This. Changes. Now. My fitness adventure
chrisWhite
Littleton, CO
This is long, I guess I just needed to get this all written down, don't feel like you can't skip the boring parts 
Alright, I'm joining the club on here, I've been working really hard on fitness all year but I've really gotten serious about it in the last week or so. Here's my story.
Growing up I was a twig but since I never likes sports or other exercise and was totally addicted to sugar I started putting on the weight in my early teens. In January I weighed 295 and I'm 6.1, I ate a massive amount of sugar and a decent amount of fast food trash too. Due to the weight and my eating habits I have pretty high blood pressure as well. Walking wasn't a problem, I could make it a few miles without any trouble but I can't run and three stories of stares would kill me. The good news is I also ate plenty of good things too, lots of vegetables and good meals.
I've always been extremely insecure about my weight, I can't tell you the last time a girl hit on me or I felt secure enough to approach someone for a date. There's way more to that then just my physical appearance but that's the biggest thing.
Anyway, I started to get things under control in January, I switched to all diet pop, cut out all my sugar and reduced crappy food. Lasted two and a half months with no change in my weight when I lost control and fell back into my old habits. My biggest issue with the diet was that drinking diet pop did nothing to lesson my sweet tooth so it was so everyday was like fighting my first day of quieting. Also notice there wasn't any real exercise beyond the mile or two I walked everyday at school.
A month and a half ago I got serious again and cut out all sugar and sugar substitutes except for fruit and two or three cocktail indulgences. I also killed the crap food. This time I went from 295 to 262 where I plateaued and then climbed back to 263 last weekend.
Screw that! That lit a fire under my ass
So I picked up my psycho diet again, something I tried a month ago but I didn't have enough motivation to do. I cut out all meat and beer, it's been almost as hard as giving up sugar. I've been eating strictly fruits, vegetables and grains like home-made granola plus still drinking milk (2%, two glasses a day on average) and having a little cheese.
All of my previous attempts to exercise never lasted long, running is just pumping failure into my will with every step I can't take. Gym was okay but I felt way insecure there and it ate into my budget too much the last couple of months and I wasn't having fun with it.
So I bought a pair of roller blades and started exercising, I've been out four times and have slowly worked from a mile to 2.5 on them and I'm loving it despite the really sore feet and back and two or three very embarrassing falls. It's been seven or eight years since I last bladed and what I thought was going to be easy is very hard for my overweight body to handle. But it's fun and I think I can do this!
So there it is, #thingschanged and Prime has been such an inspiration to me, as have many of you guys now that I'm really active watching the forums.
My next goals are to cut down my milk to just my boll of granola in the morning and to get blading every day. Once I'm feeling good blading I'd like two start working on weights. My ultimate goal is to hit somewhere between 150 and 175 and to be able to RUN a couple of miles without stopping.
Alright, I'm joining the club on here, I've been working really hard on fitness all year but I've really gotten serious about it in the last week or so. Here's my story.
Growing up I was a twig but since I never likes sports or other exercise and was totally addicted to sugar I started putting on the weight in my early teens. In January I weighed 295 and I'm 6.1, I ate a massive amount of sugar and a decent amount of fast food trash too. Due to the weight and my eating habits I have pretty high blood pressure as well. Walking wasn't a problem, I could make it a few miles without any trouble but I can't run and three stories of stares would kill me. The good news is I also ate plenty of good things too, lots of vegetables and good meals.
I've always been extremely insecure about my weight, I can't tell you the last time a girl hit on me or I felt secure enough to approach someone for a date. There's way more to that then just my physical appearance but that's the biggest thing.
Anyway, I started to get things under control in January, I switched to all diet pop, cut out all my sugar and reduced crappy food. Lasted two and a half months with no change in my weight when I lost control and fell back into my old habits. My biggest issue with the diet was that drinking diet pop did nothing to lesson my sweet tooth so it was so everyday was like fighting my first day of quieting. Also notice there wasn't any real exercise beyond the mile or two I walked everyday at school.
A month and a half ago I got serious again and cut out all sugar and sugar substitutes except for fruit and two or three cocktail indulgences. I also killed the crap food. This time I went from 295 to 262 where I plateaued and then climbed back to 263 last weekend.
Screw that! That lit a fire under my ass
So I picked up my psycho diet again, something I tried a month ago but I didn't have enough motivation to do. I cut out all meat and beer, it's been almost as hard as giving up sugar. I've been eating strictly fruits, vegetables and grains like home-made granola plus still drinking milk (2%, two glasses a day on average) and having a little cheese.
All of my previous attempts to exercise never lasted long, running is just pumping failure into my will with every step I can't take. Gym was okay but I felt way insecure there and it ate into my budget too much the last couple of months and I wasn't having fun with it.
So I bought a pair of roller blades and started exercising, I've been out four times and have slowly worked from a mile to 2.5 on them and I'm loving it despite the really sore feet and back and two or three very embarrassing falls. It's been seven or eight years since I last bladed and what I thought was going to be easy is very hard for my overweight body to handle. But it's fun and I think I can do this!
So there it is, #thingschanged and Prime has been such an inspiration to me, as have many of you guys now that I'm really active watching the forums.
My next goals are to cut down my milk to just my boll of granola in the morning and to get blading every day. Once I'm feeling good blading I'd like two start working on weights. My ultimate goal is to hit somewhere between 150 and 175 and to be able to RUN a couple of miles without stopping.
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Comments
Dump your carbs and make your diet 60-70% protein, and then maybe you'll see some real progress.
After years of trying to get myself to start improving my health and never losing a single pound going from 195 to 164 in a month and a half counts as at least some real progress
Carbohydrates trigger insulin production, elevated insulin levels prompt the body to consume energy from intramuscular sugar stores called glycogen-- not fat.
Beans and nuts are lauded for having high protein, but that's only because it's high compared to other foods with high fat (good fat)/carb contents. There is no replacement for protein like meat and whey.
I'm not eating many highly glycemic grains like bread or pasta, mostly just raw grains like granola.
Okay, I'm totally good to completely change around my diet now with your suggestions, do you have any suggestions on what to read so I can get a decent understanding about what you're talking about?
Even if my progress hasn't been huge physical progress it's been a huge step forward to do something I've never had the strength to do before and actually master what I eat. Loosing weight, even if superficial, has also been huge motivation for progress. Real progress is overcoming my sugar addiction and putting my mind in control instead of being governed by what I want to eat. I know most people have been doing this all along but it's a giant step for me.
I'd do a weightlifting regimen, but instead of traditional intense resistance, go for moderate resistance. The goal should be to complete at least 5 sets with the same weight where you can do 10-15 reps before the muscles give out (this applies to any muscle group). This won't build muscle as quickly as intense resistance, but it will burn far more energy, and stimulate your metabolism... which is where diet comes in.
A normal muscle-building diet is very heavy on meat and such supplements as whey protein. For effective loss of weight on this regimen (as I understand it) what you need to eat is some meat, but try and get most of your protein from legumes. For supplementation (protein shakes), buy soy protein concentrate specifically - NOT whey protein. I was doing research on it the other day because my stomach doesn't tolerate whey protein too well, and a fact I turned up incidentally was that soy protein is much more useful than whey protein while weightlifting to lose fat.
If I understand correctly, this is a good approach to weight loss. Cardio will still help, but you do not want to be doing cardio solely - you may lose the fat, but you won't build any muscle under it, resulting in the "skinny-fat" condition.
If I am off on any of these facts, someone please correct me. I'm trying to go the opposite direction (gain weight) and am just going off what I turned up about weight loss simultaneously while doing research.
Edit - one more thing. PLEASE don't be embarassed about going the gym. It may be intimidating to see guys in excellent physical form, but the reason they ARE in excellent physical form is because they also go to the gym. They have no right to poke fun about your weight because your simple presence there indicates you want to do something about it. Anyone who DOES poke fun at your weight (and actually means it as an insult) is not worth your time, nor should anything they say be taken to heart.
Thrax knows a lot more about diet than I do, so I'll leave that to him. (admittedly, I don't watch mine with a very precise eye, I just eat 'good', correct proportions, and stay away from crap).
But I am good with helping motivate exercise. I was overweight for the majority of my life, peaking around the high school years. I was always fat, but never could convince myself that exercise was something I could get into.
Besides, back then I'd rather just stay inside and play SNES with my brother.
Prime's a great example of setting a motivator before exercise. In his case, it's sex. In my case, it was a girl in college that motivated me. Obviously, nothing between her and I ever panned out, but getting in shape was worth far more to me than dating her (I think
Keep staying aggressive with this, and remember there's an entire community here who is going to back you... and in many cases, be making the very journey themselves.
Lord Bean, looks like I really need to start reading and understanding this stuff. Calisthenics seam like the biggest effect on my life, I don't often find myself not being able to life something but I do run out of breath or energy with anything more then a moderate speed walk. I'll make the effort to hit the weights every week.
Exactly my problem all these years
My biggest motivator is that I'm sick of having low self esteem because of my weight and I'd like to be able to do physically active things like water sky, hike or just be able to run.
2. Lifting weights is an anaerobic exercise. That means it does not elevate the heart rate, and therefore does not burn calories like cardio. Anaerobic exercise taxes the central nervous system, aerobic exercise taxes the cardiovascular system. You need both to effectively lose fat and reshape yourself into a healthy body, but you will never achieve low body fat percentages with weights alone. It just won't happen.
3. Whey is arguably the best type of protein there is, shortly followed by casein, then soy. Soy is high in estrogen, and it's inadvisable to take a lot of it. You should have a casein protein source before bed, or before a long period of no eating, but at all other times whey is the ideal source of protein.
Consequently, whey is also the most abundant and cheapest sort of protein supplement. Buy it, love it. Lots of chicken, ultra lean beef, whey protein shakes (fat-free milk or water).
4. You need to be lifting with intensity if you want to maintain your muscle mass throughout your fat loss. That means 3x8 reps or so, which is a muscle sustaining pattern of lifts. 5x10 or 5x15 is just endurance, and won't really save muscle tissue.
TL;DR: Whey protein, meat, 100-130g in carbs, 3x8 rep lifting, 30 minutes max of high intensity cardio.
I've never actually heard of whey before today, I don't know much about casein either. Soy, I know has some kind of trouble genetically in my family, I'll figure out what and if it applies to me.
Ultra lean beef, does that mean buffalo is a good source of whey protein? I typically eat buffalo far more then beef, my parents like to get buffalo in mass so I can get it cheaply from them.
Okay, so a lot of good protein is always good or is it just when you're forming your muscles? If I have a day when I don't get a good workout is it better to not have as much protein or remain the same? I know I've focused on calories and carbs in past but I've never learned about protein.
I didn't know soy was high in estrogen. I'm gonna have to be careful with it.
I don't agree that whey is cheaper, though... I can buy soy protein concentrate for less than half the price in $ per g than whey.
Good sources include ultra lean beef, buffalo, and most importantly: chicken.
Least I got chicken.
I feel fantastic, not only was it fun but I got a great workout and am on an endorphin high.
Detailed stats
Beans are fine, they just shouldn't be the sole source. They are nice because they have fats, carbs, and protein in one serving.
Weightlifting has intermittent heart-elevation, which is analogues to HIIT. High intensity, brief intervals. Over time, anaerobic exercises burn calories beyond the exercise period, where aerobic creates immediate deficit.
To elaborate, meat is your staple, whey is your supplement, casein is long-digesting and good before sleep, and soy should be used sparingly.
Need to find a gym too.
I've eaten decently today but not great, I had a bowl of granola with milk and another glass of milk—2%, I should change that shouldn't I? Then I've had some fruit salad, some radishes, sugar snap peas and two buffalo patties on a whole wheat bun with cheese. I'm going to have a really light dinner.
Audible credits are in and I want to learn about nutrition (and fitness). Recommendations? Don't want motivation/*the diet*/warm fuzzy books, I want to learn more about what Thrax and lordbean are talking about.
I should check iTunesU and podcasts too.
Once I was made aware of my issue I started testing it, left foot is solid and straight, I can stand on it, I can roll on just it and keep my balance and I can push it hard. Right foot wobbles when I'm costing and I can't stay on it for more then a few seconds. This get's super magnified when I go up hill.
So, from there I started pushing off with my left foot and keeping my right foot right under me so it didn't roll left or right, guess what, I suddenly could two to three times the distance without needing a break and I only had to over correct my balance once or twice. I started to feel the burn in thighs and my lower legs instead of my back and I was able to keep my breathing much more under control.
The problem was that hills still killed me because I needed both feet pushing me to maintain any momentum. But now I know there's an issue and I know why blading has been killing me so much, it's more then just being so out of shape, something really is an issue and that gives me so much hope. Blading is the first exercise in a long, long time that I love and I can't stick with this.
Genetically my mom had an issue that may or may not be related to mine where one leg was slightly longer then the other and it and destroyed her feet and it took her years and a lot of painful doctor visits to recover. Now she uses orthodics and can walk normally. I'm wondering if I may have something jacked up like that too. Going to pursue it and it gives me a lot of hope that I can overcome this now that I know something is off and it's in my right foot.
#Hope #ThingsChanged.
It sounds like your rollerblading form is completely goofy, and that'll lead to RSI in the long run.
So I followed a link Fatcat gave me on the IRC and ended up at this video: The 4 Week Quick Start Workout and I'm curious what you guys think of using a band set and a balance ball. Can it be a decent alternative to traditional weights?
Nothing is going to beat powerlifting such as squats, deadlift, clean and benchpress. Even if you have to start with just a 45lb bar, its going to build your core muscles, improve your balance, and give you a base for your progression. People think they cant do these things usually because they start with too much weight or with terrible form. Just start light and make sure you are doing it properly.
First thing I need to do is kick the sugar and the trash fast-food I've been eating. That will be my goal for the first week.