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Fierce_LiNk

Weight Loss and Fitness 2013

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I'm still plugging away, chipping away the fat one day at a time. I've noticed that I find work quite a bit easier, as in I don't feel as heavy as before when I'm walking about, which I do quite a lot of. I feel light, but still have a bit of substance there, if that makes sense. It's nice.

 

I felt pretty quick when playing squash yesterday, made quite a few shots that seemed out of reach and somehow managed to reset my position to get the one after. Hurrah.

 

Also, fuuuuck, there always seems to be yummy food being brought into school. The kids brought in some doughnuts and cake a few days ago, causing one of the girls to declare it FATTTT FRIIIIDAAAY. Cakes were brought in on Monday and some flapjacks today, too.

 

My willpower is strong. Just.

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I'm nearly glad that I can't eat wheat, its a lot easier to refuse donuts etc knowing that they'll make me very sick :P

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Running thd half marathon on the 13th with my housemate. I lagged behind him in my training. Last run I did was over a week ago and was 6.8 miles. In an attempt to leap frog up to his level, I mapped out an 11.1 mile route for us to run. When we came to a fork in the road, despite my protests that it was right, he insisted it was left (i've previously experienced his terrible sense of direction, so it was my fault for listening to him). It was right, and that added distance onto our run. We later missed a turn off (it was pitch black and overgrown) so added further distance.

 

It took 1hr 52min, and was 12.3 miles. I definitely had a lot of energy left, but my feet hurt, and my left knee felt like it was about to give way.

 

Now I'm having an improvised foot soak with lynx body wash in the mop bucket.

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On another note, 'dieting' is the wrong way to go about it if you want to lose weight. You need to make a consistent lifestyle change if you want to lose weigth and keep it off.

 

How do you define dieting though? I'm dieting so having a calorie reduced diet 1850 and lost 18lbs in 4 weeks. So what's wrong with that? The first few days I was hungry now I feel fine and going about my life.

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On another note, 'dieting' is the wrong way to go about it if you want to lose weight. You need to make a consistent lifestyle change if you want to lose weigth and keep it off.

 

That's not exactly true. When you diet, you're trying to reduce your weight. Whereas afterwards, you're trying to maintain it.

 

Negative calorie intake - weight loss.

 

Neutral calorie intake - maintain weight.

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How do you define dieting though? I'm dieting so having a calorie reduced diet 1850 and lost 18lbs in 4 weeks. So what's wrong with that? The first few days I was hungry now I feel fine and going about my life.

 

You're losing close to 4lbs a week, that isn't sustainable in the long run.

 

Usually when people talk about losing weight, they have a lot to lose, it can take a long time. Restrictive diets that last months/years aren't realistic, the average joe doesn't have the willpower.

 

When people talk about dieting, they talk about living an unrealistic lifestyle. Most people on diets will cut out everything that is considered bad, this usually doesn't last long, hence they crash and burn after a short while and get no where.

 

The reason people talk about it as a lifestyle change as opposed to a diet is losing the weight and also learning how to eat properly. A diet is great to lose the weight but what happens when you've reached your goal? Do you resort to how you used to eat? do you keep on the diet permanently and adding slightly more calories to maintain? You could do that, but again it's doubtful people will be that strict and frankly it's a little obsessive.

 

Yes you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight but it's lot easier to achieve that by making small changes in your life that will impact it in the long run, not the space of 4 weeks.

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Yes you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight but it's lot easier to achieve that by making small changes in your life that will impact it in the long run, not the space of 4 weeks.

 

Of course. But the whole "You need to make a change tha you can sustain afterwards" isn't true. Yes you can't go back to what you were doing before, but you don't have to diet for the rest of your life.

 

I find that fitting exercise into a routine helps. I've started cycling to work, and playing squash with my housemates. I'm also training for the half marathon, but I'm under no delusions that i will continue after the event.

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Of course. But the whole "You need to make a change tha you can sustain afterwards" isn't true. Yes you can't go back to what you were doing before, but you don't have to diet for the rest of your life.

 

I find that fitting exercise into a routine helps. I've started cycling to work, and playing squash with my housemates. I'm also training for the half marathon, but I'm under no delusions that i will continue after the event.

 

So you've altered your lifestyle to make it healthier?

 

That is my point.

 

If you 'diet', your generally sticking to a regimented system design for one purpose. What do you do when you know longer need to diet? What I meant really was that if you begin to makes changes gradually and learn to eat everything in moderation, it's a lot easier to adjust up and down in regards to losing and maintaining weight. Most diets fail because of their regimented structure and people becoming to obsessed with them to the detriment of living normally.

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Today I comfortable got into a small superdry hoodie! I also bought size 14 jeans for the first time in two years.

 

Holy shit I'm pleased. I've been feeling a little down as I've not been able to go to the gym, but I've been doing cardio at home and eating as healthy as I can (I've stopped eating lunch at work if I'm not hungry, eating for the sake of it usually).

 

Ahhh ^_^

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My t-shirts are getting too small for me at the shoulders and chest area. I don't have enough money to buy more...

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I did assisted pull ups today, yay. 93kg assistance (of my 125kg weight) but I thought that was pretty damn good for someone with weak upper body strength :) Gotta start somewhere :)

 

Thrusters and muscle snatches as well today, much fun :D

 

My last session with my PT and he gave me TWO hugs. Gorgeous hunk of a muscle bound man. Yesssss. Even though I was sweaty. :heh:

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So you've altered your lifestyle to make it healthier?

 

That is my point.

 

If you 'diet', your generally sticking to a regimented system design for one purpose. What do you do when you know longer need to diet? What I meant really was that if you begin to makes changes gradually and learn to eat everything in moderation, it's a lot easier to adjust up and down in regards to losing and maintaining weight. Most diets fail because of their regimented structure and people becoming to obsessed with them to the detriment of living normally.

 

I'm not disagreeing with that. My point is that some people seem to think that sustainable diet change mean that you have to continue the same diet during and after weight loss, rather than switching from one designed to lose weight to one designed to maintain weight.

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I lost a pound today. Happy but not happy. Everybody's telling me I look different and I kind of do on my chest and arms and even though people tell me my belly is going down, I don't think it is. I'm not sure if people are genuine or if people are saying this so I don't lose heart. Bleurgh!

 

Anyway, got some happier news. On Sunday, I went to my mate's class and he's done this rowing program and he let me go in for nowt. So I go in and there's people who have been doing the class for a few weeks. Basically, he made us do this:

 

500m rowing

30 x deadlifts

500m rowing

30 x curl thingys (no idea what they're called but you lift it from the ground, curl and squat back down and repeat)

500m rowing

30 x air thingys (lift from the ground, curl and raise the bar in the air and reverse and repeat)

500m rowing

30 x squat with the bar behind your back

 

...so this woman came first with the time of 15 minutes and 45 seconds, another person did it on 16 minutes and 5 seconds and I got there at 16 minutes and 8 seconds. They were all pretty astonished at my rowing and then they were shocked that I put the rower on number 10, which is apparently the highest intensity. I thought it was a fan...the more I rowed, the more breeze I got so whatever! I could have finished the circuit a fuck lot earlier but the 'squat with the bar behind your back' screwed me over because the bar started digging below my neck in between my shoulders and I had to stop. My mate showed me how to do it properly because I never did them before and by the time he showed me, I was way too late. Still, I'll smash that shit next week.

 

Had a proper workout today. Played Just Dance 2014 for about two and a half hours. Got to number 1 in the world (in the game I was in anyway) on Psy's Gentleman. Went to the gym for about 4-5 hours, did a run and now I'm fooking shattered! :D

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I lost a pound today. Happy but not happy. Everybody's telling me I look different and I kind of do on my chest and arms and even though people tell me my belly is going down, I don't think it is. I'm not sure if people are genuine or if people are saying this so I don't lose heart. Bleurgh!

 

Anyway, got some happier news. On Sunday, I went to my mate's class and he's done this rowing program and he let me go in for nowt. So I go in and there's people who have been doing the class for a few weeks. Basically, he made us do this:

 

500m rowing

30 x deadlifts

500m rowing

30 x curl thingys (no idea what they're called but you lift it from the ground, curl and squat back down and repeat)

500m rowing

30 x air thingys (lift from the ground, curl and raise the bar in the air and reverse and repeat)

500m rowing

30 x squat with the bar behind your back

 

...so this woman came first with the time of 15 minutes and 45 seconds, another person did it on 16 minutes and 5 seconds and I got there at 16 minutes and 8 seconds. They were all pretty astonished at my rowing and then they were shocked that I put the rower on number 10, which is apparently the highest intensity. I thought it was a fan...the more I rowed, the more breeze I got so whatever! I could have finished the circuit a fuck lot earlier but the 'squat with the bar behind your back' screwed me over because the bar started digging below my neck in between my shoulders and I had to stop. My mate showed me how to do it properly because I never did them before and by the time he showed me, I was way too late. Still, I'll smash that shit next week.

 

Had a proper workout today. Played Just Dance 2014 for about two and a half hours. Got to number 1 in the world (in the game I was in anyway) on Psy's Gentleman. Went to the gym for about 4-5 hours, did a run and now I'm fooking shattered! :D

 

What exactly did you in the gym for 4-5 hours?

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Can anyone recommend a good routine at the gym to work out the upper body, most importantly the shoulders and back? I'm happy with my chest, but I'm finding it impossible to get my shoulders to do anything, my lower abs too.

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Can anyone recommend a good routine at the gym to work out the upper body, most importantly the shoulders and back? I'm happy with my chest, but I'm finding it impossible to get my shoulders to do anything, my lower abs too.

 

Probably the best exercises you could do for your back and shoulders are:

 

Military Presses

Pull Ups

Bent over rows

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As Charlie said. More work for the shoulder could include some front and lateral raises. Any sort of 'rowing' is the best bet for the back, so in addition to the Bent over row, you could add some one armed rows in or inverted rows. Lat pull-downs are good too.

 

Reverse crunches and bicycle kicks are pretty good for the lower abs.

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Furthermore, if you like swimming front crawl is brilliant for the shoulders and back. When I joined the uni swimming club and swam just once a week (for an hour and a half) I noticed that very quickly I got a lot more strength in my shoulders. They didn't increase in size but it did allow me to lift heavier weights that did increase the size.

 

I'd really recommend front crawl to anyone who does a lot of weight lifting.

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Cool. 14/28kg isn't much in the grand scheme of things but it's a start, and there's A LOT you can do with them, to work your whole body. Not to mention bodyweight excerises like push ups, pull ups, planks etc and all their variations. Also you're not limited to just Dumbbell excersises and workouts but you can probably replicate a lot of the fashionable kettlebell stuff too.

 

Assuming your weights are fixed then your progression is going to have to be based on increasing your reps and sets, rather than weight. For example you might start doing 3 sets of 8 for an excersise and gradually work up to 5 sets of 12 or more.

 

Additionally you can also progress from easier exercises to harder ones. For example you might find Bent Over Rows with 14 kg get too easy fairly soon, so you can progress to Bent Over Flies. Similarly you can go from Goblet Squats to Double Dumbbell Front Squats, Cheat Curls to Curls to Hammercurls, Romanian Deadlifts to Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts, Lunges to Overhead Reverse Lunges, etc.

 

Additionally you can also combine excercises when they become too easy by themselves, such as the Clean and Press, Curl to Arnold Press, and Thrusters (squat to overhead press).

 

Good luck. :)

 

And i'm finding the 14kg ones pretty challenging. I'm not sure I'm making much progress.

 

I know it's takes a while. I did a week of travelling last week and it destroyed my progress i must say.

 

I'm back again now however.

Anyone got an example of a good food plan for someone bulking up or where to look. Getting conflicting results from everyone.

 

Some are saying now is the time to eat a LOT of your favourites food to gain weight and THEN work out to form it.

 

Others say otherwise.

 

it's a tough one.

 

i get the feeling I am still eating enough. What's happening to me though is everytime I push myself, I get sleepy.

 

What's also going wrong is when I exercise my lower body. I tend to get dizzy vision. is this normal? I wear glasses normally. I'm ok otherwise just my vision goes wonky.

Edited by mcj metroid

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And i'm finding the 14kg ones pretty challenging. I'm not sure I'm making much progress.

 

I know it's takes a while. I did a week of travelling last week and it destroyed my progress i must say.

 

I'm back again now however.

Anyone got an example of a good food plan for someone bulking up or where to look. Getting conflicting results from everyone.

 

Some are saying now is the time to eat a LOT of your favourites food to gain weight and THEN work out to form it.

 

Others say otherwise.

 

it's a tough one.

 

i get the feeling I am still eating enough. What's happening to me though is everytime I push myself, I get sleepy.

 

What's also going wrong is when I exercise my lower body. I tend to get dizzy vision. is this normal? I wear glasses normally. I'm ok otherwise just my vision goes wonky.

 

You'll make more better progress once you eat a bit more and start gaining weight. Weight gain in itself will make you stronger, while the extra calories and protein will help with recovery between workouts.

 

I'm not sure you need a specific eating plan. I would have thought eating a bigger than usual breakfast, and adding a post workout shake/meal would be sufficient to create a calorie surplus and start making decent gains.

 

As you say progress will be slow, not just with your exercises but gaining weight itself actually takes more time than most people think. Some overweight people I know act like they got fat over night, they didn't.

 

This is why keeping a log is critical, if you can just show yourself that you managed one extra rep than last time, or have gained just a single pound a lean body mass since the last time you examined youself, then you can take heart that you are on the right track. You'll have a visual record of your progress.

 

I'm not sure why you might be feeling sleepy and dizzy though, I think it might be helpful for people to see your rountine.

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How the hell do you keep yourself motivated? I haven't been to the gym in a few weeks now (although I've just booked a squash court to practice for 40 minutes later today). The worst thing are Friday evenings.

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You could create a token system economy where you're only allowed do things you like after you've gained enough tokens from going to the gym. Or you could use this website: beta.habitRPG.com

 

There's also the don't break the chain calendar marking system. It depends on what you're doing it for. I know that the next week when I got into the gym and I can lift that bit more, that feeling is exciting.

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