Random bullet points

[bjornwilde]

- Being at work seems to kill my creative mood. I need to figure out how to counter this.
- Reading Discount Armageddon and I'm not sure if I'll bother with the sequels. It's well written, totally should be my jam, but I don't feel emotionally engaged yet and I'm halfway through the book.
- I can't decide on a PB for Walther Davies from the October Daye series. I sort of like Thure Lindhardt, but he's not quite geeky enough...I guess?  I might look into Jimmi Simpson, cause he reminds me of James Spader in Stargate. I'll need to do some hunting though, as Walther doesn't seem the facial hair type to me and Google image searches give me lots of stubble.
- I am frustrated with my exercise plan. I keep sabotaging myself and I need to stop.

Comments

[thisisnotajournal]

Hella late, and hella random, but: seriously, dude, if you want help with your workout plan, just hit me up. Any questions I can't answer on my own I can deflect to our exercise biology department (one of the best on the West Coast) or the small army of personal trainers we have roaming around the ARC.

Let me just get the basics out of the way first:
- the best workout routine is one you will do consistently. A dude who goes for a daily 30-minute walk will make a lot more progress (relatively speaking) than some jacked-up powerlifter who only does their routine like two times a week. Ease yourself into this - don't try to be a hero, or you'll get frustrated.
- before you start, you want clear, specific goals. "I want to lose weight" or "I want to build muscle" aren't going to get you anywhere but out of the gate - ideally, you want to be able to quantify them and break them up into short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals.
- record everything. Record reps, record sets, record weight. I've exported a Word .doc onto Pages on my iPhone and record my progress there. You might want a different setup, but for me, it does the job.
- there is a routine for everyone. Gyms not your thing? Bodyweights are free. Push-ups, lunges, squats, burpees, eight-count bodybuilders, planks, crunches, mountain climbers, calf raises, curtsy lunges, dive-bombers, Supermans, flutter kicks, Russian/Mason twists, bicycles - those are all exercises that require absolutely nothing in the way of fancy equipment, and if you've got a chair or a wall or some bookshelves handy, you can add in a few dozen more. Seriously, people fill up entire books with bodyweight exercises alone.

And now, since I'm on a roll, I'll rant about nutrition some. The best exercise routine in the world will do you no good if you eat like shit. Jack LaLanne said it best: "exercise is king, nutrition is queen - together, you have a kingdom". Here's the basics:
- do you drink anything besides water? Ditch it. Right now. That's right - coffee, fruit juice, beer and liquor, soda (especially soda) - it's all going the way of the dodo for you. You may want to keep milk in your diet if your calcium intake would otherwise be severely stunted, I don't know. I'm not a dietician, we're not meeting face-to-face - my perspective is limited.
- as an addendum - drink at least two liters of water per day, spaced throughout the day. If you're doing it right, your urine should be lightly colored or clear (I know, I know, it's gross, but it's the only way to tell for sure). Get a Nalgene.
- do you eat ice cream? Perhaps snack on Skittles or Oreos? Maybe eat popcorn on movie night, or microwave some frozen waffles or pour out some cereal for breakfast? You guessed it - that's all going bye-bye for you, too. Jack LaLanne had two rules when it came to nutrition: "if man made it, don't eat it", and "if it tastes good, spit it out". Basically, the more processed something is, the worse it is for you. Get really used to eggs for breakfast.
- minimize the time you eat out or order delivery and get really really comfortable cooking your own meals. Switch out butter for olive oil, red meat for chicken, turkey, and seafood, and up your fiber intake. Orowheat makes this awesome Double Fiber line that I consume religiously, and which I wholeheartedly recommend if your supermarket carries it.
- 50% of your diet should consist of fruit and vegetables, 25% should consist of complex carbohydrates, and 25% should consist of protein.
- gymbros and companies will try to sell you all kinds of shit: creatine, protein powders, pre-workout powders, all kinds of crazy-ass supplements (harvested from, like, a dragon's butthole or something) and uber-expensive Space-Age sweat-wicking shit. Let me make something clear: all you need are some sweatpants, running socks (you do not want blisters), and running shoes that a) are a good fit (best to get yourself checked out at a specialized running store, just in case) and b) are in at least passable condition. Everything else is optional. Greeks and Romans were getting ripped millennia before schmucks came up with any kind of preworkout powders, and they did it by watching what they ate, training hard, and training consistently. I use creatine, casein, whey, and superfood powders, along with electrolyte tablets for my water and some iron supplements alongside my One-A-Day, and I look like an UnderArmour commercial when I'm doing my PT, but that's because I've got boxing matches on the line come March and I need all the help I can get to get and stay strong. Nothing they do will replace the work done by the holy trinity: proper exercise, proper diet, and proper sleep (at least eight hours). They're just icing on the cake that'll help you push yourself a little harder - like nitrous on a stock car.

That's all I have off the top of my head - there is just so much to cover for the basics, it's really astounding. But if you do nothing else, do this:
-daily 30-minute walk
-drink 2 liters of water daily
-ditch soda, caffeine, and all sweets, and as many processed foods as you can
-stretch
-sleep eight hours a night

Honestly, man, it's hard as hell when you're starting out - trust me, just a few months ago, I wanted to quit after every workout. But I stuck with it, and am I glad I did. Exercise is really only hyped up for its weight-loss benefits - and yeah, that's a thing that happens, but I guarantee you that even if you never lose a single pound, you will feel an innumerable amount of benefits. You'll feel better, you'll move better, you'll sleep better, you'll think better, you'll have more energy - the benefits of exercise extend so far, far beyond weight loss, it's not even hyperbole to think of weight loss as just one tree in a forest.

Keep at it, man. I know you can do it. I'll let my man Socrates close it out.

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

[bjornwilde]

Thanks, this all looks like good info and I will read it later. The point about a specific goal/goals already is a big help and something I am working on as right now I'm just "lose weight" and "be healthy".

[thisisnotajournal]

Weight loss is simple thermodynamics. It's a matter of making calories out > calories in. Anyone that tells you differently is full of shit.

To that end, you'll want to do two things: calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate and keep a food diary. I use MyFitnessPal on my iPhone - the base app is free, and it's really all you need. I sprung for the premium membership ($50 a year), but that's because I'm a sucker for stuff like macronutrient percentages and fancy-ass graphs, and, again, I've got fights on the line come March. You'll enter your height, weight (maybe age, too, I forget), activity level, and weight loss goal (I recommend starting off with 1 lb/week - anything more than 2 lb/week is a serious health concern). Now comes the hard part: recording everything you eat. Portion size, nutrition facts, etc (don't forget that the nutrition facts you see are per serving size). A good rule of thumb is if it's not water, it has calories, and should therefore be recorded. Get really friendly with measuring cups and food scales.

Obviously, I'm not your doc, so I can't help you as far as "being healthy" goes other than to say that they'll be a lot happier with someone who goes on a daily 30 minute walk than someone who's sedentary.

If you want to learn more, I recommend checking out a few subreddits - specifically, r/fitness, r/bodyweightfitness, r/nutrition, and r/loseit. The Art of Manliness also has a first-rate fitness section, with frequent guest posts from authorities in the field.

ETA: When you start recording food intake, don't record loss through exercise - it's incredibly hard to pin down, and apps tend to overestimate like whoa (I think MFP records making dinner as burning like 250 kcal or something).

ETA 2: Disregard the "50% fruits and veggies, 25% protein, 25% complex carbs" figure I gave in my first comment - I can't remember the exact proportions anymore. Your best bet for anything beyond common sense (like "ditch soda and candy") would be to see a registered dietician (not the same as a nutritionist, as anybody can call themselves a nutritionist).