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Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
I have now been on Saxenda for around three weeks. I have gone down from 82kg to 79kg with zero effort.
I know it doesn’t sound like much but to me, being under 80 is so psychologically important. And physically; I can really feel the difference.
It’s fucking incredible. I just … have never felt so free of my food addiction. All the food I eat is a choice now. I still have plenty of fun with food but I just balance out completely naturally now.
Absolutely life changing medication. And I’m not really huge or anything… but the addiction is real and I am so glad I have a tool to control it.
Glad it's going well for you! I've been keeping a quiet eye on the current weight loss drugs myself. My next physical is towards the end of this year, and if my current attempts at fitness are unsuccessful by then, I'm going to talk to my doctor about them. I love the idea of not having to fight every single day.
Just out of curiosity how tall are you?
1.61m
Whooooo! This has been a great week for fitness! I'm training up for a 24hr 200 mile gravel bike race in June and am finally getting more time in the saddle and with longer days. I did a 50 mile on Saturday with a friend of mine who competes at the national level for Iron Man. He is incredibly kind and encouraging which means we start at a pace that is more comfortable to me, but when he gets in front I think autopilot takes over and he just goes. It helps me push even when I'm running on fumes. The route was perfect though, along the waterfront to start, then into a local state park for some hilly single track, and ended with a less fun final push along the highway. The other highlight from the day was the perfect little cafe we found for lunch. Old school diner in an old adobe building with some of the best grilled cheese/fries I've had in a long time. And endless ice tea!!! The women who worked there loaded us up with extra portions and even set us a table up out front so we could keep an eye on our bikes (we hadn't brought locks)! Ear to ear smile all day!
That ride built my confidence for the rest of the week and I've been riding 25-30 miles every other day since. Even though I've ridden over 100 miles before, training with this friend has me feeling more confident and capable. We're doing another ride on Saturday this weekend and I'm hoping we can push it our to 70 or 80 miles. We may do a similar route and mess around longer on the single track or head further out into the countryside.
I'm now starting to plan longer routes for weekends and have my eye on a 100 mile ride down highway 1 finishing at a campsite farther down the Central California Coast. Both of our partners have agreed to play saggin' wagon and bring down our sleeping gear and some burritos! The weekend after that we'll do some bike packing in the country side a county over. Probably shorter days with the extra weight and some less experienced friends coming along (~40 miles?) but very excited for it! Really enjoying the bike recently!
The last one I'm getting excited for is backcountry skiing, or for me splitboarding! We have a friend we was able to get a reservation at a backcountry hut in Yosemite National Park and it has spurred a scramble for a few of us to get backcountry gear and figure out how to use it. Luckily the sales are in full swing so I was able to get a full setup for 60% off. Now all I have to do is learn how to use the it! We're all pretty competent skiers/snowboarders but the whole cross country component and skinning is something completely new. We signed up for a one day class and are hoping to figure it out quickly. Finger crossed!
Wow even 50 miles is intense, never mind 200!
I recently got into split boarding as well. I'm not sure what the terrain at Yosemite is like but definitely take a course and take beacons, probes etc. Skiing trees is also a great way to get acclimatized without also dealing with avalanche anxiety. It's an awesome time, especially if you're staying up there.
Nice! The terrain from Badger Pass to the hut follows a summer hiking trail and is pretty flat so getting out should be pretty easy (we'll see how well we pick things up). My partner is a little concerned about doing small assents from the cabin once we're there. We wont have time to complete a full AIARE cert before the trip but we will have a 1 day on gear use and some avalanche training. We'll also be with a friend who has level 2 cert and goes quite a bit so we're leaning on her for the more in depth knowledge. We signed up for a full AIARE + Rescue course for next Fall. I'm just jazzed to get into the back country, and it's been such a good year so far/I've gotten so many powder days that anything for the rest of the year is kind of extra cream on top.
How has you transition to split boarding been?
I did pretty much the same thing, went out knowing everything I should have but with someone really experienced and used hand-me down gear to see if it's even something I would enjoy. Turns out that combining two of my hobbies, back country hiking and snowboarding, is pretty freaking awesome.
It's a lot of fun, some capital F fun as well, although it sounds like you're well prepared on that front. The boarding is unreal -- we had great conditions the few times I went last year it was far better than the best powder days I've ever skied. The ascents are long but honestly I enjoyed that part too -- keep in mind you'll be stripped right down as you go up so if it's snowing out you're getting wet unless you have a super light shell but if you have a hut you're staying in you should be fine.
That's awesome! Man, so nice to hear. I love back country hiking as well and I figured this would be a good proxy. I kind of imagining it like mountain biking where the uphill ride is also a banger part of the day.
Are we talking like a Houdini level of light or more like Storm 10? Usually when I snowboard I use a big old shell which wouldn't be great for this.
Yea same. I think any waterproof shell should do the trick -- it didn't even cross my mind because for so long my ski gear has been my ski gear so I just had my big shell and wool layers underneath. But it was way too hot for the trip up. You'll have a lot of fun I'm sure, let us know how it goes!
It was amazing!!!
We had a pretty funny breakdown in our group: two of us were splitboarding and two were skiing. It turns out the beacons we rented from a shop in town were too old to use (or at least that is what our guide decided) so we ended up practicing skinning, descending, and rescues on some 20% grades about a mile in from the road. It ended up working out better as my partner ended up getting pretty bad blisters from the gear she rented so we probably would have had to turn around on the full trek. Anyway, it turned out that myself and my other friend on splitboard had a freaking crackerjack time! We were gigling our way up and down the mountain. The skiers, well not so much. I think one was more frustrated we couldn't do the full tour and both of them struggled to learn some of the techniques. To be honest I think some of this may have been an expectation thing and other was due to equipment. I think the other snowboarder and myself were both fairly apprehensive about the skiing part. Neither of us had more than a few hours under our belt on skis and were sure we were going to be holding up the group. Meanwhile the skiers were confident that everything would effectively be the same. Well, it turned out that skiing in climbing bindings is tough regardless of your background before they are switched into downhill mode. We pizza-ed really hard and made it down intermediate hills fine while both the skiers took off with confidence and crashed spectacularly. While climbing our shorter boards (157) were easier to maneuver than their skis (189) so we also flew up the ridges.
I was completely surprised how much easier split boarding was. I'm sure the benefits won't last too much longer - as everyone seems to convert over at some point - but it was just such a fun and easy day. I'm really glad I purchased equipment and hope to get many more days in the backcountry before the end of the season!!! Thanks again for all your tips!
Glad to hear it went well, even if it was a shorter trip than anticipated! Good on your guide for making that call, if anyone knows what sort of gear you need to operate in that terrain it would be them. A friend of mine does back country guiding and she has been in an avalanche and pulled someone out of one so the risks are definitely real.
That's awesome, enjoy your new addiction. :) My friends did this a few years ago (partly why I got into back country skiing) and it's now near the top of my bucket list. It's expensive (that article is out of date, it's a few thousand CAD per person w/ a heli) but man, a week of skiing the Selkirks looks amazing.
Sounds like an awesome, scenic ride!
I only got back into biking last summer and had to take it slow because of my back. I got in a few longer (~50km) rides in near the end, and it was so good for my mental health.
200 miles sounds crazy though! Do you take breaks?
Thanks, it really was!
Awesome to hear you got back at it yourself! I've had the realization that my own mood so radically different with these long rides. It's like I'm hopped up on endorphins for the rest of the day and just like "yeah that's great...ooh this is awesome....wow I like that!" Complete transformation.
Umm, I think if I need to? The 200 miles need to be done in 24 hours and cycling at 10 mph will set me at a 20 hour race time. I'm going to try to avoid taking breaks in case I need the time to repair tires or fix other mechanical issues that could spring up on the bike. It sounds like some folks take quick dips into the creeks and streams they pass so I might join them.
Introduction
Back with a classic E(x)tremely (stres)sed and on the (edg)e health and fitness comment! I've been away from the gym for over two months but this week I went back for Monday and Friday, with both days being good but Friday being the superior day.
Fitness
Monday was a combined Push/Legs day, though it ended up being cut kind of short. My nervous system was a bit taxed by the time I completed my big three of the day: Overhead Press, Bench Press, and Squat, so when I moved on to Triceps Pushdown, I was very shaky between sets. So I called it a day there. As for Friday, I had a very productive Pull day with Deadlift, Romanian Deadlift, Lat Pulldowns, Seated Rows, Bicep Curls, and Lateral Raise. My deadlifts I keep at low reps (5 per set), because I need more work on my hammies than my low back so I want the RDLs to shine, but I also want to get some back work in. Next week, I'll be transitioning into 3 days a week, so I may split out next weeks to be spread between Push, Pull, and Legs all separated. After next week, assuming all goes well, I'll be moving back into 4 days a week, and will further adapt the program, and hopefully roll with 4 days a week afterward. During my time off, I've improved a lot with my mobility and grip, so I hope to keep that up along with my gymtime.
Nutrition
Nothing really to report on this end, as I still haven't really taken control of my diet. Soon enough I should be back to complete control haha
Conclusion
Back at the gym, with some aspects of my strength improved (RDLs), and others being at baseline. I should be back living on my own again in a couple months, hopefully, so I'll have more control over diet as well. Life is a mess but we're coming to a head with school almost being over.
I started getting inspired by a lot of the stuff I was seeing in r/volumeeating so I’ve been doing that. I bought this stuff called puffed kamut and I use it as a replacement for cereal (which has often been a food that I would binge on). It’s super low calorie, about 50 calories per cup. And it’s been life changing. I put some cocoa and some peanut butter powder (another thing I learned from the volume eating subreddit, really useful as a peanut butter lover since it only has 60 calories per 2 tbsps) and some Splenda. It tastes alright but it can be pretty filling for very few calories.
Besides that, I ate pizza for the first time in a long time on the 12th. Pizza is another trigger good for me, eating a whole pizza would be nothing to me, those scenes in The Whale were very relatable to me. Luckily I didn’t binge. But I did eat pizza for the next few days (not too long ago I would have eaten everything Oscar night). So I haven’t been eating super well and assumed I had gained at least a few pounds. But to my surprise I actually ended up losing weight.
I still have a long way to go psychologically, but I think I’ve become more aware about how much I stuff my face now compared to how delusional I was before.
I've been on a pretty good and consistent healthy eating and exercise kick. I haven't seen a lot of results on the scale, but I'm trying not to make that the measure I go by. Instead I'm going more with the very vague "listen to your body" thing, which I'm still 50/50 on because on one hand I totally get it and on the other hand my body still really wants some awful things and acting on that impulse would be very bad.
I've modified the instruction to "listen to your body but make your own decisions" which helps.
Anyway, on the hand of "totally getting it", what I've noticed now is that I legitimately feel a lot better when I exercise and eat healthy, and I feel a lot worse when I don't. It has nothing to do with guilt and everything to do with like, the actual physical organism I'm inhabiting. I've been doing mostly vegetarian plant-based meals. Eating them makes me feel lighter and more energetic. If I go off script and have something outrageously unhealthy, it feels heavy in me, I feel heavier, and I notice all sorts of additional discomforts -- stiffer joints, pain in my bad ankle, malaise and lethargy, etc.
I wish I could say this makes eating right easy, but, like I said, my body still wants bad things. If I'm in my routine, it's pretty easy to stick with the right stuff, but the moment that gets disrupted, I tend to fall back on bad stuff as a convenience or an excuse (e.g. I was at work for twelve hours today -- I deserve fast food!). It also doesn't help that food is often used as a method of celebration. My husband had a big win at work today, so I treated him to dinner, and part of the celebration means "treating ourselves" which really just means eating too much of unhealthy foods.
I had that a few hours ago and it shot the rest of my night. I didn't exercise. I parked it on the couch and zoned out. I could tell it even affected my attention -- instead of committing to one thing I just kind of flitted about aimlessly online -- too distracted and tired to do anything of substance. I'll also probably sleep worse tonight. It's kind of amazing how disruptive bad food is to me now that I'm not in the habit.
The big thing I'm working on this year is bouncing back. I know from years of trying to do the right thing and failing that I'm never going to have perfect consistency. It simply won't happen. In the past, I've let that defeat me, and I'll just throw in the towel and stop trying, leading to a longer period of unhealthiness and weight gain, which I'll then try really hard to undo later when I work up the courage to try and get "back on the wagon."
So, this year, I'm trying to bounce back on a daily basis. Made some bad food decisions today? Bounce back tomorrow. You'll feel better when you do! This stops one bad decision from cascading into a pattern, and so far I've been decently successful with it. Tomorrow is going to be another bounce back day. I'm tired of feeling like I am right now and wish I could just feel good forever, indefinitely, but that's unfortunately not particularly easy for me and requires constant vigilance. Even when I'm eating right and exercising and feeling good on account of it, I'm still kind of exhausted of trying to keep my wolves at bay.
Intuitive eating takes awhile to really get in tune with. I'm glad that you're finding it a lot easier to recognize, now that you're paying attention to how you feel when you exercise or are sedentary and when you choose to make good or bad food choices. Being more in tune with your body is never a bad thing- it's kinda surprising that we don't spend more time teaching people to pay attention to it! It can tell you a lot, so long as you don't ignore it.
Thinking on a longer timeframe helps, I believe, with the right kind of framing to ensure longer term success. Have compassion for yourself to have a bad meal or a dozen, or to be sedentary for a week. Life's hard, sometimes that's the easiest way to cope! But use that as motivation to not have another dozen bad meals or be sedentary for another week- just thinking about how much better you'll feel after a good meal or a bout of exercise can be enough to get back on track. It's not particularly useful to hyperfocus on everything that went wrong, just focus on what you have control over today.