Health in General - Exercise, Mental health, Food and Diet

[Vince]

You'll be catching up with Anatoly the janitor very soon - External Link/Members Only

Yes, that whole "bust your ass out, the gym should feel like a forced labour camp, your shit body is worthless and the way it feels is irrelevant" mentality is WAYYY too widespread.
I think most beginners and intermediates feel like, if they aren't punishing themselves and rack up injuries at the gym, they must be doing it wrong - which is why they don't progress much and eventually quit.

Even pro body builders perpetuate this, no idea why... To appear more "impossibly godlike legend"?

Only when carefully (and without being primed) reviewing the work of some pros, one realises they do a lot LESS than you thought they did - and, they are on gear.
Or, maybe I am so thick that I didn't see the forest for the trees and everyone knows workouts should mostly feel great and not leave me like a wreck for the rest of the day?

[RandomGuy99]

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[Frostingthebowl]

Yes, that whole "bust your ass out, the gym should feel like a forced labour camp, your shit body is worthless and the way it feels is irrelevant" mentality is WAYYY too widespread.
I think most beginners and intermediates feel like, if they aren't punishing themselves and rack up injuries at the gym, they must be doing it wrong - which is why they don't progress much and eventually quit.

Even pro body builders perpetuate this, no idea why... To appear more "impossibly godlike legend"?

Only when carefully (and without being primed) reviewing the work of some pros, one realises they do a lot LESS than you thought they did - and, they are on gear.
Or, maybe I am so thick that I didn't see the forest for the trees and everyone knows workouts should mostly feel great and not leave me like a wreck for the rest of the day?

Stimulate, dont annihilate - the lee haney philosophy.

[Rick2468]

My running has been crap for the past few months and diet not been great. Did a 10km with my running group last week and got around but was light headed all evening. I've also got some wobble around my waist which I hate. So I'm seeing this as a wake-up call so going to pick up the running again and step the cycling up a notch, need to do more strength training as well as it really helps with the proportions.

I think I've caught it early so hope to be back on track. I reckon I can shift 5kg in 2 months so going to aim for that. When I was in my 20s I got 2 stone overweight after my belly finally lost the fight against the boozing. I hated it, felt I couldn't wear cool clothes, went a year without any relationships or pulling and lost confidence. I ended up doing a 14 week diet with a daily 1000 calories deficit, it was the hardest thing I've done so I promised myself I would never let myself get so overweight again. Time to remember that promise and deliver.

Just had an idea of doing daily weigh-ins starting tomorrow morning. Will post them here in a week or so for some accountability.

[Xtro]

My running has been crap for the past few months and diet not been great. Did a 10km with my running group last week and got around but was light headed all evening. I've also got some wobble around my waist which I hate. So I'm seeing this as a wake-up call so going to pick up the running again and step the cycling up a notch, need to do more strength training as well as it really helps with the proportions.

I think I've caught it early so hope to be back on track. I reckon I can shift 5kg in 2 months so going to aim for that. When I was in my 20s I got 2 stone overweight after my belly finally lost the fight against the boozing. I hated it, felt I couldn't wear cool clothes, went a year without any relationships or pulling and lost confidence. I ended up doing a 14 week diet with a daily 1000 calories deficit, it was the hardest thing I've done so I promised myself I would never let myself get so overweight again. Time to remember that promise and deliver.

Just had an idea of doing daily weigh-ins starting tomorrow morning. Will post them here in a week or so for some accountability.

Rather than focus on weight, give us your belly circumference.   

[RandomGuy99]

Just had an idea of doing daily weigh-ins starting tomorrow morning. Will post them here in a week or so for some accountability.

Don't they advise against doing weekly weigh ins as everyone's weight naturally varies day to day due to hydration, bowel contents, etc. Best to do it weekly instead of obsessing on a daily basis.  Do it on the same day and time.

[Rick2468]

Don't they advise against doing weekly weigh ins as everyone's weight naturally varies day to day due to hydration, bowel contents, etc. Best to do it weekly instead of obsessing on a daily basis.  Do it on the same day and time.

I have heard that before but personally I find it useful. I weigh myself daily first thing in the morning for consistency. You do get variations but you definitely see a long term trend. I don't react to the daily measurements, I stick to the original plan of hitting a calorie deficit and use the longer term trend as confirmation that the plan is working.

When I did my 14 week diet I did three things each day, 1) weighed on scales 2) waist measurement with tape measure and 3) mirror selfie of me just in my pants (I used an old phone so I didn't have dozens of naked selfies of myself on my camera roll). I found taking multiple measurements meant that if a particular measurement stalled for a week or so, you could hope to see improvement in one of the other measurements.

Here is a chart of my daily weigh-ins during my 14 week diet. There are daily variations even though I hit a 1000 deficit pretty much every day but the long term trend is downward. I remember really hoping to hit my target weight for my birthday so I could celebrate with a milkshake. I did not quite make it so I held off and had a milkshake when I hit my target weight 3 days later.

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[Vice Admiral]

Giles Coren, the Times restaurant critic, gives some valuable advice in today's paper about what to do with vegetables:

Vegetables are fine and dandy but you’d never eat one unless you had to.  Like because your mum made you or something.  In the war they didn’t even have to be rationed because nobody wanted to eat them.  This led to a massive glut and the famous “Dig for Victory” campaign, where thousands of people patriotically dug pits to bury all the unwanted vegetables in.

Nowadays, health-conscious mums always put them in the weekly shop but then bung them straight in the compost when they get home to avoid overfilling the fridge so you can’t find the Charlie Bigham pies.  If you do want to eat vegetables, it is important to kill the germs, so a good long boil is called for.  This also helps them to break down quicker on the compost heap – should you, for any reason, not want to eat them because they’re disgusting.

[Rick2468]

My goal was to kick-start my running routine this month. My target distance when things are going well is 35km to 45km a week split across 3 or 4 runs but I haven't covered that distance since April. I have still be running just to make sure I don't have to relearn how to run in the future but tend to do 10km or 15km for the past 6 months.

I wanted to target 35km this week but really lacking the motivation to do longer sessions whilst running alone. I decided to do 5km a day to cut it down into chunks. First week of doing that went well and I did 42km over the past 7 days which I'm happy with. Longest single runs during that were 10km with my run club and 7km on my own. I've started each run slow so I don't feel tired for the whole run but overall pace was pretty much in line with what I normally do.

I definitely go through phases of either being healthy where I exercise a lot and really eat well, or unhealthy when I don't exercise much and eat crap. There never seems to be a go between. I want to shift 3kg before Christmas to get back to my weight in April and it's doable. I'm going to do another week of 5km a day but if a run is going well I will push it to 10km and take the following day off. Hopefully I will get back into a nice routine of running 3 or 4 times a week and covering a good distance.

[RandomGuy99]

My goal was to kick-start my running routine this month. My target distance when things are going well is 35km to 45km a week split across 3 or 4 runs but I haven't covered that distance since April. I have still be running just to make sure I don't have to relearn how to run in the future but tend to do 10km or 15km for the past 6 months.

I wanted to target 35km this week but really lacking the motivation to do longer sessions whilst running alone. I decided to do 5km a day to cut it down into chunks. First week of doing that went well and I did 42km over the past 7 days which I'm happy with. Longest single runs during that were 10km with my run club and 7km on my own. I've started each run slow so I don't feel tired for the whole run but overall pace was pretty much in line with what I normally do.

I definitely go through phases of either being healthy where I exercise a lot and really eat well, or unhealthy when I don't exercise much and eat crap. There never seems to be a go between. I want to shift 3kg before Christmas to get back to my weight in April and it's doable. I'm going to do another week of 5km a day but if a run is going well I will push it to 10km and take the following day off. Hopefully I will get back into a nice routine of running 3 or 4 times a week and covering a good distance.

You need some motivation

How about finding a low escort who also runs and you run together with her slightly in front and when you've done your 5 km you go to hers for shower together and then sex?

[Sunny]

I am no fan of running but came across a Navy seal talking about how recruits are expected to run 1.5 miles in under 10 minutes and now it's piqued my interest in short distance running. See If I can do 1 mile run in under 8 mins.