randomguy2014

niiiiiiiice!! thanks to both of you!! I'll check these out <3

Hello all!! I don't now if there's a specific place where I should post this, other than here. Maybe there's even a topic about this already, if so I would love it if anyone could post a link to it. I'm 22 years old. Until I was like 10 or 11 I loved to dance. I did it almost every day. I would play a CD in the living room and dance to it until it was over. I loved it. But then I guess all the shame began, I felt ridiculous doing it, like I shouldn't be, maybe I realized it wasn't a "manly" thing to do (bullshit of course), or something. Now, so many years later, I began going out clubbing and I remembered my love for dancing. I really love going out just for dancing, I don't even get drunk most of the time, or hook up or anything. I don't mind dancing alone. Anyways, my point is... I suck at it, at least I think I do. I feel very stiff and graceless. Sometimes I jokingly describe my dancing skills as a "pregnant elephant." I want to be better at it, to feel like I can be graceful with my body. Is there anyone who dances, and could recommend me a way of beginning to loosen up, learn some moves, and build a base over which I can improve? I would be soooo thankful, really! I love you all!!

Hey! Maybe I will repeat a lot of what was already said... I just wanted to share a bit of my own experience. I came out like 3 years ago, it hasn't been very easy since my parents don't accept me. Anyways long story short, I have developed very bad anxiety problems, which were recently causing my some issues with my current boyfriend. Luckily, he has been very supporting and understanding, and he and my sister were actually the ones who made me realize my issues were worse than I thought. Investigating a bit, I found out about CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy), which I decided to begin applying on myself. I still haven't seen the results, since I began only recently, but personally I discovered that keeping a journal of my feelings, and trying to classify, and understand them, has been extremely helpful. As everyone else has said, it all has to do with small changes. I still suffer a lot, and struggle. I get stomach pain, and I feel like I can't breathe, but I'm trying to learn to rationalize my feelings, to write them down clearly and understand them, rather than drown in them. It's slow and frustrating at times, but you begin to have moments when you say like "oh! some weeks ago I would've completely freaked out in a situation like this but today I managed!" and it's sooo rewarding. I don't know if this was helpful, but I just wanted to tell you that you're not alone, many of us are also struggling with so many things. I guess you can say it's a path we all go through, and we can all just be together, and hold each others' hands. Good luck to you! I send you all my love <3

Hello all!! I've been quite inflexible my whole life... I tried doing yoga but I wasn't very consistent, mainly because the classes were so expensive. I can't touch my toes without bending my knees. My main objective is to be more loose so I can be better at dancing, which I plan to pick up again after not doing it since I was a little kid. What exercises do you recommend I should do to improve my flexibility, especially in the hips? I would be very thankful for any suggestions. Love to you all!!

hahaha thanks!!! yeah I really ike it... although it can be very frustrating at times, but I guess it's like everything.... I decided to invite my dad to workout with me, so now we're going together (almost) every morning. I also simplified my routine, now it's just the following: 4 (assisted) chin ups 4 push ups 4 rubber band squats I do all the exercises without stopping, as a super-set. I do 3 such sets. Today I moved it up to 4, I'm gonna try and keep it up and go up to 5 sets the following week, then maybe add one or two more exercises and do less sets, etc. I got this really strong rubber band from a sports shop, which I'm using to do the chin ups (I can't do them without it yet... I guess I'll get there), and to add tension to the squats. I'm also trying to get into a routine of stretching, and I wanna begin dancing, but I need to figure out what to do exactly. I'll post better pics tomorrow.

Hello all! I'm a guy from Chile. I'm 22 years old, and recently put on like 10kg of weight just from eating junk. I feel terrible about myself, I look in the mirror and suffer every day basically. Other things about me, I study music composition in The Hague, I play the violin, and I'm generally a music nerd. I've also posted before here, trying time and again to keep a fitness journal, but I'm terrible at it. I'm taking this as a wake up call to finally take myself more seriously in this, and try to make some progress. My current data is, at the moment: Height: 175cm (5 feet 9 inches) Weight: 75kg (165 pounds) (what other measurements should I keep track of?) I uploaded a pic, and you can see that although I'm on the "normal" BMI range, I do have a lot of fat around my waist, which is basically the root of my self-image issues. If I wear a t-shirt you wouldn't think I have this fat, because my face looks thin, as do my arms, wrists, etc. My goal is basically to have a body I feel proud of by next (northern hemisphere) summer, so by mid-june. I live by the beach in the Netherlands, and I wan to be able to walk around shirtless without feeling ashamed. I had a gym membership, but had to cancel it because I don't have enough money to afford it anymore. So now I'm trying to build a bodyweight routine. I found this, which I liked because I was trying to do parkour some years ago (I failed miserably), but I still love to workout outdoors and doing stuff with just my body. I also found this, because I realized that my body type fits the description of "skinny fat." So my workout for now looks something like this: I begin with the warming up posted by Steve on youtube, I'll put a link later, I feel a bit lazy to look it up right now lol Set 1: First exercise of the parkour vid (don't know what it's called) in 30 seconds, rest 15 seconds (I'll called it A) Second exercise in 30 seconds, rest 15 seconds (Squats in 30 seconds, rest 45 seconds ©repeat the whole thing 3 times Set 2: Inverted rows - 10 reps Last exercise of the parkour video (don't know what any of these things are called), 30 seconds Knee push ups - 10 repsrepeat 2 times, resting for a minute or so in between. I did it for the first time today, and I felt REALLY tired, like at some point I had to take a break because my head was feeling a bit light. But then it was OK and I continued. I need to track the amount of reps I do for the timed exercises. By the end I was exhausted and I couldn't do the 10 reps for the last set of knee push ups. Well, sorry for the long post, I promise the next logs will be more to the point. I hope to hear comments from you people! Hugs to all

Up to now I haven't been able to go back running again due to my stomach problems... I have tried it a couple of times and I have to stop very soon because I feel like puking. I have gone on long walks (as long as I can make them, the longest for now has been 8km, I'm gonna try to do more in the coming week because I don't have classes wohoo!) I think I am on my way to finding a part-time job, which is good, I am teaching Spanish and up to now I have 3 students, so that's good. I hope I can find 3 more, that way I will be able to cover my own living costs. I finished the piece I was writing, the Ave Maria, and hopefully it will be performed in November by two friends of mine who really liked it. I'm looking forward to that.

This week has been a bit of a slow beginning, but there was a good part to it. My dad came over to visit and he bought me running shoes! Yayy!! Before I was running with some very flat and heavy adidas (the ones they sell for like "urban" stuff, not the sports things) and they made my feet hurt of course. Now I have a pair of Nikes that are very light and nice. They are not the best running shoes in the market (more like the cheapest ones in the store) but I wanna begin little by little hahaha. The problem is that I seem to be having some stomach issues, since in the mornings I usually feel puky and bloated. I don't know why it is, I suspect it's because I'm developing some sort of intolerance to gluten (?)... I need to investigate more about this. I ran Monday and Tuesday, then on Thursday I ran too, but I had to stop because of the stomach pain and yesterday I ran more but still had to stop again because of the pain. I heard that there is a bouldering place close to where I live, so I'm gonna look more into that since it seems fun! I hope anyone that reads this has a really nice week!

I haven't been active in a HUGE while... but now I'm back! I wanted to start a more consistent plan to do more exercise, but I had to postpone it a couple of months due to a mononucleosis that caused my liver and spleen to get a bit swollen. I'm fine now and actually today I started!! I think my gym-related goals will have to wait, as I don't have enough money now to get a membership and I don't have the equipment to do it. BUT! Some friends of mine run almost every day and they got me motivated into doing it as well. Also, I plan to use this as an "excuse" to get up early in the morning (I usually wake up at 8-9 am, which usually translates into me actually doing stuff from 11 am onwards, which is a waste of morning imo). Today I woke up at 7am and went out for a run along a really beautiful canal (it's almost like a river, really wide). I ran 2km (1.2 miles) and then I ran part of the way back (I was really tired hahahaha). My goal now is to be able to run the full 4km (there and back) before increasing the distance. I plan to do this every day (at least on week days), in order to begin my day earlier and be able to do more stuff. In relationship to the other goals, I can say I am beginning to learn to use SuperCollider. It's proving much more difficult that I thought, mainly because also many of the sound-making concepts are new to me. For this reason, I am also learning to use the analog studio at school (where apparently Stockhausen himself was a visiting lecturer at a time), to learn the concepts of synthesizers and that kind of things. With a friend, we began learning German last week, and I think we're advancing quite fast, since we already know a little bit, and we also speak a little bit of Dutch, which is very similar (albeit a bit simpler in terms of grammar). So that's also going well. I cancelled the piece I was writing, because it proved to be a bad idea to begin with. I am going to save that text to use it in a different occasion. Instead, I am working on a request from a friend back home, who wanted me to write an Ave Maria for her (following the ones by Schubert and others). This has been my life up to now, I'll try to keep updating more often. I wish you all a great week!

Wow this is great!! Sorry I took so long to answer... I've been off my laptop for over a month... both responses are amazing!! so detailed! I feel more and more excited. My main concern now is to gather the money (I am a student and I will also have to work from next year onwards to help pay for my living costs, but still I hope I can save money little by little). In general, I don't mind cold weather, I can live with it, just maybe will require a little more budget to get proper clothing for it. If I have more questions I will definitely ask... Thank you so much again for the answers! And bregalad5 that's an amazing picture

Hello all! I now live in the Netherlands, the land of bikes! Of course, I bought a bike as soon as I arrived, but it is a city bike. It's perfect to drive to and from school and around the city and even to ther cities (there are excellent bike lanes connecting cities, at least in the Randstad area, so you can bike to and from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague without any problem at least), but I would like in the mid-to-near future to bike around other areas, especially northern Europe (in general Scandinavia) and central Europe (especially Poland), so I wanted to bring by mountain bike from home some time. I am from Chile. So I was sondering if anybody knows how much it would cost to bring a bike with me in the airplane accross the Atlantic from any of the major airlines (especially AirFrance)? I wish you all the best!

Ironhead... hahahahahaha I haven't thought about that! It seems like a good idea, I usually like to work out with dance music (like salsa, cumbia, or even house)... let me think, I guess something that has some sort of beat to it and is intense.. I used to listen to some stuff before, let me make a list (I like lists)... Philip Glass - Glass - Glass - Dmitri Shostakovich (his music is a bit too tragic, but maybe you'll like it) - Shostakovich - Shostakovich - Symphony No. 4, second movement John Adams - Steve Reich - (this is a bit weird, but I like the rhythm hahaha) Maybe I would also like to listen to just simply epic stuff, for that maybe it's noce something like Richard Wagner - (from Götterdammerung)Wagner - Jean Sibelius - Johannes Brahms - Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky - (this is the complete piece, but the first movement ends at 18:28... it's just that I love this performance)Tchaikovsky - (complete, please hahaha) Hahahahaha I think I overdid myself, but this music is also really nice to listen to and I really recommend it. I hope you enjoy it and please share with me what do you listen to when you workout!!

Hello! I've been following Nerd fitness for almost 3 years now! I hadn't had the courage or given myself the time to begin posting here. I think this idea of a fitness community is great and I lvoe the atmosphere, everyone seems so excited about things and life! So I wanted to join, I already posted my "epic quest" here, so feel free to read it if you want Here I just wanted to talk a bit about myself (sorry to be like that, but I just wanna introduce myself in this medium). I'm 20 years old, I was born in Venezuela but I lived all my life in Chile. I study composition (music) in The Hague, Netherlands. I love reading different stuff, mainly literature (my favorite authors are J. L. Borges and Virginia Woolf) but I'm beginning to read more philosophy. I'm also interested in religion, although more for the philosophy and the poetry of it rather than believing in any. My favorite composers are Bach, Handel, Stockhausen, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Vivier, Glass, and others (I don't wanna make the list too big). I love heavy metal also hahaha My aims here are many, as you may read in my list. But I guess they all come down to one main thing, which I want to explore and develop from now onwards, which is basically taking myself more seriously. This, to me, doesn't mean to become a very serious person with no sense of humor, but more like respecting myself and doing the things I really want to do and not let laziness win over me. this is my main objective in the coming years and I hope I can achieve it. Thank you all for reading and I wish you all the best in your lives!

I completely relate to your story. When I was little, I was like in 4th grade, I was nearly obese and all the time my classmates were making fun of me. I was shy, obese, had ugly teeth, was foreign, a guy that didn't like to play soccer, so I was the target for all bullying. I was really insecure during that time and for a long time afterwards. My mom helped me lose weight (it's not only good for your image, it's also good for your health, but it has to be natural though, you cannot force yourself to look like someone who's completely different than you, easier said than done, it was one of my greates conflicts). I had periods of my life where I looked into the mirror and I hated myself. I think the biggest change for me included two things, graduating from school and signing up in a gym for the first time. As Dradis said, this idea of "not there, but getting there" changes everything. You feel like you are taking care of yourself. The only thing is that you have to do it every day. For me it is like this, because all those comments and all that judgement form a cloud of darkness in your head (no New Age stuff here, I'm talking metaphorically) that contains all the bad things people have said to you. Every once in a while, when you least expect it, it will come back and remind you these things and make you feel like.. you know.. but you have all the time to remind yourself that these things are not true, that you are yourself, that you are a great person. I have to do this every day, some days it's more difficult than others, but in the end I succeed. What was useful for me was to realize that what other people say is completely meaningless, even if they are family. When they say things that make you feel bad, they are just trying to make you fit into the idea they have of who you should be, not of who you are. It is their job to change their minds and see who you really are, you can help them, of course, but in the end it is their job. Your job is to really express who you are, to be entirely yourself and not the shadow of yourself. I send you lots of hugs and I hope this situation improves and that you can defeat the darkness.

Hello all! Get ready for my huge rant. Before I begin, I just want to say how amazing it is here, and that I'm really happy I found this website. I wish you all good luck in your personal endeavors and I hope I can get to know some of you on the way! So, first I guess some things about myself. I am a 20-year-old guy from Chile, studying music (composition) in the Netherlands. I never was the sports guy at school, so in general my physical condition is not the best. Nevertheless, when I graduated, I decided I wanted to end this sedentary life (also because what I chose to study is as physically demanding as your regular office job, just sitting most of the day writing weird squiggles on a 5-line notebook), so I began searching for something that would guide me to a healthier life. That's how I found this site. After that, I moved to Poland, where I signed in a gym for the first time. I went very sporadically, I must say, but in general I did go. My phisical condition didn't change much because I didn't go as often as I would have wanted. The same thing happened this year here in The Hague. I guess my main problem is that I don't take myself too seriously with what I do, so I just tend to do nothing for long periods of time, which ends up generating other problems (like depressive moods and so on). So I decided this time to write down all the things I want to do in a short to mid-term time range. I will be updating it when I achieve certaing goals and when I add goals, or if any of them changes. So.. here we go! I'm going to divide it into different categories... 1. General life goals wake up at 7:30 during week days (I love to sleep) be more thrifty (spend €100 a month or less) find a part-time job travel to Iceland travel accross Scandinavia by bike do the Camino de Santiago learn German learn Latin finish reading Spinoza's Ethics. 2. Music goals be able to play the Mendelssohn violin concerto (at least the first movement) finish the piece I am currently writing (the longest piece I have written so far) learn to use SuperCollider and Max/MSP write a piano sonata 3. Fitness goals go 3 times a week to the gym consistently be able to squat 40kg (88 pounds) (I mean a 20kg plate on each side of the barbell, did I write it correctly?) I can currently lift 14kg (2x7kg).. same for deadlifts be able to do 3 sets of 5 pull-ups be able to do 2 sets of 10 push-ups bike to Amsterdam and back (120kms/74 miles) - up to now the most I have done is 30kms (18 miles) be fit enough to bike around Iceland I don't expect to do all this in the near future, but I just want to have it here so that it is written somewhere and I can come back to it and read it. Also maybe some of you can give me tips on how to achieve certain things! I send you all lots of hugs!

Hello everyone! I have posted very little in this forum, but I plan to do it more often. Today I wanted to ask some questions about something that has been driving me crazy for almost two years now. I really really want to go to Iceland. I have seen pictures of it and it looks amazing. I have some questions for anyone who is either from there or who has been there, to see if I can actually make this happen in the not so far future. I am a student and I am planning to begin working next year to save some money for travelling in general. I saw in some websites that the cheapest tickets available to Iceland cost around €230 (with a 10-hour stop in London, but I couldn't care less about that), and I see that hostels are quite expensive, around €20-30. So here are my questions, I number them because they are many and that way it will be easier to answer: 1. What would be a recommendable budget to consider when planning a trip to Iceland (apart from the €230-300 for the plane ticket)? 2. What are the main places to go in Iceland? I'm thinking of the kind of places you can't not go to when you are there. 3. What other places are nice to go to? Maybe some places that are not very common tourist attractions. 4. What is the best time of the year to go? 5. How can one move around? Is it possible to go around by bike? If so, is it expensive to rent bikes there? I think these are my questions for now. I know, these all seem questions I could search in tourist guides, but they usually only tell the good side of things, the beautiful side. I want to know also what are the cons of going there, what should I keep in mind, what is not recommendable and also some knwoledge that maybe would be lost in a commercial tourist guide. I wish you all a great day and week!

Hallo!! Ik ben geen Nederlander, en ik spreek nog en beetje Nederland, maar ik woon in Rijswijk (end of my Dutch vocabulary and transition to English, sorry hahaha) since Spetember. It's cool that there are more people out there! It would be nice to meet I've been going to a gym that's near Den Haag HS Station, it's quite cheap for students and it has lots of free weights! Does anyone else live in this area?