Fitness and Whatnot
-
Like others here, I have a Fitbit that I use. With winter and a recent schedule change, life has been sorta hectic for my workout plans. I'm down a tremendous amount of weight, but recently tore my meniscus (on Christmas Eve, nonetheless). I'm just now getting back into a lifting program (Stronglifts 5x5), and have tried to walk a bit more (used to clear 10k to 15k steps per day). My specialist says I shouldn't run, and that has really put the kibosh on my running program (Zombie 5k training...good stuff). Happy to share info for FitBit friends.
-
Soda isn't my vice (coffee and e-cig are definitely my vices), but it IS my guilty pleasure. Especially Sprite Zero. For whatever reason, I absolutely LOVE that soda. And I've never been a Sprite fan before.
-
I want to get my husband a Fitbit because he seemed very into it around the holidays. I just wanted to make sure it was something he really wanted before purchasing. Once this baby arrives, we'll both be getting back in shape. I've been doing very little exercise other than simple stretching and pre-natal yoga. We try to eat well but it's kind of difficult during these last few weeks when I just want to eat everything in sight.
-
There is a LOT of misinformation about diet drinks out there. Overall you are probably better off avoiding them if you can, but. The insulin effects are only for people with a certain type of gut flora. The sweet craving thing, maybe, but my sense of sweet is so reset I cannot handle full sugar processed food and soda anyway. So I grab some fruit.
It also means I get a decent caffeine hit for pretty much 0 calories, not hundreds. And very few carbs.
So avoid as much as possible, but they ain't the devil.
-
Man. I'm hesitant to post here because my relationship with diets, exercise, and health is so filled with things that contradict things that "everyone" knows that I've given up discussing it with anyone but my doctor.
That being said, I do like to talk about exercise so - I finally got my weight rack set up in my garage and am lifting again. Life is so much better when I lift regularly.
-
I think that ultimately, whatever you do (crossfit is notorious for injuries, so be careful) the most important thing is that you're up and wiggling more than anything.
-
-
Okay, yeah. Phrasing again.
Up and moving? -
At this point I think she's doing it deliberately.
Sidenote: I fucking LOVE Crossfit.
-
@Darinelle said:
Sidenote: I fucking LOVE Crossfit.
I like cross-fit; I just dislike the people I've met who do it religiously.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
-
I think the injuries come from people getting too crazy/into it, myself. And no, not deliberately.
Getting up and moving around is important. Be it wiggling, flailing, hopping or what have you. -
@Ganymede said:
I like cross-fit; I just dislike the people I've met who do it religiously.
I love CrossFit. I try really hard not to be obnoxious about it though! And yes, people who always want to shove their obsessions on me make me cranky. Craaaaanky.
-
i like all the beach body products personally. I just got to tolerating Shakelogy (Vegan Strawberry), so I'll go back to doing that. Starting on the 1st, I'm going to do the 21 day fix with a friend.
Food and I are hate hate relationship and I tend to get obsessive to be perfect and set myself up for falls. I think that a person should be comfortable with where they are. Just eat well and be healthy, bodies are different.
-
Generally speaking staying fit isn't hard. You watch what you eat a little bit (sweets are bad, cut down on bread/fries, eat more protein and fibers) and you exercise in whatever way makes sense to you (the best workout is the one you can do). It baffles the mind there are so many special programs and diets out there because fundamentally it's not that complicated a matter.
But that doesn't make it easy. It's all about consistency and we all got things going on in our lives to distract us.
My workout isn't that long and the gym isn't too far from my house - 30-40 minutes of freeweights than a 10 minute walk back, done. But when I stay late at work and then I'm tired, I'm hungry, I want to watch something on TV and on top of these things I know I need to be in bed by midnight. Well, that gives me a 5 hour window tops and part of it is eaten by the commute. So that one hour or so the gym-slot occupies on my calendar is literally 25% of all the free time that I have in a day.
Consistency is the hellish part.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
-
Stress exacerbates the problem, not only by kicking you out of a healthy routine but by adding in cortisol and other physiologically unhelpful stuff. If you live a life that's in any way complicated, it's hard to keep up.
-
I'll admit to not going out of my way to exercise. But I also feel that chasing after two kids, and all the walking around I do at work (in heels, no less!) counts for a good bit of exercise. I could probably stand to do some light weightlifting.. but I'm loathe to give up any personal time I get for something like that when I could be napping or watching a show/movie that I can't watch with kidlets around.
-
@Arkandel said:
Generally speaking staying fit isn't hard. You watch what you eat a little bit (sweets are bad, cut down on bread/fries, eat more protein and fibers) and you exercise in whatever way makes sense to you (the best workout is the one you can do). It baffles the mind there are so many special programs and diets out there because fundamentally it's not that complicated a matter.
This presumes that one is "fit," and that maintenance is the goal. For many, it's not.
I'm in reasonably good shape, but I don't run well for many reasons. I want to change this. However, over the past 2 years, I've had set-backs (e.g., plantar fasciitis, shin splints, bad weather, etc.) and I can't quite get my constant-running to 40 minutes. On top of that, I want to break 5 miles in 40 minutes, and my pace is nowhere near that.
To get to where I want to be, I will likely need to cut about 20 pounds, and start seriously training. All in the name of "fitness," if that definition means "I fit my internal picture of how I ought to be."
It helps that I loathe sitting on my butt watching television. I need other distractions around, like children or my computer, to do that, to my partner's chagrin.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
-
@Ganymede said:
This presumes that one is "fit," and that maintenance is the goal. For many, it's not.
I'm in no way an expert and on top of it I'm not a doctor, so this will be likely different for people dealing with different health issues.
However a few years ago I found myself in my early 30s, overweight and completely out of shape. I wasn't used to that, it sort of snuck up on me since I always used to play basketball, I walked everywhere, loved hiking, etc. But my lower back was suddenly giving up on me and even half-court ball with 25-year olds was killing me.
I found relatively non-critical adjustments to my diet and exercise helped a ton. I mean I went cold turkey on Coke, stopped eating obvious bad things like cookies, and replaced fries/rice with salads. Basically my diet was pretty much described as "meat with salad", and I'm not talking small helpings either. Lots of it. I went to the gym three times a week and lifted, 30-40 minutes a session tops.
I lost 50ish pounds in half a year. It does work. It doesn't even take huge sacrifices, it takes small ones on a daily basis. So I wasn't on maintenance - that's empirical though, it's what worked for me, and it might be different for other people.
Either way those small sacrifices, compounded by life and other obligations are still hard. Christmas? Try eating right around Christmas when there are sweets everywhere, right? Willpower is a muscle and like every muscle if you overwork it, it'll get tired and fail. Plus as mentioned above those 30-40 minutes hurt when you're on a rather limited time budget to begin with. But it's doable, for sure.
I think the best trick is to figure out some motivation even if you have to invent it. Be competitive with someone if you've got a competitive nature, or be part of a group to get peer pressure to work in your favor or... something. It's a personal thing obviously.
-
I still just do the same exercises I learned in highschool and the army after. Pull ups, push ups, sits up, high jumps, the plank, etc. 20 minutes here, 15 minutes there. It keeps me healthy and in shape, if not aboslutely ripped. I'll run half the year when doing so doesn't burn my face and lungs due to the friggin nordic cold. In the winter I'll just walk the mountains instead. Cross country skiing is awesome, but sadly the snow doesn't stay where I live right now. I miss being able to just step outside the door and skii.
A pull up bar somewhere in your home, preferably not in your cold dank basement, is awesome. It lowers the treshold to just grab it at random and do a couple, or swich around and hook your legs into it, or just do som static balance exercises. Owning some free weights is fantastic, too.
Make the treshold low. Minimize the effort required to just do a little light exercise, and you'll go a long way. That and eating healthy so you don't have to burn a million calories. (Read: I don't follow any diets, I just don't buy chips/sweets, I don't drink 5 cups of coffee with tons of sugar and cream, and I don't fry my food every day.)
@Arkandel At Christmas I gorge myself. Screw it all, it's Christmas.
-
@lordbelh said:
@Arkandel At Christmas I gorge myself. Screw it all, it's Christmas.
It's a Christmas miracle that calories of all you eat around the 25th are reduced to zero. Everyone knows that.
Something I neglected to mention - I think most people give up because they either expect results too fast, or vastly underestimate the calories they burn with exercise compared to the calories they eat.
So for example going to the gym to work out for most of us, even if we go at it hard, is say... 600 calories in an hour. Relatively few people can pull off more than that even if they think they are without injuring themselves, and the majority will burn less. However eating a cookie or two will replenish those calories within minutes - you know those 'rewards' we give ourselves for a job well done? With the excuse of 'if I don't treat myself now and then I'll never pull this off anyway'?
So a few weeks later after busting our ass we weigh ourselves and it's the same as before or more. So we give up thinking it just 'didn't work' for us 'because of our metabolism'.
Abs are made in the kitchen.
