Nothing_But_A_Winner00
Member
I've let myself go over the past few months, stopped trying to get in shape and get lean. What do you guys do and how do you stay motivated??
How do you stay in shape?
- Thread starter Nothing_But_A_Winner00
- Start date
I go through periods of inactivity with frequent bacon cheeseburgers, and then I'll try to eat more sensibly (more chicken or blackened fish sandwiches vs. burgers, rice & beans vs. fries). On the exercise front, I've dabbled with P90x over the past several years. If you can stick with it, you will lose weight and your appearance will change. It's 50 minutes to an hour and fifteen minutes a night, with one day's rest. That hasn't meshed well with my last few years of 60 hour work weeks and other commitments, so I'm infrequent at best. To get quick results, diet is almost as important as exercise.
RTR,
Tim
RTR,
Tim
I've been putting in the long hours myself recently, and have found excuses to not exercise far more often than I should have. My normal regimen is two miles a day of brisk walking, watching portions, red meat only a couple of meals a weak, whole grain cereals and bread, and stay away from the sodas. At my age, with my metabolism being slower than it once was, if I deviate from my plan other than just occasionally I pay for it with extra weight around the middle.
best way I've found to stay in shape through the years is just stay consistent with whatever it is you need to do. For some people, running a few times a week will work. They can eat almost anything. For others, running is painful and damaging, so they have to do something else. Running was boring to me, though I still work it in every now and then, especially if I get to run behind a particular brunette I see from time to time here in southside Birmingham....I digress.
Cycling has been a huge benefit to me. No knee, foot, ankle, hip or other kinds of pain at all. I ride about 60-160 miles per week, depending on the time of year it is. Spring, I'm riding 5 days per week. But admittedly, it's very tough to stay consistent. Sometimes, you have to walk away from everything else and consider an investment in your future medical care. Mountain biking might be even better, but you gotta have a trail nearby, and it's a little dangerous at times. No more so than mixing with traffic out on the road, like I do...Another tip.....Really, make better choices with the quick meals. Instead of the oh-so-standard burger and fries and coke, skip the fries. Get water instead of coke. Drink Coke Zero.
One final note: It's really all about calories in, calories out. Consider and track how many cals are in some of the things you eat regularly. Don't cheat, and don't underestimate. Overestimation on what you ate versus underestimating what you need or burned working out will go a long ways. We do the opposite most times. We think running for 30 minutes must have burned off lunch. Not if you ate at McDonald's, honey. Maybe if you ate one nugget. Or one small burger with no fries. Running 30 minutes at a 10 minute mile pace at age 35, like me, burns around 400-500 calories. That's a Big Mac, and that's it. Not the fries, not the super size coke.
Stay consistent. Whatever you do, stay consistent to STAY in shape.
Cycling has been a huge benefit to me. No knee, foot, ankle, hip or other kinds of pain at all. I ride about 60-160 miles per week, depending on the time of year it is. Spring, I'm riding 5 days per week. But admittedly, it's very tough to stay consistent. Sometimes, you have to walk away from everything else and consider an investment in your future medical care. Mountain biking might be even better, but you gotta have a trail nearby, and it's a little dangerous at times. No more so than mixing with traffic out on the road, like I do...Another tip.....Really, make better choices with the quick meals. Instead of the oh-so-standard burger and fries and coke, skip the fries. Get water instead of coke. Drink Coke Zero.
One final note: It's really all about calories in, calories out. Consider and track how many cals are in some of the things you eat regularly. Don't cheat, and don't underestimate. Overestimation on what you ate versus underestimating what you need or burned working out will go a long ways. We do the opposite most times. We think running for 30 minutes must have burned off lunch. Not if you ate at McDonald's, honey. Maybe if you ate one nugget. Or one small burger with no fries. Running 30 minutes at a 10 minute mile pace at age 35, like me, burns around 400-500 calories. That's a Big Mac, and that's it. Not the fries, not the super size coke.
Stay consistent. Whatever you do, stay consistent to STAY in shape.
I lost about 20 pounds in college from actually documenting the calories in/out that Exiled mentioned. Every day, every time I ate something I would look up the calories online, read the box, whatever I had to do to find out what was in it. I also wrote down what I burned. I assumed I burned 2000 (or something like that) every day doing nothing. If I ran for 30 minutes I would calculate the burn there and document it.
My goal was to have a 500 calorie deficit at the end of the day. At that pace you'll burn about a pound a week.
Keeping up with everything just makes you cognizant of what you're consuming. Really makes you think twice about even putting cheese on your sandwich, because it will put such a dent in the deficit you're hoping to make.
My goal was to have a 500 calorie deficit at the end of the day. At that pace you'll burn about a pound a week.
Keeping up with everything just makes you cognizant of what you're consuming. Really makes you think twice about even putting cheese on your sandwich, because it will put such a dent in the deficit you're hoping to make.
Nothing_But_A_Winner00
Member
Thanks for the replies
I know the feeling. I let myself go for several years. But when I had my daughter I said enough is enough and I want to be here when she grows up. So that is my motivation. I joined a gym, body building forum and read up on how to properly feed my body. Macros and general nutrition is the KEY to being in shape and developing muscle. Without it all the time in the gym is a waste.
I put in a good bit of time at the gym. Usually 5-6 days a week at 1-2 hour sessions. I weighed 265 lbs in January of this year. I'm now down to 223 lbs and have more strength than I've had when I was in my 20's! I could easily shed off more than 2 lbs a week but that's not that an ideal thing to do and losing more than that gets into how your physique will be proportioned. My goal is to continue to cut to 170 by spring of 2012 and then clean bulk back up to 195 during the summer/fall of 2012.
This is a great forum and this is an even better thread to get you motivated http://www.bodybuilding.com/. It inspired me that is for sure. Check this thread out for how far people let themselves go and how much change a body can do even when you think it's impossible. http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=108359701
3 basic steps to losing weight and getting in shape http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=113693871:
-get on a calorie deficit
-workout 3x a week minimum
-take in 1g of protein per 1lb of lean body mass
I look back to that thread whenever I get in a slump of motivation. It always kicks my right back in the rear to stay on track. Best of luck.
BTW I would also look into setting up a fitday.com or livestrong.com account so that you can track you daily intake of nutrients and food. They are free. I use fitday and love the ability to build custom foods (which will be the majority of your foods anyways).
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Sorry for the thread resurrection, but I wanted to weigh in (no pun intended) as I feel it is an excellent topic. I gained an inexplicable amount of weight a few years back. I'm not really sure what happened. I had always been kind of on the slim side. I'm no expert, but if I had to guess, I would say that age and a dramatically slowed down metabolism caught up with me. I tried all kinds of things. I tried just plain old fasting, cleaning out the "plumbing", I went vegetarian for awhile. I tried it all. Nothing seemed to be working. Then, ironically, around the time this thread was started, I went through a period of ZERO appetite. I don't know what happened there either, but for quite some time, I just wasn't hungry. Ever. The weight came off with a quickness. Now, at this point, I was worried. Unintentional weight loss is usually associated with a more serious condition. So, I went to my doctor to get checked out. He couldn't find anything wrong, and said that the weight loss was what I needed. I had dropped around 20-25 pounds relatively quick. My appetite slowly but surely came back, and I was relieved as I had forgotten what it felt like to actually be hungry! But, at the same time I was worried about the weight coming back with a vengeance. So, since that time, I have made sure to eat smaller portions at meal times, and I also take long walks which burns the hell out of the calories. I'm still kind of chunky, but nothing at all like what I was previously. I hear young people complain about how "fat" they think they are, and I tell them that they are in a very good time in their lives, as they still have high metabolisms, and can get down to their ideal weight much faster than someone my age can.
I tried P90x. It almost killed me. I run, do crunches and I do some light lifting. Works for me.
ElephantStomp
Member
I did P90x to tone up and to lose some weight and did running and now I do Insanity 3 times a week after work, run, and go to the local fitness center and do yoga. They do what I need them to do
