2017 Fitness Challenge

[War Eagle!]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

This week i've been trying something new with intermittent fasting. Nothing fancy but I've been doing a liquid diet before 8 PM every day.

Afterwards I've been getting some awesome HIIT workouts while riding my bike. I got two sessions in so far this week at 5-5.5 miles on each session. I've got the Gear Fit tracking my heart rate so when I look at the varying heart rates I am happy. During one stretch I'm like 180 bpm then it drops down to like 90-110 bpm. I can hardly ever do that when I'm doing HIIT in the gym unless i'm killing myself.

So far this month i'm down 2 pounds from 196. My goal is to get down to 165 by my wedding in October. Haven't weighed myself this week but I am finally starting to see some changes in my body after starting this quest back in April.

My gut has went down tremendously from where it was. The weight is coming off slow, but within the last week or so my pants have began to fit comfortably again. It was a time about two weeks ago I had to make a layering sacrifice in order for my pants to fit semi comfortably. This morning I was able to get my hands in my pockets of a pair of pants with a belt on so I was elated.

[ubernoob]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

Congrats War Eagle!

How do you feel energy wise? I was always curious as to how a major switch like that in diet would feel (since my diet has always been relatively unchanged, minus the amounts of stuff I would eat.)

[Matt10]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

I'm going to start logging my accountability if that's okay with you guys. Need to get back on track. It should only take a month or two, but easier said than done.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

That's a great idea. I had actually kept a daily log of activities (not limited to exercising) and food eaten (not counting calories, just writing what I ate) for about a month. I got sick and missed a couple days and never got back to it.

I will say it helped me manage my time in the evenings much better and was nice to just read back over for accountability sake.

[ezio]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

Try this

Link to site

Thank you.

[HealyMonster]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

Thank you.

It works man. Woke up today at 167 that's 41 pounds I got 2 to go and I'm dooooooone

Sent from my SM-G935V using Operation Sports mobile app

[War Eagle!]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

Congrats War Eagle!

How do you feel energy wise? I was always curious as to how a major switch like that in diet would feel (since my diet has always been relatively unchanged, minus the amounts of stuff I would eat.)

My energy, eh, it was kinda weird. Usually when I don't eat by mistake, I hit the dumps. But, when I do intermittent fasting my energy and moods improve.

This past Saturday I took a break from the intermittent fasting. Went all out on a terrible meal from Chick-fil-A at 10:30 AM. Had to work from 11-7 and I almost had a nervous breakdown about 2 hours into work. I was irritable, agitated and just did not feel like being bothered.

When I'm participating in intermittent fasting it's a challenge of mind over matter. I'm a competitor but I have had a bad habit of thinking negatively so this aids me in fighting off that habit. Defeating negative thoughts provides a boost to my mood and leaves me with more energy than I have when I'm not.

Also, another positive of the intermittent fasting is that a lot of cravings that I have had are gone. The kind of cravings that would put me in a bad mood/consume a lot of energy because I couldn't have it. You should've seen me in April when I was having hot wing withdrawal. Put me next to a 3 year old having a temper tantrum in Wal-Mart and you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

One thing is though if you're gonna do it, you gotta do it. I've learned that if I eat breakfast and try to do the intermittent fasting after that it's an absolute struggle. Today is the first day I've done breakfast and been able to do it but i've been thinking about crap more frequently than I would had I not.

[tdawg3782]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

Count me in as a fan of intermittent fasting. I did it a few years ago and had great success. I've put on about 15lbs over my normal weight and decided to jump back on. I fast from 8pm to 12pm the next day (16 hours) having only water and maybe a decaf coffee (black) and eat from 12pm to 8pm (8 hours). Even though you feel hungry at around the 13 hour mark energy levels are through the roof. I concur with the sense of clarity as well. And any extra weight will drop off. It's a really cool for lack of a better term "diet" because you're not counting calories and trying to eat small meals and what not. Just try to eat healthy during your 8 hours and you're good to go. Even with a few bad choices mixed in lol.

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[NDAlum]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

I'm comfortably around 218-220 right now. Probably gonna push it down to 215 and I'm going to be super content there.

The leaning down has led to several compliments from friends and even strangers. Life is just better being in good shape.

[Blzer]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

Let me preface this by saying that my fastest ever mile time is 4:50, and I got it at the end of my sophomore year of high school. That's the last timed mile I ever ran.

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I saw a neurologist a while back for my PCS. He referred me to an acupuncturist that I will see next week. He made mention though that symptoms which last this long are more psychological than they are physical. It's not that I'm faking pain, it's that my brain is telling me there is pain despite no injury. That's his belief, and he said that sometimes those receptors will never rewire themselves correctly, but they can through progressively building up more and more exercise.

So on Monday, I decided to take an eight-minute jog. This is about 7.5 minutes longer than any run I've endured since my initial concussion, because bobbing the head up and down gets too painful after a while. I seemed to get through it okay, though it was harder on my legs and lungs than anything else.

On Tuesday, I said: "Screw it, let's run a mile as well as we possibly can and see what happens." Well, it was exhausting to say the least. I haven't mustered that kind of endurance in far too long, and my body wasn't ready for it. Nevertheless, I recorded a 5:48 mile. By most standards that's fine, but my sixth grade self was a 5:33 so I figure I'd have to keep pushing.

On Wednesday, I just decided to do it again. Regarding my body, this was a bad idea. I'm jumping into it too quickly. Nevertheless, I got 5:34. Okay, about matching my sixth grade time there, not bad... but then my legs didn't work the rest of the day.

At that point, I told myself I shouldn't just be trying a mile every day, and instead do what we used to do in P.E...

Monday: 3 laps
Tuesday: 2 laps
Wednesday: 4 laps (mile)
Thursday: 2 laps
Friday: 20 minutes

Obviously Saturday and Sunday are off, which works out since I'm out of town on weekends during the summer for softball tournaments.

Anyway, yesterday (Thursday) I did my two laps. I forget how long it took me to do. Something tells me I might not have timed myself. It was probably still over 2:30, which is expected.

Today I went for a 20-minute jog. This was a big stamina test for me and my head. I passed. My jog started me off with about 2:10 per lap, but since by the end I finished 10 laps (2.5 miles), that means I broke the 2:00/lap time and got under 8:00/mile. Considering my best two-mile time is 11:00 flat, I know I still have a long way to go. But nonetheless, it was good to see that I was still able to do it after about thirteen years of no running whatsoever (I just turned 29 years old, by the way).

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Obviously my schedule has issues at times, but I'd like to keep doing this during the summer. If anything else, maybe it gets my brain working correctly again. Who knows though, maybe it worsens it... but as I'm typing to you now, I can say that things feel unchanged at the moment, which is better than feeling a lot of hurt like a setback. I want to see if I can get to my old self where I'm able to do things like head-first slide, body-surf, ride roller coasters, etc. because I can't do any of those things now, and haven't for the better part of 2.5 years.

All in all, I want to see if I can break 5:00 in a mile again. That would be a wonderful accomplishment, but I have to tell myself that the last time I did it was built over five years of long distance running every day in P.E., plus things like cross country and track (and baseball every day). I can't expect to be able to do that in eight weeks, but I will definitely keep you posted each Wednesday with my new recorded mile times. Hopefully they keep getting faster.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

What supplemental equipment would you guys recommend to up the intensity of cardio workouts? Bands, small weight dumbbells, kettle ball, etc?

[NYJets]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

Been cutting for 6 weeks, dropped 6.5 pounds, according to my bf% measuring dropped from 12.9 to 10.6, not sure how accurate that is though. Noticeable difference in progress pictures.

Was gonna go a few more weeks eating at a deficit, but I'm starting to feel it and my workouts are suffering. Think I'm going to aim to eat at maintenance for a while and stay where i'm at or maybe lose a tiny bit more fat. Then start a bulk towards the end of the summer.

[KG]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

What supplemental equipment would you guys recommend to up the intensity of cardio workouts? Bands, small weight dumbbells, kettle ball, etc?

Try a weighted vest. I ran some hills the other day with ~20-25lbs of my wife's weights in my backpack:

5 w/o weight
5 w/ 12.5 lbs
5 w/ 25 lbs
5 w/ 12.5 lbs
5 w/o weight

It wasn't too bad, even considering I'm ~2.5 years off my achilles surgery. I'm going to invest in a vest though because the weight displacement was a little uncomfortable.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

That would be a great idea for my next hike.

[RockinDaMike]

Re: 2017 Fitness Challenge

Weighted vest is amazing to have. It's been really helpful since i only do body weight exercises at the moment and just walking.


I got the rip60 pack with ankle and and its pretty good but the straps get loose sometimes but for the most part, solid and comfortable vest. I'm pretty sure I can find a better one on amazon.

Sometimes I just wear it do my regular day to day work and walk around my resort. You also get that relief feeling when you take it off and you feel great, energized and light.

You will SWEAT your *** off too.