So im not trying to offend anyone or make a big assumption and i know this is not for everyone. But myself and my friends like to think we stay in pretty good shape and are pretty darn good at lifting weights and exercising in general. i weight lift and exercise everyday and i know there are many people like me who do the same. Im not saying every table top gamer is out of shape or has a few extra pounds they can loose but i got an idea that i use to use when i was a little over weight and had little to no muscle on my body and i incorporated Warhammer 40k, warhammer fantasy and other table games into it. I used the deaths of my troops the loss of a game, or simply the amout of time gaming i did to motivate me to hit the gym or get outside and exercise.
I would do a sit up for every conscript that died, I did 5 push ups for every tank that was destroyed, ran a mile for every Character that died or every game i lost, I did this till i started getting really good at exercising and i started bringing my own food that i made at home, salads, vegetables, chicken brown rice and such and moved away from the normal diet of chinese food and pizza i had at the game store, 2-3 times a week. now i love lifting and going on runs( but not as much as lifting) and i brought myself from 260 lbs of a high body fat percentage to a solid 210 lbs of about 10-15 % body fat. Anyone can do it if they want it enough.
What made me make the first move was getting into jr high when i could hardly do 10 pushups and my father was my PE teacher... i was embarrassed as heck. I came up with the warhammer idea. and started improving, soon i was doing 50 pushups every moring before school and before i went to bed, by the end of the school semester i did all 50 pushups for the test with ease. i was motivated and continued on, working on my run time, sit ups, and some weight lifting. When i hit high school i ran into a different problem. I joined the football team and ended up on the O-line. I was big and strong but it wasnt all muscle. By my senior year i was one of the strongest guys on the team but i had no defintiona in muscle tone and had a gut the stood out. i woe baggy clothes and was always embarrassed of the amount of fat i had. I got back to the warhammer workouts to put more cardio into my workouts and ate clean healthy foods. i lost my gut and 50 pounds over 4 months and was so happy. through out college i continued to workout and lift and run. I got onto an app called my fitness pal that tracked my improvements, goals, diet and helped me pick healthy foods, ect . ( its free btw) until i found myself where im at now. ive fought through knee, back and all around joint injuries and endless sore muscles but it brought ,e to where i am today. When i take a girl out on a date or meet new people the last thing they expect my hobby to be is table top gaming. I personally dont like this stereotype, and hope that others feel the same way .
So i was curious if anyone else has a similar story or anyone else who wants to change themselves like i did, change their life style. Lets here your story, maybe itll motivate someone ! Lets here who wants to change, post your work outs, post your advice, lets work together lets keep each other in check !
I got in shape for a bet it looks like im going to loose......
I wanted that sicaran. the sad thing is that I lost the weight in fat...but gained quite a bit in muscle that wasnt there before :(
So im guessing the weight as in the number on the scale was the bet?
but since you gained muscle you are going to lose the bet??
if ou really want to win. you can always look into a detox. just eat clean and buy a detox set from a nutrition store or a pharmacy. itll clean out your intestines of any extra.... lets call it "matter" lol and ive seen people lose 15 to 20 lbs in a matter of a week, ( if they havent done one in a long time, or never before) Just gotta stay extra hydrated and take in extra vitamins, because itll flush all that out along with the extra "matter"! good luck buddy, and be safe when you do it! .And look on the bright side you may have lost a sicaran but you gained muscle! ( PROBABLY MORE THAN THE GUY YOU BET TOO!) FMJ
yeah...it was get down to 280......im like 283-285 right now. sometimes 280.....
Automatically Appended Next Post:
fullmetaljacket wrote: So im guessing the weight as in the number on the scale was the bet?
but since you gained muscle you are going to lose the bet??
if ou really want to win. you can always look into a detox. just eat clean and buy a detox set from a nutrition store or a pharmacy. itll clean out your intestines of any extra.... lets call it "matter" lol and ive seen people lose 15 to 20 lbs in a matter of a week, ( if they havent done one in a long time, or never before) Just gotta stay extra hydrated and take in extra vitamins, because itll flush all that out along with the extra "matter"! good luck buddy, and be safe when you do it! .And look on the bright side you may have lost a sicaran but you gained muscle! ( PROBABLY MORE THAN THE GUY YOU BET TOO!) FMJ
detox my friend ..... look into a detox. i used a acai detox from CVS.. shed like 10 lbs of "matter' haha, of coarse i do detoxes very often lol check it out! get the muscle and the sicaran
FMJ
I sport and excersise quite a lot.
The trick is finding a sport you really like. There are so many different options, there is always something fun to do.
I did the bulk of my weight loss a few years ago. I was around 230 at my peak, down to about 170 now. I’m of fairly average build, 5’ 10” I’d like to loose a few more, but I’m reasonable stable at my current weight.
The thing that got me to start was my son. When I went in for a checkup, the doc asked “How tired do you get hauling him around all the time? Think of how much energy you’d have if you dropped that much weight off yourself”. It may have been a small thing, but it got me on the road.
Tricks that worked for me:
Cut the crap out of your diet. Soda, alcohol, candy, etc. It’s OK to treat yourself once and a while, but keep it rare.
Potion control. You don’t need to count every calorie you eat, but be sure you have a ballpark in/out.
Speaking of calories out, exercise. For me it was just walking a mile every day.
Compete. I joke that my ideal weight is 5 pounds less then my brother. As wargamers, we all have a competitive side; harness it for good.
I've been making an effort. I'm just a hair under 6' and hovering right around 200lbs at the moment. I'm down from record blob-like 270ish years ago, and mostly just disgusting local maximum of 230. I'm pretty far from being in good or even acceptable shape still, but at least when I look in the mirror these days I see something vaguely human-shaped.
I've got another 30 or so to go. I've just started to get into weights just to have a more well-rounded routine. The winter weather has really been messing with things, I was snowed out of the gym 2 days this week.
Was never absurdly huge but was a chubbier adolescent growing up. Ended up losing a ton of weight from getting out more, eating less, etc. Then I took an MMA class with Bas Rutten and some other guys...when Bas said he was training 14 hours a day, I figured the least I could do was a couple hours a day at the gym.
Took a long time off due to a back injury and other issues and had zero time to lift in the army but now I'm more or less back on track. I'm not huge but I've gone from ~170 to 190 in two years or so. Most of that is muscle.
Chongara wrote: I've been making an effort. I'm just a hair under 6' and hovering right around 200lbs at the moment. I'm down from record blob-like 270ish years ago, and mostly just disgusting local maximum of 230. I'm pretty far from being in good or even acceptable shape still, but at least when I look in the mirror these days I see something vaguely human-shaped.
I've got another 30 or so to go. I've just started to get into weights just to have a more well-rounded routine. The winter weather has really been messing with things, I was snowed out of the gym 2 days this week.
Insert up to 294 lbs and we have pretty much the same story.
Found Kendo to be good strength / weight loss method: wear armor and beat the heck out of each other with bamboo swords while screaming... good times.
Eat smaller amounts but more often that is what removed the huge amount of weight with little exercise.
Scottish ancestry tends to promote a rather brick shaped body type in the best of times, but showing positive progress for an old guy.
Never could get into working out, It just isn't fun. Luckily by...
-being naturally tall and skinny
-sporadically rock climbing
-moderatel watching what I eat
-being too cheap to eat-out often
...I've been able to stay "in-shape". Still, being trim isn't the same thing as overall health. I'm sure that my heart could benefit from more cardio. I keep telling myself that when the kids are a bit older I'll start jogging with my wife again.
On a related note, how one dresses can also make them appear more or less heavy. I was at the big FLGS yesterday. There were alot of folks there of varying builds. However I noticed what looked like a number of fairly slender folks who were wearing loose, baggy, or relaxed slacks. I'm not saying everyone should wear skinny jeans, but just switching to strait-fit jeans and a shirt that isn't XL would make many folks look (and probably feel) much more in-shape.
6'2", 190lbs. Ran 4 miles tuesday, 3 yesterday, 2 today. Work out regularly 4-5 times a week. Everyone in my gaming group is in the same shape or better then I am.
I'd honestly say that the ratio of "disgusting" gamers to not "disgusting" is probably pretty similar to the regular world.
-moderatel watching what I eat
-being too cheap to eat-out often
These two things go hand in hand. When you eat out, it’s hard to keep track of what’s in your food. A lot of places will put unhealthy stuff in the food because it tastes good. Can’t blame them for serving yummy stuff, but eating at home lets you know exactly what’s in your diet. Most pre-packaged, processed foods share the same problem.
http://www.thebodycoach.co.uk I would highly recommend him. Sign up for his emails and get a "lean in 15" guide emailed to you. Some really helpful tips there.
Just scroll to the bottom and fill in the "Free Get Lean Guide" form. You'll get 1 email a day for 15 days with helpful stuff in.
Some of his workouts on instagram are a bit hardcore but you can probably figure out a way to tone it down a little if you're just getting into it.
These two things go hand in hand. When you eat out, it’s hard to keep track of what’s in your food. A lot of places will put unhealthy stuff in the food because it tastes good. Can’t blame them for serving yummy stuff, but eating at home lets you know exactly what’s in your diet. Most pre-packaged, processed foods share the same problem.
Very True!
I'm very lucky in that despite working a full-time job, my wife see's cooking as a hobby and escape so even if I did over-indulge at lunch, I'm pretty much guaranteed a healthy dinner. Also I didn't mention that I usually skip breakfast and have an early lunch. The verdict is out about whether this is beneficial or harmful for adults. It's certainly not good for kids and teens who are still growing and you have to be sure you're not over-eating at lunch and dinner to compensate.
One problem with skipping meals it that it plays havoc with portion control. Sure, you don’t get the calories from breakfast, but there is a strong urge to overeat at lunch.
Rather then just passing on a meal, eat a 100 calorie healthy snack.
Obviously different techniques work better for different people. YYMV etc.
Nevelon wrote: One problem with skipping meals it that it plays havoc with portion control.
Not to mention your metabolism.
Its also worth noting that going for the traditional 3-square model of eating is counterproductive where weight loss is concerned, both for reasons of metabolism and portion control. I've always preferred the 5-6 small meals model, at least absent special occasions. Unfortunately that model is also not one supported by society, and is therefore either expensive, labor intensive, or boring (turkey, pepper jack, and onion sandwiches eventually get old).
Do cardio, eat healthy, bleed weight. It's how I did it. No tricks, no weird meal timing nonsense. No gimmicks. It's easy and fast if you are consistent.
- Just eat correctly (high volume so you feel full, low-calorie foods that are healthy)
- Stop drinking your calories (juice, pop, booze, etc) because they do nothing to satiate you and those valuable calories can be put into food that contributes.
- Introduce regular activity.
Went from 268 lbs of piss, to 160 lbs, currently 175 lbs of shredded lean mass, in three years.
For having a good weight, I think lots of exercise is more important than what you eat.
At least, I always eat a lot of food (and most of it rather fat with sauce etc.) but I struggle to get my weight past 55kg (that is about 120lbs I think). I constantly move around a lot (not so handy when having a miniatures hobby) so that could be the cause. It is funny because my mother almost eats nothing compared to what I eat, and she is a bit round and has to go on a diet every few months. She doesn't do sports.
Eh, I am 5'5 and 123 pds. I was 5'6 and 140 in the military but, I can't work out until the local VA says so. (Hate to mention that here on Dakka but, you guys don't judge.)
That being said, I cannot work my hip region so I am at a bit of a loss, I guess swimming will be my go to.
I would love to rebuild my arms and chest though. Problem is my diet/stomach has shrank. I eat like five bites and I am full, I hate it to be honest. I want to be 140 with huge arms again.
- Stop drinking your calories (juice, pop, booze, etc) because they do nothing to satiate you and those valuable calories can be put into food that contributes.
Booze does nothing, you're right, but the vitamins and minerals provided by certain beverages can be very helpful for weight loss and muscle gain; even if they contain calories.
I've been losing weight steadily for about 6 months now, I'm down about 15-20 kgs from where I was (depending on the exact time I want to say I started losing weight).
I was a big boy after university but I've decided to join the army and beat myself into shape. Doing it on my own was useless, I couldn't get the motivation the exercise or eat less, so i just bit the bullet and got a personal trainer, and I've started seeing great results.
Alcoholic beverages can be a healthy part of your diet as long as you follow the same rules that you should for everything else: not in excess. Beer has healthy nutrients, craft beers often more so than the CMB crap, and wine has health benefits as well. You can enjoy the occasional beverage with a meal (I pair my beer to complement my meal similar to how you pair wine) as long as you track it.
If you count calories, be sure to count the calories (that's what I usually do).
I have also heard that if you track servings then you should count wine as a fruit serving and beer as a grain serving, but don't quote me on that one.
6'1", and slightly under 200, and with a small build. I'm not fat in the sense "Oh, that guy is fat", or it's really an immediate problem, but I need to lose lose weight to stop it from becoming one. The crap they feed us in college doesn't help. It's hard to get a meal that isn't loaded with calories, and isn't a sandwich(I get tired of them after a while). I really need to just actually stick to an exersize schedule though.
hotsauceman1 wrote: I got in shape for a bet it looks like im going to loose......
I wanted that sicaran. the sad thing is that I lost the weight in fat...but gained quite a bit in muscle that wasnt there before :(
Should have bet on body fat index number, not pounds. :(
I used to be in great shape, but herniating a couple discs in my back over a decade ago changed that. After a couple years of caution to the wind, i've started a new ... diet's not the right word ... way of eating that more mimic's the way i ate when i was healthy.
Unfortunately, to really create the calorie deficit, i have to get back surgery. That process is also starting but we're still at the exploratory step with a new doctor.
If i can get that done and get rid of the chronic pain and the acute mobility issues the pain causes, i'll start working out again and get back into reasonably good shape for a 35 year old. I ctually miss exercising and how it feels.
I also quit smoking in the last 6 months too, which is another plus. Trying to make some healthy changes this year.
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Very simple method to losing weight. Create a calorie deficit. If you do this, day after day, week after week, you will lose weight. Bigger the deficit, the more the weight will come off.
Yes there are tons of other factors that slow or speed the process. A stupid diet hurts this, genetics help, getting sleep helps, and a slew of other things. At it's barest nuts and bolts ; burn more calories than you consume, and you will lose weight.
Anyone touting anything else is very likely trying to sell you on something, or has been snow jobbed themselves and are passing on that snowjob to you.
There are things that can assist you in creating a caloric deficit day after day, but nothing will make you lose weight except achieving a caloric deficit.
hotsauceman1 wrote: I got in shape for a bet it looks like im going to loose......
I wanted that sicaran. the sad thing is that I lost the weight in fat...but gained quite a bit in muscle that wasnt there before :(
Should have bet on body fat index number, not pounds. :(
I used to be in great shape, but herniating a couple discs in my back over a decade ago changed that. After a couple years of caution to the wind, i've started a new ... diet's not the right word ... way of eating that more mimic's the way i ate when i was healthy.
Unfortunately, to really create the calorie deficit, i have to get back surgery. That process is also starting but we're still at the exploratory step with a new doctor.
If i can get that done and get rid of the chronic pain and the acute mobility issues the pain causes, i'll start working out again and get back into reasonably good shape for a 35 year old. I ctually miss exercising and how it feels.
I also quit smoking in the last 6 months too, which is another plus. Trying to make some healthy changes this year.
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Very simple method to losing weight. Create a calorie deficit. If you do this, day after day, week after week, you will lose weight. Bigger the deficit, the more the weight will come off.
Yes there are tons of other factors that slow or speed the process. A stupid diet hurts this, genetics help, getting sleep helps, and a slew of other things. At it's barest nuts and bolts ; burn more calories than you consume, and you will lose weight.
Anyone touting anything else is very likely trying to sell you on something, or has been snow jobbed themselves and are passing on that snowjob to you.
There are things that can assist you in creating a caloric deficit day after day, but nothing will make you lose weight except achieving a caloric deficit.
I cant remember who told me, but not getting sleep will hurt you loosing weight
Beer is fine so long as you don't drink large amounts of it very often, and budget it into your overall calorie conumption.
...and don't drink it in the evening. No carbohydrates in the evening is the golden rule. Another problem is dehydration as alcohol heavily dehydrates your body and less hydration = bad.
hotsauceman1 wrote: I got in shape for a bet it looks like im going to loose......
I wanted that sicaran. the sad thing is that I lost the weight in fat...but gained quite a bit in muscle that wasnt there before :(
Should have bet on body fat index number, not pounds. :(
I used to be in great shape, but herniating a couple discs in my back over a decade ago changed that. After a couple years of caution to the wind, i've started a new ... diet's not the right word ... way of eating that more mimic's the way i ate when i was healthy.
Unfortunately, to really create the calorie deficit, i have to get back surgery. That process is also starting but we're still at the exploratory step with a new doctor.
If i can get that done and get rid of the chronic pain and the acute mobility issues the pain causes, i'll start working out again and get back into reasonably good shape for a 35 year old. I ctually miss exercising and how it feels.
I also quit smoking in the last 6 months too, which is another plus. Trying to make some healthy changes this year.
-------------
Very simple method to losing weight. Create a calorie deficit. If you do this, day after day, week after week, you will lose weight. Bigger the deficit, the more the weight will come off.
Yes there are tons of other factors that slow or speed the process. A stupid diet hurts this, genetics help, getting sleep helps, and a slew of other things. At it's barest nuts and bolts ; burn more calories than you consume, and you will lose weight.
Anyone touting anything else is very likely trying to sell you on something, or has been snow jobbed themselves and are passing on that snowjob to you.
There are things that can assist you in creating a caloric deficit day after day, but nothing will make you lose weight except achieving a caloric deficit.
I cant remember who told me, but not getting sleep will hurt you loosing weight
Yep, it's one of those things that can influence it negatively, but if you're burning 3200 calories a day, but only taking in 1800. You will lose weight even if you're only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night.
Not that i'm saying that's good, its' not, sleep is healthy, and there's plenty of evidence that sleep has a positive effect on weight loss, but again, 90% of the weight loss battle is creating a caloric deficit. All the other stuff squashes into that 10%.
The main reason 8-9 hours of sleep a night is good for weight loss is there's a ... crap... forget if its enzyme or protein or chemical that you produce when you sleep. Deprivation of this chemical can trigger a hunger response even when you are not actually hungry, which can cause you eat, and... you guessed it... make that caloric deficit harder to achieve.
Yep, it's one of those things that can influence it negatively, but if you're burning 3200 calories a day, but only taking in 1800. You will lose weight even if you're only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night.
Not that i'm saying that's good, its' not, sleep is healthy, and there's plenty of evidence that sleep has a positive effect on weight loss, but again, 90% of the weight loss battle is creating a caloric deficit. All the other stuff squashes into that 10%.
The main reason 8-9 hours of sleep a night is good for weight loss is there's a ... crap... forget if its enzyme or protein or chemical that you produce when you sleep. Deprivation of this chemical can trigger a hunger response even when you are not actually hungry, which can cause you eat, and... you guessed it... make that caloric deficit harder to achieve.
Lots of things happen when you don't sleep / are stressed etc. that are bad for weight loss...
Cortisol production increases with stress and sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation also stimulates ghrelin production, which will make you hungry.
I feel kinda bad honestly since it seems I'm the exact opposite problem in that, I can't gain any kind of decent weight... Right now I'm just about stretching it to 5'3", but I really struggle to keep at even 105lbs. Mostly this is due to my dad having almost certainly passed his beta thalassemia minor to me. But I've always been the frankly ridiculously tiny girl that everyone hates on for being able to seemingly eat anything & everything, while never gaining so much as a slight pimple of a gut.
Heck, when a couple of my friends came to watch one of my hockey tournies back when I was still able to play, they honestly couldn't recognise me out on the ice, due to my equipment pretty much doubling my physical size! (hell, my own mum had a few instances where she forgot which player I was since she no longer needs a magnifying glass to find me... )
Hence, my 'get in shape' attempts are more or less 'try to gain some actual proper human size' attempts.
Beer is really really really bad for weight loss. Maybe try switching to whiskey and diet coke...it's pretty low-impact as far as booze goes.
100 ml of Whiskey contain roughly 210 calories. Beer has about 42.
Whiskey has less carbohydrates (same as e.g. Vodka), but still does a good pounding. Overall, however, it's about drink size. A beer bottle is 330 ml, which means a bottle of beer (which you can easily sip away!) has roughly 139 calories. That's about 50% less than a glass of Whiskey and (diet!) coke. Sounds good, eh? No. I mean...you easily get through 8 bottles of beer (1100ish cal!), but would you also down about 6 glasses of Whiskey+Coke aka 600 ml of Whiskey?
But then again...feth it. I mean, really. I am pretty good in shape, run marathons etc. yet still go out and drink on a frequent basis (totally not related to being a father...haha). As others said, if you burn a lot, you can take a lot. Just don't let it get too excessive.
Yep, it's one of those things that can influence it negatively, but if you're burning 3200 calories a day, but only taking in 1800. You will lose weight even if you're only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night.
Not that i'm saying that's good, its' not, sleep is healthy, and there's plenty of evidence that sleep has a positive effect on weight loss, but again, 90% of the weight loss battle is creating a caloric deficit. All the other stuff squashes into that 10%.
The main reason 8-9 hours of sleep a night is good for weight loss is there's a ... crap... forget if its enzyme or protein or chemical that you produce when you sleep. Deprivation of this chemical can trigger a hunger response even when you are not actually hungry, which can cause you eat, and... you guessed it... make that caloric deficit harder to achieve.
Lots of things happen when you don't sleep / are stressed etc. that are bad for weight loss...
Cortisol production increases with stress and sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation also stimulates ghrelin production, which will make you hungry.
Thanks for clarifying... i got my wires crossed a little, but the message is the same : if you are sleep deprived there's a reaction in the brain that makes you hungry when you're not. Definitely appreciate the clarification on this.
Beer can easily hit the 200 calorie mark if you are drinking good stuff, which you should if you are enjoying it occasionally or pairing it with food.
Whiskey/Rum/whatever is usually something I will drink neat or with ice since I enjoy high quality liquors that can be enjoyed slowly instead of cheap nasty liquor that has to be poured in a mixed drink or used for shots. For me, when I sip on a drink like that I usually only drink right around 2 oz with a little ice.
I think with alcohol it comes down to purpose. Drinking for the same of drinking will have a different analysis than enjoying a drink. I wouldn't drink 8 bottles of beer unless I'm planning on getting drunk since there are a lot better ways to get your hydration at a party, but I also would drink 6 mixed drinks either for the same reason.
My executive summary: if you plan to get drunk find yourself the least horrible "lite" beer (is there such a thing) to minimize damage. If you are enjoying a drink with a meal or as a treat in the evening the difference is pretty insignificant as long as you keep track of what you are drinking and still burn more than you take in for the day.
I'm around 90-ish KGs, 1.73 meters height, 26 years old. I'm "okay-ish", neither in shape, neither scary fat.
I already had to do an extreme diet once in my lifetime and major exercise to reduce my weight from over 110 KGs when I was 16 and I was diagnosed with hypertension.
Never again. I will occasionally return to the gym and do my best for around 6 months until I'm completely fed up again with the extreme boredom that's exercise.
I think I'm lucky I almost never drink nor never smoked My worst "drug" are 2 mandatory cups of coffee (or expressos for our american friends). I love me coffee ... and chocolate! No point being alive if you don't devour chocolate once in a while.
During the earlier part of the school year (Sept.-Dec.) I had basically no time for the Church of Iron, as with school, parking, driving and taking care of my kids, etc. I just couldn't make it out.... So, I "blew up" to about 240 (I was 220 in April when I left the army).
Fast forward to now, after 1 month in the gym, I'm throwing plates onto the bar faster than really feels all that comfortable, I'm still at 240 (obviously), but with the weight I'm putting onto the bar, and what I'm doing in the gym, I haven't felt this good in years, aside from my shoulder.
Ashiraya wrote: I am actually quite healthy in lifestyle, but what keeps me from slowly going towards an even better shape is my love for very very very late eating.
So much bro-science in this thread, lol.
I got some news for you: that doesn't matter. You should do your own research instead of listening to information that gets passed around by non-dieters still repeating drivel from 40 years ago.
This post isn't aimed specifically at you Ash, that late night eating thing just gets to me. Anyone in here can benefit from the following info.
I eat almost all of my daily macros (calories, proteins, fats, carbs) in the late evening and my physique only improves as time passes. You know why? The body doesn't care when you get your allotment of calories and macros in, so long as it's a certain number pertinent to your goals (weight loss = deficit).
Late eating, after 6pm nonsense, meal timing, lol @ all of it. Just excuses. I'm sure I'll be quoted a bunch of times and told off, etc, etc, but it's okay.
The truth will eventually unshackle you from the prisons of your current selves if you let it. We have only just entered the new year, take the right path now, friends. If I can do it, any of you can. Believe me when I say that. I was an addict in a lot of ways - addicted to video games, food, sedentary and convenient living. You have to want it bad enough, no one is going to do it for you and the only absolute single factor keeping you from working out 45 minutes per day (budget an hour total for gym travel), is YOURSELF.
Don't tell me your kids, job, etc take up too much time. You can slice an hour out of your damn TV time, hobby time, FORUM LURKING TIME, or whatever to improve your health, body, and mind. It's far more rewarding than watching a cot-damn re-run of a TV show, come on! I'm in the gym every day, and I see people from all ages who are fit because they want to be. In fact most of the patrons in my temple are in their 40s. To relate an extreme case, I do cardio 4 days a week with a 76 year old German guy, and he actually comes very close to beating me sometimes (our timers start at the same time, but I usually make it to the finish line before him). Alex used to beat me regularly when I first started racing his skinny ass, but I have since surpassed him by a wide margin.
As far as dieting goes - that's 80% of this game. Don't sit there and tell me dieting is hard either. It isn't, you just need to take the time to design a menu for yourself with profiles that fit your goal. Being here on Dakka, you guys should have ZERO ISSUE DOING THIS. You build army lists for fun regularly and meticulously plan out how to win imaginary battles with plastic models and have nothing to show for it afterward. Why not put an hour into designing a healthy meal that you'll enjoy and actually be productive?
I realize Dakka is probably not the best place to get on a for fitness, but if we're gonna discuss it as adults in a thread, then let's discuss it honestly, no?
edits - Grammar and clarification on some stuff. Sorry.
As far as dieting goes - that's 80% of this game. Don't sit there and tell me dieting is hard either. It isn't, you just need to take the time to design a menu for yourself with profiles that fit your goal. Being here on Dakka, you guys should have ZERO ISSUE DOING THIS. You build army lists for fun regularly and meticulously plan out how to win imaginary battles with plastic models and have nothing to show for it afterward. Why not put an hour into designing a healthy meal that you'll enjoy and actually be productive?
edits - Grammar and clarification on some stuff. Sorry.
Also, Finding healthy food you love isnt hard ,just experimentation. I used to hate salads. Now every meal I have a Spinach Salad w/ olive, mushrooms, Kidny and garbanzo beans. with a bit of olive oil and smothered in Sriacha
Garbanzo beans are great. low relatively low calorie (the can I happen to have on my desk is 350 for 15.5 oz. but still very tasty. Redpeppers are good too.
...and don't drink it in the evening. No carbohydrates in the evening is the golden rule. Another problem is dehydration as alcohol heavily dehydrates your body and less hydration = bad.
Dehydration isn't a huge issue so long as it ins't something you constantly suffer from. Where the consumption of alcohol is concerned beer isn't likely to dehydrate you overly much, as its alcohol content is quite low relative to the amount of water it contains. Conversely, hard alcohol will generally dehydrate you a great deal, as most of it is 40% ABV (80 proof in the US). However, even that can be mitigated by using a chaser that either will not dehydrate you, or help you hydrate (I was always a fan of sports drinks), and of course there's always the method of interspersing drinks with water.
As to the "no carbs in the evening" thing: the main reason that advice is given is because foods high in carbs tend to be less filling than alternatives. As such people will often consume more calories than they would otherwise have intended to because they don't feel "full". I mean, think about it, what's more filling: 200 calories of pretzels (or god forbid, potato chips) or 200 calories of lean protein?
I eat almost all of my daily macros (calories, proteins, fats, carbs) in the late evening and my physique only improves as time passes. You know why? The body doesn't care when you get your allotment of calories and macros in, so long as it's a certain number pertinent to your goals (weight loss = deficit).
In general that's true, but there is a significant degree of variance with respect to timing and activity level. Remember, your body only metabolizes adipose tissue when its at rest which, for the most part, means when you're asleep. As such, front-loading your consumption of calories, especially calories from fat, will see a quicker reduction in body fat than the standard calorie deficit approach.
Of course, this can also be sped up by cutting out as many calories from fat as possible, but that has its own issues regarding habituation.
You have to want it bad enough, no one is going to do it for you and the only absolute single factor keeping you from working out 45 minutes per day (budget an hour total for gym travel), is YOURSELF.
I know people that struggle to get 5 hours of sleep a night due to 60-80 hour work weeks, professional commitments (eg. work events that are "optional"*), and personal commitments(family mostly, but friends as well). If by "YOURSELF" what you meant all the other things a particular person has to do in order to live, then sure, I agree.
I realize Dakka is probably not the best place to get on a for fitness, but if we're gonna discuss it as adults in a thread, then let's discuss it honestly, no?
I would start with not referring to your gym as a "temple"
*Oddly enough, gyms are among the worst employers when it comes to this sort of thing as many of them want to establish a communitarian atmosphere where the staff is the heart of the community. I suppose that may work for some members, but its hell on a lot of the staff, and one of the reasons I used to primarily work out at a nearby Gold's even when I was managing a closer gym.
Experiment 626 wrote: I feel kinda bad honestly since it seems I'm the exact opposite problem in that, I can't gain any kind of decent weight... Right now I'm just about stretching it to 5'3", but I really struggle to keep at even 105lbs. .
I was very similar to this. For the longest time I was pretty underweight. I'm 6'3". 7 months ago I was 150 pounds (68kg). Pretty skinny. I've always had trouble gaining weight due to a mix of chemical and metabolism imbalances. Eating 3 full meals would cause me to lose weight. I finally managed to get in the gym and get on a proper lifting regiment and I've been putting a solid 8 pounds (3.5kg) of muscle on every month, and have been holding that pace steadily.
Soladrin wrote: I don't gain any weight and have remained under weight forever. I am 25 years old now. Still can't gain weight even if I have a pizza month.
yolo.
I was the same as this till I hit about 32. I tried to get above 63kg for about 10 years and now after a few years above 32 years I can now crack 74 kg. Never give up hope! You can have a belly too!
For all you young whippersnappers complaining about not being able to put on weight, your time will come. At some point your metabolism will slow down, and the days of eating a whole pizza and washing it down with a 2-liter to no affect will be behind you.
Nevelon wrote: For all you young whippersnappers complaining about not being able to put on weight, your time will come. At some point your metabolism will slow down, and the days of eating a whole pizza and washing it down with a 2-liter to no affect will be behind you.
Ashiraya wrote: I am actually quite healthy in lifestyle, but what keeps me from slowly going towards an even better shape is my love for very very very late eating.
So much bro-science in this thread, lol.
I got some news for you: that doesn't matter. You should do your own research instead of listening to information that gets passed around by non-dieters still repeating drivel from 40 years ago.
This post isn't aimed specifically at you Ash, that late night eating thing just gets to me. Anyone in here can benefit from the following info.
I eat almost all of my daily macros (calories, proteins, fats, carbs) in the late evening and my physique only improves as time passes. You know why? The body doesn't care when you get your allotment of calories and macros in, so long as it's a certain number pertinent to your goals (weight loss = deficit).
Late eating, after 6pm nonsense, meal timing, lol @ all of it. Just excuses. I'm sure I'll be quoted a bunch of times and told off, etc, etc, but it's okay.
The truth will eventually unshackle you from the prisons of your current selves if you let it. We have only just entered the new year, take the right path now, friends. If I can do it, any of you can. Believe me when I say that. I was an addict in a lot of ways - addicted to video games, food, sedentary and convenient living. You have to want it bad enough, no one is going to do it for you and the only absolute single factor keeping you from working out 45 minutes per day (budget an hour total for gym travel), is YOURSELF.
Don't tell me your kids, job, etc take up too much time. You can slice an hour out of your damn TV time, hobby time, FORUM LURKING TIME, or whatever to improve your health, body, and mind. It's far more rewarding than watching a cot-damn re-run of a TV show, come on! I'm in the gym every day, and I see people from all ages who are fit because they want to be. In fact most of the patrons in my temple are in their 40s. To relate an extreme case, I do cardio 4 days a week with a 76 year old German guy, and he actually comes very close to beating me sometimes (our timers start at the same time, but I usually make it to the finish line before him). Alex used to beat me regularly when I first started racing his skinny ass, but I have since surpassed him by a wide margin.
As far as dieting goes - that's 80% of this game. Don't sit there and tell me dieting is hard either. It isn't, you just need to take the time to design a menu for yourself with profiles that fit your goal. Being here on Dakka, you guys should have ZERO ISSUE DOING THIS. You build army lists for fun regularly and meticulously plan out how to win imaginary battles with plastic models and have nothing to show for it afterward. Why not put an hour into designing a healthy meal that you'll enjoy and actually be productive?
I realize Dakka is probably not the best place to get on a for fitness, but if we're gonna discuss it as adults in a thread, then let's discuss it honestly, no?
edits - Grammar and clarification on some stuff. Sorry.
While you're delivery is absolutely cringeworthy, the message of your post, beneath the layers and layers of pseudo-gym-corporate-preach speak is dead on, with but one exception:
When you have an avatar that is (what i assume) a shirtless ab selfie shot, you are not allowed to call anyone or anything a "bro", "brah", or "bruh" and remain credible.
Seriously though, you have the right message, if you dialed back the rhetoric i think people might listen more. And trust me, i know how it is. I was a hardcore gym rat for a long, long time before i herniated 3 discs in my back during an unlucky deadlift accident. I know what its like to look at people and think "Friggin' slob, just get off your ass. It's not hard. " Except it is. It's probably the hardest part. The diet maintenance is easy. The cardio ? meh, autopilot after 3 weeks. The lifting ? easy peasy.
The biggest hurdle is yourself, but that's a big hurdle a lot of the time, and it's a 100% legit one. Downplaying it ignores the biggest part of health and fitness science ; the psychological.
Rainbow Dash wrote: I think it's worse to have a neckbeard, fedora and flame shirt...
No one thinks neckbeards are cool, no one!
When will nerds learn, fething fedoras are not meant for casual wear. They are meant for very formal wear and not with curly locks.
If you want a nice hat that is good casual, a drivers cap is good.
Rainbow Dash wrote: I think it's worse to have a neckbeard, fedora and flame shirt...
No one thinks neckbeards are cool, no one!
When will nerds learn, fething fedoras are not meant for casual wear. They are meant for very formal wear and not with curly locks.
If you want a nice hat that is good casual, a drivers cap is good.
No, Drivers cap can be just as terrible. If you're not wearing an outfit that supports a hat look, then no matter what you wear it will look bad. Wearing flowing button up shirts that are obviously too big for you, or with dumb designs, with any hatwear will just look terrible.
Rainbow Dash wrote: I think it's worse to have a neckbeard, fedora and flame shirt...
No one thinks neckbeards are cool, no one!
When will nerds learn, fething fedoras are not meant for casual wear. They are meant for very formal wear and not with curly locks.
If you want a nice hat that is good casual, a drivers cap is good.
Someone please explain this fedora thing to me. I don't get it. It seems to be a popular thing but it always seem to feature total social outcasts with highly questionable hobbies and such.
They're ugly, look dated and reek terribly of trying too hard. If you're a man under 50 no hats, end of story. Even if you don't understand the "Why" of it just try to accept the truth of it. People aren't going to tell you "No Hats" out of some mean spirited attempt to leave your poor head cover-less it's just a fair truth about where style stands currently.
EDIT:
If all else fails when it comes to knowing how to dress, just check out some actor you like. Google image search their name and look at what they wear around public, when not in character obviously. These are dudes whose job is to look good, and have professionals whose job it is to help them do just that. Granted it's going to be terribly expensive and not suited for every body type but it'll certainly give you a general thrust to understand where things stand,
Sigvatr wrote: Someone please explain this fedora thing to me. I don't get it. It seems to be a popular thing but it always seem to feature total social outcasts with highly questionable hobbies and such.
People trying to look classy, but not realizing that you don't wear fedoras with jeans and an Iron Maiden shirt.
Sigvatr wrote: Someone please explain this fedora thing to me. I don't get it. It seems to be a popular thing but it always seem to feature total social outcasts with highly questionable hobbies and such.
People trying to look classy, but not realizing that you don't wear fedoras with jeans and an Iron Maiden shirt.
While you're delivery is absolutely cringeworthy, the message of your post, beneath the layers and layers of pseudo-gym-corporate-preach speak is dead on, with but one exception:
When you have an avatar that is (what i assume) a shirtless ab selfie shot, you are not allowed to call anyone or anything a "bro", "brah", or "bruh" and remain credible.
Seriously though, you have the right message, if you dialed back the rhetoric i think people might listen more. And trust me, i know how it is. I was a hardcore gym rat for a long, long time before i herniated 3 discs in my back during an unlucky deadlift accident. I know what its like to look at people and think "Friggin' slob, just get off your ass. It's not hard. " Except it is. It's probably the hardest part. The diet maintenance is easy. The cardio ? meh, autopilot after 3 weeks. The lifting ? easy peasy.
The biggest hurdle is yourself, but that's a big hurdle a lot of the time, and it's a 100% legit one. Downplaying it ignores the biggest part of health and fitness science ; the psychological.
Where exactly did I call anyone a bro or bruh in my post anyway? What does my avatar have to do with anything? Nice reach you did there, you mad about something? *rolls eyes*
Herniated discs happen when people lift beyond their abilities. Gym safety or knowledge not even once. Also, way to downplay the effort that's required to stay consistent, and attend consistently. Oh yeah, dieting is so easy to stick with too, that's why so many people are in excellent shape everywhere you go, right?
All of the above makes me think you don't know what you're talking about, and you bash my credibility?
Of all the people that I personally know, only 2 can pull off the fedora.... 1 wears it to work, however his work dress code calls for slacks, button up shirts and dress shoes. The shirt has to be plain, with his name tag. So he's not doing the Maiden t-shirt with sleeves removed and Hot Topic brand circus tent pants with a million chains hanging off. The other only wears his outside, and only when he's wearing his jacket (think similar to the Dickies "work jacket" that you occasionally see mechanics wear, but not quite) and he only wears the jacket when he wears an appropriately "dressy" shirt.
Now, I somewhat agree with the cabbie hat (aka drivers cap, etc)... but it also, to me, requires some dress to make it work. I personally own a hat of this style, but only wear it when I'm wearing a button down shirt with the intentions of rolling the sleeves. This also tends to get worn with boots and dark jeans. The theme with all this stuff of course, is appropriate dress. BUT!!!! It also comes down to facial shape, and quite simply, there's a ton of nerds who do not have a face that can "Support" a small brimmed hat like a fedora or driver's cap.
Anyhow, to chime in with some other posters here: YOU are the biggest obstacle to your own fitness. You have to be willing to sacrifice something. As I said earlier, my schedule last quarter didn't leave me with anyhting that I was willing to sacrifice (or was able to) in order to get up to the gym. Right now, I'm "lucky" that I have the schedule that I do, because it allows me tons of time to hit the gym after class, before I head home and eat/do homework, etc.
I'll never join the dark side! *begins eating triple bacon cheese burger, topped with sunny side egg, lots of mayo, processed bun, processed cheese, and a big gulp of dr. pepper*
The biggest hurdle is yourself, but that's a big hurdle a lot of the time, and it's a 100% legit one. Downplaying it ignores the biggest part of health and fitness science ; the psychological.
And one, oddly enough, created by the sort of people that refer to gyms as temples.
The biggest hurdle is yourself, but that's a big hurdle a lot of the time, and it's a 100% legit one. Downplaying it ignores the biggest part of health and fitness science ; the psychological.
And one, oddly enough, created by the sort of people that refer to gyms as temples.
Yeah, you can blame me all you like for not getting up and doing something. That's real good.
How do you think I felt walking into a gym full of yolked dudes when I was 268 lbs? What matters is that you've resolved to stop your current lifestyle and improve every day following. That person is permanently left behind. If you care what other people think inside the gym, then you've already failed.
The biggest hurdle is yourself, but that's a big hurdle a lot of the time, and it's a 100% legit one. Downplaying it ignores the biggest part of health and fitness science ; the psychological.
And one, oddly enough, created by the sort of people that refer to gyms as temples.
I don't think it was created by guys/gals who refer to gyms as "temples" or "churches", etc. It certainly isn't helped any by it... It's on much the same token as I think that CrossFit is ruining fitness as a whole. Going to the gym shouldn't have it's own decoder ring just to figure out what's going on, and I feel that you REALLY almost need that whenever CF people get together. Seriously, stop talking about going to the "box" to do your "wod" and any other silly, idiotic thing they've made up. Also, workouts shouldn't have special names. I don't mean "Today, I'm changing my routine and going with a 5x5 workout" I mean (and I just did a quick google search) things like, "Today, we're all gonna be doing Fran" or "Firefighter Billy's Stupendous Butt Burner" (yeah, I made that last one up)
While you're delivery is absolutely cringeworthy, the message of your post, beneath the layers and layers of pseudo-gym-corporate-preach speak is dead on, with but one exception:
When you have an avatar that is (what i assume) a shirtless ab selfie shot, you are not allowed to call anyone or anything a "bro", "brah", or "bruh" and remain credible.
Seriously though, you have the right message, if you dialed back the rhetoric i think people might listen more. And trust me, i know how it is. I was a hardcore gym rat for a long, long time before i herniated 3 discs in my back during an unlucky deadlift accident. I know what its like to look at people and think "Friggin' slob, just get off your ass. It's not hard. " Except it is. It's probably the hardest part. The diet maintenance is easy. The cardio ? meh, autopilot after 3 weeks. The lifting ? easy peasy.
The biggest hurdle is yourself, but that's a big hurdle a lot of the time, and it's a 100% legit one. Downplaying it ignores the biggest part of health and fitness science ; the psychological.
Where exactly did I call anyone a bro or bruh in my post anyway? What does my avatar have to do with anything? Nice reach you did there, you mad about something? *rolls eyes*
Herniated discs happen when people lift beyond their abilities. Gym safety or knowledge not even once. Also, way to downplay the effort that's required to stay consistent, and attend consistently. Oh yeah, dieting is so easy to stick with too, that's why so many people are in excellent shape everywhere you go, right?
All of the above makes me think you don't know what you're talking about, and you bash my credibility?
You said bro-science, so that is where I got bro from for one. And it was a joke. Note the smiley after my statement. If you don't recall, i can quote it for you.
And herniated discs do not happen when you lift beyond capacity. They can happen to anyone. I did not lift beyond my ability, or use incorrect form. My water bottle fell over and leaked, and when i picked up the bar from the static bar and took a step backwards to get into starting stance, i slipped on it, went ass over tea kettle, tried to recover, twisted, and that's how i did it. I was on a high rep, low weight cycle ; the weight was barely 60% of my maximum at the time. It was more than enough, seeing as every pound of torque or compression on your spine is multiplied by 10 once you raise a wait past you shoulder (either laterally or above your head).
Hopefully you won't be lucky enough to find out someday with hubris like this, though. Maybe not a disc, maybe it 'll be rotator cuff, or miniscus, or achilles tendon or something. Hopefully you won't find out just how fragile your body is.
Also note that before your rush to get all offended, i was agreeing with you, just not your very clearly preachy delivery.
Note also that we said the *exact* same thing : that junk science is that, junk, and to lose weight = create calorie deficit. You can feel that i don't know what i'm talking about, it will not ultimately bother me one way or the other. It wont' change the fact that speeches like that make you come off like every lunk in every gym, everywhere ; a walking work out cliche.
The biggest hurdle is yourself, but that's a big hurdle a lot of the time, and it's a 100% legit one. Downplaying it ignores the biggest part of health and fitness science ; the psychological.
And one, oddly enough, created by the sort of people that refer to gyms as temples.
I don't think it was created by guys/gals who refer to gyms as "temples" or "churches", etc. It certainly isn't helped any by it... It's on much the same token as I think that CrossFit is ruining fitness as a whole. Going to the gym shouldn't have it's own decoder ring just to figure out what's going on, and I feel that you REALLY almost need that whenever CF people get together. Seriously, stop talking about going to the "box" to do your "wod" and any other silly, idiotic thing they've made up. Also, workouts shouldn't have special names. I don't mean "Today, I'm changing my routine and going with a 5x5 workout" I mean (and I just did a quick google search) things like, "Today, we're all gonna be doing Fran" or "Firefighter Billy's Stupendous Butt Burner" (yeah, I made that last one up)
You don't even need programs to make progress. At all. I know you know this, I'm just agreeing with you. People only need to do like 10 minutes of basic research on the net to know as much as they need to make progress.
I don't follow a program, I can say with 100% certainty that I've never repeated a single 'routine' twice in my entire life (cardio doesn't count, because that's just a heart rate game). I just go in with the goal of attacking a specific muscle that day, and do a large mix of isos. Compounds a little bit toward the end.
CrossFit people are hard to deal with because they've bought into the marketing. Obviously most things in the gym have the potential to be dangerous, but Crossfit specifically puts you in very dangerous programming. How is this safe, at all?
You said bro-science, so that is where I got bro from for one. And it was a joke. Note the smiley after my statement. If you don't recall, i can quote it for you.
Bro-science is used to describe advice that is plain incorrect but perpetuated by the misinformed, or advice with zero scientific backing (usually shared between workout 'bros'), I'm pretty sure anyone could figure that out. I wasn't calling anyone anything.
Like when people say eating carbs in the evening causes weight gain. Bro-science at its finest. How can anyone gain weight at all if they consume under maintenance calories even if it's 10 minutes before falling asleep? Magical bodies?
The biggest hurdle is yourself, but that's a big hurdle a lot of the time, and it's a 100% legit one. Downplaying it ignores the biggest part of health and fitness science ; the psychological.
And one, oddly enough, created by the sort of people that refer to gyms as temples.
I don't think it was created by guys/gals who refer to gyms as "temples" or "churches", etc. It certainly isn't helped any by it... It's on much the same token as I think that CrossFit is ruining fitness as a whole. Going to the gym shouldn't have it's own decoder ring just to figure out what's going on, and I feel that you REALLY almost need that whenever CF people get together. Seriously, stop talking about going to the "box" to do your "wod" and any other silly, idiotic thing they've made up. Also, workouts shouldn't have special names. I don't mean "Today, I'm changing my routine and going with a 5x5 workout" I mean (and I just did a quick google search) things like, "Today, we're all gonna be doing Fran" or "Firefighter Billy's Stupendous Butt Burner" (yeah, I made that last one up)
You don't even need programs to make progress. At all. I know you know this, I'm just agreeing with you. People only need to do like 10 minutes of basic research on the net to know as much as they need to make progress.
I don't follow a program, I can say with 100% certainty that I've never repeated a single 'routine' twice in my entire life (cardio doesn't count, because that's just a heart rate game). I just go in with the goal of attacking a specific muscle that day, and do a large mix of isos. Compounds a little bit toward the end.
CrossFit people are hard to deal with because they've bought into the marketing.
Obviously most things in the gym have the potential to be dangerous, but Crossfit specifically puts you in very dangerous programming. How is this safe, at all?
You said bro-science, so that is where I got bro from for one. And it was a joke. Note the smiley after my statement. If you don't recall, i can quote it for you.
Bro-science is used to describe advice with zero scientific backing (usually shared between workout 'bros'), I'm pretty sure anyone could figure that out. I wasn't calling anyone anything.
Like when people say eating carbs in the evening causes weight gain. Bro-science at its finest. How can anyone gain weight at all if they consume under maintenance calories even if it's 10 minutes before falling asleep? Magical bodies?
Brah, that's all functional strength in case you need to throw a bar with 45's on it across the gym to your buddy.
The biggest hurdle is yourself, but that's a big hurdle a lot of the time, and it's a 100% legit one. Downplaying it ignores the biggest part of health and fitness science ; the psychological.
And one, oddly enough, created by the sort of people that refer to gyms as temples.
I don't think it was created by guys/gals who refer to gyms as "temples" or "churches", etc. It certainly isn't helped any by it... It's on much the same token as I think that CrossFit is ruining fitness as a whole. Going to the gym shouldn't have it's own decoder ring just to figure out what's going on, and I feel that you REALLY almost need that whenever CF people get together. Seriously, stop talking about going to the "box" to do your "wod" and any other silly, idiotic thing they've made up. Also, workouts shouldn't have special names. I don't mean "Today, I'm changing my routine and going with a 5x5 workout" I mean (and I just did a quick google search) things like, "Today, we're all gonna be doing Fran" or "Firefighter Billy's Stupendous Butt Burner" (yeah, I made that last one up)
You don't even need programs to make progress. At all. I know you know this, I'm just agreeing with you. People only need to do like 10 minutes of basic research on the net to know as much as they need to make progress.
I don't follow a program, I can say with 100% certainty that I've never repeated a single 'routine' twice in my entire life (cardio doesn't count, because that's just a heart rate game). I just go in with the goal of attacking a specific muscle that day, and do a large mix of isos. Compounds a little bit toward the end.
CrossFit people are hard to deal with because they've bought into the marketing. Obviously most things in the gym have the potential to be dangerous, but Crossfit specifically puts you in very dangerous programming. How is this safe, at all?
You said bro-science, so that is where I got bro from for one. And it was a joke. Note the smiley after my statement. If you don't recall, i can quote it for you.
Bro-science is used to describe advice with zero scientific backing (usually shared between workout 'bros'), I'm pretty sure anyone could figure that out. I wasn't calling anyone anything.
Like when people say eating carbs in the evening causes weight gain. Bro-science at its finest. How can anyone gain weight at all if they consume under maintenance calories even if it's 10 minutes before falling asleep? Magical bodies?
Brah, that's all functional strength in case you need to throw a bar with 45's on it across the gym to your buddy.
Yeah for sure. This type of training is also ideal for . . . building your power level when you're on the way to Namek to fight a galactic dictator who looks and sounds like a girl but is actually a really scary man:
The other really bad thing about CrossFit is that even their basic calisthenics are dangerous:
GOODNIGHT SWEET JOINTS. I mean pretty much all CF does is teach you the correct way to do things incorrectly and how to injure yourself as gruesomely and painfully as possible.
I'm happy my gym has banned CrossFit. When I did the ads for the place, I asked if it was going to promote CF at all, and the owner swore that he would never want to deal with that sort of nonsense. Even though you sign injury waivers and all that when you sign up, it's bad press when people are leaving with busted bodies a few times a year.
The primary reason is because, in any fitness facility, you sign stuff before doing anything. That's been standard since the modern idea of gyms went public in the 1800s iirc.
You go inside the place with the intention of stressing your body purposely so that it grows in response to deal with that stress. There's huge risk of injury there, CrossFit is no different except that it increases the chances which I guess doesn't change the 'concept' of what you're doing in a normal gym.
Kind of hard to articulate, I suppose. I think that given enough time the recent CrossFit trend will end with litigation somehow. It's going to be outlawed or at least restricted in some way. I know too many people who have been hurt while doing it (my cousin most recently. Poor girl) - nothing major like you'd expect seeing those .gifs, but it does indeed happen and something will give on the CF thing eventually.
Because the danger involved in crossfit has been massively, massively overblown. After like six years of it, the only time I've seen a real, genuine acute injury was when an older guy slipped off a pullup bar and fell on his back. You'll get the occasional overuse injury, and I've had my fair share, but that has nothing to do with crossfit and everything to do with people pushing themselves a little bit too hard without proper nutrition and rest. I overtrained a lot more doing other things as compared to when I primarily do crossfit.
Of course, there are always narrow-minded people who live inside their little box and instead of trying to understand why those other guys are doing this weird workout, they make fun of it because it's different and looks funny. Half the time they just see some random video of someone who doesn't know what they're doing trying "crossfit", regardless of whether or not that it's something a good crossfit gym will do, and assume that all crossfit gyms are incompetent. Whatever, their loss.
Because the danger involved in crossfit has been massively, massively overblown. After like six years of it, the only time I've seen a real, genuine acute injury was when an older guy slipped off a pullup bar and fell on his back. You'll get the occasional overuse injury, and I've had my fair share, but that has nothing to do with crossfit and everything to do with people pushing themselves a little bit too hard without proper nutrition and rest. I overtrained a lot more doing other things as compared to when I primarily do crossfit.
Of course, there are always narrow-minded people who live inside their little box and instead of trying to understand why those other guys are doing this weird workout, they make fun of it because it's different and looks funny. Half the time they just see some random video of someone who doesn't know what they're doing trying "crossfit", regardless of whether or not that it's something a good crossfit gym will do, and assume that all crossfit gyms are incompetent. Whatever, their loss.
You can't deny the danger CF programming puts people in. You even admit to hurting yourself while doing it. Your 'fair share'? I know guys who have been lifting for 30 years who haven't sustained a single injury because they don't do dumb things in the gym. I've been lifting 4 years now and not once have I hurt myself, and I've done a full-body transformation.
The nature and prevalence of injury during CrossFit training.
Over the collection period there were 132 responses with no responses discarded due to incomplete completion of the questionnaire. Within the group 97 (73.5%) participants had sustai ned an injury that had prevented them from working, training or competing. A total of 186 injuries were reported in our cohort. Nine participants (7.0%) had sustained an injury th at required surgical intervention. No reports of rhabdomyolysis were reported. The most common injury locations (Figure 2) were shoulder, spine followed by arm/elbow.
The high prevalence of shoulder injuries (31.8%) ac counting for 25.8% of total injuries is higher than those previously reported for elite and competitive Olympic weightlifters
So they're exposing fitness DILETTANTES to elite-level risks, with worse form to satisfy the programming. In other words, if you do CrossFit, statistically you are more likely to get injured than you are to get fit.
Because the danger involved in crossfit has been massively, massively overblown. After like six years of it, the only time I've seen a real, genuine acute injury was when an older guy slipped off a pullup bar and fell on his back. You'll get the occasional overuse injury, and I've had my fair share, but that has nothing to do with crossfit and everything to do with people pushing themselves a little bit too hard without proper nutrition and rest. I overtrained a lot more doing other things as compared to when I primarily do crossfit.
Of course, there are always narrow-minded people who live inside their little box and instead of trying to understand why those other guys are doing this weird workout, they make fun of it because it's different and looks funny. Half the time they just see some random video of someone who doesn't know what they're doing trying "crossfit", regardless of whether or not that it's something a good crossfit gym will do, and assume that all crossfit gyms are incompetent. Whatever, their loss.
Let me ask you something... All those competitors you see at the "Cross Fit Games" (yeah, i know right... it's fething pants on head stupid), do you know how many of them actually do CrossFit, aside from the "games" ?? None of them do. Seriously. Most of them post their exact workouts, and how they train, and the one resounding thing is that basically none of them actually do Cross Fit.
When I was a much younger lad, our football coaches always told us players to find out what our favorite player did, and emulate them. This applies to just about anything athletically... Want to look like a bodybuilder? Do what Arnold did, Do what Jay Cutler and Ronnie Coleman did. Want to be a wide receiver? Do what Jerry Rice did, etc. If you want to be a top CF athlete, you don't do CF???
And it's not that I've a narrow view point that I hate CF, it's because I'm near constantly reading articles and new things from the fitness/muscle world. A buddy of mine's wife got into CF, and was regaling me with her "awesome workouts" (including her mandatory instagram photos), and let me tell you... Deadlifts should NEVER, EVER, EVER be done to time. They most definitely should NEVER be done two days in a row, without some serious recovery time afterwards (like, close to a week). Instead, she is doing deadlifts to time, AND doing them 2, sometimes 3 times a week, often on consecutive days. And her mandatory pictures? She seriously looks like death warmed over, that is how grey her skin was. I'm sorry, but you should, have MORE color in your skin tone after a workout, not less.
There are a few, very few mind, positives to CF.... You can take someone who has never done any meaningful exercise and get them into working out shape in a couple of weeks. But honestly, that's where most people SHOULD stop. Don't just blindly follow some leader in a building because he/she says the workout is good for you. Do your own research. Look up exercises, how they're supposed to be done, WHY they are done the way most people do them, etc. IMO, the reason why CF has become so popular, is because people don't want to be educated, and instead want to treat fitness like it's some kind of silly game where they can just compete with the person next to them. And while competition is good, it isn't always good.
PrehistoricUFO, you might want to read your own study:
Injury rates with CrossFit training are similar to that reported in the literature for sports such as Olympic weight-lifting, power-lifting and gymnastics and lower than competitive contact sports such as rugby union and rugby league.
Crossfit is basically a mash-up of olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, and gymnastics, with a few little twists thrown in. It makes sense that injury rates would be on par with those experienced weightlifting, powerlifting, and gymnastics.
You can't deny the danger CF programming puts people in.
If by danger you mean similar injury rates to comparable sports and exercise programs, sure. If you work out, pick up heavy objects, push the limits of your body, and so on, you run the risk of injuring yourself in some way. Having a good coach and a good sense of the difference between pain and injury helps a lot, but sometimes accidents happen.
You even admit to hurting yourself while doing it. Your 'fair share'? I know guys who have been lifting for 30 years who haven't sustained a single injury because they don't do dumb things in the gym.
I've only ever had two serious injuries, and neither were the fault of the workout I was doing at the time. Wrestling way back in high school, I twisted my ankle pretty badly when it got hyper-extended while we were practicing take-downs. Years later in college, I was rappelling and in a freak little accident, my ankle landed in a crevice in the rock face and twisted badly enough to break my fibula.
For more minor injuries, I tweaked my knee doing overhead squads (which I'll note I was working on in a traditional higher weight, low rep strength workout as opposed to crossfit). I'd just returned from Marine OCS, and after 2-3 months of no sleep, crappy nutrition, and constant exhaustion my body was pretty beaten up. I'd lost a lot of flexibility, and pushed for a little too much weight. When I was training to go to OCS, I was doing literally hundreds of pullups a week (if you ever want to join the Marines, all you need to do is learn to run really fast and do pullups for days, and everything else will fall into place). Eventually, I got climber's elbow, a form of tendonitis, that took a couple months of doing absolutely no upper-body workouts to clear up.
Like I said, accidents happen, and you should know the difference between pain and injury (meaning that you should know your limits and when to stop pushing through the pain of a workout).
I've been lifting 4 years now and not once have I hurt myself, and I've done a full-body transformation.
That's great, but does your total transformation come with spiked hair and a spot on Jersey Shores? If your profile pic is anything to go by, you must be banging snookie and spending the rest of your time hitting the club.
In other words, if you do CrossFit, statistically you are more likely to get injured than you are to get fit.
If you're going to make statistical claims, do it with a larger sample size. It's mathmatically impossible, for a number of reasons, to draw a reliable conclusion about the couple of million people worldwide doing crossfit. Read up on statistical significant, it might help you understand a bit better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance
As I've noted before, the coach and athletes in question matter. A poor coach or an overzealous athlete creates an artificially high risk of injury. The study appears to focus on participants at a single crossfit gym, following the main site workouts. If they happened to pick a poorly coached gym, that's going to skew the results quite a bit (see the statistical significance article). They also don't do much to describe the severity of the injuries, beyond noting that they were enough to cause the athlete to skip a workout and that there were nine that required some form of surgery. They don't mention if it was just a bit of shoulder pain, or if someone dropped a weight and broke a bone, or go into very much detail. There's a significant difference between taking a week or two off because of a bit of shoulder pain and taking several month's break.
Of particular note to me:
The large focus upon metabolic conditioning and apparently random workouts, with a lack of focus upon strength workouts may have a bearing on injury rates and patterns. Certainly taking the workouts form the central CrossFit HQ website for the month of April in the past three years only three, five and three days over the month were allocated to strength with nineteen, sixteen and nineteen to metabolic conditioning. Without a firm strength basis we believe performing the heavy weight, high rep metabolic conditioning workouts so regularly risks injury.
Very few crossfit gyms actually do the main site programming. They usually do their own programming, or take it from one of the bigger, more successful gyms (CF Invictus is a common one). Of the gyms that I've seen and gone to, they universally perform strength training on a daily basis. The 'standard' crossfit workout is to warm up, do a strength portion, do a crossfit workout, cool down. I, and every crossfit coach I've ever met, would 100% agree that just tossing a bunch of weight on the bar and throwing it around without having the strength training to back it up is a recipe for disaster. Every crossfit gym I've ever been to stressed that if you don't have the base strength to perform a given workout, they would work with you to tailor it to meet your needs. Of course the athlete needs to admit any weaknesses they have, but if the gym in this study does a poor job at scaling workouts then it's not a good crossfit gym, nor representative of the norm within crossfit.
Now, the study finds an injury rate of 3.1 injuries per 1000 hours trained. The average athlete trained 5.3 hours per week, meaning that over the course of 3 and a half years, you might suffer about 3 injuries. As the study appears to include more minor injuries such as pulled muscles (again, it's hard to tell as they don't go into much detail regarding the severity of the injury), I find that both believable and reasonable. A pulled muscle is not a big deal so long as you take the time to properly recover from it.
If zero risk is your acceptable level while working out, then I agree, you shouldn't be doing crossfit. Or olympic weightlifting, or powerlifting, or soccer, basketball, long distance running, or just about any physical activity. But if all you're doing is dropping by the gym to pump out a few curls for the girls, you're also not going to get performance results. It's not particularly difficult to look athletic, a good diet, a bit of bodybuilding, and a genetic predisposition doesn't hurt. I can't tell you how many times I've crushed athletes in workouts who -looked- fit, and I'm far from the most athletic crossfitter I know. Of the athletes I've met who I can legitimately say knew what they were talking about (such as my gym's current olympic lifting coach, who's clean and jerked right around 400lbs in competition before), I've yet to meet one who disliked crossfit. Some of them had minor quibbles about specific details, some of them liked it but preferred their training methods, some of them who laughed and said "I'm not tough enough for crossfit", but none who simply straight up said that crossfit was, as a whole, a bad program. Conversely, I've yet to meet someone who talked gak about crossfit who has actually impressed me with their knowledge of physical fitness and athletic training. I can think of a few pro athletes/coaches (Mike Rippetoe comes to mind) who don't like Greg Glassman and/or the people in Crossfit HQ, because they have a couple of polarizing individuals up top, but when individuals like Bill Starr or Kendrick Farris are cool with crossfit training methodology, I'm not going to have second thoughts when a random guy on the internet says crossfit is the worst thing ever.
Dude, they market CF to people WITH ZERO EXPERIENCE DOING ANY OF THE STUFF THEY DO THERE. That's the whole problem with it! You're missing it completely. If people have to skip work, it's probably serious, too.
Why mention Jersey Shore btw? I've never seen a single episode. No need to take personal shots at my appearance.
edits - Also, we can go on forever arguing about CF vs. Classic programming, it's been going on since it was designed and no one goes anywhere with it. I guess we will just agree to disagree, and not keep this going. It's just gonna get the thread locked.
Let me ask you something... All those competitors you see at the "Cross Fit Games" (yeah, i know right... it's fething pants on head stupid), do you know how many of them actually do CrossFit, aside from the "games" ?? None of them do. Seriously. Most of them post their exact workouts, and how they train, and the one resounding thing is that basically none of them actually do Cross Fit.
Really? Because that's very much not what I've seen. I mean, if you're saying that they don't do crossfit main site workouts, sure. They do other stuff. One of the fundamental ideas behind crossfit is that it's a baseline, and from there you build up to whatever sport you're interested in. I mean, here's a day in the life of Rich Froning: http://www.allthingsgym.com/rich-froning-training-days/. It's certainly not a mainsite crossfit workout, but those workouts are all similar things to what I've done at crossfit gyms over the years. The main difference is that Froning is stronger and does a lot more volume than I do.
When I was a much younger lad, our football coaches always told us players to find out what our favorite player did, and emulate them. This applies to just about anything athletically... Want to look like a bodybuilder? Do what Arnold did, Do what Jay Cutler and Ronnie Coleman did. Want to be a wide receiver? Do what Jerry Rice did, etc. If you want to be a top CF athlete, you don't do CF???
Crossfit methodology has actually shifted a lot over the years. When I first did crossfit, most workouts were under 10 minutes. Now, your standard workout, as I mentioned above, has a full strength portion, mobility work, warm ups and cool downs, and the metcons are generally structured differently. It's all because crossfit is still very new, and as more and more talented athletes come in from various sports, they bring their knowledge and experience with them and it evolves.
And it's not that I've a narrow view point that I hate CF, it's because I'm near constantly reading articles and new things from the fitness/muscle world. A buddy of mine's wife got into CF, and was regaling me with her "awesome workouts" (including her mandatory instagram photos), and let me tell you... Deadlifts should NEVER, EVER, EVER be done to time. They most definitely should NEVER be done two days in a row, without some serious recovery time afterwards (like, close to a week). Instead, she is doing deadlifts to time, AND doing them 2, sometimes 3 times a week, often on consecutive days.
There's no arbitrary law of physics that designates that you can't or shouldn't do any strength exercise for time or reps. God did not step down from heaven and decree that thou shalt not perform more than 5x5 deadlifts a workout. It's not necessarily optimal for putting pounds on your 1RM, but that's not necessarily the core goal of crossfit, and physical fitness is not determined purely by your max deadlift. Doing high volume will still make you stronger, done properly, but it's more of a focus on endurance and conditioning than pure strength. Heck, there are plenty of high rep workouts from non-crossfit venues: http://www.t-nation.com/training/185-rep-squat-workout
Now, if you're saying that doing it for time leads to bad form which leads to injury, then yes, you should not be compromising your form during your workout. Take this video of Froning doing 30 snatches at 225 for time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9Qw3e9UPOU
During that workout, performing just about the most complex, dynamic, and difficult weightlifting move there is, he never once loses good form. He never compromises his lower back, he never catches with his shoulders in a bad position, etc.
There are a few, very few mind, positives to CF.... You can take someone who has never done any meaningful exercise and get them into working out shape in a couple of weeks. But honestly, that's where most people SHOULD stop. Don't just blindly follow some leader in a building because he/she says the workout is good for you. Do your own research. Look up exercises, how they're supposed to be done, WHY they are done the way most people do them, etc. IMO, the reason why CF has become so popular, is because people don't want to be educated, and instead want to treat fitness like it's some kind of silly game where they can just compete with the person next to them. And while competition is good, it isn't always good.
I'm not sure why you seem to be singling out crossfit in particular for this criticism. I've seen too many people who don't know what they're doing fumbling around a globogym to take any claims that crossfit is somehow inherently inferior to everything else out there seriously. Every crossfit gym I've gone to has been filled with people who enjoy working to physically improve. Some of them were good athletes, some of them weren't, but they were getting in better shape, with a coach to keep an eye on their form and teach them things they didn't know. Meanwhile, the bros at 24 hour fitness are doing curls on one arm while texting with the other and checking out the ladies on the treadmill. Are you going to get the best athletes ever just because it's crossfit? No, your pool of athletes is drawn from average people who don't have the time or drive to become the next gold metalist. That doesn't mean that crossfit is somehow a bad program to get them up and moving and in shape.
I've done crossfit for a long time at a lot of different gyms, and I've only ever seen people improve themselves through it. Why do you care so much that they decided to do this via crossfit as opposed to, say, running or cycling or weightlifting or yoga or zumba and so on? They're all perfectly good methods of improving your physical fitness. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses and quirks. I do crossfit because 1) I like picking up heavy stuff, and 2) I've spent so much time running and doing military style PT and the like that not having a cardio/metabolic conditioning portion would be weird. I happen to hate pure running, so crossfit fills the gap extremely well.
You also seem to think that within crossfit, the competition portion is like, super-serious. It's really not. People try and get PR's, and they'll push each other through workouts, but I've yet to see anyone so desperate to beat someone else that they did something stupid. Usually, they'll just chat with the other person after the workout and be like "wow, I tried to keep up but you just powered through". Half the fun of crossfit is the friends you make working out together.
Dude, they market CF to people WITH ZERO EXPERIENCE DOING ANY OF THE STUFF THEY DO THERE. That's the whole problem with it! You're missing it completely.
So... people with no experience working out should never work out?
We get new people at the gym I go to pretty frequently. When they first come in, the trainer makes sure to go over each of the movements with them so they're performing each one safely, and the trainer will question them about their fitness level. If they haven't done crossfit or something equiavlent (say, football or rugby), they'll scale back the workout as appropriate. Lighter weight, lower reps, easier movements, etc, all depending on the individual's fitness level. My first workout at Crossfit Inferno, the coach told me to keep the weight for the bear complex under 95lbs, even though I'd been doing crossfit for a few years at that point. Only after watching me do a few rounds did he realize I knew what I was doing and let me go up to heavier weights.
I'm absolutely sure there are crappy crossfit gyms out there, who have dangerous training and poor coaching. There are a lot of very good crossfit gyms out there as well. And of all the gyms I've gone to, visited, or researched, I've only ran into one I didn't like, and it was more because their workouts were so scaled back for an older audience that it created a weird culture and the trainers were, well, kinda weird. I don't really know how else to put it. It wasn't dangerous there, but it wasn't a great gym in my opinion.
If people have to skip work, it's probably serious, too.
The study doesn't specify that the injury required them to skip work. It states that if the injury prevented any of the following: working, training, competing, it qualified. Besides, if you're a construction worker and twist your ankle, you might be off the job for a week despite it being a minor injury. And the injuries were with regards to "any period of time". Depending on how they phrased the question, if I skipped the gym because my back was feeling stiff after a heavy deadlift workout, that could potentially qualify as an injury.
Oh, and I missed something on my first read-through. The methodology used in the study was to post a questionnaire on 10 crossfit forums. That explains the references to crossfit mainsite, from what I've seen the majority of forum users in crossfit seem to be people who work out on their own.
Online questionnaires are far from useless, but you have to be very careful how you phrase the questions, and there is significant potential for bias in the sampling. Granted, it's a reality in studies like these that you can't really just whip out a thousand athletes to perform randomized double-blind studies on injury rates, but it does mean you have to be careful about the conclusions you draw. That's a subtly of statistics that seems lost on most people.
Why mention Jersey Shore btw? I've never seen a single episode. No need to take personal shots at my appearance.
If you're going to fire shots:
In all seriousness, if what you're doing is working for you then that's awesome. But if you're going to be rude over something as stupid as the workout program I happen to prefer after trying a bunch of different stuff, I'll respond in kind. Especially since misuse of statistics in arguments is a pet peeve of mine.
edits - Also, we can go on forever arguing about CF vs. Classic programming, it's been going on since it was designed and no one goes anywhere with it. I guess we will just agree to disagree, and not keep this going. It's just gonna get the thread locked.
Before I moved to where I live now, I was doing a bunch of research, and calling up gyms. I was specifically looking for a powerlifting/bodybuilding type gym (there's pretty much one, the one I'm going to)
In that research, I discovered a bit of a pattern. Many of the CF gyms (stop calling them boxes!) are led by someone who spent a weekend or two getting "certified" by the CF company, to run CF.
Contrast this to what I have available to me, if/when I hire a trainer specifically. The gym I go to is owned by an NPC competition bodybuilder with over a decade lifting experience, on top of a college degree in physical training/personal training/kinesiology.
Is this a universal thing? No, I'm not saying that. There are certainly going to be plenty of places where you can get that kind of expertise and experience. But, in my area, that expertise isn't there.
Ultimately, it comes down to you. If CF is "right" for you, then more power to you. It isn't right for me, and I seriously wish other CFers would leave me the hell alone, I don't want to join their cult. I would just caution those who are looking into these sorts of things, and tell them to look at the credentials of the people they are looking to for advice. And that goes for the Globogym types as well.
How do you think I felt walking into a gym full of yolked dudes when I was 268 lbs? What matters is that you've resolved to stop your current lifestyle and improve every day following. That person is permanently left behind. If you care what other people think inside the gym, then you've already failed.
Probably like I felt as a doughy 14 year old who knew nothing about exercise. I only stuck with it because there were people at the gym who were willing to help me learn without intimidating, and self-aggrandizing, rhetoric.
That said, your point about indifference to the opinions of others has some merit, though allowing that to blind you to criticism is foolish.
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Ensis Ferrae wrote: It certainly isn't helped any by it... It's on much the same token as I think that CrossFit is ruining fitness as a whole.
Oh, God. I could go on about my hatred for branded fitness programs for days. CrossFit is the most egregious example, but things like TRX are pretty bad too as they force trainers and gyms to pursue needless certifications in order to stay competitive.
Dude, don't bother. You will not get through to him. It's a forum, which means we all blissfully ignore normal point and counter point of typical discourse exchange.
The guy actually claimed that gym injuries were only due to attempting beyond capacity, and safety "never not once" i believe is the phrase (honestly i don't care enough to go back and quote it).
Which right there should tell you what you're up against. That claim, let alone all the other nonsense, is a 1++ Blissful Ignorance ward save.
So in the end: eat less calories more often and burn more in regular exercise than you eat??
We are talking about step one: remove the lard off your body.
Reach goal: Get some muscle in places that looks good.
Interesting fact: Chin-ups I found I can do easier after I lost 50 pounds of lard... do exercise that makes sense at your muscle / weight ratio for safety.
I do not imagine our more buff friends find attaching 50 lbs to themselves to do chin-ups is fun... just more reps.
Talizvar wrote: So in the end: eat less calories more often and burn more in regular exercise than you eat??
In the end, this is all there is to it. Really it doesn't even have to be "Exercise" as people tend to think of it. You can stay almost perfectly sedentary and still lose weight assuming your eat few enough calories.
The human body obeys the laws of physics, it doesn't run on free energy, doesn't create free energy and can't shunt energy out of existence. You put in more food than you use, the excess energy gets stored. You use more energy than you put in, your stored energy gets used. There's no magic. There's no secrets, no shortcuts, no special cheats, no traps, no gotchas, no surprises.
Certainly there are some fuzzy edges around what kinds of food your body is most efficient at using, or converting to fat but this is largely marginal. For the most part the body is amazingly efficient at using anything it can digest. The same is true for exercise too the body is mostly pretty efficient at any work it can actually do.
Talizvar wrote: So in the end: eat less calories more often and burn more in regular exercise than you eat??
In the end, this is all there is to it. Really it doesn't even have to be "Exercise" as people tend to think of it. You can stay almost perfectly sedentary and still lose weight assuming your eat few enough calories.
When I was loosing weight, the only exercise I added to my life was walking a mile a day. The rest was just watching calorie intake. Don’t think you need to hit the gym and pump iron to drop pounds. Although it’s probably not a bad idea.
You could try the twinkle diet, one twinkle every four hours for a month. Just twinkies and water
Automatically Appended Next Post: Although, I have noticed an undesirable affect, I'm sleepy a lot more since I started exercising. Same with my body builder roommate.
Although stress is gone pretty much for me, finals don't mean a whole lot in stress anymore
hotsauceman1 wrote: You could try the twinkle diet, one twinkle every four hours for a month. Just twinkies and water
Discounting time slept sleeping... that's approximately 600 Calories and no nutrition per day. You'd drop weight pretty quickly for sure. You'd also feel like total gak and be running headlong into health problems. Hell, you'd be starting to develop scurvy at that point.
hotsauceman1 wrote: You could try the twinkle diet, one twinkle every four hours for a month. Just twinkies and water
Discounting time slept sleeping... that's approximately 600 Calories and no nutrition per day. You'd drop weight pretty quickly for sure. You'd also feel like total gak and be running headlong into health problems. Hell, you'd be starting to develop scurvy at that point.
Really, dieting isn't too hard. Just stay away from empty calories like candy, soda, chips, white bread, and pastries. Stuff like that. Drink lots of water. Eat lettuce. Just plain lettuce (I like iceberg for this personally). Super low calorie but, unlike water, it has some bite to it. A lettuce on whole wheat sandwich is surprisingly effective at stopping you from snacking.
DarkLink wrote: It's all because crossfit is still very new, and as more and more talented athletes come in from various sports, they bring their knowledge and experience with them and it evolves.
See, this is part of the problem. Saying something like "CrossFit evolves." makes it seem less like an exercise program, and more like a religion.
There's no arbitrary law of physics that designates that you can't or shouldn't do any strength exercise for time or reps. God did not step down from heaven and decree that thou shalt not perform more than 5x5 deadlifts a workout.
Actually, any exercise done for time isn't about building strength, its about building power. And, for some exercises, that's unwise. Deadlift, in particular, is bad as it is very easy to bounce the weight.
Pushing for reps is different, of course, as that method can be used to develop strength. Though, again, it depends on the specific exercise.
hotsauceman1 wrote: You could try the twinkle diet, one twinkle every four hours for a month. Just twinkies and water
Discounting time slept sleeping... that's approximately 600 Calories and no nutrition per day. You'd drop weight pretty quickly for sure. You'd also feel like total gak and be running headlong into health problems. Hell, you'd be starting to develop scurvy at that point.
Two-thirds of his total intake came from junk food. He also took a multivitamin pill and drank a protein shake daily. And he ate vegetables, typically a can of green beans or three to four celery stalks.
See this is a rather different scenario you've put forward. The dude in question was getting vitamins, protein and fiber. That's very different than just 4 Twinkies a day.
DarkLink wrote: I can't tell you how many times I've crushed athletes in workouts who -looked- fit, and I'm far from the most athletic crossfitter I know.
Now, to me, there's nothing wrong with encouragement while lifting, ESPECIALLY when you're under a heavy* squat rack or some other lift. But I cannot stand when people are trying to one up each other in the gym.... Get in there, get the work you set out to do done, and get out, no fething around!
*heavy being heavy for the individual.... since what is heavy for me, is barely a warmup for someone else, the same as what's heavy for someone else is barely a warmup for me.
Now, to me, there's nothing wrong with encouragement while lifting, ESPECIALLY when you're under a heavy* squat rack or some other lift. But I cannot stand when people are trying to one up each other in the gym.... Get in there, get the work you set out to do done, and get out, no fething around!
All exercise you do depends on your goal. I am well-muscled, but more athletic as my wife and I frequently run marathons and being very muscled would be a giant disadvantage, not to mention that the amount of running already limits the amount of muscle we could build. If you aim for big muscles, you won't do much cardio.
Sigvatr wrote: All exercise you do depends on your goal. I am well-muscled, but more athletic as my wife and I frequently run marathons and being very muscled would be a giant disadvantage, not to mention that the amount of running already limits the amount of muscle we could build. If you aim for big muscles, you won't do much cardio.
I'm a hooker for my local rugby club... and this is quite correct. I know I need to run more, but I'd rather spend more time lifting than running
Sigvatr wrote: All exercise you do depends on your goal. I am well-muscled, but more athletic as my wife and I frequently run marathons and being very muscled would be a giant disadvantage, not to mention that the amount of running already limits the amount of muscle we could build. If you aim for big muscles, you won't do much cardio.
I'm a hooker for my local rugby club... and this is quite correct. I know I need to run more, but I'd rather spend more time lifting than running
theres a fine line between being healthy and being in "shape", i agree alot of folks (gamers among others) let themselves go and end up a bib fortuna short of being jabba the hut. But getting off your ass and moving(burning what you intake) is far more important then pumping iron or watching what you eat, yes i agree food choices do have big impacts but a candy bar or a coke isen't going to turn you into the blob. The big elephant in the room is that society now a days has forged a double edged sword, where food is engineered to be cheap and fast(and made out of pure gak) society has also made it easier for us to be lazy via technology, if i'm hungry i can just fire up my smart phone and wait for the nail in the coffin AKA delivered grease saturated food to come to my door. Lastly, society has brainwashed us to think that healthy is having wash board abs, and biceps the size of water melons..which is not accurate either but forces people into a war of attriction with their self esteem. Oh and i wiegh 160 pounds, eat whatever i want(i avoid sugar and high fructose corn syrup) consume beer, caffiene, tobbaco..heres the catch i get two full scale medical exams twice a year(comes with the industry i'm in) and i'm 100% healthy, the key is to get off your ass and move, and some what police what you(go for the peanuts over the snickers for a snack). For those of you who aren't happy with yourselves, don't get caught up in that "go pump iron 8 hours a day" and eat 10 pounds of boiled chicken breasts to be healthy. Evaluate your daily habits, find the flaws and make adjustments..if your job requires you to sit in a chair half the day with mcdonalds daily for lunch, then maybe start packing a lunch and walking to work...
Crimson Heretic wrote: theres a fine line between being healthy and being in "shape", i agree alot of folks (gamers among others) let themselves go and end up a bib fortuna short of being jabba the hut. But getting off your ass and moving(burning what you intake) is far more important then pumping iron or watching what you eat
Eh...no. If you want to lose fat, gain muscles and watch what you eat. Period. Want to lose fat? Lift weights. Cardio is always good to have, but what really gets that nasty fat burning is a nice set of muscles. More muscles = more fat burning.
No need for a special "secret" diet though. Cut down on carbohydrates really hard, rather eat more proteines. There. Add exercise. Done. You'll be healthy in a few weeks. Highly, highly recommend doing HIIT. Really gets you past your limits and extremely effective at burning calories, especially when you don't have much time at hand.
I recently picked up hiking as a major form of weekly fitness. Trying to condition for my first post-undergrad hiking filled summer. And I gotta say, something about the low-impact, repetition of hiking for hours is super rewarding both physically and mentally.
Luckily none of my friends want to tabletop early on Saturday mornings anyway.
Anyone ever have this before? I lost alot of weight, but it seems as if my beer belly is not changing at alll, sort of like its getting bigger. But I continue to loose weight.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Anyone ever have this before? I lost alot of weight, but it seems as if my beer belly is not changing at alll, sort of like its getting bigger. But I continue to loose weight.
Probably not quite the same thing, but when I was in HS, I was under 10% bf, and the more I worked out, the more my "gut" stuck out (I never had a six pack, yet I had very strong abs/lower back muscles)
If you look at pro, or even top level amateur bodybuilders, it's kind of the same thing, some of them look like they have distended "beer bellies", even though they have ridiculously defined muscles. Perhaps someone better with anatomy can help me here, but I have a theory that some muscles just will not grow "out" and instead, grow "in" which pushes other things out... In this case, I would think that lower back muscles are growing "in" which pushes the abs out further? Again, it's just a theory I have, and I could be way off in left field, trying to play cricket when everyone else is playing baseball.
Despite all the junk-science talk and pretending that is is all just about calories in and calories out, specific nutrition does have a specific effect on the body.
Lots of refined carbs *stares at Twinkie* will increase your insulin production, which will cause your body to store more belly fat.
You can brute force weight loss by simple mathematics, but in the end nutrition will be your friend.
You can brute force weight loss by simple mathematics, but in the end nutrition will be your friend.
I hope I haven't come across as one of the junk science types... however, I will have to agree with you here... The owner of the gym I go to, and future trainer, has often told me that the quickest way to see results in the gym is to fix the diet. While my wife was out in the field, I largely did that, and I feel like I'm already seeing/feeling results from that.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Anyone ever have this before? I lost alot of weight, but it seems as if my beer belly is not changing at alll, sort of like its getting bigger. But I continue to loose weight.
You're a man. That's the problem. Men tend to focus fat in the belly region first. Always approach the ladies from the front
the main issue with this thought is that your body needs those carbs to create energy, protein is the building block for muscle but carbs give you the fuel to build muscle...i'm saying good carbs like whole wheat pasta, not a bag of chips. If all you consume is protein, then your going to damage your body and feth up your liver in the long term, carbs/protein pre work out, amino acids and protein post workout for recovery. Lifting weights is not the answer for self esteem or being healthy always.
I am, in the words of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, a disgusting fatbody. 330 lbs and 6'1". So... I think it is about time I put down the fork and got out some more. My idea is thus: I am trying to build an Elfdar army and I am trying to lose weight. Why not combine the two? For every 10 lbs I lose I get a new unit. Nothing too expensive just a squad or a tank. Once at goal weight I'll get a revenant titan.
TheCustomLime wrote: I am, in the words of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, a disgusting fatbody. 330 lbs and 6'1".
Your "profile" says So Cal, if I may suggest... go check out a local rugby club. Firstly, being a rugby player myself, I will tell you that, in my experience ruggers are the most welcoming bunch of new blood into the sport. Secondly, we really don't care if you've ever played, or don't think you're a good athlete, we can/will teach you basically everything you need to know. The "startup" investment isn't very much, some boots and a gumshield (aka, "Concussion proofing" lol) to start off with. And lastly, if you make it to/through that first match with a club and see game time, you'll be hooked; And honestly, I don't have any closer brothers than my rugby brothers.
All the running/cardio and work you put in on the rugby pitch will definitely get you trimming down, even if you don't necessarily lose the weight
TheCustomLime wrote: I am, in the words of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, a disgusting fatbody. 330 lbs and 6'1". So... I think it is about time I put down the fork and got out some more. My idea is thus: I am trying to build an Elfdar army and I am trying to lose weight. Why not combine the two? For every 10 lbs I lose I get a new unit. Nothing too expensive just a squad or a tank. Once at goal weight I'll get a revenant titan.
Awesome i love it!
be sure to keep us updated! on the army and the weight loss buddy!
work hard and game hard !
FMJ
d-usa wrote: Despite all the junk-science talk and pretending that is is all just about calories in and calories out, specific nutrition does have a specific effect on the body.
Lots of refined carbs *stares at Twinkie* will increase your insulin production, which will cause your body to store more belly fat.
You can brute force weight loss by simple mathematics, but in the end nutrition will be your friend.
I don't think anyone is really arguing that a proper diet isn't the key to loosing weight and working out. When it really comes down to it, diet is 70% of working out.
Yup.If you're trying to lose weight just working hard at the gym after a trip to the buffet isn't going to work. An hour's worth of exercise basically loses the equivalent of a burger or so depending on how hard you work out. You have to combine both for great success.
I think some people can just be too hard on themselves as well. Getting in shape shouldn't consume your life(unless its your job) but it should be something your cognicent of. I work out 4 to 5 times a week depending on my schedule. But if I want to do something I have no problem skipping my workout. Just like my diet, I eat a low carb diet most of the time, but I'm not afraid to enjoy a burger and beer here and there. Moderation is the key to everything...
Avid gym (if relatively new, 1.5 years training now) gym rat and wargamer here. I've been lifting for a year and love it. My current 1 rep maxes are:
deadlift: 255 lbs
Squat: 185 lbs
bench: 165 lbs
I'm 18 years old, 5 foot 7 inches and weigh in at 144 pounds. I am currently leaning out to 10 % body fat (currently about 13), I am really struggling with this though as I have never leaned out before (but I played sports my whole life so I was never above 15% really).
I do have a problem that runs a bit deeper than being hungry eating 2k calories a day haha. I love wargaming but no one in my local meta is in shape, so I feel like my fitness is all for nothing as nobody I socialize with admires or cares about it. This is very demoralizing for me and is not helping with achieving my goals! Anybody who has been/is in the same situation have thoughts on this?
I do have a problem that runs a bit deeper than being hungry eating 2k calories a day haha. I love wargaming but no one in my local meta is in shape, so I feel like my fitness is all for nothing as nobody I socialize with admires or cares about it. This is very demoralizing for me and is not helping with achieving my goals! Anybody who has been/is in the same situation have thoughts on this?
Personally, and this is IMHO, if you are wanting your fitness to be admired and/or cared about, you may be into it for the wrong reason.... I personally haven't gotten back into it for kudos, nor even as much as I love them, for the rugby club. I'm doing it for ME. *I* want to be strong as an ox, *I* am tired of being a "disgusting fatbody" (to quote Gnny. Sgt. Hartman), *I* love lifting. Hopefully that makes some sense??
I mean, I suppose if you are going into it for admiration or outside attention to your physique, perhaps you could look into going fully down the body building rabbit hole?
The reason doesn't matter. Even if you're just doing it to impress or get laid, you're doing your body a giant favor. Anything is better than being fat.
Sigvatr wrote: The reason doesn't matter. Even if you're just doing it to impress or get laid, you're doing your body a giant favor. Anything is better than being fat.
The reason does matter as it necessarily affects what you consider "in shape" to be, and what you're willing to do to remain "in shape".
When I want to get in shape fast, I cut my carb...to zero if need be for a week and I loose almost 1 kg a day. I eat veggies and protine as much as I want. I know this is not healthy, but healthier than being fat. Oh and I only do this about one week and then, I slowly get back into normal healthy diet.
So if you want to loose.
Stop carbohydrates
Exercise
See the result in day two. Your body feels tighter and the fat you loose comes off the face. Your stomache get smaller, so your gut shrink by a centimeter.
Get the push start you need, start this plan and by day 7th, you have drop at least 3 kg.
I'm down to 208-210, anti-depressants ballooned me about 70 pounds, and a bunch of that fell off after I got off the meds. My real issue for weight loss is that I can't run or do high impact stuff, so I do yoga and try to eat well.
KalashnikovMarine wrote: I'm down to 208-210, anti-depressants ballooned me about 70 pounds, and a bunch of that fell off after I got off the meds. My real issue for weight loss is that I can't run or do high impact stuff, so I do yoga and try to eat well.
Yep. Been there. Anti-Depressants are truly terrible. You absolutely need them but the weight loss is just frustrating as feth.
Have you tried a cross-trainer yet? Low impact, full body exercise, not that expensive anymore.
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david choe wrote: When I want to get in shape fast, I cut my carb...to zero if need be for a week and I loose almost 1 kg a day. I eat veggies and protine as much as I want. I know this is not healthy, but healthier than being fat.
Eh...no, it isn't. In the contrary.
Being fat is unhealthy in the long run. Not getting any carbohydrates is extremely detrimental in the short run as your brain absolutely requires them to work properly. I could make a joke about a carbohydrate defiency and your posts, but I'll refrain. Never, ever, stop taking Carbohydrates completely. It's a super dumb move.
Weight is not a judge of how fit someone is, neither is how fat they are. I was in a PE lesson and someone I was working with was lighter than me and slimmer (I'm a little fatter that average), but I still beat them on every fitness test (shuttle runs, going up and down ladders, sit-ups Etc.)
KalashnikovMarine wrote: I'm down to 208-210, anti-depressants ballooned me about 70 pounds, and a bunch of that fell off after I got off the meds. My real issue for weight loss is that I can't run or do high impact stuff, so I do yoga and try to eat well.
Yep. Been there. Anti-Depressants are truly terrible. You absolutely need them but the weight loss is just frustrating as feth.
Have you tried a cross-trainer yet? Low impact, full body exercise, not that expensive anymore.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
david choe wrote: When I want to get in shape fast, I cut my carb...to zero if need be for a week and I loose almost 1 kg a day. I eat veggies and protine as much as I want. I know this is not healthy, but healthier than being fat.
Eh...no, it isn't. In the contrary.
Being fat is unhealthy in the long run. Not getting any carbohydrates is extremely detrimental in the short run as your brain absolutely requires them to work properly. I could make a joke about a carbohydrate defiency and your posts, but I'll refrain. Never, ever, stop taking Carbohydrates completely. It's a super dumb move.
It depends more on the type of carbs you intake. You can certainly cut out most things like bread, pasta, white potatoes and still be fine. You can eat incredibly healthy on a diet based on the right veggies, fish, poultry and sometimes red meat.
It depends more on the type of carbs you intake. You can certainly cut out most things like bread, pasta, white potatoes and still be fine. You can eat incredibly healthy on a diet based on the right veggies, fish, poultry and sometimes red meat.
Based on the bit of reading I've done, the Gov't loves to push bread and pasta for the fiber content (which keeps you regular)... However, if you ask a rancher or pig farmer/chicken farmer what they use grains for, it's for one purpose, and that's a pretty good one for you to not eat it either.
In much of those same books/articles I've read, if you cut out grain fiber/carbs (which is a good thing), obviously those nutrients need to come from another source, and one reoccurring theme is Sweet Potatoes. Apparently they are massively packed with nutrients and are one of the "best" sources of fiber in your diet.
It depends more on the type of carbs you intake. You can certainly cut out most things like bread, pasta, white potatoes and still be fine. You can eat incredibly healthy on a diet based on the right veggies, fish, poultry and sometimes red meat.
Sure thang. But you should never completely get rid of any carbs. The important part is to, as you already stated, get rid of bad carbs first. Bread...pasta...rice...etc. Potatoes are better because they're much healthier.
It depends more on the type of carbs you intake. You can certainly cut out most things like bread, pasta, white potatoes and still be fine. You can eat incredibly healthy on a diet based on the right veggies, fish, poultry and sometimes red meat.
Its worth bearing in mind that bread, pasta, rice, and the like aren't really bad at all...so long as you practice portion control*. There's also the issue of defining what constitutes "bad", which actually a rather complex matter which necessarily deals with individual levels of physical activity.
*This is one of the reasons there's been a shift towards using glycemic load to determine the quality of a food containing carbohydrates.
Dogma's got the right of it. If you're completely sedentary you need less carbs than the person doing weight training, who in turn needs less than the person doing extensive HIIT or LISS.
i'm a big fan of less red meat atm, chicken and seafood with the occasional BBQ sausage ( sorry i'm just a big fan of sausage) works for me, however I'm currently in love with flour- mainly as a thickening agent - and rice - rice is the bomb- I dunno i find it's when i eat junk food that i bulk up, go eat real food you should slim down, then again i always ensure i feel a pinch in my gut before i eat again. Kinda like grazing theory in action i guess. I figure you should feel hungry it's a natural part of being an omnivore coupled with the fact that a lot of foods that hunter/gatherers require a lot of calories to prepare, i figure that is how humans are supposed to eat, trouble is all the food we eat now days is easy to prepare.
I don't understand the hate for red meat. I ate a 1.5-2lbs of chicken thighs/beef and ended up at the below picture before I started drinking again :(. Granted, I also ate a ton of vegetables to counteract any stoppages it might cause.
My worst "drug" are 2 mandatory cups of coffee (or expressos for our american friends). I love me coffee ... and chocolate! No point being alive if you don't devour chocolate once in a while.
for fitness, but if we're gonna discuss it as adults in a thread, then let's discuss it honestly, no?
. But Oglaaaaaf!
