nanako

Making good food choices when sick is terribly hard! When I get colds I get the worst sweet cravings. Basically, whenever I find myself rummaging through the larders for milk chocolate and canned peaches I know I'll be sneezing tomorrow! It's probably some leftover primal instinct - craving fruit & vitamins! You know, like monkeys eat certain herbs to make themselves feel better when they get sick. Feel better soon!

Strength training rocks. Makes you run better, sleep better, live better. This spring I shaved about 3 minutes off my 10K time by doing bodyweight training - squats - only - no running!

I love HST, but the Hobbit is also good and it's a real nice easy read. Bit of a kids book though.

Oh, I'm totally not a doctor (I am actually but not that kind of doctor ), it's just something that I read somewhere on the interweb. Here's a study that says cortisol in enhanced in endurance athletes (although cyclists and 10km runners were fine), with a tad more significance for women than for men. And here's a study that says cortisol highs increase appetite in some women. It makes sense in my little brain, but if you really want to find out something substantial I guess you'd have to google and read a lot.

WTF?! In November?!

Another good day! I'm on a roll here ... Not sure if I should eat bread tomorrow - it's bread day! - but I'm doing so well without those carbs that I might shift it to the weekend. You know how these IF people say eat carbs on your workout day? I might just try that. Run a lot and eat a lot of bread .... hmmmm bread .... Makros for today are: Kcal 1528, fat 72, carbs 90, prot 99 I think I have a bit more fat because Foodfocus doesn't seem to have medium fat mince ... no worries. I'm still under my threshold. I can feel my jeans getting looser which is great (because they were quite tight when I started). EDIT Another a carb fail day! Still holding on to that goal though. Anything under 100 is kind of alright I guess. Under 80 would be good and under 50 was my original goal, remember? ... Still hope ... it's only the first week, officially!

Being a paleo guy, I'd say increase your fat intake first. Keep your carbs under 100g/day, protein around 0.5-1g per lean bodyweight, and the rest of the calories should come from fat. Eating more protein than that is not necessary unless you are doing powerlifting seriously. Again, this is just opinion and personal experience.

Totally, people are different and of course some people can lose weight with lots of cardio. It just doesn't work for me - if it works for you that's great ! For me putting the focus on bodyweight and diet made all the difference and I only run for fun now, not to burn calories. I also have to be really careful not to run too much (anything >1.5h or >10 miles is my threshold) because I get ill immediately. Just giving my opinion + talking from own experience here, by no means 'teh truth'.

If you want to do proper fell running or "off-trail" running, people recommend inov-8. They also have a minimal shoe, the "bare grip", which is supposedly quite good. If you just splash around in the mud a lot and run on trails, you just need a bit of grip and don't need cleats or spikes. I'm using the merrel trail glove, that works just fine.

At this stage you just want to focus on your weight loss, since this is your main goal. When you're an advanced powerlifter you can think about bulking/cutting cycles and gains and so forth, but right now focus on weight loss. This will make life easy for you. To lose weight, my advice is to eat paleo and eat a deficit (this will be easy on paleo because you want be hungry), and add some strength training - "starting strength" is good. Avoid too much cardio - it's no good especially when you're a woman. Messes up your cortisol, which will hinder weight loss, and your sleep and what-not and you will be hungry, and end up eating to much. So for now, focus on weight loss and lifting, and add a little bike ride if you really want to. Just be careful not to overexert yourself, and not to eat too much after those cardio days. Sorry, this is a bit of a non-scoutish advice. But you said you wanted an opinion. Once you have lost all the weight you wanted to lose, you can do any sports you like for as long as you like. But if you want my advice, focus on weight loss first with a tried-and-tested method (paleo + strength). Everything else can come later.

That's strange, for me chin ups were the first back exercises I could do again after injury and I have always felt that they were most efficient and positively soothing back workout. Have never used an assist machine though, maybe using your own back strength only prevents you from putting too much strain on your shoulders.

Hah! Same here. Still some more coughing but this week-end there will be no more excuses. Go 18ck! It's you who signed up for that marathon, not me! I can run all of my 10Ks off my sleeve. British plumbing, I'm telling you. The reason why you lost all the wars.

I still can't do pull ups but it took me only about 8 weeks to go from Australian pullups (inverted rows) to my first 90-degree chin-up - I can do sets of four now. PhoenixBurning recommended "jackknife pullups" as training and they totally did it for me. Basically what you do is you sit on the floor under the bar with legs outstretched, then pull yourself up with your lats so that your bottom leaves the ground. Heels stay on the floor. It looks a little bit silly, but, as I said they totally help. Second thing that really helped was IJo and Waldo going on about "work your lats". It's a mental thing. Most people don't even know where their lats are, you have to focus on them to make them work. I had to take a break due to a non-related back injury, but I'm back in training now and am confident I will be able to do pull ups soon.

This! Will try and upload this weekend.

Really successful day today diet-wise. Still a carb fail (I knooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!) but not hungry!!! Stayed at the office late and didn't eat. Came home and cooked something paleo for myself even though husband had cooked delicious pasta meal. Makros: 1386 kcal 62 fat 83 carbs 82 prot Very chuffed at the low calorie count. Maybe I can just simply be someone who doesn't eat that much!

Scale moving again! 74kgs today, that's 2 down (though mostly water).

I'm moving this to my challenge thread and will log daily there. http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/39601-nanako-loses-some-deadweight/

By the way did I say how gutted I am that my weight is not budging?! Stupid scale ! Stupid thermodynamics! Stupid carbs! How, how, how can I not lose weight when I eat so little not all that much all the time, eh? It's not fair! I know I shouldn't have had those carbs and I was losing weight before ... and I should go back to it because it's the only thing that works for me .. it's just ... *hangs head, kicks stones*

Same here! I try and make things we can all eat. Curry usually works well - with rice for kids & hubbie, no rice for me ... in theory at least ! Today I had some rice with the leftovers for lunch and - BAM - a handful adds about 30gs of carbs to your diet just like that. Grrrr!

Yeah, it's all about food for the two of us this time, innit? Yesterday and today were so-so on the carb front and ok on the calorie front. Todays makros were: 1704 kcal - 44g fat - 169g carbs - 125prot I need to get the carbs back on track! EDIT My tracker says I'm still 250 Kcals or so over my threshold if I really want to lose weight. Maybe I'll just try and do 30 mins of bodyweight workout per day, instead of 10. Make an effort. Still coughing and puffing, so no extra cardio for me. Especially no running.

Oh I forgot to say I'll get him tested, just to be sure. For myself, I don't think it's necessary, really. He's six by the way so it's very much me deciding for him now.

Pleeeeeeaase don't saw my feet** off this time!!! EDIT ** break my ankles I mean. Sawing them off was "Saw", right?

Aah well ok so I got sorted into Assassins again, too! Never mind ...

It does!!! Awesome.