Working out

[jasper-isis]

I've been trying to make a conscious effort to exercise reguarly. During the summer, I have to sit in front of a computer all day at work instead of getting to walk around campus. There's no fencing practice to keep myself in shape. The weather's all hot and sticky outside, and it's hard to get myself to run on the treadmill after work, when all I wanna do is lounge around and relax.

Then I look at my kid brother, who does two hours of swim practice plus an hour of football conditioning every friggin' day, and I realize that I have to drag myself into action whether I like it or not. So right now I'm trying to get myself to do 20 minutes on the treadmill each day, plus ab machine and light weight training every other day (because I really want some triceps ). It's a tough habit to get into though. Once I skipped a day to go see a movie, and the next day something else came up... and then somehow I managed to put off exercising for the rest of the week.

I also told myself that I would NOT make any compromises in diet. I consider my diet habits pretty healthy on the whole right now. When I do have the occasional soda or coffee or slice of cake, I don't want to get into the mode of thinking "ugh this is going to undo that entire workout." There'd be no end in sight if I start thinking like that. Since my goal isn't to lose weight but rather to stay healthy, I figure I should just exercise sufficiently to offset those things.

So, what do you guys do to stay in shape?

[dwchang]

Barring finals or research paper deadlines when I don't particularly get to work out much, I *generally* go to the gym for an hour. Half an hour cardio and half an hour of weight training (alternating what I work on throughout the week i.e. biceps/triceps, legs, chest/back, etc.). Nothing special.

So wait does this mean next time we see you, you'll be BUFF? JASPER SMASH!

[Kitsuner]

I eat and watch TV.

Circles are shapes too. :3

[Otohiko]

I'm embarrassed by this thread

I used to swim competitively up until 9 years ago, and that certainly kept me in some shape, although in my first two years in Canada I gained a massive amount of weight due to sudden dietary changes and differences. I was about 210lb at my heaviest, when I was 16 or 17. Ironically, I lost the weight after I quit swimming (chlorine was getting to me), but I made up for that with working out for an hour at the gym every other day. And also switched back to eating Russian food almost exclusively. Lost almost 40lb that way, and actually I'm at my lowest weight in 10 years right now.

However the last 3 or 4 years... I've been slacking a bit. And losing weight, mostly because of the fact my parents are away much of the time. My mom spoils me a bit with food, but when I'm on my own I eat remarkably little, and generally at all times my diet is relatively healthy - all the bad stuff I eat on occasion is generally offset by otherwise-healthy foods I eat.

Also, those who know me closely are probably familiar with the term "aimless wandering" - perhaps my biggest hobby is walking without direction or neccesity. Generally I spend anywhere between one and several hours every day doing just that. The fact I'm moving into a city should help.

But I'm by no means in bad shape, it's just my good conditioning from before and lack of unhealthy diet that's keeping me from any real problems. Truth is, I'm just incapable of keeping up a routine on my own. When I exercised regularly, I had friends with me, and honestly the exercise in that case was just a regularized sideshow, the real reason I was there was to hang out with friends afterward and act like a testosterone-charged idiots. I've been doing various kinds of exercise on and off in the last 3 years, some of it relatively intense, but it never got to be a routine. Hopefully moving to my new school and living on campus will help me find those sorts of friends again.

Well, then of course there's my injury now, and the only exercise I've been doing in the last 3 months is my physio. There is a good side to this - I've had to do it daily, it was absolutely crucial and EXTREMELY painful at the same time, but I got to see real results and have managed to really speed up my recovery, to a point where I regained over 80% of my elbow mobility in just 2.5 months. That said, it will be a problem in the future - I will never have more than 90% or so of my elbow mobility back, and of course the muscles in my left arm have been severely fucked up as a result - virtually everything in the elbow region was torn up and I'm still rebuilding it to work sort-of-normally. My triceps especially - basically the lower 2/3 of that was totally sliced through in the surgery, and the back of my elbow is basically full of scar tissue. So I don't think I'll be doing any major arm work anytime soon.

So my goals for the near future, probably starting in the fall, will be
1) Shoulders (I have relatively narrow and un-muscular shoulders, which automatically make me look less fit than I actually am).

2) Abs (mostly insurance for the future, if you know what I mean)

3) Back (I have moderately bad posture, and again, I need to get working on this to avoid big problems in the future).

See if I manage!

[surfsama]

Mostly run or bike. Lately it's running because it requires the least amount of preparation (shoes, shorts, tank, headset). If time's not an issue, then cycling is my preferred activity since I seem to get the most return for the invested effort.

I whole-heartily agree with the motivation factor. Sometimes it's tough to maintain unless you have a friend or good music to accompany you.

[Otohiko]

PS - to Jasper and others - any advice on doing light weights? I'm too used to doing the heavier, more manly stuff, but I need to start slowly transitioning from working on my one broken arm to working gradually on both arms. Naturally I don't really know much about it and I haven't got a personal trainer to go to for advice >__>

[Serv0]

My car does the exercising for me.

[LantisEscudo]

A year and a half ago, I was regularly playing soccer and tennis, as well as playing DDR frequently. I've never liked the routine of gym workouts, so I tried to get a similar amount of exercise through more fun methods.

Unfortunately, in March last year, I got diagnosed with a heart condition and restricted from certain activities and most stimulants (including caffeine, which really sucked come finals time). I had surgery to correct that last August, and got cleared to go back to a normal physical routine in December, but the nine months of enforced inactivity have not really helped.

So I'm horribly out of shape still (I want to lose about 20 pounds), though I'm trying to get back into something resembling my old form. DDR and biking are my main forms of exercise right now (I still hate the gym), since the soccer league I played in is a winter league and ended for the year back in March.

I agree, though, motivation is really hard to maintain, especially trying to come back from a long period of inactivity.

[Orwell]

I'm pretty sure exercise is a communist plot designed to make me do labor. Being the capitalist I am, I do quite well to avoid it and take all the ensuing consequences coupled with a typical bad diet.

Jasper: You may want to consider working up to 30 minutes, both health classes I took later this year recommended 30 minutes of moderate activity as being a rough 'minimum for how much should be done per day for the best health return on time investment.

[Sukunai]

I'm disabled, and it makes keeping in "better" shape basically impossible.

And that reeeeeeeeally bums me out.

But I could greatly improve the diet I'm sure.

If you can't focus on getting rid of what you have, you need to beat up on what you are putting in.

Wish I would listen to my own advice

Your body WILL slim down if it's forced to use up what's already there. Go with hi grade nutritional supplements, and use a scorched earth approach to all the junk. Make sure you are getting the nutrients, and eliminate most of the incoming bulk I guess.

You don't need to look like a body builder, you just don't want to look like Buddha