Fitness and Exercise

[Animeniax]

I did that for the longest time, working out at home. It's good for maintenance but not for building muscle or getting into shape, as far as my experience.

[shinta|hikari]

I was once 216 lbs before I hit 136 lbs, then gained 10 lbs of muscle to reach my ideal of 146 lbs. All that was just from working out at home (and eating right, of course). It might not be as efficient as going to the gym, but it is cheaper (free).

[Animeniax]

How long did that take you to achieve your goal? I like the atmosphere of sweat, effort, and hot girls that you find at the (university) gym. Actually I don't think going to the gym is all that efficient, as it's a bit of a chore to pack a change of clothes and protein, drive, park, walk to the gym, go to the locker room, then to the weight room to finally get to work out. It's what's kept me from reaching my goals tbh.

[shinta|hikari]

I did it in phases, but I guess it would total to around 1 year.

216 lbs to 156 lbs took 6 months, 156 to 136 took 3 months, and 136 to 146 took 3 months, I believe. I maintained each of the weights listed for several months before deciding to change again.

I actually hit 156 lbs again just 2 weeks ago due to alcoholism and indolence caused by despair, but I managed to get to 150 in a little over a week since then by not drinking and reducing my food intake while doing my usual workout regimen. Alcohol really adds way too many calories to my diet. I drink a minimum of 375ml of brandy almost daily (sometimes even more) which amounts to almost 900 calories. Simply stopping my alcohol intake is doing wonders for weight loss.

I think my upper body muscles have more or less stabilized throughout the years because I only experience a small decrease in strength (around 15% in reps) even if I completely stop working out for a month. I also get back to normal in about a week after resuming exercise.

EDIT: 6 being the last digit of all my weight stages is not really a coincidence because I always reduce or gain by 10 lbs. The only coincidence lies in the fact that my weight when I first decided to shape up and stop being a fat slob had 6 as the last digit. My obsessive compulsive traits show up in the oddest places.

EDIT2: While going to the gym to see hot girls is tempting, watching anime during bicep curls or rest periods is more enjoyable for me.

[Buffalobiian]

I can't watch anime and do exercise at the same time. I might be able to watch a movie or something, but not anime when it requires my attention to read the subtitles intently. BGMs also don't sound that good when I'm concentrating on exercising, which is why I've actually stopped listenning to music when I work out. There's simply no point. I'm too tired or preoccupied to care. Music is what comes after, not during.


Alcohol was never a big part of my diet, but I did really like my instant ramen. I can only look at them with a sad smile now. I only ever fluctuatted between 63kgs and 68kgs though, and I currently won't really budge from 65kgs with a casual attitude to kilojoule intake and protein inclusion.

[shinta|hikari]

Alcohol is mainly a remedy for my insomnia and depression, as well as a few other less pressing mental issues.

I can understand Japanese so I don't need subtitles, but I can understand how it would be a pain to focus on them while exercising.

Instant ramen is not bad as long as you factor its huge calorie count in your diet. I find that the best diet scheme is one that allows you to eat what you want but in limited amounts. I find that lessens the danger of binging and brings overall better results.

Which type of workout do you prefer? Slow and steady or short but intense? I have always been a fan of the latter.

[Buffalobiian]

Alcohol is mainly a remedy for my insomnia and depression, as well as a few other less pressing mental issues.

I see. I don't know the details, so I won't tell you to stop drinking, but I feel the urge to remind you (if only once) as an online friend that your liver won't last.

Instant ramen is not bad as long as you factor its huge calorie count in your diet. I find that the best diet scheme is one that allows you to eat what you want but in limited amounts. I find that lessens the danger of binging and brings overall better results.

True. I've limited myself to one packet per serve instead of 2, and to add in some fish as protein. I haven't actually had the instant ramen that I used to eat for ages though, but have some other noodles as substitute instead (the main reason is that they're around the house and is what family buy).

Which type of workout do you prefer? Slow and steady or short but intense? I have always been a fan of the latter.

For cardio, I prefer short/intense. I simply don't have the mental endurance to stand 1hr of slow torture. If I go for 10x sprints, I can convince myself to do the last couple. Once I do that, it's done. The feeling of extreme discomfort is more intense, but it doesn't make me give up half-way through.

As for muscle workouts I've ended up doing them more slowly. It allows me to focus and concentrate on contracting the correct muscles. That's particularly important when I do my ab curls using the pulley machine, since I can easily end up using my hip flexors instead.

Slower contractions also feels like it works my muscles more. My muscles are stronger during different parts of the contractions (mostly mid-motion), so the slower controlled reps seem to negate any momentum and work on my weaker areas (making the muscle contract the final part of the rep, instead of letting the weaker fibers ride on the momentum from the mid-swing)

I try to make up for the lost time by doing different workouts in succession instead of resting (leg press, butterfly machine, repeat - for example)

[Sapphire]

Oh dear god, I still lost some weight despite eating an ENTIRE box of biscoff (nyum nyum nyum) cookies yesterday. So far I've lost 10 lbs (since 4/1).

But that anticipation shit was enough to set me straight for a while.

Respect the calorie count.

[animus]

Been doing a Lean Gains type Intermittent Fasting program for my cut. Pretty good results so far.

[Sapphire]

Me: Man, I apparently lost 12 lbs this month. It seems to good to be true!
Buff: It probably is.

<3 my fitness friends.

[Animeniax]

He's probably right though. How much of that was water weight and did you weigh yourself on an empty stomach/bowels? Still, you should be proud of your progress and keep up the good work.

[Uchiha Barles]

<3 my fitness friends.

lol! Don't let it get you down. Steady wins it.

[Sapphire]

I have no idea if it's water weight or not, but judging how water weight works and what I've seen (previous posts), I don't think so.

I haven't bothered cutting carbs at all lolz. ~_~

[animus]

I always take my weight on an empty stomach and after I take a dookie.

[Buffalobiian]

I usually take mine in the morning after a pee.

[Raven]

Why are you guys paying so much attention to the scales? Worst thing you can do, because all it does is send mixed signals.

According to that picture on the previous page, I'm sitting at about 10-12%. Good times. Got the nice v-shape happening.

My (non-fitness) friend said to me the other day: "You look... bigger. Not fatter, just... bigger. In a good way". Decided to take that one as a compliment

[Animeniax]

There's some benefit to checking the scales, if you understand what you're seeing is limited and not absolute info on your gains/losses.

I've found looking at your body in different mirrors sends mixed signals. This one mirror in my house makes me look/feel huge when I flex in front of it. Then later when I flex in front of other mirrors, I feel let down because I look smaller.

[Buffalobiian]

Does anyone know of the significance (or lack thereof) regarding body types (ectomorph, mesomorph and so on)?

I just came across it, but it sounds like something trivially interesting but not worth considering too much about. The questionaires that are available for determining body type seem really subjective too. The best way would be to use your age/height to get your ideal weight, then compare that to your actual weight along with your fat% to see whether you're "okay-gross-weight but high % = skinny-fat" etc.

[Animeniax]

I don't want to jinx it, but I think I've hit that point where you have enough lean muscle that you don't lose it if you don't work out every day or every other day. Because of work, illness, and general laziness I've only worked out upper and lower body once a week each for the past 3-4 weeks, but I still have most of the mass I gained from the past few months.

I really want to get back into the gym, but now I'm going on a trip and still fighting this bug that's got me hurting. Hopefully next week I'll be able to start building again.

[Buffalobiian]

-I'm getting epigastric pain that is best described as hunger pain when I go to the gym.

-It feels like a deep pain where something is digesting itself.

-It happens around 2 to 2.5 hours into my workout (I'm still at the gym, though in the past it could have been as I was leaving). -When it comes on gradually, but can escalate quickly.

-When it first starts, it comes when I exert effort and goes away when I stop exercising.

-If I keep going though, it'll become constant.

-At its maximum intensity, I would probably rate the pain as a 7-8 out of 10.

I can imagine something causing me more pain, but this gets pretty close to the maximum I've ever felt. I've never suffered from many injuries though, so I can't compare to a broken bone etc. Visceral pain feels different from somatic pain anyway though, and I dislike its character more.

I eat afterwards and it goes away, but not always immediately. I also don't know whether or not it's simply a time issue, it's too painful to just sit and wait.

I do do abdominal exercises right at the beginning, but the pain doesn't feel anything like regular muscle soreness. I'm also not doing ab exercises at the time the pain comes on. I suppose I can try not doing ab workouts and see if it goes away.. but that would kinda suck It also doesn't explain why stopping the current exercise would make it go away either if it was ab-workout related.

I usually eat at least 3hrs before workout due to my timetabling not allowing me to eat sooner, and my hydration's pretty good.
It doesn't feel like the running stitch that can happen when I drink too much water before a run.

Anyone had something similar?