StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Colonel Olrik wrote:You're training with real weights, right? Don't take this the wrong way, you're doing great, but I get a feeling from your description that you could do better. I spent years at the gym with barely any increase in definition or strength, just to keep the fitness.

That's really my only goal. But I've definitely gotten larger in the arms and thinner in the waist. I'm also more defined in my chest, lats, arms and abs. I'm not rippling or anything, but if the light hits me right, it almost looks like I am!

But seriously, I don't know where I should be at this point, but I'm definitely at a better place physically. There's still flab, but there's also a certain amount that will just always be there unless I resort to totally unhealthy methods.

While it worked in that regard, almost two years ago a friend of mine convinced me to train harder (or rather, train in a different way I was used to since the time spent at the gym didn't increase) and in a year or so my body changed significantly. I've never looked as good as now, even if due to lack of time I do less outdoor sports than when I was 20.

Keep in mind that I only seriously started working out 3 or 4 months ago. I may be seeing the same progress you were.

It really sounds too little. I'm 165 pounds and 6'1, have a job equivalent to yours and work out also around 3 times a week, and would starve with so little. If I take less that around 2500 cal/day I start losing weight like hell - lost 2 Kg in two weeks in my recent holidays in California due to our habit of having a stronger breakfast and not actually having lunch to save time.

Well I still want to try shaving off more weight (I sure wouldn't mind being at 165 or 170), and I haven't noticed any ill effects from my diet so far. I splurge regularly, but not terribly so.

Okay, I'm not proud of it but, I ate a lot of fucking food today. I was at IOA I had burger. My friends wanted to eat again, (later) I had pizza. We sat there for an hour talking, got up and I got another pizza while they got some other crap. And then we all ate again before we left (I had a burger). I'm still not full. Right now I'm just filling up on water.

When you get to the point that eating a Hostess cupcake makes you wretch, you know you're on the right track.

Chinese Food, the one thing I can't say no to.

Schuyler Colfax wrote:Chinese Food, the one thing I can't say no to.

As long as you don't eat the greasy and fried stuff you're fine.

Yes, there are actually healthy food on the menu.

Just a word of advice to everyone who's been a little lax over the winter or who's thinking of starting up. NOW IS THE TIME. Before it's scorching outside, when the weather is relatively nice, when your body is coming out of it's winter mode of storing food. This is the best time of year to get a workout routine going and I think you're more likely to stick with it if you start now.

Gives a whole new meaning to "No time like the present."

Soontir C'boath wrote:

Schuyler Colfax wrote:Chinese Food, the one thing I can't say no to.

As long as you don't eat the greasy and fried stuff you're fine.

Yes, there are actually healthy food on the menu.

That's harder to do in America. Much harder. Especially at the buffets.

I'm down to 180 lbs in the morning. I admit, I have been indulging myself, just a bit. Of course, nowadays, my idea of indulging myself when it comes to food is something like going over my daily limit by four grams of fat from eating a some very low fat baked crackers with no-fat with some low sodium salsa, so I don't think it's too bad.

One bad re-developing habit I'm determined to nip in the bud is that I gave in and went to Subway the last two Friday's in a row and ordered my old comfort meal: Two 12" BMT's. That's ~100 grams of fat right there. The first Friday I was just so stressed from school, I needed to take my mind off it somehow, and last Friday, I felt I'd earned it by scoring an 83% on my circuits exam.

But that's it now. I will not go back to my old habits.

Exercise wise, I'm up to 5 reps of 20 push ups, and 5 reps of 25 squats per day. I intend to install a chinup bar very soon. Possibly even tomorrow, if I have the time. Since I'm making it myself out of whatever spare pipes I can find at the warehouse, and since it'll be supported from the ground, I may even put two little pipes sticking out the front of the uprights so that I can use it for dips as well.

I'm gonna start on the chin ups/pull ups slow though. I did a few on a rail system at work today (as in real ones, where my legs have no support during the motion, my chin is well above the bar after my ascent and I completely control my descent) and they're fucking hard. I love the light headed feeling I get after doing them though, similar to the one I got after my 3.5 KM jog on Saturday (my longest one yet!).

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the progress I'm making. I've noticed considerable development in my triceps thanks to the push ups, and some development in my calves and thighs thanks to the squats. Not to mention I have very little grabbable flab left on my stomach now, and my waist size is down to 34". The last time I could I say I was 180 lbs with a 34" waist was probably grade 10.

I hope to be at my optimum weight of ~170lbs-175lbs by the end of the month. (Yes, I know it keeps changing. I just had no idea how flabby I really was before.)

P.S. For those looking for a decent cookie replacement, look no more. I've been searching for one for months, and I finally found it. Fig Newtons. A lot of brands have 0 grams of fat/cookie and ~60-70 calories. Not bad at all. And there are healthier, whole wheat varieties that even have 1 gram of fibre/cookie.

P.P.S. I've also recent started mixing in two tbsp of flax seeds with my oatmeal in the morning, and have a tin of smoked oysters twice a week in place of my almonds for the day in an attempt to consume more omega-3's. The cool thing about smoked oysters in a tin is that they're really low in sodium compared to all the other canned seafood I've seen. And they taste good too.

P.P.P.S. For dark chocolate fans (of which I am one. I've read that a bit of dark chocolate here and there can actually be good for you. Apparently cocoa has some health benefits.), Lindt's has released a new 99% cocoa chocolate in limited supply. It's a bit too bitter for me (I'm more of an 86% man, myself), but for those of you feeling adventurous, you may find some if you keep an eye out for it.

Can you tell I love grocery shopping now? I just love how fun it has become since I started this. It's almost like a game, to find healthy, but tasty food.

The Spartan wrote:That's harder to do in America. Much harder. Especially at the buffets.

Unless you live in Bumfuck nowhere, there should be at least one decent restaurant, not one of those take out places, a fucking restaurant, you should do well.

I suppose I could run down quick to the gym to see how much I weigh but I'm up to my third notch on my belt which has to mean that I'm thinning down at the waist. Not the same for the arms though. I still have a lot of flab behind my triceps...

I need to get to the gym again.

Soontir C'boath wrote:Unless you live in Bumfuck nowhere, there should be at least one decent restaurant, not one of those take out places, a fucking restaurant, you should do well.

I live in Houston, not BFE, and I know of one Chinese restaurant that serves genuine Chinese cuisine that's fresh and reasonably healthy as opposed to the Americanized version. All the rest serve greasy and/or high caloric crap (fried or not). I can see that being different, now that I think about it a bit harder, in New York or on the west coast, but my unfortunate experience has been to find only that one restaurant.

I bet my friend some money that I would weigh less than 160 pounds by the start of junior year (August 18, I think). Suprisingly, that is actually motivating me considering it is only for $10. I am currently 193.5 lbs.

Following a shitty run for 2 months (ear infection w/severe vertigo and then the greatness of the common cold) I'm back into training again.

And set a baseline for my next few weeks of training:

5 laps of the local sports field (~1.6km) was 16:04, mainly due to a very poor showing on the 3rd and 4th laps, but that's a time I aim to improve on.

I think I started gaining a lot of weight when I went on that 1st cruise. I was very skinny when I was a little kid. Seriously all the free eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausages, you can eat in the morning. There was barely even a line to wait on and I can easily go back up for seconds and thirds.

Lunch was pretty much the same thing just with burgers and pizza. And then after having dinner with my family I'd just go about by myself and get some more junk food to eat.

I can eat a lot and still not be full for a while. Like when I were to have 2 slices of pizza, 10 minutes later I would want another one. I guess this is how it started.

Because of the locked lumbar joint in my lower back (which I previously thought was a sprain), I've been unable to hit the gym for almost four weeks now. Normally an exercise freak, I'm down to simply walking and light running and only then for a block or two. While I was already watching what I ate, I've cut down on the food I eat even more to compensate for the minimal exerice available until the physical therapy is finished. That means 1600 calories minimum and 1800 maximum. I'm still at 142 lbs, but even so, I can feel the flab coming back on. Another 5 goddamm weeks of therapy will make it almost two and half months without being able to properly work out. I'm going to have my work cut out for me when I can start my routine up again...

I've started to try losing weight myself recently for health reasons. Currently I'm about 207 lb. I've been focusing on permanently chopping things out of my diet such as switching to skimmed milk from semi and eliminating the sandwiches from lunch (~ 300 calories of cheap unpleasant shop made food that I never enjoyed eating anyway), making changes that I know I can keep up indefinitely to avoid regaining any weight lost.

Been playing about 45 mins squash once a week, walking up the hill at the back of the office every day for 30 minutes at lunchtime, and riding my bike at weekends increasing far (40 miles last weekend). However I think I need to up the effort a bit now I've got the ball rolling, maybe starting doing a run 1x week instead of a walk as a beginning. Although its an improvement I'm still not doing much physical activity.

Unfortunately all the good effort of the last month has now been betrayed by a bad cold, I've spent the last 3 days stuck at home coughing my lungs up and comfort eating...

Lowest I've managed to get down to in the past few weeks (going to the gym between one and three times a week) is 86kg. I haven't done any running in the last little while, but doing that along with lifting weights will hopefully put me back down to around 85kg.

Schuyler Colfax wrote:I think I started gaining a lot of weight when I went on that 1st cruise. I was very skinny when I was a little kid. Seriously all the free eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausages, you can eat in the morning. There was barely even a line to wait on and I can easily go back up for seconds and thirds.

Lunch was pretty much the same thing just with burgers and pizza. And then after having dinner with my family I'd just go about by myself and get some more junk food to eat.

I can eat a lot and still not be full for a while. Like when I were to have 2 slices of pizza, 10 minutes later I would want another one. I guess this is how it started.

This is what sucks about going to buffet. One should really only go if you plan on skipping a meal or not eating a whole lot in which would defeat the purpose of going there.

Last week, my friend decided that we should go to two buffets in one day. Worst decision ever made and it put a hurt on my wallet. I gain back 4 pounds because of that day alone.

I am currently 189 pounds.

Current weight : 188

I've managed to keep it in the 180s sure not to go higher but, I do need to go down some more. I'm focusing more on diet rather than exercise right now.

I need to get back into all of this.

I'm not one of those girls who just always thinks they're fat, but I'm realizing that this is the time in my life when it will be easiest for me to lose weight and I should take advantage of that. Oh, and I'm tired of my jeans fitting my boyfriend.

I'm dating a personal trainer, and apparently I eat so little throughout the day (and when I do eat it's nothing of substance) that my body is in a constant state of starvation mode, and I have more than likely royally fucked my metabolism. Woo!

update:

weight now ~190 lbs! My weight has been fluctuating anywhere from 188 to 194 for a few weeks.

1.5 mile time now around 13:04 on the treadmill. I'm up to running two miles in about 18 to 20 minutes on the treadmill, and I've done some outdoors running for the first time....ever. There's a trail near where I live that has some fairly brutal hills and twists, and I've been able to get that run done in almost 20 min. Yay!

Now, I do some push ups...almost every other day, and I can usually do around 20-25 the first set, 12-15 the second set, and after that it gets ugly. Sit up numbers are generally between 15-20. Not bad, but nothing to get excited about either. My lateral pulldown numbers are still fairly crappy, although I'm up to 112.5 pounds, and can occasionally do 125. I can bench press 110 pounds about 6 times in one set, 6 in the second, and somtimes 4 or 5 in the third.

I'm now dieting with weight watchers, and I'm definitely doing better with what I eat, but consistency is still an issue. I have too many days where I blow past my alloted point total. Developing that consistency is going to be the next major battle, along with maintaining my workout levels and improving. Overall, some major progress since March.

My weight tends to fluctuate, quite a bit, during the course of the day depending upon what I ate the day before, what I've eaten that day, how much water I've been drinking, whether or not I've worked out, etc. In fact it tends to range as much as about five pounds (+/-2.5) and I usually give the middle weight as my "true weight."

This morning I woke up, used the restroom and then went for a run. When I got back, before I rehydrated or ate anything I took off my sweaty clothes and weighed myself: 212.5. Which means that my true weight is 215. In other words:

GOAL!! GOAL!!! GOOAALLL!!

I haven't been this weight since I was freshman in high school, only I have more muscle on my frame now so I'm in better shape than I was back then. I am 30 pounds below my starting point for this round and 60, count'em 60, pounds below my peak.

EAT THAT WEIGHT LOSS!! I kicked your ass!

103.5 kilograms. Now, I'm not exactly a small person, but I am seriously overweight. Let's see if I can push it down a bit during the summer.

Fuck you 4th of July weekend, you fucked me over.

My doctor had recommended during my last physical not to drop below 140 as this was the ideal weight for someone of my age/build/height. Well, after consulting a scale for the first time in ages, it turns out I'm about 2 pounds under weight. So, I'm either going to cut down on the exercise or allow a little more leeway in regards to eating and try to get the weight back up to at least 141lbs and 143lbs at max.

Stepped on the scale this morning before eating breakfast...85.6kg. I went for a 3km run this afternoon (25 minutes) and after the I was 85.2kg. My weight is finally less than 86kg!

Well, I'm pretty much where I want to be at this point. I weigh 175-180 lbs, and I'm weary about going below that. My main concern now is improving my stamina and increasing muscle mass. I do ~35 km/day of bicycling on weekdays (and try to do even more on weekends, when I can), and do 3 reps of 5 pull ups and 3 reps of 5 chins ups per day. I figure I'm hitting all my muscle groups with these few exercises, and I figure the biking is good cardio, so I'm pretty much happy with this routine for the time being.

I still don't think I'm eating quite as much as I should, especially since I just increased my work hours from 4 hours to 7 hours/day, and my work is fairly physically demanding. But I'm working on increasing that slowly.