Exercise/Fitness Log

[Ego]

I figured you meant 17 fingers in the same way someone would say they drank fifty beers last night. It's a wonder you can type.

[George the original one]

Vacation last week was a great chance to exercise with purpose. Wed morning started off with mist, followed by rain showers, followed by mist... feeling cooped up, but eventually the sun broke through and I fished while kayaking the estuary. Wed evening hiked in & out 3 miles to the fishing holes on second river. Thur was up at the crack of dawn hiking/fishing second river and covered 12+ miles. Fri afternoon/evening was hiking & fishing third river, about 5 miles covered... lots of vertical climbing in this box canyon. Sat morning was a 5 mile hike/fishing on the second river followed by another 5 mile hike/fishing on the third river in the afternoon. OK, finally felt sore enough Sun morning that it was time to rest & recover... my toes were tired of having soggy socks bunch up in the bottom of the wading shoes and getting up from chairs made me groan like an old man.

[riparian]

Ego, damn! Good job!

Hottentot, I added weight to my squats by doing them one legged and it made my muscles grow way more than regular/weighted squats.

I've been building a house! No pull ups or push ups cause I'm carrying around 80lb bags of concrete and stuff and don't wanna deal with sore or fatigued muscles. Also no pull up bar. But my friend took a picture of me making a muscle today and I have a new little dimple cut where my bicep ends near my shoulder.

This gives me hope - I should probably lose like 5-8% body fat, and I thought I'd have to do that by losing weight and muscle and mass, and I like having muscle and mass. Now I think maybe I could eat and grow my muscles to the high teens of bf%. I just ate a bunch of sausage dipped in hummus. It was nummy.

[jennypenny]

I (mostly) stuck to my diet and exercise while I was out of town. I tried a long run yesterday (2hr) and I feel pretty good today. The first mile is still a grind, but I get a consistent rungasm @18:00 now so that helps a lot. I have one more week of unstructured running, and then I start a 20-week training program.

Now that I have my legs under me again, it's time to shore up my core. I'm going to add more strength training and ab work this week. I can tell I'm really tight, so I have to add more stretching.

[Ego]

Rungasm.......HAH! Hadn't heard that one before but it describes it (almost) perfectly.

[jennypenny]

Rungasm.......HAH! Hadn't heard that one before but it describes it (almost) perfectly.

I wasn't sure if it was the same for guys. It's pretty close for me (except without all of the screaming ).

[RealPerson]

Rungasm.......HAH! Hadn't heard that one before but it describes it (almost) perfectly.

I wasn't sure if it was the same for guys. It's pretty close for me (except without all of the screaming ).

This is all I needed to hear to pick up running. I will be checking my watch for 18:00.

[Hottentot]

Since i stopped drinking alcohol (beer) 1.5 month ago i dropped from 67kg to 65.5kg.
I do bodyweight exercises, no cardio.
I'm very skinny right now, but my beer gut is still here. A little bit smaller, but here.

My meals are:
breakfast: 2 or 3 hard boiled eggs with cheese and tomato
lunch: rice, beans, meat and sallad
snack: milk, granola, banana, strawberry, kiwi
dinner: rice, beans, meat and sallad

What should i do to get rid of my beer gut (i'm not drinking anymore) and gain weight?

[jacob]

I've been doing clubbell swipes for about a month(?) now.
I've currently reached a state where I can left a total of 6000 pounds overhead (moving it about 8 feet.. so 48000 foot pounds of work) within 17 minutes. The goal is to do in under 10 minutes in order to reach my previous record (set at age 29). I find it slightly harder to train every other day which is how I approach it back then. However, progress also seems much faster, I'm guessing mostly because I'm regaining what I've had before rather than building new muscle mass.

I use the training approach described in the ERE book.

[Freedom_2018]

I don't see much mention of injuries /potential for possible injuries from exercise, but I think that is something important to consider as we want our joints etc to last for many many decades. Has anyone here got injured from exercise or has an approach that prevents/avoids injury while running, lifting weights etc?

While previously I used to be almost exclusively focused on muscle (heavy weights, big biceps type of stuff) and some running for leanness, I am now more inclined towards including flexibility and longevity into my workouts (easier on the weights and more zumba and yoga). On days I go to the Gym/Community Center it is like 1 hr of zumba class followed by 1 hr of weights and then 1 hr of yoga/stretching class. That sequence seems to work well for me.

Once I am fully into my nomadic lifestyle, exercise will be a challenge since I won't have the class structure for zumba or yoga..I find it much harder to do these on my own.

Ideally I would like to design my life in such a way that exercise automatically happens as a part of my day and I don't have to "do" my exercise.

[jacob]

@F2018 - I did develop some peroneal tendonitis from shinkendo (focusing on lunging for a week in a row). I self-diagnosed. Took 6 months of rest to go away.

I once pulled a muscle in my shoulder doing dips on gymnastic rings while I was still too weak for proper form. I've also created a ganglia on my hand from a record pull down attempt on a machine. I don't think I do anything special to prevent injuries. For example I don't stretch at all. However, I do work out in ways (club bells, kettle bells) that also work most of all the small balancing muscles. Also, I focus more on high intensity intervals than max attempts. That also keeps the breakage down.

One thing that concerns me is that my cardiovascular system is in way better shape than the tendons in my legs. If I ever want to start running, I'd really have to hold myself back for several months before the tendons build up.

[Freedom_2018]

@jacob - 6 months! That sucks. Luckily I've never had anything so serious...trying to keep it that way too.

I used to not believe in doing any warm ups before weight training but I've found that 1 hr of zumba before weights gets me in a good place where I am actually able to lift more/the usual weights feel lighter. Now I don't know if that is because the moving or stretching actually help or if being the only guy sweating and shaking it out in a class comprised of all women puts me in a good mood! But if it works, I'll take it.

On another note, I am kind of reluctant to explore and reach the full potential of my body. My thinking is that say if with the dint of hard work and many hours in the gym, say I do reach my physical zenith...where do I go from there? Either I will have to continue spending significant amounts of time keeping in A1 physical shape...which is not how I want to spend my free time or will have to face the decline of my physical prowess which will be emotionally painful. So rather I am trying to find this optimal solution given the bounded constraints of time, lifestyle etc where I can have a fairly decent physical health
which I can maintain with minimal maintenance of exercise and diet for the rest of my life.

In my book, you are fortunate to have a good cardiovascular system. I have had asthma all my life which impacts my cardiovascular and pulmonary fitness. I'd exchange weaker tendons for strong heart and lungs any day

[jennypenny]

Since i stopped drinking alcohol (beer) 1.5 month ago i dropped from 67kg to 65.5kg.
I do bodyweight exercises, no cardio.
I'm very skinny right now, but my beer gut is still here. A little bit smaller, but here.

My meals are:
breakfast: 2 or 3 hard boiled eggs with cheese and tomato
lunch: rice, beans, meat and sallad
snack: milk, granola, banana, strawberry, kiwi
dinner: rice, beans, meat and sallad

What should i do to get rid of my beer gut (i'm not drinking anymore) and gain weight?

Sorry Hottentot, I missed your post before.

If you have a pooch, you might be a little sensitive to something in your diet. It's usually carbs. Try switching out the banana with a lower-carb fruit and replacing the rice and beans at one of the meals (dinner is best) with cooked veggies (no potatoes, carrots, or other root vegetables though). That would probably be enough for you to see if the carbs are the problem.

Sometimes, people struggle with legumes. If lowering your carbs doesn't work, try eliminating the beans altogether for a couple of weeks. If that doesn't work, try eliminating the milk. If that doesn't work, try eliminating the granola in case it's the gluten bothering you. Everyone is different. It might take some experimenting to see what's causing the abdominal fat. I would stick to the diet you listed and just change one item every two weeks and see how it feels each time.

[Hottentot]

Since i stopped drinking alcohol (beer) 1.5 month ago i dropped from 67kg to 65.5kg.
I do bodyweight exercises, no cardio.
I'm very skinny right now, but my beer gut is still here. A little bit smaller, but here.

My meals are:
breakfast: 2 or 3 hard boiled eggs with cheese and tomato
lunch: rice, beans, meat and sallad
snack: milk, granola, banana, strawberry, kiwi
dinner: rice, beans, meat and sallad

What should i do to get rid of my beer gut (i'm not drinking anymore) and gain weight?

Sorry Hottentot, I missed your post before.

If you have a pooch, you might be a little sensitive to something in your diet. It's usually carbs. Try switching out the banana with a lower-carb fruit and replacing the rice and beans at one of the meals (dinner is best) with cooked veggies (no potatoes, carrots, or other root vegetables though). That would probably be enough for you to see if the carbs are the problem.

Sometimes, people struggle with legumes. If lowering your carbs doesn't work, try eliminating the beans altogether for a couple of weeks. If that doesn't work, try eliminating the milk. If that doesn't work, try eliminating the granola in case it's the gluten bothering you. Everyone is different. It might take some experimenting to see what's causing the abdominal fat. I would stick to the diet you listed and just change one item every two weeks and see how it feels each time.

My pooch is going away slowly now that i don't drink alcohol anymore.
In the beggining i wasn't seeing any difference, but now it's visible.
But i'll ditch rice and beans in dinner to see if it speeds up a little.

Thanks.

[jennypenny]

After reading/watching all of the links on the Soylent thread, I'm trying a short fast since I'm home alone for the weekend. I had a protein shake after my run yesterday and a little greek yogurt with blueberries last night. It felt good and I felt really rested when I woke up this morning.

How do you do this when you exercise though? Yesterday wasn't bad, but today is my long run. I usually don't have anything but coffee with cream before I run, but I'm worried about bonking.

I guess I'll find out. I'm not heading out until after the Liverpool game so maybe I'll have a hard-boiled egg or a little cheese first. How many calories can you have and still consider it a fast?

[Dragline]

Well, as few as possible -- I know that's not a very good answer, but what you are trying to do is convince your liver that there is no food coming, so it better stop producing bile and start breaking down your fat stores and manufacturing ketones instead. Livers are not very smart and it usually takes them a couple days to catch on.

As for exercising while fasting, I'd be really careful, especially in the first couple days of fasting, if only because you can become light-headed rather suddenly and accidentally fall down or otherwise hurt yourself. But if you balanced whatever you are consuming with enough exercise to burn that amount, it might do the trick -- most people who fast don't do too much beyond walking.

[Ego]

Since reading the soylent thread I've also gone back to being strict about not eating after 3pm. I had been doing this for years but let myself slide during the summer as I've been lifting more weights and rationalized the evening eating as a way to build muscle. Now I'm back to 6 hours of eating and 18 of fasting. I eat between 9am and 3pm. Typically I exercise in the mornings. When starting I can feel hunger pangs but by the end my body has switched over to fat burning and I don't really notice much hunger until I'm approaching home. By then I am very hungry.

The gettingstronger guy has a good series of videos on intermittent fasting

http://gettingstronger.org/2011/05/inte ... longevity/

[jennypenny]

Ugh...Bonk. Not really a typical bonk I guess. I got the shakes really bad around 1:40. I pushed to two hours but that was all I could do. I wonder if the problem is salt intake and not food intake. I'll have to do a little more research. Maybe it's not a good idea to do this on the weekend when I usually do my long run. I grabbed a tomato out of the garden and I'm eating it now with a lot of salt on it. Hopefully that will help.

So Ego, are you doing a warrior diet? How many calories do you eat between 9 and 3? I don't finish exercising and showering until after noon most days. That wouldn't leave me much time to eat.

[Dragline]

Some swear by chicken bouillon to deal with the salt issue. You might try that, too.

[Ego]

So Ego, are you doing a warrior diet? How many calories do you eat between 9 and 3? I don't finish exercising and showering until after noon most days. That wouldn't leave me much time to eat.

I believe the Warrior diet is late night eating, daytime fast. That doesn't work for me as I prefer to workout in the AM then eat right away. I am sticking with my modified (fish oil & gelatin) vegan diet. I eat a big breakfast (green smoothie with fruit, oatmeal, nuts...) and a big 3pm lunch. I get the impression that it is the intervals of a long fast and short eating period that is important.

Regarding bonking, I've noticed that with practice my body gets better at making a somewhat seamless switch from glucose to fat burning. I don't know the science behind what going on but I feel like that's the bonk point, when the easy-access glucose is gone.

Two hour run.... that's great!