webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited May 2022
Are you doing any other work besides elliptical? Any weight work at all? Building a bit of muscle will generate a higher metabolic load and help out a bit with burning calories. Any sports or physical activities That you could go out and do? It can help to have other people involved. Like a hiking club for example. I'm betting you're becoming more efficient at the elliptical as the months have went on.
MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
For me, dry breakfast cereal has been a godsend for sweet snacking. It's tough to overdo it, the variety is out there, and you get sweet/crunch.
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Recent study findings have pretty much shown elimination diets can lead to similar behaviour you've experienced - eventually you crash out and over-indulge in cravings and the diet isn't something easily maintained
It's generally better to do things in moderation (though you'll know what's best for you). I find it easier to stay on target with like, 80% good food and 20% absolute trash that will fit into my macros. Stuff like ice cream bars (gourmet or otherwise), little chocolates, that sort of thing - they hit my sweet tooth/need for chocolate, but do so in a caloric level I can manage while still making my protein and calorie goals
Also trying not to be harsh on yourself when you *don't* hit your goals for a day, and let yourself indulge in a craving instead of pushing it off, means you don't have that feeling get worse/harder to resist. You can always meet your goals tomorrow!
Take this with a huge dash of “everyone is different and you have to find what works for you” salt, but personally “full abstinence” strategies never work for me long term.
I do a combo of deciding what I can do without (soda was an easy give up for me, because it doesn’t fill me up and is a lot of sugar, and I can easily sub coffee) and what I can’t fully give up but know I need to limit (I’m never going to give up a fried chicken burger and fries, but, I limit it to once a week tops).
I personally keep a very strict diet M, T, Th, F. Wednesday is basically a cheat day where I go out to eat wherever I feel like for lunch and order whatever crazy, 1,000 calorie dish makes me happy. Sat and Sun are generally healthy meals but less strict than the rest of the week. Wednesday works for me as a nice break from the strictness of the rest of the schedule.
This approach might not work for you, or it may be an amazing fit! The important thing is to realize that it’s an iterative, experimental journey and it’s not always going to pan out on any given day, so take each day as a datapoint and keep on trucking.
Take this with a huge dash of “everyone is different and you have to find what works for you” salt, but personally “full abstinence” strategies never work for me long term.
I do a combo of deciding what I can do without (soda was an easy give up for me, because it doesn’t fill me up and is a lot of sugar, and I can easily sub coffee) and what I can’t fully give up but know I need to limit (I’m never going to give up a fried chicken burger and fries, but, I limit it to once a week tops).
I personally keep a very strict diet M, T, Th, F. Wednesday is basically a cheat day where I go out to eat wherever I feel like for lunch and order whatever crazy, 1,000 calorie dish makes me happy. Sat and Sun are generally healthy meals but less strict than the rest of the week. Wednesday works for me as a nice break from the strictness of the rest of the schedule.
This approach might not work for you, or it may be an amazing fit! The important thing is to realize that it’s an iterative, experimental journey and it’s not always going to pan out on any given day, so take each day as a datapoint and keep on trucking.
Yeah this is kind of what I ended up doing as well. Stick with a good meal plan/schedule during the work week, and Saturdays (and sometimes Sundays) I let myself have a treat like a piece of cake from the local bakery or some donuts, or a big cheat meal. Not every week is that good (donuts are an Achilles heel really) and I've put on ten or so pounds since last summer (combination of injuries slowing me down, limiting me in the gym/indulging in food more outside of my normal meal plans/lack of cardio on off days), but I've still kept off the 100+ from my start four years ago.
Finding treats that are close to what you like but far less impactful caloricly helps. I love getting those Halo Top ice cream pints as a treat, and they're only like 300-400 calories and not terrible macro-wise either. They're not the greatest ice cream, but still decent for hitting a craving.
Yeah pro tip before you move to a new apartment double check if it is above the oldest donut store in the city that has a dirt cheap 2 donut + a coffee deal and is also above a bar and grill with a killer chicken tenders + tater tots combo and a good beer selection.
I can’t leave the home without walking by temptation.
I can relate, bc if it was up to me I would eat trash food 24/7. I found giving it up cold turkey was too tough and I would just end up indulging worse. So now apart from having a day where I let myself just eat/drink what I want, I also let myself a sweet treat everyday, something small like a handful of skittles.
I could probably lose more for a bit if gave it all up but I doubt I would maintain. This works for me much better,
When I was losing weight, I was allowing myself a smallish (100-140 calorie) ice cream bar at night. It never seemed to slow me down and felt like a good reward for being good through the day. I should probably stick to something like that instead of trying to go cold turkey.
Are you doing any other work besides elliptical? Any weight work at all? Building a bit of muscle will generate a higher metabolic load and help out a bit with burning calories. Any sports or physical activities That you could go out and do? It can help to have other people involved. Like a hiking club for example. I'm betting you're becoming more efficient at the elliptical as the months have went on.
It's been mostly elliptical for the past year or so. I've added in pushups lately, doing 1 extra per day. I have a weight bench and a pair of 10lb dumbbells. My upper body strength has always been embarrassingly bad, so I'm benching like 60lbs right now. I have 2x25 plates and 2x10 plates available.
In the past, I'd typically mix in two days of weight training. My usual routine on weight days was:
For me, dry breakfast cereal has been a godsend for sweet snacking. It's tough to overdo it, the variety is out there, and you get sweet/crunch.
My breakfast has been almost exclusively instant oatmeal. I could probably stand to mix in varieties of foods to curb the cravings. Out of interest, what cereals do you snack on? A problem I've had is having a 4 and 6 year old means they want the sweeter cereals, meaning another temptation is around.
Recent study findings have pretty much shown elimination diets can lead to similar behaviour you've experienced - eventually you crash out and over-indulge in cravings and the diet isn't something easily maintained
It's generally better to do things in moderation (though you'll know what's best for you). I find it easier to stay on target with like, 80% good food and 20% absolute trash that will fit into my macros. Stuff like ice cream bars (gourmet or otherwise), little chocolates, that sort of thing - they hit my sweet tooth/need for chocolate, but do so in a caloric level I can manage while still making my protein and calorie goals
Also trying not to be harsh on yourself when you *don't* hit your goals for a day, and let yourself indulge in a craving instead of pushing it off, means you don't have that feeling get worse/harder to resist. You can always meet your goals tomorrow!
Good to know that my ice cream cheat at night wasn't breaking any major rules. Maybe getting back to that is the way to go then. And I certainly felt like I've strictly followed a diet only to relapse. It's so rough sometimes, but I'll make sure to cut myself a break from time to time.
I don't know if it makes a difference, but I was dieting using the Noom app. My calorie counts were pretty low (~1400 calories), so I'm not sure I was doing the best for me. I've heard a lot of good and bad when it comes to Noom, so I stopped using it daily. Part of me says I can use it again as a tracker, but maybe it's best not to. Any thoughts?
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Trying to get back onto a regular exercise routine after getting alarmingly close to my highest ever weight.
Did my first set of pushup in...8 months? Barely got through 10. I am a weak, fat motherfucker. At least there really isn't anywhere to go but up!
That’s 10 more than you had to do today, so fuck yeah!
+3
MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2022
For late night snacking, I'll go with Frosted Mini Wheats. 210 cals for 21 of em', they're not bad dry and there's a good variety of flavors. If you can find low sugar whipped cream it makes for a pretty effective snack. I'll also do Mallow Mateys or Cocoa Puffs occasionally, but all if them are surprisingly high in vitamins, too.
Edit: There's been a surprising amount of sales on rice cakes, too. I don't like the big ones because they're too spongy, but the mini ones are crispy and low calorie for the chocolate and apple cineman ones
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My go to, semi-healthy snack, is tortilla chips and salsa.
15ish chips is like 150 calories, and a good amount of salsa is like 20 calories.
Personally what I crave isn’t sweet, but savory and salty so chips and salsa hits that for me. And let’s me at least pretend I am getting some veggies in.
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MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
Savory, I go with cheese crackers, 180-210 cals, tough to graze with if you buy the six packets of crackers, and there's usually some protein in there, but I also fuuuullly acknowledge that I'm a bit of a food weirdo.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
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I definitely feel like trying to develop some muscle and doing a solid resistance training plan has done way more for my friends who wanted to lose weight than just dieting and maybe some cardio
I dont know what the science is for that but it wouldn't surprise me if at least psychologically it was way more enjoyable as a process too
Well I know part of it is that muscle tends to burn more calories than fat even when at rest, so you get that passive benefit. Plus I know for me, that feeling of good soreness after working out feels way better and more like I'm getting results than just being out of breath from cardio. I have never gotten a "runners high" so extended cardio is basically just a lot of misery for me.
My go-to snack these days is Kodiak Cakes chocolate chip pancakes mix. Half a cup is 200 calories, 4g of fibre, 14g of protein. I can put that in a coffee mug, add a bit of water, stir, throw in the microwave for 60 seconds and eat. It's really darn good.
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+1
jmcdonaldI voted, did you?DC(ish)Registered Userregular
I definitely feel like trying to develop some muscle and doing a solid resistance training plan has done way more for my friends who wanted to lose weight than just dieting and maybe some cardio
I dont know what the science is for that but it wouldn't surprise me if at least psychologically it was way more enjoyable as a process too
i started stronglifts at the beginning of this year, with the intention of losing weight. i've gained 15 pounds over the five months (187-202) which puts me at the most i've ever weighed, and my clothes fit better - and i look thinner.
Resistance training is the best thing in the world.
edit - and weight is just a number. moving away from worrying about that number towards focusing on hitting the next goal was a complete paradigm shift for me.
Yeah, muscle weighing more than fat does mess with weight math a bit, but as you said - you're seeing the differences elsewhere, which is what really matters.
I've also always found that things that require strenuous activity are more fun and shorter duration than similar "cardio" things. Ideally you have both, but I feel getting the hard exercise in to build muscle is more important, just from my own anecdotal experience.
I definitely feel like trying to develop some muscle and doing a solid resistance training plan has done way more for my friends who wanted to lose weight than just dieting and maybe some cardio
I dont know what the science is for that but it wouldn't surprise me if at least psychologically it was way more enjoyable as a process too
i started stronglifts at the beginning of this year, with the intention of losing weight. i've gained 15 pounds over the five months (187-202) which puts me at the most i've ever weighed, and my clothes fit better - and i look thinner.
Resistance training is the best thing in the world.
edit - and weight is just a number. moving away from worrying about that number towards focusing on hitting the next goal was a complete paradigm shift for me.
Well if you whack on 7kgs and thats largely lean mass in a real way your body fat percentage is lower by definition! I think also having some muscle frames people out more, it makes you look fitter because your body shape with lots of lean mass looks very different from body shape with the equivalent in fatty mass.
I definitely feel like trying to develop some muscle and doing a solid resistance training plan has done way more for my friends who wanted to lose weight than just dieting and maybe some cardio
I dont know what the science is for that but it wouldn't surprise me if at least psychologically it was way more enjoyable as a process too
The big thing for me is also that weightlifting develops muscle develops the amount of food you can eat in a day and still achieve aesthetic goals
It also, if you follow the cut/bulk paradigm, provides a good end cap to the cut bit so you're not eternally in a weight loss spiral of yoyo dieting, losing muscle and fat, and then gaining it back primarily as fat when your diet ends one way or another (though you can also make good gains at maintenance, as recomposition is becoming more of a studied and proven thing!)
1400 calories strikes me as fairly low, knowing Noom tends to start people at a wildly low number (usually women at 1250 and men at 1350-1400) regardless of bodyweight; I'd suggest using something like the MacroFactor app to log instead and find your TDEE through your actual weight loss/gain, and then decide on what your actual goals are from there. (If you don't want to pay for the app, you can also use MyFitnessPal and a TDEE calculator to figure out your estimated maintenance, and tweak it to match your goal percentage over time).
You might find even just eating a tiny bit under your maintenance level will help you gain muscle and lose a tiny bit of fat. (Stronger By Science had a great newsletter lately (https://www.strongerbyscience.com/muscle-caloric-deficit/ ) about how recomp might happen at a loss of up to 0.5% of bodyweight per week, which is what I'm aiming for once my diet break ends tomorrow!)
Well I know part of it is that muscle tends to burn more calories than fat even when at rest, so you get that passive benefit. Plus I know for me, that feeling of good soreness after working out feels way better and more like I'm getting results than just being out of breath from cardio. I have never gotten a "runners high" so extended cardio is basically just a lot of misery for me.
Ah! The gamer side of me understands that passives are better for most builds than active abilities. I'll definitely look to add more weight work into my weekly routine. Any suggestions on stuff I can do given this equipment?
The weights on the bar are 25lbs each, with 15lbs on the leg lift section.
The dumbbells are 10lbs each.
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Well I know part of it is that muscle tends to burn more calories than fat even when at rest, so you get that passive benefit. Plus I know for me, that feeling of good soreness after working out feels way better and more like I'm getting results than just being out of breath from cardio. I have never gotten a "runners high" so extended cardio is basically just a lot of misery for me.
Ah! The gamer side of me understands that passives are better for most builds than active abilities. I'll definitely look to add more weight work into my weekly routine. Any suggestions on stuff I can do given this equipment?
The weights on the bar are 25lbs each, with 15lbs on the leg lift section.
The dumbbells are 10lbs each.
Have you done any kind of barbell lifting before? Swole Woman has a very good introductory program for folks here:
I definitely feel like trying to develop some muscle and doing a solid resistance training plan has done way more for my friends who wanted to lose weight than just dieting and maybe some cardio
I dont know what the science is for that but it wouldn't surprise me if at least psychologically it was way more enjoyable as a process too
The big thing for me is also that weightlifting develops muscle develops the amount of food you can eat in a day and still achieve aesthetic goals
It also, if you follow the cut/bulk paradigm, provides a good end cap to the cut bit so you're not eternally in a weight loss spiral of yoyo dieting, losing muscle and fat, and then gaining it back primarily as fat when your diet ends one way or another (though you can also make good gains at maintenance, as recomposition is becoming more of a studied and proven thing!)
1400 calories strikes me as fairly low, knowing Noom tends to start people at a wildly low number (usually women at 1250 and men at 1350-1400) regardless of bodyweight; I'd suggest using something like the MacroFactor app to log instead and find your TDEE through your actual weight loss/gain, and then decide on what your actual goals are from there. (If you don't want to pay for the app, you can also use MyFitnessPal and a TDEE calculator to figure out your estimated maintenance, and tweak it to match your goal percentage over time).
You might find even just eating a tiny bit under your maintenance level will help you gain muscle and lose a tiny bit of fat. (Stronger By Science had a great newsletter lately (https://www.strongerbyscience.com/muscle-caloric-deficit/ ) about how recomp might happen at a loss of up to 0.5% of bodyweight per week, which is what I'm aiming for once my diet break ends tomorrow!)
is what i've used to understand what i should target for my goals. even then, as long as i'm seeing progress i'm not super worried about what i eat. if i'm hungry i eat, if i'm not i don't - over time this has shifted me away from bad habits and into a more regular eating cadence.
I've definitely been craving talking to people about fitness and exercise so here goes
I'm running a tactical barbell program because it's extra fun to do
Right now it's just bench/OP/squat/ 3x a week with some weighted pull-ups and 2 days of running for 30-60 minutes and 1 day of 60-90. I think after week 6 or 8 it ramps up the running
But it's been fun to actually have a better cardio system
Well I know part of it is that muscle tends to burn more calories than fat even when at rest, so you get that passive benefit. Plus I know for me, that feeling of good soreness after working out feels way better and more like I'm getting results than just being out of breath from cardio. I have never gotten a "runners high" so extended cardio is basically just a lot of misery for me.
Ah! The gamer side of me understands that passives are better for most builds than active abilities. I'll definitely look to add more weight work into my weekly routine. Any suggestions on stuff I can do given this equipment?
The weights on the bar are 25lbs each, with 15lbs on the leg lift section.
The dumbbells are 10lbs each.
You can do a lot with a bar and weights, although you might get too strong for those soon! With that you can bench, overhead press, deadlift and do curls at the very least.
Let's talk about weighted pullups I love weighted pullups tell me about your weighted pullupppsss
I'm just running the fighter progression program right now so I'm at 8reps - 7reps - 6reps - 5reps - 4reps, but only using about 24lbs. Trying to hit 10 at that weight, but I might be doing it with worse form than I'd like
Pound for pound, muscle burns more calories than fat. However, it's worth having some caution about the extent of the day to day effect from a calories burned perspective. Fat passively burns about 2 calories per pound per day, muscle passively burns about 5 calories per pound per day.
To put that into a practical example: say that you're a 180 pound man. The difference in 24% body fat and 14% body fat at that weight is a swing of 18 pounds of fat turning into 18 pounds of muscle, which is 54 calories a day. In terms of daily calorie burn, that's half a banana. In five days, it’s a small bag of chips or chocolate bar. Over a year, it’s about five pounds of passive fat burn for said hypothetical guy. If you take the higher end estimates of how many calories a pound of muscle passively burns (7 per pound), you get 70 calories per day for the hypothetical guy, which is still not huge.
The main benefits from resistance work are that you’re able to do more, that it significantly improves your overall health, it helps combat insulin resistance, and most people would tend to say that you look better. But extra caloric burn of resistance work is like extra strength gained from cardio work - sure, you’re getting some benefits in that respect, but it’s a very minor part of that particular overall benefit package for most people.
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I think though that when you consider the other factors around that, it does add up. Like for a start if you're doing regular intense training there's a calorie element to that too, having a higher BFP makes you much more likely to develop symptoms of insulin resistance, the psychological element... and when those differences add up to going over rather than under your targeted calories, it can tip things
Also bearing in mind that so much of this is genetic or epigenetic, very personal, some people are way more predisposed towards certain responses and a lot of this is very complex and kind of unknown, like person to person very little consistency unknown.
There are a huge amount of people who say "I cut calories and couldn't lose weight, then I started resistance training and ate normally and lost weight" even though ostensibly those numbers don't add up (how can someone be in a 500 cal deficit, struggle to cut weight, then go back to no deficit, train to the tune of 100-200 cals a day extra work, and the weight falls off?) it very much absolutely does happen. There are people who eat one huge meal a day in a deficit and lose 20kgs in a few months too. And it's just weird, and varies a lot.
What's your approximate bodyweight Solar (so that the heavier chunks among us can feel better/set goals)?
Reminder for anyone interested in strength training that we have a Weightlifting specific thread and it's been a little sleepy lately but a bunch of us still lurk it and would be happy to talk clanging and banging in more detail (also lifting weights, I guess).
What's your approximate bodyweight Solar (so that the heavier chunks among us can feel better/set goals)?
Reminder for anyone interested in strength training that we have a Weightlifting specific thread and it's been a little sleepy lately but a bunch of us still lurk it and would be happy to talk clanging and banging in more detail (also lifting weights, I guess).
Solar also has a primary hobby of rock climbing, which is basically doing different styles of pull ups for hours at a time.
When I was last in real climbing shape, fingertip and one handed pullups were easy as all get out.
Heck, I can still do a one handed pullups on my right arm and I'm in completely half assed climbing shape.
Oh sure, I'm just curious because I feel bad about my pullup numbers sometimes and then I remember that a lot of people who are way better at pullups than me weigh 50 lbs less than I do so for it to be fair they'd have to add 50lbs to theirselves but then people like Solar come along and fuck it all up again.
What's your approximate bodyweight Solar (so that the heavier chunks among us can feel better/set goals)?
Reminder for anyone interested in strength training that we have a Weightlifting specific thread and it's been a little sleepy lately but a bunch of us still lurk it and would be happy to talk clanging and banging in more detail (also lifting weights, I guess).
I weight 75-76kgs currently. Or 165 to 167lbs if you like. So that's what, 60% of my bodyweight as an added 1 RM?
Currently I do my sets at 25-30kgs added for sets of 5, depending on how fresh I am. I can knock out 5 with 25kgs added in basically any state but 30kgs is limit for working sets really, and I have to be fresh.
One armers I can currently do with a pulley taking off 10kg for sets of 2, again totally fresh. Probably a little less taken off on the right but I try to stay balanced.
I feel like that was a safe entry point for being away from weights for so long. I plan on adding 1 rep to everything per session until I reach a solid goal, with sessions on Tuesday and Friday. That should give my body enough time to recover. M, W, TH will be elliptal and pushups only.
Is this a good idea or should I pull it back a bit? I imagine I need to listen to my body for the next two days before I decide anything.
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If you can't add weight add reps, although also if you can do 30 reps of the max bench press weight available, then you are probably not going to get a lot from doing more. Put those weights in a rucksack and start doing pushups!
20 pullups at once is a lot more than people seem to think. Not to dissuade you! But I see people say it a lot... and it's quite something to be able to do!
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My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
It's generally better to do things in moderation (though you'll know what's best for you). I find it easier to stay on target with like, 80% good food and 20% absolute trash that will fit into my macros. Stuff like ice cream bars (gourmet or otherwise), little chocolates, that sort of thing - they hit my sweet tooth/need for chocolate, but do so in a caloric level I can manage while still making my protein and calorie goals
Also trying not to be harsh on yourself when you *don't* hit your goals for a day, and let yourself indulge in a craving instead of pushing it off, means you don't have that feeling get worse/harder to resist. You can always meet your goals tomorrow!
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I do a combo of deciding what I can do without (soda was an easy give up for me, because it doesn’t fill me up and is a lot of sugar, and I can easily sub coffee) and what I can’t fully give up but know I need to limit (I’m never going to give up a fried chicken burger and fries, but, I limit it to once a week tops).
I personally keep a very strict diet M, T, Th, F. Wednesday is basically a cheat day where I go out to eat wherever I feel like for lunch and order whatever crazy, 1,000 calorie dish makes me happy. Sat and Sun are generally healthy meals but less strict than the rest of the week. Wednesday works for me as a nice break from the strictness of the rest of the schedule.
This approach might not work for you, or it may be an amazing fit! The important thing is to realize that it’s an iterative, experimental journey and it’s not always going to pan out on any given day, so take each day as a datapoint and keep on trucking.
Yeah this is kind of what I ended up doing as well. Stick with a good meal plan/schedule during the work week, and Saturdays (and sometimes Sundays) I let myself have a treat like a piece of cake from the local bakery or some donuts, or a big cheat meal. Not every week is that good (donuts are an Achilles heel really) and I've put on ten or so pounds since last summer (combination of injuries slowing me down, limiting me in the gym/indulging in food more outside of my normal meal plans/lack of cardio on off days), but I've still kept off the 100+ from my start four years ago.
Finding treats that are close to what you like but far less impactful caloricly helps. I love getting those Halo Top ice cream pints as a treat, and they're only like 300-400 calories and not terrible macro-wise either. They're not the greatest ice cream, but still decent for hitting a craving.
My nemesis.
Yeah pro tip before you move to a new apartment double check if it is above the oldest donut store in the city that has a dirt cheap 2 donut + a coffee deal and is also above a bar and grill with a killer chicken tenders + tater tots combo and a good beer selection.
I can’t leave the home without walking by temptation.
When I was losing weight, I was allowing myself a smallish (100-140 calorie) ice cream bar at night. It never seemed to slow me down and felt like a good reward for being good through the day. I should probably stick to something like that instead of trying to go cold turkey.
It's been mostly elliptical for the past year or so. I've added in pushups lately, doing 1 extra per day. I have a weight bench and a pair of 10lb dumbbells. My upper body strength has always been embarrassingly bad, so I'm benching like 60lbs right now. I have 2x25 plates and 2x10 plates available.
In the past, I'd typically mix in two days of weight training. My usual routine on weight days was:
12 minutes elliptical
crunches, squats, stair steps, planks, pushups
bench press, dumbbell flies, seated dumbell presses, standing dumbbell curls
8 minutes elliptical
I usually do one set of each of the stretch stuff, then do one set of the weight stuff, alternating each until I do 3 sets of each.
My breakfast has been almost exclusively instant oatmeal. I could probably stand to mix in varieties of foods to curb the cravings. Out of interest, what cereals do you snack on? A problem I've had is having a 4 and 6 year old means they want the sweeter cereals, meaning another temptation is around.
Good to know that my ice cream cheat at night wasn't breaking any major rules. Maybe getting back to that is the way to go then. And I certainly felt like I've strictly followed a diet only to relapse. It's so rough sometimes, but I'll make sure to cut myself a break from time to time.
I don't know if it makes a difference, but I was dieting using the Noom app. My calorie counts were pretty low (~1400 calories), so I'm not sure I was doing the best for me. I've heard a lot of good and bad when it comes to Noom, so I stopped using it daily. Part of me says I can use it again as a tracker, but maybe it's best not to. Any thoughts?
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Did my first set of pushup in...8 months? Barely got through 10. I am a weak, fat motherfucker. At least there really isn't anywhere to go but up!
That’s 10 more than you had to do today, so fuck yeah!
Edit: There's been a surprising amount of sales on rice cakes, too. I don't like the big ones because they're too spongy, but the mini ones are crispy and low calorie for the chocolate and apple cineman ones
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15ish chips is like 150 calories, and a good amount of salsa is like 20 calories.
Personally what I crave isn’t sweet, but savory and salty so chips and salsa hits that for me. And let’s me at least pretend I am getting some veggies in.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
I dont know what the science is for that but it wouldn't surprise me if at least psychologically it was way more enjoyable as a process too
i started stronglifts at the beginning of this year, with the intention of losing weight. i've gained 15 pounds over the five months (187-202) which puts me at the most i've ever weighed, and my clothes fit better - and i look thinner.
Resistance training is the best thing in the world.
edit - and weight is just a number. moving away from worrying about that number towards focusing on hitting the next goal was a complete paradigm shift for me.
I've also always found that things that require strenuous activity are more fun and shorter duration than similar "cardio" things. Ideally you have both, but I feel getting the hard exercise in to build muscle is more important, just from my own anecdotal experience.
It’s not just your weight going down now, it’s how much you squat going up as well. It gives you another source of positive feedback.
Well if you whack on 7kgs and thats largely lean mass in a real way your body fat percentage is lower by definition! I think also having some muscle frames people out more, it makes you look fitter because your body shape with lots of lean mass looks very different from body shape with the equivalent in fatty mass.
The big thing for me is also that weightlifting develops muscle develops the amount of food you can eat in a day and still achieve aesthetic goals
It also, if you follow the cut/bulk paradigm, provides a good end cap to the cut bit so you're not eternally in a weight loss spiral of yoyo dieting, losing muscle and fat, and then gaining it back primarily as fat when your diet ends one way or another (though you can also make good gains at maintenance, as recomposition is becoming more of a studied and proven thing!)
1400 calories strikes me as fairly low, knowing Noom tends to start people at a wildly low number (usually women at 1250 and men at 1350-1400) regardless of bodyweight; I'd suggest using something like the MacroFactor app to log instead and find your TDEE through your actual weight loss/gain, and then decide on what your actual goals are from there. (If you don't want to pay for the app, you can also use MyFitnessPal and a TDEE calculator to figure out your estimated maintenance, and tweak it to match your goal percentage over time).
You might find even just eating a tiny bit under your maintenance level will help you gain muscle and lose a tiny bit of fat. (Stronger By Science had a great newsletter lately (https://www.strongerbyscience.com/muscle-caloric-deficit/ ) about how recomp might happen at a loss of up to 0.5% of bodyweight per week, which is what I'm aiming for once my diet break ends tomorrow!)
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Ah! The gamer side of me understands that passives are better for most builds than active abilities. I'll definitely look to add more weight work into my weekly routine. Any suggestions on stuff I can do given this equipment?
The weights on the bar are 25lbs each, with 15lbs on the leg lift section.
The dumbbells are 10lbs each.
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Have you done any kind of barbell lifting before? Swole Woman has a very good introductory program for folks here:
http://couchtobarbell.com/
The Discord is also excellent and has great access to folks who are knowledgeable about (not bro) nutrition and technique advice
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1400 calories is practically starvation levels.
https://www.calculator.net/macro-calculator.html
is what i've used to understand what i should target for my goals. even then, as long as i'm seeing progress i'm not super worried about what i eat. if i'm hungry i eat, if i'm not i don't - over time this has shifted me away from bad habits and into a more regular eating cadence.
I'm running a tactical barbell program because it's extra fun to do
Right now it's just bench/OP/squat/ 3x a week with some weighted pull-ups and 2 days of running for 30-60 minutes and 1 day of 60-90. I think after week 6 or 8 it ramps up the running
But it's been fun to actually have a better cardio system
You can do a lot with a bar and weights, although you might get too strong for those soon! With that you can bench, overhead press, deadlift and do curls at the very least.
I'm just running the fighter progression program right now so I'm at 8reps - 7reps - 6reps - 5reps - 4reps, but only using about 24lbs. Trying to hit 10 at that weight, but I might be doing it with worse form than I'd like
To put that into a practical example: say that you're a 180 pound man. The difference in 24% body fat and 14% body fat at that weight is a swing of 18 pounds of fat turning into 18 pounds of muscle, which is 54 calories a day. In terms of daily calorie burn, that's half a banana. In five days, it’s a small bag of chips or chocolate bar. Over a year, it’s about five pounds of passive fat burn for said hypothetical guy. If you take the higher end estimates of how many calories a pound of muscle passively burns (7 per pound), you get 70 calories per day for the hypothetical guy, which is still not huge.
The main benefits from resistance work are that you’re able to do more, that it significantly improves your overall health, it helps combat insulin resistance, and most people would tend to say that you look better. But extra caloric burn of resistance work is like extra strength gained from cardio work - sure, you’re getting some benefits in that respect, but it’s a very minor part of that particular overall benefit package for most people.
Also bearing in mind that so much of this is genetic or epigenetic, very personal, some people are way more predisposed towards certain responses and a lot of this is very complex and kind of unknown, like person to person very little consistency unknown.
There are a huge amount of people who say "I cut calories and couldn't lose weight, then I started resistance training and ate normally and lost weight" even though ostensibly those numbers don't add up (how can someone be in a 500 cal deficit, struggle to cut weight, then go back to no deficit, train to the tune of 100-200 cals a day extra work, and the weight falls off?) it very much absolutely does happen. There are people who eat one huge meal a day in a deficit and lose 20kgs in a few months too. And it's just weird, and varies a lot.
Reminder for anyone interested in strength training that we have a Weightlifting specific thread and it's been a little sleepy lately but a bunch of us still lurk it and would be happy to talk clanging and banging in more detail (also lifting weights, I guess).
Solar also has a primary hobby of rock climbing, which is basically doing different styles of pull ups for hours at a time.
When I was last in real climbing shape, fingertip and one handed pullups were easy as all get out.
Heck, I can still do a one handed pullups on my right arm and I'm in completely half assed climbing shape.
I weight 75-76kgs currently. Or 165 to 167lbs if you like. So that's what, 60% of my bodyweight as an added 1 RM?
Currently I do my sets at 25-30kgs added for sets of 5, depending on how fresh I am. I can knock out 5 with 25kgs added in basically any state but 30kgs is limit for working sets really, and I have to be fresh.
One armers I can currently do with a pulley taking off 10kg for sets of 2, again totally fresh. Probably a little less taken off on the right but I try to stay balanced.
12 minutes elliptical strider, 15% (out of 25%) incline, 8/10 level, 351 calories
Bench press 30 (50 lbs + bar)
Dumbbell fly 30 (10lbs each)
dumbbell curls 30
sitting shoulder presses 30
Stair steppers 60 (third rep of 20 w/dumbbells)
Lunges 30 (third rep of 10 w/dumbbells)
Squats 45
Plank (10/20/30sec)
Pushups 30
I feel like that was a safe entry point for being away from weights for so long. I plan on adding 1 rep to everything per session until I reach a solid goal, with sessions on Tuesday and Friday. That should give my body enough time to recover. M, W, TH will be elliptal and pushups only.
Is this a good idea or should I pull it back a bit? I imagine I need to listen to my body for the next two days before I decide anything.
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year end goals are a 9:30 minute 1.5 mile run, 1,000 club again, and I think like 20 pull-ups
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How many can you do right now?