Fitness 2021

[Malthus]

Down to 188.8 pounds today - my immediate (arbitrary) goal is 184.6. Reason for goal: at 6' tall, that would give me a "normal" BMI (which I recognize is pretty arbitrary, but it gives me something to aim at).

Never thought I'd even get close - when I started, more than a year ago now, I was at 244.6.

[crazy canuck]

Wow, that is outstanding Malthus!

[Malthus]

Thanks!

Ironically, the whole pandemic thing has helped a lot - being at home all the time means eating home cooked meals all the time, rather than eating out.

Makes it much easier to control what I actually eat. My main problem is that I love eating all sorts of crappy processed food in large amounts (my favorite food groups are: sugar, salt, and burnt crunchy bits  ), cutting that right out and consistently eating healthy is a key step for me. Also, much more fruit and vegetables, much less carbohydrates generally.

[Maladict]

Down to 188.8 pounds today - my immediate (arbitrary) goal is 184.6. Reason for goal: at 6' tall, that would give me a "normal" BMI (which I recognize is pretty arbitrary, but it gives me something to aim at).

Never thought I'd even get close - when I started, more than a year ago now, I was at 244.6.

This is amazing, well done 

[mongers]

Down to 188.8 pounds today - my immediate (arbitrary) goal is 184.6. Reason for goal: at 6' tall, that would give me a "normal" BMI (which I recognize is pretty arbitrary, but it gives me something to aim at).

Never thought I'd even get close - when I started, more than a year ago now, I was at 244.6.

Good grief Malthus, that's Really impressive.

[Malthus]

Update - I just made my weight goal I set over a year ago.

I'm down to 183.8 (as of an hour ago), which puts my BMI into the "normal" range - I'm 6 feet in height exactly. Not that BMI is diagnostic or determinative of good health.

Down from 244.6 ... a loss of just over 60 pounds, over a year and a quarter or so.

Now I just gotta keep it off. In other words, the hard part.

[celedhring]

Congrats Malthus. I've been stuck in the 104 Kg range for over a year, after dropping from 110 to 104 fairly quick. Historically this has been my "wall".

[Malthus]

Congrats Malthus. I've been stuck in the 104 Kg range for over a year, after dropping from 110 to 104 fairly quick. Historically this has been my "wall".

What helped me, ironically enough, was the pandemic. Staying at home all the time meant no more eating out. When I decided to diet, it was easy enough to simply put all my day to day meal decisions in the hands of another person (my wife) and stick to it. Based on a menu we came up with in advance.

My problem has always been that I like to eat, and left to myself, I'd eat unhealthy foods ...  the long term planning part of my brain wants to eat healthy, with more emphasis on fruits and vegetables, but I find it difficult, left to myself, to keep that up; the short term part of my brain would much prefer tasty things that are loaded with calories and fat. Having someone else help implement the long term plan daily has been a huge help.

[Threviel]

I've been continuing with the swimming. During the summer we swim in a scenic outdoor 50m swimming pool.



The swimming is doing me real good. I'm feeling stronger and I have bigger muscles than earlier. It's not doing anything with my weight, if anything I'm going up due to always being hungry, staying at a steady 85ish kg. I haven't had any focus on diets and have eaten lots of crisps and drunk lots of beer during the summer. Even though the weight is steady I'm shrinking, the second chin is gone and my stomach is getting smaller and smaller.

Before my vacation I also used to run or mountainbike a few times a week, but I haven't gotten back to that just yet. Three weeks without swimming made me lose far more than I thought I would do and I have enough to do just to recoup from the swimming.

It's the most fun exercising I've ever had, when I'm entering the water every problem just flows away and I can relax my mind and just focus on the swimming. The swim group is also quite fun, a bunch of men and women my age and everyone friendly and nice. No silly prestige or anything.

The plan for the autumn is to focus more on diet to get down to 75-80 kg and then just try to stay there.

[crazy canuck]

Week three completed after our gym reopening.  First week bench was light but still felt really hard to lift - only 155.  Today 205.  So good progress.  But I think it will be a while before I get back to my pre pandemic lifts of 275.  Deadlifts are going good but still staying light.  Need to get a lot more flexibility and overall strength before I try something heavy.   I am not even trying squats at the squat rack yet.  A lot more flexibility and hip mobility is going to be needed to get back to that.  For now just a lot of body weight normal squats.

[mongers]

Did 50 miles on the bike this evening, oddly I felt I had quiet a bit of energy left over when I got home. 

[crazy canuck]

Progress is coming quickly now - this week I am up to 265 on the bench press.  And the deadlift is coming along - 255.  The deadlift is fairly easy so I do a lot of reps with that weight.  I don't want to throw my back out going heavy.  Squats are also coming along nicely now.

[mongers]

No one's posted in this thread in nearly two months; I can guess what will be top of some peoples new years resolutions list. 

For myself I'm doing very little, including cycling. Though I'm getting some exercise walking/running to catch trains and buses across the West country.

Earlier this week I choose to walk the 4 -5 miles to the bus stop from my brother's place rather than someone giving me a car lift. I was quite please I did the 4.45 miles to the top of the hill in under an hour, 58 minutes to be precise or 4.6 mph. 

Though I seem to remember walking up hill is actually easier than walking down the same hill, is that correct?

[Iormlund]

I finally got my arrhythmia checked out at the OR. They couldn't fully fix what was wrong, which was quite a disappointment. But while I was there they did try to kill me for almost an hour without success. So it seems rather unlikely that this shit will get me killed.

Which means I've run out of excuses for being a lazy bastard. On the plus side, thanks to all the work & health related stress of the last few months I'm down to just slightly overweight (a mere 4 kg over normal BMI levels). Any kind of exercise would get me there pretty fast.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I'm down 20 pounds since July.