I went for another run and felt sliiiightly less like I was about to die? And also apparently shaved 30 seconds off my time to 31.30 for 5.5k? So that's good
I still don't like running. I forced myself to keep going. For me it is definitely more of a mental thing than a physical thing, just making myself keep on going. But that is still good training in of itself. I want to do a lot of trad climbing when things open up so mental training (doing things even though your body telling you not to, controlling fear etc) is all excellent for that.
Still getting used to my exercise bike. I'm adapting the Couch to 5k program for an exercise bike. Alternating fast and slow pedaling for when they want me to run/walk. So far its been pretty good! First week I felt like my legs were going to give out on me when I got off the bike but now I'm handling it pretty well. I downloaded a c25k app and I just put an earbud in to ding me when to speed up and slow down, then watch some sitcoms on my tv.
About to start week 3 of this. My fitness tracker tells me I'm burning a little under 400 calories during that roughly 30 minute ride on average, which is going to quickly add up! Once I can do the whole 30 minutes at my 'fast' speed which my bike tells me is about 17 mph I'll start ratcheting up the tension (I'm at 3 out of 8 now) and consider spending more time on it. I'd like to put in an hour every day if I can eventually. Right now I'm doing 30 minutes every other day.
My experiments with healthy overnight oats breakfasts is chugging along. I've finally dialed in the amount of water/length its in the fridge/time in the microwave to get the consistency I want. Next week I'll be playing with different amounts of brown sugar/salt/maple syrup to get a taste I can live with. My favorite fruit to cut up into it has been bananas, surprisingly, since I usually dislike the texture of them on their own.
After a hateful 25k on the trainer on Wednesday, I had a glorious 25k road biking yesterday (complete with five Strava PRs) and could have kept going except for the fact it was dark o'clock.
So maybe hating life on the trainer is helping my actual cycling?
This week has been all out of order. Instead of weightlifting Monday I went for a 30 mile bike ride - it was the only day with a decent forecast followed by several days of rain and 40 mph winds.
So I lifted Tuesday which was fine but my run Wednesday knackered my legs. I could barely manage the stairs Thursday morning and didn't want something to go spang at the bottom of a squat so I just did a gentle half hour on the exercise bike and pushed Wendesday's weight lift back another day. So I ought to have lifted today but it was sunny after work! Well, technically during work but I took an executive decision to make it an early finish So 20 miles out on the bike it was - flooded lanes be damned! I need to fettle my rear mudguard because a full length guard should not leave me that mucky.
Moody skies on the way home and i got caught by a luckily brief albeit cold rain shower.
Anyway it looks like I'll be doing my Wednesday weight session tomorrow now and Friday's on Monday. Maybe next week I'll work back towards being in synch with my admittedly vague plan.
Pull-ups of the weighted and wide angle variety went well this evening but more importantly I nailed the three 45 second 90 degree pull-up position lock-offs
They are so fucking hard, I'm so pumped to shit the last few seconds (and typically make some weird noises, neighbours might be a bit weirded out...) but man it feels to be right at the edge of failure on those and still powering through
I actually don't really think that I have specific weight goals but I suppose it's more information that's helpful to see trends. It's like not the most useful info yet since I haven't been weighed for a long time and have a self picture of myself based on what I weighed like 4+ years ago so compared to that absurdly out of date metric it's depressing. My workout tracker has a spot for bodyweight though so I can build a trend over time just logging it at workouts and seeing a month of data? Idk.
My real goals are strength goals and not really like here's an end goal number focused since I have very little concept of my upper limits but moreso progressive numbers. Like my next milestone is getting DL/squats to 45lb plates (today will be my first time at 40lbs on squats in like 6ish years). Then I suppose next goals will be added weight=bodyweight for those two.
I went skate skiing for the second time today and it went infinitely better! Compared to earlier in the week when I fell 8 times, this time I didn't fall at all!
We got 12cm of snow yesterday, and they groomed the track twice overnight, so it was much easier to keep my balance and get grip on, versus the hard packed stuff from Tuesday. There was a little too much loose snow to practice balance drills, but it was smooth enough that skiing with one foot in the classic track and one foot shoving off was a lot easier. I ran those drills a lot, as well as going fully in the classic tracks and propelling myself with the poles only, and it was actually quite doable!!
By the end I managed to actually be able to shift my balance and skate fully on both feet, though my stance and rhythm of skating + poles is extremely sloppy still - I'm not getting a lot of motion but I'm moving, a vast improvement for only my second time out.
It is very humbling to be consistently owned by my elders, like goddamn. There were a fair number of folks smiling understandably at me, gliding away at 5 times my speed (and at least twice my age) - both inspiring and also tremendously embarrassing, hahaha. Eager to figure this out and eventually be that old person!
Friday Weigh-in #4
Last week: 172 lbs
This week: 171 lbs
No big change but still going in the right direction. I've been a bit lenient on doing Fitness Boxing or other exercises this week but today I spent over two hours shoveling snow after a storm.
Went for a short run this afternoon and got some light rain and a little hail! Also, there was no one else around so I didn't have to stress out about people and covid! Absolutely beautiful out.
Went home and did a little hangboard work and it wasn't too terrible. Trying to do it more frequently because it's right there and I'm not really able to get out and climb as much as I'd like. Hooray exercise!
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
apparently 2 days in a row of over an hour swimming each is verging on just a little too much.
but going and doing all the drama of getting into the pool for less than 45 minutes seems like a waste of time to me. I want to be in the water longer than it takes me to get dried and dressed, dammit.
but at least i know that i've been working things. my shoulders and arms are beat. thighs and glutes as well.
Decided that I don't like the weight belt for chin-ups (it's great for dips though) and ordered a plate carrier with plates. This way I can start weighting inverted rows and diamond push-ups as well.
My walking capacity is limited due to dvt / using a cane, but I'll consider it. Usually have to just stick to rowing for cardio, but maybe I'll slap it on when I take Russell out for walks.
Decided that I'm going to move from packaged quaker oats to trying my hand at steel cut oats on my insta pot, so if anyone has any favorite/healthy toppings or recipes, feel free to share!
Decided that I'm going to move from packaged quaker oats to trying my hand at steel cut oats on my insta pot, so if anyone has any favorite/healthy toppings or recipes, feel free to share!
Heck yeah, I love me some steel cut oats! This is the recipe I use, but sub oat milk for cow dairy! It freezes really well do if you do a big ol' batch.
Fav toppings include homemade apple butter (recipe), peanut/almond butter, raspberries, ground flax, hemp, cranberries/raisins, maple syrup, cinnamon, and/or ginger. Some folks like banana mashed up in but that's an ugh from me.
(Also heads up watch that fibre content, it may be a musical few days while your guts get used to it)
Going down on my calories another 150 from 2,800 to 2,650. I've been pretty consistent the last 8 or 9 days and I thought I was seeing a downward trend but when I got on the scale this morning I was back at around 214 pounds. So it's probably all been normal weight fluctuations which means I still have no clue if I'm in the right deficit zone for what I'm wanting.
Edit: unless I'm actually successfully recomping by losing fat but maintaining or gaining muscle mass at the same rate, in which case it's probably too early to tell.
Or this high reading is a/the fluctuation. I'd have thought 8/9 days not long enough to see a trend forming yet. Maybe give it another couple weeks at 2800 calories and then decide?
Was on some limestone today trying a 7A boulder problem and feeling all cool for nailing the crux move once or twice
Then a couple of guys turned up and were like "oh hey man that's great, keep on going you'll get it" and then sent a few 7B+s and 7Cs like ah cool cool yeah I remember how shit I am now
Going down on my calories another 150 from 2,800 to 2,650. I've been pretty consistent the last 8 or 9 days and I thought I was seeing a downward trend but when I got on the scale this morning I was back at around 214 pounds. So it's probably all been normal weight fluctuations which means I still have no clue if I'm in the right deficit zone for what I'm wanting.
Edit: unless I'm actually successfully recomping by losing fat but maintaining or gaining muscle mass at the same rate, in which case it's probably too early to tell.
It's entirely possible. It's why doing stuff like body-comp tests every couple of months is worth doing to track that sort of thing. Like I only saw 2-4 lb of movement over 3 months, but realistically I had lost total 5-8 lb in losing fat/gaining muscle in the duration.
Wish exercise more intense than a short walk didn't keep leaving me with brain fog. While I'm scrambling to keep up with this month's avalanche of work (like literally my entire month of writing assignments keeps getting dropped with all the deadlines in the same 7-8 days, and then I'm completely free for like three weeks so the avalanche hits harder when next it comes around) I don't dare continue C25K.
Given how ridiculously effective finding the right supplements (the Zinc mostly, but the Fish Oil/B Vitamins/D help too and are useful for my other problems) has been in managing my depression (alongside CBT techniques, but it never worked alone and didn't work as well with SSRIs), I'm tempted to roll the dice (and dig through NIH articles) to find a silver bullet that might help. I guess tyrosine has research showing it helps with adult ADHD somewhat, and I kept meaning to try curcumin for inflammation crap, and both are suggested for brain fog, so...
Of course, if I can get well into C25K after this, maybe that brain fog problem will resolve itself without any help. I can hope.
In positive news, I'm holding my diet steady and my blood pressure continues to trend down, should be back in the green in a few weeks if everything holds.
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
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I still don't like running. I forced myself to keep going. For me it is definitely more of a mental thing than a physical thing, just making myself keep on going. But that is still good training in of itself. I want to do a lot of trad climbing when things open up so mental training (doing things even though your body telling you not to, controlling fear etc) is all excellent for that.
About to start week 3 of this. My fitness tracker tells me I'm burning a little under 400 calories during that roughly 30 minute ride on average, which is going to quickly add up! Once I can do the whole 30 minutes at my 'fast' speed which my bike tells me is about 17 mph I'll start ratcheting up the tension (I'm at 3 out of 8 now) and consider spending more time on it. I'd like to put in an hour every day if I can eventually. Right now I'm doing 30 minutes every other day.
My experiments with healthy overnight oats breakfasts is chugging along. I've finally dialed in the amount of water/length its in the fridge/time in the microwave to get the consistency I want. Next week I'll be playing with different amounts of brown sugar/salt/maple syrup to get a taste I can live with. My favorite fruit to cut up into it has been bananas, surprisingly, since I usually dislike the texture of them on their own.
Still more walking involved than I'd like but I also didn't feel like I was going to die as much as last week.
So maybe hating life on the trainer is helping my actual cycling?
So I lifted Tuesday which was fine but my run Wednesday knackered my legs. I could barely manage the stairs Thursday morning and didn't want something to go spang at the bottom of a squat so I just did a gentle half hour on the exercise bike and pushed Wendesday's weight lift back another day. So I ought to have lifted today but it was sunny after work! Well, technically during work but I took an executive decision to make it an early finish So 20 miles out on the bike it was - flooded lanes be damned! I need to fettle my rear mudguard because a full length guard should not leave me that mucky.
Moody skies on the way home and i got caught by a luckily brief albeit cold rain shower.
Anyway it looks like I'll be doing my Wednesday weight session tomorrow now and Friday's on Monday. Maybe next week I'll work back towards being in synch with my admittedly vague plan.
They are so fucking hard, I'm so pumped to shit the last few seconds (and typically make some weird noises, neighbours might be a bit weirded out...) but man it feels to be right at the edge of failure on those and still powering through
Goodie...
I actually don't really think that I have specific weight goals but I suppose it's more information that's helpful to see trends. It's like not the most useful info yet since I haven't been weighed for a long time and have a self picture of myself based on what I weighed like 4+ years ago so compared to that absurdly out of date metric it's depressing. My workout tracker has a spot for bodyweight though so I can build a trend over time just logging it at workouts and seeing a month of data? Idk.
My real goals are strength goals and not really like here's an end goal number focused since I have very little concept of my upper limits but moreso progressive numbers. Like my next milestone is getting DL/squats to 45lb plates (today will be my first time at 40lbs on squats in like 6ish years). Then I suppose next goals will be added weight=bodyweight for those two.
We got 12cm of snow yesterday, and they groomed the track twice overnight, so it was much easier to keep my balance and get grip on, versus the hard packed stuff from Tuesday. There was a little too much loose snow to practice balance drills, but it was smooth enough that skiing with one foot in the classic track and one foot shoving off was a lot easier. I ran those drills a lot, as well as going fully in the classic tracks and propelling myself with the poles only, and it was actually quite doable!!
By the end I managed to actually be able to shift my balance and skate fully on both feet, though my stance and rhythm of skating + poles is extremely sloppy still - I'm not getting a lot of motion but I'm moving, a vast improvement for only my second time out.
It is very humbling to be consistently owned by my elders, like goddamn. There were a fair number of folks smiling understandably at me, gliding away at 5 times my speed (and at least twice my age) - both inspiring and also tremendously embarrassing, hahaha. Eager to figure this out and eventually be that old person!
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
Last week: 172 lbs
This week: 171 lbs
No big change but still going in the right direction. I've been a bit lenient on doing Fitness Boxing or other exercises this week but today I spent over two hours shoveling snow after a storm.
Went home and did a little hangboard work and it wasn't too terrible. Trying to do it more frequently because it's right there and I'm not really able to get out and climb as much as I'd like. Hooray exercise!
but going and doing all the drama of getting into the pool for less than 45 minutes seems like a waste of time to me. I want to be in the water longer than it takes me to get dried and dressed, dammit.
but at least i know that i've been working things. my shoulders and arms are beat. thighs and glutes as well.
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Heck yeah, I love me some steel cut oats! This is the recipe I use, but sub oat milk for cow dairy! It freezes really well do if you do a big ol' batch.
Fav toppings include homemade apple butter (recipe), peanut/almond butter, raspberries, ground flax, hemp, cranberries/raisins, maple syrup, cinnamon, and/or ginger. Some folks like banana mashed up in but that's an ugh from me.
(Also heads up watch that fibre content, it may be a musical few days while your guts get used to it)
Edit: unless I'm actually successfully recomping by losing fat but maintaining or gaining muscle mass at the same rate, in which case it's probably too early to tell.
Then a couple of guys turned up and were like "oh hey man that's great, keep on going you'll get it" and then sent a few 7B+s and 7Cs like ah cool cool yeah I remember how shit I am now
Whoops, up a pound and a half!! Oh wait, I am also very sore, right, right, water weight.
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
Oh for sure and ultimately I just gotta keep going, climb more, get my technique right etc.
It's entirely possible. It's why doing stuff like body-comp tests every couple of months is worth doing to track that sort of thing. Like I only saw 2-4 lb of movement over 3 months, but realistically I had lost total 5-8 lb in losing fat/gaining muscle in the duration.
So today is Robax, heating pad, and gentle hobbling like an old person lmao
Nailed it
Legs are cramping just looking at that.
Getting closer to that 1:45 half, though man today I had nothing left in the tank for my last miles so shaving two min seems painful right now.
It's wild to think that last year my time was 2:17ish.
Also anyone else on Strava?
Given how ridiculously effective finding the right supplements (the Zinc mostly, but the Fish Oil/B Vitamins/D help too and are useful for my other problems) has been in managing my depression (alongside CBT techniques, but it never worked alone and didn't work as well with SSRIs), I'm tempted to roll the dice (and dig through NIH articles) to find a silver bullet that might help. I guess tyrosine has research showing it helps with adult ADHD somewhat, and I kept meaning to try curcumin for inflammation crap, and both are suggested for brain fog, so...
Of course, if I can get well into C25K after this, maybe that brain fog problem will resolve itself without any help. I can hope.
In positive news, I'm holding my diet steady and my blood pressure continues to trend down, should be back in the green in a few weeks if everything holds.
This seems very obvious now you've said it. I was definitely imagining something more like what Jedoc posted.
Good work, that sounds difficult and horrible
3 more days till one months sans soda though
Thanks! It's difficult but enjoy it, strength training is actually quite fun!
It's okay to hit a roadbump sometimes! Weight loss is about trends and not outliers, you can still stay on track.
3 months without soda is super impressive! I need to try and cut back on my Coke Zero intake, do some more seltzers and such to get my bubble fix...
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
960 calories of chips later...
edit: oh God 2 more months without soda to make it 3 is gonna be so hard. sugar makes my brain not as sad.
They decided to change my order without telling me so I got my money back and will never go there again
but now I need a new podiatrist and a new order for orthotics so it'll be another few months
stupid people
sugar... in water... more...