As an allergic to lots of different things person, I say donate it. Allergic people either know what messes them up or need to learn it. High school guidance counselor is always looking for toiletries to put in the backpacks she sends daily with the homeless students.
Help! I'm Fat - *** Official Exercise and Weight Thread ***
- Thread starter cyclone4L
- Start date
The mental part of this is starting to be the most difficult part.
I can still get it done at an advanced-ish age. Was dialed in on the training and food, but life is not easy at the moment and getting dialed in.... problematic
I guess it all goes together
I can still get it done at an advanced-ish age. Was dialed in on the training and food, but life is not easy at the moment and getting dialed in.... problematic
I guess it all goes together
I'm reminded of that quote - not sure where it originated from, I've seen a few different forms of it - "you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems." Do what you can so that you aren't reliant on willpower to stay on track.
Probably nothing you haven't considered already. And above all, be generous to yourself if you're under stress.
Hey all, by way of accountability I'm checking in on the occasion of my 4-year "Fat-iversary".
In late May of 2019, a routine physical exam provided me with a kick-in-the-pants wakeup call that was long overdue. At 5' 11", about to turn 46, and tipping the scales at 237 lbs, my blood tests showed I was headed toward pre-diabetes. Doc gave me two choices: diet/lifestyle changes, or medication.
I chose the former. It started with hyper focus on what I ate (tracking everything, with emphasis on reducing overall calorie, sugar, and carbohydrate consumption) and later folded in physical activity once the weight was under control. Exercise consisted mainly of cardio and then added in strength training later on.
By my next checkup, weight was down to 172 lbs and blood work was "normal". Over the following years, I continued to fluctuate within a 10-15 lb range depending on how strict I followed my diet (but mostly unrelated to amount & intensity of physical activity).
I'm now about to turn 50, and feel like I am in the best shape of my life. Is my health perfect? Hell, no. Still working on BMI and as the chart below shows, for me weight management truly required a lifestyle change and constant vigilance to sustain it. (Including a course correction over the past few months.) The journey for me is not a straight line, but has many ebbs and flows that only ends when I am 6 feet under.
Best of luck to you all wherever you are in your own journey, with wishes for health and happiness!
tl;dr summary: I used to be fat, but currently I'm not (after A LOT of hard work)!
In late May of 2019, a routine physical exam provided me with a kick-in-the-pants wakeup call that was long overdue. At 5' 11", about to turn 46, and tipping the scales at 237 lbs, my blood tests showed I was headed toward pre-diabetes. Doc gave me two choices: diet/lifestyle changes, or medication.
I chose the former. It started with hyper focus on what I ate (tracking everything, with emphasis on reducing overall calorie, sugar, and carbohydrate consumption) and later folded in physical activity once the weight was under control. Exercise consisted mainly of cardio and then added in strength training later on.
By my next checkup, weight was down to 172 lbs and blood work was "normal". Over the following years, I continued to fluctuate within a 10-15 lb range depending on how strict I followed my diet (but mostly unrelated to amount & intensity of physical activity).
I'm now about to turn 50, and feel like I am in the best shape of my life. Is my health perfect? Hell, no. Still working on BMI and as the chart below shows, for me weight management truly required a lifestyle change and constant vigilance to sustain it. (Including a course correction over the past few months.) The journey for me is not a straight line, but has many ebbs and flows that only ends when I am 6 feet under.
Best of luck to you all wherever you are in your own journey, with wishes for health and happiness!
tl;dr summary: I used to be fat, but currently I'm not (after A LOT of hard work)!
Okay, I am old and not very flexible or limber (wasn't even when I was a much younger man) but I am now going to say I can't reach the middle of my back because I am too muscular. That will be a yuge lie but I am going to try it out. 
Over this past year I ballooned up (just) over 200# for the first time in my life. I have a thin frame at about 6' tall.
I have been a little more disciplined in my eating the last couple of weeks and despite not being able to get out and do much serious exercise due to other obligations I have been able to drop 5+ pounds. Looking forward to the big event this weekend being over so I can get serious about the exercise side of the equation. Would like to be down around 180 by RAGBRAI, but that might be a tad ambitious. Ultimately I would ideally like to be in the 172-175 range, but I will take 180.
I have been a little more disciplined in my eating the last couple of weeks and despite not being able to get out and do much serious exercise due to other obligations I have been able to drop 5+ pounds. Looking forward to the big event this weekend being over so I can get serious about the exercise side of the equation. Would like to be down around 180 by RAGBRAI, but that might be a tad ambitious. Ultimately I would ideally like to be in the 172-175 range, but I will take 180.
Okay, I am old and not very flexible or limber (wasn't even when I was a much younger man) but I am now going to say I can't reach the middle of my back because I am too muscular. That will be a yuge lie but I am going to try it out.
Well as a wannabe strongman and powerlifter, I agree with my man Jean-François Caron:
I mean pre-120+ weight class powerlifters usually have abs. It's just once you're in 120+ there are no real benefit to staying slim - just get as huge as possible
Same with strongman competitions pretty much. Size comes with increase to absolute strength usuallyeat Whole Foods, or in other words avoid process foods. Do NOT do cardio, or limit it. Focus on resistance training. Then watch your body change, the fat will come off and muscle will be added. Do not focus the number on the scale, muscle is denser than fat, so the number may not move down they way you want but your body comp will change. Or, you can cut calories, do a bunch of cardio, lose weight, but you will also lose muscle. In other words if you are shaped like a pair, you will end up a smaller shaped pair, but now with a compromised metabolism, a hormonal profile that is worse, and your fat to muscle ratio will be worse. But hey you lost weight so it worked (sarcasm). Ever hear of skinny fat?
People should absolutely be doing cardio. There are tons of health benefits.
If your diet isn't bad, then cardio is more than fine. Just don't do extreme "now I'm running 10 miles a day while eating 1 rice cracker every 40 hours". Also even thought weightligting is "optimal" - if you don't like it - don't do it. I have a lot of folks from snowboarding community that have really good shape and all they do is ski/snowboard pretty much(I've tried it once, even bought all the gear(i.e board, snowboard goggles from https://gritroutdoors.com/sports-hobbies/winter-sports/snowboarding/snowboard-googles/ ,etc). Did like 3 ascents, ran out of breath, gave up
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Cardio doesn’t have to be running or biking. Walking is really beneficial and easy on the body. My doctor told me once from a medical perspective there is no difference between running and walking. She also said the only difference is one will get you where you want to go quicker.
absolutely? hmm, not if you are trying to get a healthy body comp. Yes, has health benefits. And I said limit it, in other words don't go crazy with it. Some people have the genetics where they can hang on to muscle easily, in their case cardio is not as damaging to body composition. As we age, it is vitally important to hang on to muscle for a whole bunch of health reasons. Resistance training is the best form of exercise for that. You can get your heart rate up pretty good doing weights. For example alternating muscle groups between sets and not resting, like doing lat pulldowns and then immediately doing a chest movement like dumbbell incline presses. Heck leg day alone can create some pretty darn good oxygen debt.
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Yeah, but weight training is more akin to HIIT rather than low intensity cardio(running). Still I think there were research showing that both burn similar amount of fat that's true. Most people should just try both and see how their body reacts, no other way to find out if cardio going to be good for you even(I've stopped doing it years ago personally, but know a few folks who got really lean while maintaining muscle doing some low intensity).
I suppose if your reason for working out is 100% body composition then cardio isn't that important but for long term health it is. And I agree that resistance training is very important as well. Everyone should be doing both.
If someone is carrying to much body fat, then optimizing metabolism is the most important. Cardio is great for the heart, for building stamina, endurance, releasing endorphins, relieving stress etc...I should have put more context in most post, I meant in the context of starting out. If someone is going on a weight loss journey, well it should be fat loss, then starting out you have to eat a better diet and weight train. You can introduce some cardio later. In the begining, I think walking is fine, just not to much. I'm not big into calorie cutting, the type of foods you eat matter more. Eating whole foods is the most important, you will naturally eat less because whole foods tend to have more satiety. But most importantly, whole foods have a positive metabolic impact in our system. The hormonal profile changes for the better, nutrients are used better, your body doesn't have to utilize resources to deal with food chemicals, and all the crap and toxins in the process foods. The result is an optimized metabolism. The problem is calorie cutting combined with cardio is you condition your metabolism to slow down. Again, if your goal is weight loss, then have it, but you won't have an optimized metabolism and as healthy of a body comp. Long term that is not good. That is one of the reason why people gain the fat back. Resistance training is great for the metabolism and hormonal profile long term, especially for the blood sugar metabolism.
Resistence training also burn calories for longer than cardio as the muscles work to adjust.
calorie cutting combined with a lot of cardio also puts your body in a starvation state. You will lose weight, the problem is some of that is muscle. What this means is your body changes it's hormonal coctail. Your testosterone will go down, you will stop producing leptin (this is a fat burning hormone), and your cortisol will go up. Cortisol is stress hormone, some of it is good, but to much and it is very much a catabolic hormone. Higher cortisol due to dieting and cardio eats muscle tissue. The result is a lower metabolism, which makes it hard to maintain a healthy body comp, especially long term. Of course if you are okay with skinny fat, then no issue. As always, genetics play a role and not everyone is the same. Some people can get away with more cardio and dieting than others without the negative effects.
