat poorly, you trap yourself, and the only way out of the trap is a slow process of eating correctly, the duration being proportional to how far you&#x27;ve let yourself go.<p>It frustrates me how we&#x27;ve structured the food environment such that all the convenient&#x2F;affordable options surrounding us are bad for us.  It takes constant discipline to not eat poorly as a result.<p>Good luck.