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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'm in a real rut with regards to the gym. I don't do much besides running, and when the weather is warm enough I like running outside. I got very used to that and pushed it as long as I could, but now that it is snowy and cold near me I have to go back to the gym and it's just a struggle. I don't like running on the treadmill much, and the drive there an back just eats up time in my evenings. As a result, I've been going less than I'd like. I can't wait for it to dry up a bit and get a little warmer so I can resume my outdoors runs.
I'd like to branch out a bit and either start swimming at the gym or lifting, but I'm a horrible swimmer and wouldn't know where to start re: weights (although my GF and some friends might help me plan something out there). That would at least make the drive worth it.
How far of a drive is it to your gym? One thing I found was super helpful was being able to bike to and from my gym, and you can do so even when it's wet because you don't have to be squeaky clean when you go to the gym to sweat! Maybe it's too far though, but thought I'd suggest it.
I'm also trying to figure out what a swimming routine would look like since the gym I just joined has a pool, but I have been lifting for some time now. When I first started, I just focused on the compound lifts (those that work multiple muscles at a time) like squats, deadlifts, rows, overhead presses, and bench presses with the dumbbells my then apartment had on hand. When I finally got a gym with barbells, I started a program called Stronglifts 5x5, which is pretty simple in that you start at a low weight, but if you do 5 sets of 5 reps of an exercise, the next time you lift you add on 5 pounds (or 10 for deadlifts). You don't do all of those lifts everyday, just 3 of the 5 (squats both days), and it takes ~45 minutes, so you don't have to be in the gym for a looooooong time to do it. Once you get up to heavy weight, it takes longer as you need to rest more, but I thought it was a great way to start with lifting. Just be sure you get your form right (watch some videos if you can)! Just a thought, no pressure either way.
I'm gonna give a small rant for a moment. My SO and I are going to start going to the gym 9n Monday (we just moved and are still unpacking and organizing) and it'll be good. But I'm so worried about my weight. Listen I was a little fatty for my entire young adult life and it wasn't until college that I started to lose weight. I got to 10lbs to my goal weight by the time I graduated and I gained 30 of it back. I am a short person, every pound is a fucking bitch to lose and so easy for me to see on my body. I already had fucked up views of myself and now it's worse in some ways than it ever was.
I initially lost weight using CICO which did great. I was eating at about 1200 to 1300 calories a day but now... God I hate CICO now lol. I don't want to do it. Granted my eating habits have changed and I no longer have binging issues and I'm trying to adjust to eating smaller portions and being comfortable with hunger which has been good for mentally getting myself to a better place. I think I will pick up th le CICO again but I'll maybe do a slower pace so instead of 500+ calorie defecits I'll be aiming for like 250 to 300 because that's more comfortable and more doable for me and who I am now.
This is the exact reason I hate people who advocate so rigidly for CICO.
Excuse me for a mini rant, but yes, the energetics work out. Congratulations. Have you ever tried consuming the entirety of your calories from twinkies or some other garbage food? You'll be hungry constantly and you'll have no energy and you'll just in general feel like shit. Good luck keeping that up for more than a few weeks, let alone months or years.
This is a good start, but I would suggest paying more attention to the composition of what you are eating than just the calories. Yes, the absolute calories will matter, but putting a particular emphasis on foods that are traditionally thought of as "healthy" such as non-starch vegetables, brown carbs over white (less processed), sticking to leaner/whiter meats such as chicken and turkey or eliminating meats entirely, gradually increasing fiber intake (might I suggest beans), shifting your fat intake to prioritize unsaturated fats, and cooking more (again, less processed).
NOTES: I am not advocating any specific diet information in this post. I am not a doctor. I am not a dietitian. This information is based on things I've read over the past 10 years. Please correct me if I am wrong. I am known to be wrong on many a thing.
Yeah I'm torn on CICO, because logically it makes sense, but also there's evidence that shows that your body will do whatever it can to burn off whatever you intake during a day, obviously to an extent.
Excessive carb intake attributes to weight gain due to the process of converted carbs to glucose then gettingconverted to a lipid, once all glycogen stores are full and the body isn't yearning for glycogen. The carb intake also can eventually lead to insulin resistance which itself causes your body's new norm to be fatter, making weight loss harder. So when you cut calories too far, your body will lower its functions, which in turn lead to you being tired and exhausted. I don't believe this happens due to exercise, only intentional calorie reduction. So by exercising and eating your maintenance calories (based on a sedentary lifestyle), you should effectively lose weight based on your exercise. The same can happen when doing extreme low carb or no carb diets.
While anecdotal, Lockstin&Gnoggin on Youtube did a video on it. He became Type 1 Diabetic due to a virus that his wife picked up and he caught, which caused immunodeficiency, leading to Type 1 Diabetes. After struggling with controlling it through doctor assistance, he did Keto and lost 140 lbs, and allegedly did so consuming upward to 6000 (IIRC) calories per day. I'm skeptical on that, but not so much on Keto. He also said that his exercise/daily function didn't change.
Video for reference but no banana for scale.
There's a lot to the composition of calories you consume. There's also evidence to show that when combined with resistance training, higher amounts of protein intake even when in an excessive calorie state can reduce body fat.
As you mentioned, consuming a large portion of your diet from quickly absorbed carbs can potentially affect fat storage as well through insulin mediated effects.
Yeah I had heard this too. I think Lockstin&Gnoggin goes into that too. If I am remember right, he noted it was due to it being a more complicated process to break down protein. Same can go with fat too, as it's a more complicated to break down, or something.
Frankly at this point we don't understand the genetics well enough to make sense of it. It's likely less to do with the process of extracting energy and more to do with the downstream affects of how the body responds to being in a state of surplus or deficit with regards to specific macro-nutrients (hormonal, neuronal, cGMP mediated, etc.).
Thank you for your response!! It's so easy to tell people oh just do CICO but it can be a real pain in the ass!
Getting foods that are more filling and having a wider variety in my diet are definitely in the works for me. My SO and I have been making out own meals and I take leftovers for lunch. Ive been working on incorporating more veggies with our meals as well. Definitely good advise. It's much easier to feel fuller when you can have a bunch veggies on your plate compared to a bag of chips! I definitely need to get good bean recipes. I don't eat that much meat as is, in part because I don't particularly like it all that much so mostly niding that isn't too hard for me. But thank you again for your response! Diet has always been the hardest part for me, mostly because I grew up in a house where food and eating were synonymous to a good time, and it was always eat til your full and eat everything on your plate kind of mentality. Even still at almost 26, it's still stuff that affects me.