DrMobius

I’m posting this as I’ve run into a situation that I’m guessing would be fairly specific to this particular fitness community as opposed to other online fitness communities. I made a post to the respawn board re: my need to step up my workout game in general. However, I encountered a situation the other night that I thought warranted a separate post. One odd thing that has occurred now that my weight is down significantly and I’m forcing myself to be less of a recluse is that my old Rocky Horror Picture Show cast reached out to me a few weeks ago when they needed someone to fill in at the last minute and had exhausted all current cast members. I was incredibly nervous to do so as I hadn’t been on stage in years but I made myself do it and had a blast and have subsequently started performing with them here and there once more. Last night I had an outside show where I played Eddie/Dr. Scott with one of my favorite Columbias. Now for those of you not familiar with the film (you lucky, lucky bastards) there is a part during their routine where Eddie lifts Columbia in the air several times. Ruthie, the Columbia in question, is a large girl and always liked performing with me as I was the only Eddie who could lift her. Even when I was much heavier I was able to do this as upper body strength even when horribly out of shape is something I got from my biological father. I assumed that after nearly 10 months of working out on a semi regular basis, being at least 50-100lbs lighter than I was when I performed with this cast and having felt really good about myself over this past year because I had noticed some of my old strength returning as I progressed with my fitness, that I would be able to do lifts with her no problem. Much like Obi Wan on the subject of Padawan training readiness, I was wrong. While I didn’t drop her I came close and they were hardly the sort of impressively vertical lifts that I was once able to achieve with her. Now, I hadn’t performed that role in 5+ years, we hadn’t practiced and I’m now a 40-year-old Eddie instead of a 29-30-year-old Eddie. I had also gotten a slight kink in my back from an outside show a few days earlier performing with a much tinier Columbia who decided that we should practice before the show while only giving me about a nanosecond of warning before pouncing. My, unbelievably long winded question is this: my workout routine is fairly basic and needs upgrading to begin with, but I was wondering if it was possible that my arms, chest, etc. have gotten stronger but my back has been neglected hence causing a discrepancy there? If so, are there exercises I can start doing in the future that will correct this issue? Or is this simply a case of “hey you’re 40 now, maybe your days of dressing like a circa 1970s rock star and having girls in sparkly corsets jump on you are drawing to a close� It just seemed odd that at 400lbs I could still manage this, albeit with difficulty as I got heavier and more out of shape but that 106lbs lighter and in better shape than I was 10 years ago, I’m having trouble. Another possibility that occurred to me that I was hoping to get feedback on is whether the issue isn’t a question of strength but of my center of gravity being a bit different these days and it being a need to relearn how to catch and lift as opposed to needing to strengthen up (though I still want to strengthen up regardless). I know this is a long and rambling post about a somewhat bizarre physical activity question but this is the only community I would trust enough to ask in. Any advice or thoughts would be extremely appreciated. Thanks!

I’m not sure if this post is even, technically, appropriate to bill as a respawn but I’m posting it here because that’s where my head is at with this and I could use the input from other Rebels. I’ve sort of drifted from the site in recent months primarily because it was something that I had been in the habit of checking and updating at work where I’m in front of a computer most of the day. However, my work’s NO-FUN-OF-ANY-KIND filter has become slightly more totalitarian and Nerd Fitness is now flagged as a “Discouraged Site†and while not blocked, my ability to use it is limited. That said, other than the validation/advice/support that I receive from this community, I haven’t technically lost anything in my time away. I’ve continued to lose weight and am down to 300lbs from 406 last November. I am still exercising but my workout routines have stagnated a bit. I didn’t even score myself on my last 6 week challenge because I’d become so disconnected from the site it just didn’t seem like it merited updating. I’m still extremely proud of myself for sticking to my new eating habits and keeping with the (admittedly bare bones, maintenance-esque) workout routine I have been keeping to. However, I do miss that feeling of invigoration I had when I first started here. Even posting to a somewhat anonymous site like this was hard for me and as I’ve lost weight and started to come out of my shell a bit I’m starting to, only now, realize precisely what a shut in hermit I’d become as my weight got more and more out of control. I’m not the heaviest guy in the room as a rule anymore. I fit into more clothes. If I go out to eat I don’t have to worry about whether or not I can fit in a booth. Things like that are wonderful. However, I had been enjoying the whole “level up my life†vibe I was on when I first started and would like to inject some life back into that. I’m not terribly afraid of going back to my old eating habits though I try to stay vigilant. I’ve had several experiences in the past year that have shown me that my psychological relationship to food has changed pretty drastically in the past year. I have, however, fallen into a bit of a rut with learning new recipes and trying them out which will be a goal for my next challenge. Where I’m really afraid of falling off the wagon is in regards to exercising. Partially it’s because it’s a repetitive task by its very nature and those grate on me after a while. I try to mix it up but then I run headlong into my other issue. When I first started down this road I was extremely secretive about it. Even at a whopping Mycroft Holmesean weight of over 400lbs I was still somewhat vain and on the (at the time extremely likely historically speaking) chance that I didn’t stick with this; I didn’t want anyone to know about it. I told nobody I was coming to this site, I told nobody I was trying to eat better and my exercising was conducted on the sly in my room; simple beginner body weight stuff that I could do in private. I think, it’s fair to say that I’ve outgrown what I’m able to accomplish in my bedroom without massively redecorating and turning it into an workout room with a bed which isn’t an option. The cat is well out of the bag at this point. People clearly know I’m doing something as even the woman who works at the Dunkin Donuts where I get my morning coffee on the way to work has now commented on the fact that I’ve dropped a few pounds. Is it time to maybe look into joining a gym? Perhaps seeing what, if anything, I can do in my basement (which is regrettably shared with my remarkably unreasonable downstairs neighbor) to make a new workout space? I suppose what I’m really looking for on a respawn is a way to get re-motivated to level up my exercise game. In the interim I can get back in the habit of upping my reps and sets on the limited stuff I do in my room once I get my mojo back as twere but I know that will only be a temporary fix. Hence I’m respawning and reaching out to the great Nerd Fitness Rebellion hive mind for advice, inspiration, general thoughts on how to remotivate myself in regards to my workouts. This community has been an unbelievable support for me over the past year and I’m hoping to tap into some of that again. Thanks for reading, all. As always your comments are always welcome.

I am still here I've just been a ghost of late. I still need to tally up my scores from the last challenge and I'll make a post about that. I just didn't want people to think I'd fallen off the face of the earth. I had just gotten in the habit of updating this site from work but I can no longer do that. I'll try to be better about it. I've missed this place.

I had a question for the forum on the subject of loose skin. Namely, I’m starting to have a fair amount of it now. I’ve lost 96lbs since December of 2014 and well…it’s starting to show. It’s also leaving me with some hangage if you will around my midsection. It’s not terribly noticeable when I’m dressed but I was curious about it as I move forward with losing more weight. Does loose skin naturally tighten back up over time or will I need to look into some sort of medical approach to getting rid of it? Obviously this isn’t a terribly pressing matter as I still have more weight to lose and have largely given up public nudity as a means of self-expression but I was curious. Does anyone here have any suggestions?

Ugh. I’ve been incredibly bad about keeping up with my challenge thread this time around. My work’s “NO FUN OF ANY KIND†filter has recently been updated and Nerd Fitness is now an off limits website. I’ve been keeping to my goals for the most part but it’s been hard. I’ve hit a sort of blah wall where my motivation is sorely lacking. Fortunately I’ve been able to force myself to not lose any ground though I’m not pushing my workout regimen as hard as I should. I intend to change that though and this week I’ve been adding reps to each set with regularity. I also got a bit down on myself as this was the first month that I’d weighed myself and not had significant weight loss. I haven’t gained anything but I was hoping to have lost the 4 lbs needed to hit 100lbs lost. I think that part of that is because I haven’t been walking as much as I’d like due to the heat. I’ve been trying not to beat myself up about it though. I’ve lost 96lbs in 8 ½ months and that’s not nothing. I was initially angry at myself but then I stopped myself and reminded myself that I was wearing a pair of 48/30 pants as opposed to the 56/30 that I’d been wearing for 7-8 years and a shirt that I hadn’t been able to wear in over a decade and that made me feel a bit better. I’ve made a tremendous amount of progress and I’m not going to run myself down over something that I just need to see as a prod to do better. I’m already planning what I want to get for my next tattoo which I plan to get to reward myself when I hit the 100lbs mark. I need to do this and I have no intention of going back. I’m past the 50% point of my ultimate goal of losing 150lbs and I mean to get as close to that goal as humanly possible!

Wow! I'm really happy that so many people seem to be enjoying this recipe. I hope it turns out well for all of you.

Hello my fellow purveyors of stabbity death, I ended up not doing a challenge last time due to some family issues but those have largely resolved themselves now so I’m back with a shiny new challenge! Primary Goal: Lose 150lbs (55lbs to go!) Goal 1: Step up my workouts: While I’ve kept with them since I’ve joined they have become a bit of a chore at times and I need to breathe a bit of new life into them. My goal is to continue my bodyweight workouts 3-4x/week adding reps to each set at least 2x/week. Also, find at least 2 new exercises to add to my overall workout routine. Goal 2: Broaden my Paleo palate: I’ve been keeping to the Paleo diet since 12/01/2014. While the results have been great (not just weight loss wise) I’ve gotten into a bit of a rut as busy people often do with cooking. My goal this time around is to try at least 1 new Paleo friendly dish each week. Bonus if I find recipes for vegetables I’m not familiar with. Goal 3: Walking or something new: My daily walking has fallen off a bit due to the summer temperatures (though I must confess that I’m suffering WAY less in the heat this year than I have in recent memory) and I wanted to stop that. My goal is to walk for at least 20-30 minutes/day 4-6x/week rather than just adding extra steps to everything I do (which I will continue doing I just want to resume a set walking time to make sure I do it). As I side goal I plan to look into alternative activities to keep me active but of an indoor variety. Perhaps getting back into Aikido or something similar; I’m also open to suggestions. Secondary Goals: Secondary Goal 1: Money management: For the next 6 weeks I want to keep my spending on anything other than necessities to a minimum. I plan to keep a stricter budget and my goal is to make no purchases other than essentials for the next 6 weeks. Secondary Goal 2: Sociability: Being in excess of 400lbs is phenomenal at making one a hermit. Now that I no longer am in excess of 400lbs I need to start remembering how to be a human being once more. Therefore my goal is to go out and do one highly social activity each week that is not work-related or simply having friends come over to hang out. Secondary Goal 3: Improving my credit score: One of my major goals this year is to improve my credit score. Therefore my goal this challenge is to set up a schedule and ensure that I pay all of my bills on or before the due date.

Working on my goals for this newest 6 week challenge. Running a bit behind due to having to leave town for several days to attend a funeral. I should have things up tomorrow or Friday.

Okay, I've re-tallied my points having completely misunderstood the scoring system. Here are the results of my 2nd challenge: Goal 1: Continue with body weight workout 3-4x per week. I’m keeping this as a goal because it seems to be working. This time I’d like to step things up and try to add 3-5 reps of each exercise to each set each week for the next six weeks. STR=C. While I did stick with my bodyweight exercises I didn't add as many reps each week as I liked. I think this goal will likely be recycled next time in order to up this grade. Goal 2: Maintain and broaden paleo diet. Continue cooking for myself at least 5-6 nights per week and maintain diet even when eating out. Try one new paleo friendly recipe each week. This goal, also remains as I’m still trying to broaden my cooking repertoire in general and I’m finding that the fact that I’m eating tastier fare now than I was when I was eating poorly has been a huge contributing factor to my sticking with this for as long as I have. I can’t see more variety being a bad thing here. WIS= B. I have been super pleased with how well I've stuck with this diet. (and have met 50% of my weight loss goal as a result) I'm only giving myself a B because I didn't try a new recipe each week but I did do some fun tweaking of some existing recipes I make often mostly trying to come up with non spicy variants of them in preparation for a visit from my mother who does not share my love of face melting cuisine. I did try out a few new recipes just not as many as I wanted to. Hence a B. Goal 3: Increase walking. We’re finally thawed and I think I was losing more weight when I was walking regularly. Now I was quite pleased that I’ve continued losing weight even though the Frost Giants conspired to keep me from walking but I want to get back into the habit of it. My goal then is to keep up my lunchtime walks each weekday and to get off one bus stop earlier than I already do (for a total of 2 stops before my scheduled) at least 3x/week STA=B. I didn't increase the number of stops before my own that I got of the bus daily but I did resume my afternoon walks (REALLY missed those) and discovered that stairs are no longer the wheezing things of dread that they once were so I take them any time I have 3 floors or less to go in my building. Life Goal 1: Professional licensure. I was actually pretty blown away by the fact that I made as much progress as I did last time on this goal. This is something that I’ve been avoiding for AGES. However, actual progress has been made but at this point I’m to a phase where it’s largely waiting on signatures and then more waiting. Given that I want to keep these goals to things that can be measured in 6 week spans of time my goal for this side quest is that by the end of this challenge my application for licensure will be notarized and mailed to the licensing board and, hopefully, if all goes well, I’ll have my date set for my actual licensing exam. They only have those a few times a year so there’s no guarantee that even if I do everything on my end in a timely fashion that I won’t still be waiting on approvals and test dates by the end of this challenge so I made this a pass/fail sort of goal and only for my end of things. CHA (As it's a professional thing and often involves being nice to incredibly annoying people)=B It's done! It's ready to mail....just as soon as one straggling supervisor gets his one form back to me. I'll have a car once more after this weekend so I'll be able to just drive over to his office and hasten him along a bit. Life Goal 2: Start saving $50 more each week than I currently am. This was the one goal I did the worst on last time so I’m keeping it included as well. I’ve now arranged for the extra 50 to be deposited directly into my savings account to force my hand. The goal here will be to see if I’m capable of actually leaving it alone or not.-WIS= A. $50 extra bucks aside each week like a green grocer. Quite pleased about this and hence, able to buy a new car to replace my deceased one. So those are my goals for this challenge. Thank you to everyone for your support and advice and I'll keep you posted on my next challenge.

I haven't been particularly good about updating these for a while which is fairly normal for me and I almost never post big things like this in a public forum but I trust this group and there is some overlap with the things that I do actually post about here. I found out yesterday that my Uncle Brian just passed away. He suffered a massive heart attack in his home and was pronounced dead on arrival when EMS arrived. While I was fond of my uncle we weren't particularly close. There was no animosity we just didn't talk much. I think what's making this affect me so strongly is the fact that he was only 7 years older than I am. He was always heavy but I'm fairly certain that I was heavier than he was at my biggest. I was on blood pressure medication until a few months ago when my doctor took me off of it because my heart was sounding much better. (In general my PCP is doing backflips about the amount of weight I've lost) I rarely have those "it could have been me" moments. Being alive is a temporary state of affairs and there's little point in pretending otherwise. This has me genuinely rattled though. Over the past 6 months I've gotten healthier than I've been in YEARS. I still have a long way to go I know and I'm hardly perfect at this but I've still lost over 70 lbs in the past 6 months. (I haven't had a chance to weigh myself after this challenge yet so I don't have the specific amount) My health and appearance were the biggest reasons I started doing this but I honestly couldn't specifically pinpoint the exact reason I suddenly got the motivation to make the changes in my life that I've been making. I really couldn't. Something just clicked and I started researching and then I found this place. I'm not even sure where I'm going with this i just needed to vent. I know that this doesn't guarantee me good health for the rest of my life or anything but I'm definitely moving in a healthier direction. I also know that if my uncle had experienced a similar epiphany it would not have guaranteed that he would still be alive today. While it's not survivor's guilt I'm experiencing per se, a part of me can't help but wonder if it might have helped him if he had. I'm not sure why I felt the need to post this but it did feel good to get some of it out. As I mentioned on my challenge log, I still need to update my stats and post the results of this challenge but I might not get to it this week and I wanted to let people know why. Thanks for reading.

I have, obviously, wrapped up this challenge but I need to re-tally my stat points as I initially figured them out quite early one morning and think I screwed it up. I'll try to do that tonight and get my results up and posted but if not I'll definitely try to do so in the next day or so. I'm in the midst of a bit of a family crisis now so if I'm sluggish in my reply that's why.

Woke up insanely early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep due to an assortment of random life stressors going on at the moment. Eventually I ended up conceding the fight with sleep and decided to get my workout out of the way early today. While I don't know that I'll convert to early morning workouts exclusively, I do have to admit that it really did get a lot of the stress and anxiety out and I'm considerably more focused today than I normally am at this hour (he said updating his battle log instead of working). Note to self though: if you work out in the morning you will have extra energy and therefore, even on little sleep, a second cup of coffee will, in fact, make you vibrate through walls like The Flash.

Welcome aboard. It's always good to have new rebels and you couldn't ask for a more supportive online group. Congratulations on working through your depression and I hope things keep looking up for you.

Down to 338lbs from 345 on 04/09/2015. I'm almost 50% of the way to my goal and I think I'm definitely on track to be below 300lbs when I don my old Rocky Horror Picture Show gear again in August!!! Seeing as that will be the sveltest I've ever been while performing with FBC I may actually need to get some new Rocky gear in the interim. Don't get me wrong, of all of the places that one could be when one's pants fall down, on stage at a Rocky Horror showing is far from the worst but still it's the principle of the thing damnit!

I've actually made this one several times now and it is AMAZING!

In response to your post, Baroness, Nine is my favorite of the new doctors as well and I really loved how taking on a companion after a long time without one was a tremendously repairative relationship for the Doctor. I felt they romanticized it a bit too much near the end but such is life. I liked 10 just fine though the writing got a bit...Moffatty near he end of his run. The less said about the 11 years the better in my opinion (though this had way more to do with the writing than it did with Matt Smith himself.) and I honestly haven't had the heart to watch any of 12's run yet.

So despite the fact that Spring has sprung and it, at times, feels like a grind I've stuck to my workout/diet routines as week two of this challenge winds to an end. I've been getting around the grind feeling by trying to mix things up a bit. Swapping what exercises I do and in what order when I work out, choosing different routes to walk, etc. I've also been good about adding reps per my challenge goal. My life goals are also going well. I'm saving more spinach (meaning money of course. I'm pretty sure at this point actual spinach has probably labeled me as some sort of monsterous war criminal) and my application for the licensing board is nearly ready to send off. Even though it's been a stressful few weeks and there have been a few times when I genuinely begrudged my working out it wasn't enough to make me stop doing it. I was looking at my food log earlier this morning (I find I actually have to remind myself to update it from time to time as I've gotten in the habit of eating the way I do now) and realized that next week it will be 150 days since I started this. It feels strange as when I started the food log was absolutely indespensible to me. I'm the sort of person who, at least until last December, really didn't think about what I ate so having a record of what I was eating was a great help in changing my diet. The fact that when I haven't been to the grocery store my first thought is to root through the kitchen and whip up something healthy out of odds, ends and leftovers rather than to just order a pizza is huge for me and represents a major shift in my thinking. The psychological shifts of major life changes like this might end up a post of its own at some point but for now I'm just rambling. I hadn't made a post in a while and felt like it was time to.

I'm cross posting this to another thread I maintain called Incendiary Paleo which some of you might enjoy. http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/59585-incendiary-paleo/ This is a recipe for a Southwestern style oven-baked tilapia which is quite good. Enjoy. Ingredients: 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon chili powder 1 teaspoon fine sea salt 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 4 (6-ounce) tilapia fillets 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided 1 lime, cut into wedges Preheat oven to 450°F. In a small bowl, mix garlic powder, chili powder, salt, black pepper and cayenne. Sprinkle evenly over both sides of tilapia. Coat a baking sheet with 1 tablespoon of the oil. Arrange tilapia in a single layer on the baking sheet; drizzle with the remaining tablespoon of oil. Bake until golden brown and flesh begins to flake, 7 to 9 minutes. Serve with lime wedges on the side.