Fitness and Whatnot

[SG]

@Ganymede said:

Ultimately, you will lose more weight -- better weight -- by actually eating more and burning more energy via exercise. And by eating more, I mean eating more healthy food, like vegetables. Because nothing trick fucks your body into burning fat than eating 5 pounds of broccoli and carrots a day, and working out for an hour or so.

I think the trick is to eat more often, rather than more calories. So more frequent, smaller meals so your metabolism is always going.

[TNP]

What worked for me is phentermine. It's an old, cheap, proven amphetamine that has very few (none for me) side effects and is not at all addictive. It really works to kill your appetite. After a while, you build a tolerance so need to go off it for X length of time before starting again.

I also changed my diet, of course but the drug is excellent for as long as you can get it to last. Talk to your doctor.

[Cochrane]

New to the site and thread.

I've been doing a cardio/weight-training regimen four times a week for the past nine months and in that time my weight has fluctuated quite a bit. I didn't weigh myself for a good long while (4 months) after I got bored with checking all the time. When I finally dragged myself onto the scale after my wife voiced her notice of some bagginess in my clothing, I found out I had trimmed down 20 pounds.

My goal is to lose far more weight, but I keep hitting the plateaus and then changing my weight routines (upper/lower/core) and cardio (switching from biking to elliptical or treadmill). Seems to be working for me so far.

-- ZC

[Ganymede]

@SG said:

I think the trick is to eat more often, rather than more calories. So more frequent, smaller meals so your metabolism is always going.

I think that's part of it. Eating more allows you to eat less at each meal, which will help keep accidental calorie-gorging down. But more than one health professional has pointed out that your stomach may not shrink, and you may end up rebounding soon.

By "eating more," I mean "eat more healthy stuff." Eating 500 calories of broccoli will stuff your stomach with more than 500 calories of meat, which ought to be more than 500 calories of sugar. And so on.

I'm currently trying to adjust my diet, but I'll be honest: I'm a gourmand. I like good, tasty food -- French, especially -- so I have to be very, very judicious. My other problem: I do like drinking.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Ganymede said:

I'm currently trying to adjust my diet, but I'll be honest: Im a gourmand. I like good, tasty food -- French, especially -- so I have to be very, very judicious. My other problem: I do like drinking.

I started exercising essentially just so I could continue drinking beer and occasionally having some pizza. I also feel a lot better so, bonus.

[BetterJudgment]

I've been lifting weights 4x a week for six weeks now. Before you get impressed (if you were going to), that's basically just two full-body workouts split between two days because I'm so short on time that I can only spend 30 minutes each time. I'm also dieting some, although that is mainly just adjustment since I'm so strict on my diet anyway.

The good thing is that I've definitely gained strength, which I desperately needed to do; I'm over 50 and have never exercised consistently like this before. (I invested in a set of Olympic weights, bars, and a bench, and it's far different than using the Nautilus machines at the gym.) The frustrating thing is that even though I've made these changes and continue to walk briskly the mile to work in the morning and the mile back, I'm not making headway on the 20 lbs. I need to lose.

I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet, get up 45 minutes earlier each morning (which means 5:15 AM some mornings), and go speedwalking. I'm not running because I don't think my knees will take it. Too bad doing this stuff is so freaking boring, but if I can get rid of my gut it will be worth it.

[EmmahSue]

Reading "it's just math, you just need to have more calories out than in" fills me with burning rage, because as a Type I diabetic, it's not just that basic. h8 h8 h8. I'm losing weight right now not because I changed my diet or my exercise, but because this stupid insulin pump got my levels regulated. That 'basic math' formula can have all sorts of hidden adjustments and ignoring that fact is frustrating as fuck.

ES

[2mspris]

We had a pretty great routine down for exercise/eating well/getting enough sleep & then the SO went to 3rd shift which is playing havoc with pretty much everything. All things out the window as we try to figure out a new routine that's going to work. It's frustrating. Especially knowing that this routine is likely only going to last another 5 months, with our luck, and then find him switched to another shift.

[Coin]

@BetterJudgment said:

I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet, get up 45 minutes earlier each morning (which means 5:15 AM some mornings), and go speedwalking. I'm not running because I don't think my knees will take it. Too bad doing this stuff is so freaking boring, but if I can get rid of my gut it will be worth it.

This is why I bike everywhere and do kung fu.

I absolutely hate exercising for exercise's sake. Even the "be healthier, feel better" aspect doesn't get through to me. So I bike when I need to go somewhere (and soon it will be like 10 miles every day) because the exercise has a separate, guiding purpose; and I do martial arts, where I am at least with people, socializing and learning something both interesting (to me) and practical.

[EmmahSue]

For walking/jogging/maybe-even-biking, and how utterly immensely crazy boring it is to do that shit, you might try Zombies, Run! It's my go-to, since it's a storyline that asks you to move, and has some interactive components if you want to turn them on.

https://zombiesrungame.com/

You're in a zombie post-apoc as Runner #5, and you have to go out on missions for Abel Township. There's some mystery! And fights with another town who're being jerks due to scarce resources. And you use your own playlist to be the 'radio station' playing in the background when Base isn't talking to you about your current mission. If you turn it on, there's a 'random zombie attack' feature that makes you speed up for a minute or two 'to get away' and it tracks your pacing via phone and GPS/pedometer.

ES

[Luna]

@EmmahSue You're a type 1 diabetic. So yes, your body works differently.

Alternately I get filled with a burning rage when people say I have hypothyroid/PCOS/gluten/blah blah all the conditions and I just can't lose weight, it's physically impossible and also those caused me to gain weight so it'll never work. That's simply untrue.

When I say it's a simple math problem, it is for most of the population. Not for all. I don't see many 300 pound type one diabetics going 'well it's just physically impossible, don't bother'. I see many type twos do that, not ones with unusual type two but specifically 'you're diabetic because you're fat' type twos. Or a woman I had to unfriend with gestational diabetes who refused to believe her weight was a factor and would say things like 'I wish I could just have a doughnut without having to have a protein with it'. All my what? Just don't have a doughnut.

You can't outrun your diet. Period. It took me a long time to get where I'm at mostly because of emotional and thought process hang ups. Physically it was very easy once I stopped shoving gobs of food in my mouth. It's not hard but it's hard. I get it. Mostly what I'm saying over all is don't complicate shit. Don't worry about eating six small meals unless that makes you happy. Sometimes a bitch wants some fast food. I get my fast food knowing its my calories for a day in one meal. I eat the one meal and I'm happy. It was a long time getting to that point. Six months ago I couldn't have done that because I would have fretted about an entire day of not being 'able' to eat. Six meals would make me insane. I don't want to mess with that. It would quickly become six meals of fiber one brownies because I'm lazy.

Just do what's right and works for you and know that will likely change over time. Small meals all day works for some because they want to eat all day. I used to. I went from that to four, to two and often times I eat one meal a day and a few snacks. It won't stop you from losing weight to eat once a day, I assure you.

[Arkandel]

Basketball is my bane. Fun-wise it beats any kind of cardio I'd ever do by a very, very, very wide margin but then again I can name a non-trivial number of times I came home with injuries. Ranging from several twisted ankles, a pulled hamstring which once had me limp for two weeks, a sprained tricep (most annoying thing ever) or of course assorted lower back issues.

Sports are amazing in every other way... but when you introduce factors outside of your control - such as other players, diving for balls, etc - the risk also goes way up. One advantage of weight lifting is that it's completely formalized; ideally you perform the same rep exactly the same way each time, minimizing the chance for injury by a lot.

Not that if I can go play this weekend I won't. Just sayin'.

[Ganymede]

@BetterJudgment said:

I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet, get up 45 minutes earlier each morning (which means 5:15 AM some mornings), and go speedwalking. I'm not running because I don't think my knees will take it. Too bad doing this stuff is so freaking boring, but if I can get rid of my gut it will be worth it.

Don't bite the bullet.

I don't know how long you've been working out prior to your current regimen, but when people say "you'll see results in 6 weeks!", they often over-look the fact that people who are not obese or in fair shape to begin with won't see appreciable weight loss while their fat burns and muscle builds. Your body is probably going through the process of rebuilding muscle.

Push yourself a bit harder, but keep the time. Do timed sets, rather that sets by repetitions. Try to keep to 30 minutes, but do more and rest less. You'll get results.

No shit, but try DailyBurn as a program. It's cheaper than a gym membership, and if you can get through their advanced programs, you're in very good shape.

[Hella]

I walk a bit. I eat super healthy (no sugar that's not natural fruit sugar, organic food wherever possible, only water or tea). I definitely would like to work out more but my anxiety prevents me most of the time (along with my lack of motivation, being completely honest). For now, though, I just rely on my diet to keep me fit. I'd love to be able to put on some weight but that is a future dream.

[2mspris]

Fitbit challenge for GenCon 2015 underway! If I'm lucky I'll win prizes by the end of it.

[Luna]

@2mspris Good luck!

[2mspris]

Sadly I did not win any cool prizes for the Fitbit challenge at GenCon. I did, however, manage to walk between 13,000-15,000 steps a day for that 5 day stretch though, so at least I wasn't slacking.

[Arkandel]

@2mspris Most I've ever done in a week was 104k steps, with 23ish thousand my max for a day. It's not easy after a while unless you jog rather than run, I've found, since the delimiter ends up being time and not endurance.

Like, it takes hours to walk far enough to get that many steps, so unless the hike itself is worth it it's hard to be convinced to do so for the exercise/challenges alone.

[2mspris]

In the case of the challenge I did, if you accumulated so many steps you got your name into a drawing for prizes X-amount of times. I was pretty pleased with how many steps I did get, but yeah, I figured out a while ago that the amount of time/walking necessary to get way up there on steps. (And I try to avoid running, it tends to screw up one of my ankles if I get too ambitious which just makes it impossible for me to be active while I wait for it to recover.) I mostly just focus on the "Get 10,000 steps.", it's a bit of a competitive thing trying to keep up with my youngest brother (who had been in an ER residency so he was on his feet for 8+ hours a day). It is, at least, motivating to keep active for that alone generally.

[Arkandel]

Well, you beat me this week so <fistshake>.