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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've always been up and down with my fitness and weight. I used to be an avid runner and ran multiple full and half marathons. That all ended when I got with my ex. She's a hedonist and I have little self control. So by the time we broke up I was the heaviest I've ever been. During the lockdown of 2020 I decided to change things and joined Noom. I found the program very annoying but I did manage to lose 40 lbs just by dieting. Unfortunately I slipped when I met my current partner because of our dates (we're both foodies and a drinkies), pregnancy, and then stress of a newborn. I ended up gaining 15 of it back.
My dad recently passed away. He wasn't exactly young but not nearly as old as my family usually live to. I made the choice to get healthy again because I am an older dad and I really want to be around for my daughter as long as possible. So, I started by cutting out as much sugar from my diet as possible. No more candy and I always check product labels to see how much added sugar there is. It's amazing how I don't crave sugar anymore and I also don't have the urge to snack as much. I also took some of the tools I learned from Noom and only eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm satiated. For fitness, I started taking my daughter on long brisk walks M,W, and F and doing strength training T and Th.
I started seeing results a couple of weeks ago and my partner noticed yesterday. I feel really good about that. Plus what I'm doing isn't that difficult so I think I'll be able to maintain until I hit my weight loss goal. After that maybe I'll try to train for another half marathon. I'm done with the full ones.
I was on a camping trip for most of the week and WHEW did I still get in some good exercise. Went on two hikes, one was Shadow Mountain Lookout which is a hike up a mountain to an old fire watch tower. We actually didn't start at the trail head listed in alltrails, we started at the one further south. It was still similar in length and elevation, since most of the up is at the base of the trail split for shadow mountain. It was hard especially as we go towards the top, I had a hard time with how thin the air was and my asthma. I'm from CO so I didn't have altitude sickness, the air just isn't fucking there lol. It was a hard hike but the views were awesome!
The second hike was Strawberry Lake. It was only about 4mi but the first like mile was super vertical and hard. The good thing is the woods the trail is on is fucking gorgeous. I've never been to an area quite like that before. The way up was wonderful and the lake itself is so pretty. I just felt so inspired and wished I had packed more battery power for my phone to take photos on the way down. I for sure would like to go again but make a day of it and take lots of pictures.
I feel pretty darn good after those hikes, and they didn't totally take me out of commission. The most I have now are some blisters on my feet and I couldn't be more proud of myself for making it. And I ONLY made it because I've been working out the past few months and now I want to do more hikes!
Those pictures people have posted to all trails are gorgeous! Colorado is so scenic I hope to get to travel out that way, although itll be so hard to pick what to do.
It's crazy how much a difference the altitude makes. I was biking regularly so I figured when I traveled to the black hills of South dakota I could handle the trails but between the limestone vs pavement and the altitude change it kicked my ass. I learned an important lesson that vacation about altitude, and attitude, it definitely humbled me.
Your post is a good reminder to get out for a hike again well the weather is nice.
Probably not what most folks have in mind, but I love incorporating exercise with activities with my kids. I took the kids to the boardwalk for a long weekend, and let them tire themselves out walking, then pulled them along in a wagon to up the intensity of my steps. Did about 20k steps each day, plus teaching my 10 and 7 year old to surf. The wagon extends our outings by not limiting it to what the littles can walk, and ups my exercise. 😀
I started Caroline Girvan’s Epic series a couple of weeks ago - first the week of beginner and now Epic I. My weight has climbed steadily and I’m mad about it. I know that new exercise causes water retention and I know that it’s normal and expected but I’m still having an emotional reaction to it! It sucks and I want to complain about it
That sucks and I get it. Weight is one of those things that can be important to monitor, but is insidious in make you second guess your thing due to fluctuations.
Keep up the work!
Thank you! It’s enormously helpful just to have someone say you know what, yeah it does suck!
I still weigh daily because I do find it helpful to see the fluctuation and come to terms with it, especially when I can see a reason like a new exercise or that I ate a lot of salty food the day before. It’s helped me have less of a reaction to it, overall, but this week it got to me!
I've actually started exercising less and it's getting me better results. For years I've dropped in and out of doing basic body weight exercises five days a week, usually going for several months at a stretch until I either get so busy I can't keep up with it for a while or injure myself (usually not from the exercise, just hurting myself bad enough in some unrelated way that forces me to stop for a while to recover). I'd say on average I spend half to three quarters of the year regularly exercising.
I always make some progress, and I always plateau pretty quickly after initially making strong gains. This time I've started limiting it to four days a week max, never exercising more than two in a row and sometimes taking an extra day or two off if I can tell I haven't recovered enough, and suddenly I'm not plateauing within the first month. I've also started using those breatheright strips at night (because not only am I fat, but I've got a bent septum I've known about since I was a kid and never got fixed, so you'd better believe I snore) which I can tell is also helping -- I'm getting more actually restful sleep while sleeping the same hours. We'll see how long I can keep it up this time and if the results keep pace with the effort, but I'm optimistic.
Finally set up a Ring Fit (Nintendo Switch exercise game) and it's exactly what I need. Was inspired by comments on Tildes during this year's Summer Games Done Quick where someone was speedrunning the first chapter.
It's great having a trainer tell me what to do, which is a mental burden lifted off me when deciding to exercise. If I have some downtime I don't want to have to make conscious decisions and do research about what exercise to do. Just pick up the game and have the character tell me.
And I'm starting out pretty out of shape. Especially stamina wise. Hope I can keep this habit up for a while—at least a couple times a week, hopefully more.
I bought ring fit a year or two ago. It’s so fun! I haven’t progressed super far because for me it’s a way to be active when I can’t get outdoors rather than my primary exercise, but it’s a very good workout. I think it’s such a great system, I can easily do over an hour without really noticing the time go, and I like how you can set the difficulty each time depending how your body is that day. Really well thought out game! Good luck with it!!