SeventhCycle

Congratulations Lyssi! Don't be surprised that you get faster by doing strength training. Especially if you're doing leg related workouts. It'll make it where your legs won't tire out as much from running. Here's hoping you get down to 6:00 by the end of the year

Tallz, I completely understand how easy it is to get in a rut and get down on yourself. The good news about all this is that you've already outlined a basic plan on what you need to do to start feeling better. 1) Minimize any time with the people on the base, and go out as much as you can. 2) Start a regular diet / exercise routine. I know that in the beginning it's really rough, but some days it's actually the exercise that keeps you sane, when everything else is insane around you. 3) Try listening to as much new music as possible in hopes that it will give you new influences and take you in a new direction. 4) Explore. Find new people you can socialize with. This one might be difficult, but even looking online, you can try and find some forums with people near you that have something in common. 5) Get your family and friends on Skype. It's not the same as being in the same room with them, but it sure as hell helps. I remember 120lbs ago about all the stuff I used to talk myself out of doing. In the end, I realize that it wasn't that I couldn't do it. It was that I got so down on myself for how heavy I got that I didn't want to go out and do anything at all. I still get that way sometimes. Sometimes I loathe the idea of going to a specific party or activity. Then, 30 minutes after I get there, I have a blast. The biggest obstacle was getting past that mental barrier of not wanting to go do something. Anyhow, I seriously wish you the best of luck.

Welcome to the Rebellion Luna! Do you have any specific goals that you're looking to achieve over the next 6 weeks, or next few months?

Tonight, I had such a great workout that I just had to share it here. It's been two full weeks since I started focusing primarily on weight training. I've already seen a pretty good increase of strength in just the two weeks I've been doing it. Here's what my workout routine looked like on 8/1 6,6,6,6 Pull-ups with -100 assistance 6,6,6,6 Benchpress with 80lbs weight. 10,10,10,10 Hanging Leg Raises. 20,20,20,20 Hip Raises And here's what I was able to do tonight: 10,7,6,6 pull-ups with -80lbs resistance 10,7,6,6 benchpress with 85lbs dumbbells 20,20,20,20 hip raises 15,15,15,15 hanging leg raises 10,10,10,10 dumbbell squat with 20lbs I'm primarily happiest about the pull-ups. At the gym, I use an assisted pull-up machine to help me be able to do a solid number of reps. I weighed 215, so I started off with 100lbs of help, which made the pull-up reps I was doing be like I weighed 115lbs. This week, I was able to do more reps with only 80lbs of help. So it's like doing pull-ups weighing ~135lbs (closer to 131 due to the weight I lost, but still good). Benchpress is also good. I was able to lift the 85lb dumbbells with less effort than the 80lb dumbbells. I think this means that next week I'm ready for the 90s. Typically, what I do is make Monday my heavy lifting day, Wednesday my medium day, and Friday my light day. It's seems to have worked well for me so far. I feel like anything is possible right now. Like my goal of 8 unassisted pull-ups by the end of the year is not so far away. I just wanted to share that.

I'd love to help any way I can, for what it's worth.

Welcome! I used to walk at a 4mph pace outside for the past year. It got me down from around 320-200, but the thing about it is that it doesn't build muscle the same way strength training does. So: 10 for counter = startweight to goalweight step increment 20 print "I am lifting ", counter, " pounds" 30 next counter

Thank you

That's one of the hardest things to do. I find generally when I'm under stress or something bad is going on in my life, I either: 1) Retreat and bury myself in things that are ultimately bad for me (all those comfort foods, relaxing, no exercise). OR 2) I try and stick to my routine, or even up the ante and try going to the gym even more to work it off. I've tried making a commitment to myself that if something bad is going on in my life, that I'll choose Option #2 instead of Option #1. It's hard, though. In any case, best of luck with you.

Welcome to the Rebellion! I can relate to what your friend's musing about cheap insurance. Part of my initial venture to lose weight ages ago had to do with me imagining what my life would be like if I didn't. I don't want constant trips to the doctor, heart problems, or any of that. Anyhow, you seem to have a really good start on all this. One thing: do you have a time limit set for your goal(s)? For instance, do you want to lose 23 pounds by Christmas, or by next summer? It's always good to have a time limit so that time doesn't escape you

So, it's been exactly two weeks since I've changed up my routine and started doing more strength training than cardio. My beginning post is right here. It looks like it's paid off so far. I've lost 4 pounds in the last two weeks. Even better, my body fat percentage has gone down from 21.6% to 20.6%. If I keep going at the same pace, I'll be able to reach my goal of 15% body fat in the next 2 1/2 months. Even if I don't keep the same pace, I still have a goal of 15% body fat by the end of the year. I have exactly 20 weeks to do it, so I'll have to lose at least 0.28% per week for the rest of the year. I'm hoping that's totally doable. It's nice that I'm losing weight, but it's even better that it's not compromising my body fat percentage. I think when I get down to 195lbs, I'll start eating more to maintain the same weight. The diet change has gone better than expected. Diet soda is completely gone from my daily routine now. I've also cut away the majority of grains, sugar and bread from my diet. When I wake up, I have a banana. After a workout, I have some nuts (I love cashews). There was one meal last Sunday where I had a diet coke and some pasta. Usually, when you have something that you typically don't eat, it feels rewarding, new, etc... This didn't. The soda tasted too syrupy. I asked the restaurant for water, and that was far more refreshing. I'm already started to get stronger. I'm currently using the assisted pull-up machine in order to help with building myself to the point of being able to do pull-ups on my own. I started out last week with 100lbs of assistance. This week, I was able to do it with 90lbs of assistance easier than the last week. Next week, I plan to lower it to 80lbs and keep on going. I'm hoping that if I keep going, I'll be able to reach my goal of 8 unassisted pull-ups by the end of the year. Anyhow, thanks everyone for reading this. This is a great community, and all the stories I've read on here help motivate me further. I'll do another update in a few weeks.

I imagine something like that would be very iffy due to the validation that would have to go on. Sure, it's easy to write a couple regular expressions that change [table] to <table> and [tr] to <tr>, but the issue is that it'd be way too easy to break the design if someone doesn't properly close their tags. I guess it's possible to run something like Tidy on someone's post before submitting it to make sure it's valid HTML. I have no idea if vBullitin would support that, though. Interesting suggestion though!

http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2010/02/01/what-burns-more-calories-cardio-intervals-or-weight-training/ Afterburn is actually fairly well documented. The idea is that you'll be burning calories a while after you're done exercising because your metabolism will increase. I know from my perspective that after I lift heavy weights, I feel my heart beating harder for a while after doing it. If you push your body hard, it will stay in calorie burning mode for a while after.

When it comes to actually going out there and doing the exercise, do you have anyone that can take this trip with you? If anything, someone that will drag you along even if you don't want to? I think the hardest part of working out is starting it. Once it becomes routine and you're doing it for a few months, it's a lot easier to keep going with it.

Jameson, Welcome to NerdFitness! We're here for you if you have any questions, or need a good kick in the rear to help get you going

Welcome to Nerd Fitness! 155 really doesn't sound like a bad weight. It's entirely possible in this case that cutting down your body fat percentage will give you the look that you want and keep you at the same weight. As for diet soda, I'm going on two weeks without any diet soda (my weaknesses were diet coke and diet a&w). It'll really suck for a couple days. And I mean, really, really suck. But if you stick through it for a week, it gets a hell of a lot better with time. As for meeting more people, this place is a good start. As for confidence, there's a good article on this here: http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2010/09/09/5-ways-to-immediately-appear-more-confident/ Anyhow, welcome, and best of luck!