brownbob06

Thanks all! I'll take a look at the body weight workout. It's been a couple years, but I used Super Sculpey I think it was called. It's a polymer sculpting "clay" so it doesn't dry real brittle and hard like clay does and it bakes at a low enough temperature the pop doesn't melt. I layer that on top of a pop and sculpt from there. I really enjoyed it!

Pretty straightforward from my introduction post: I feel like crap, occasionally depressed, always anxious, crappy sleep habits, crappy eating habits, and an extremely sedentary lifestyle that lead to upper cross syndrome, which includes chest pain, which means my anxiety likes to constantly tell me I'm dying, but my doctor assures me I am not 😆. Overall goal: To FEEL better. What I mean by this is I don't care that much about weight loss. Yes I am overweight and out of shape, but that's not my driving motivation right now. Honestly weight loss and getting in better shape will come naturally with what I plan on improving in my life. Primary Goals: Work out 3 days (minimum) per week Meal prep/plan for at least 5 days worth of food each week Spend minimum of 5 hours per week doing something that doesn't involve a screen. Reasons For Each Goal: I'm way out of shape, working out will help me feel better. I specifically want to focus on my back since my chest is overly tight and my back is exceptionally weak. Ever since becoming single (I'm about 6 months out of a 10 year relationship with someone who ate healthy and prepared healthy food) my diet has gone to complete crap. I spend literally hundreds on takeout every month and it's never the healthy stuff. My diet got so dependent on ramen and pizza that I felt like crap and eating nachos with steak and a bunch of other stuff made me feel better somehow, yeah, that bad. I'm a full time developer and all of my hobbies include a computer screen. I currently work from home full time so I'm literally sitting in front of my computer from 8:30 AM until I go to bed, which is usually around 3 am, although I'm working with my therapist on moving this time back to 2 for now (I know, not perfect, but a huge step up from around 4 on weekdays and around 8am on weekends) Possible Roadblocks (and how I plan on addressing them): High intensity workouts do not work for me. Believe it or not it kicks my anxiety into overdrive. This isn't extremely uncommon, and can be worked on. To work on this I'll likely be ordering some dumbbells to get my workouts in. I currently have resistance bands I can use in a doorway. I will also consider walks a workout. I know it's not much but it's active and that's what I'm going for. I'm currently just trying to find meal planning ideas I can stick to. I have an Instant Pot so that should help a lot. I'm shooting for something that will give me the nutrients I need and also be easy to prepare. Obviously coming from ordering out all the time to preparing my own food I'm not going to be jumping into preparing myself 5 star meals every day. For this one I'm not sure what I'll do honestly, it's up in the air. I may try to get caught up on my comic books or get a new book (in paper format actually). I may also try to get back into painting, detailing my car, who knows, I may even try sculpting another custom Pop figure, that was fun. There are a lot of options here and to be honest I'm kind of excited about it. I know my goals aren't the most ambitious out there, but they're not intended to be. They're measurable and attainable, which is what I'm shooting for for now. I will be tracking my weight just because I want to and I think the steps I'm going to take are naturally going to result in some weight loss. But my overall goal is just to feel better. If I can come out of this with nothing more than fewer aches and pains that I always think are a catastrophic health issue I'll be happy! TLDR: work out, eat better, less screen time = feel better maybe?

Hey all! Apparently it's been 5 years since I've been on this site, and that was pretty much the last time I've done anything to try to help myself stay physically fit. Since that time I've become a full time developer (which means I sit on my ass all day at a computer). Especially during COVID since I'm wfh full time my day consists of sitting at my computer for extremely long periods of time, and I mean almost the entire day, from around 8:30 until 1 or 2 am when I go to bed the bulk of my time is spent in front of my computer and it's been this way for a few years at least. To be honest I don't workout, I don't do anything physical, I eat like crap since I can afford to order out most of my meals and all that fun stuff now. Looking at me you wouldn't think that this is my lifestyle, I come in at 250 pounds, but I hold it pretty well actually somehow :/. My decision to come back and try to get back into shape isn't so much about looking better (although that would be great!) but more about feeling better. Since I've sunken into this lifestyle my anxiety has skyrocketed (meds didn't help me much), depression has taken over (therapy helped me get out of deep depression, now I manage it much better!), I've developed Upper Cross Syndrome (which basically means my chest and upper neck are always tight and my back muscles are less than stellar, I feel like crap all the time. This morning I woke up and my arms and shoulders feel weak like I worked out last night and all I did was stretch my chest using a doorway, yes, I'm that out of shape. I'm not sure what else to put here except I was happy to see that the current challenge is almost over so I can get signed up for the next one! Hopefully having some goals and at least some form of accountability will help me to at least develop some healthier habits and start feeling a bit better. Overall my hope is that getting in better shape will stop some of the aches and pains since anytime something hurts my anxiety immediately jumps to the conclusion that I have some form of cancer or other disease that's going to kill me in short order (lately it's obviously been COVID, but that's just the scapegoat that's easiest for my mind to justify right now.) Anyways, I'm done crapping all over myself, ready to finally take a small step towards feeling better!

Isn't this an FDA ban... Not "Obama legislation?"

I will be testing my bench tpday during my workout. Once I do that I will evaluate myself and allocate my remaining stat points.

Starve yourself<<<<<(OBVIOUSLY SARCASM THERE!!!!) I never understood the whole "I don't want to get huge and bulky so I'm not going to lift" mentality. It's not like the guys that look like that started lifting weights then woke up one morning and said "Oh, shit, I put on too much muscle." Follow a beginner workout plan (starting strength or the like) and figure out your diet. You'll look better than this kid, feel better about yourself, and be healthier than just eating a massive caloric deficit to get extremely low bodyfat with little muscle mass. I know I sound almost exactly like the guys on the bodybuilding site, but they're probably right and were just being massive dicks about it (they usually are massive dicks about everything over there.) Bottom line is: put on some mus le mass, then cut. The more muscle you have the more you will see (if that makes sense.)

Workout 4 of 3 done this week... will possibly get number 5 in tomorrow. This 6 week challenge has quite literally changed my life! 6 weeks ago I couldn't imagine myself going to the gym at all, now I can't imagine not going. IDK what I would do with myself without the gym! Meditation has been going ok, I've been slavking though, admittedly. And IDK if I'll be able to test my bench goals by the end of the week (my partners have been mossing workouts or having to go at different times so I've been going alone). I do know, however, that I can do 3x8-12 dumbell bench presses with 65 lb dumbbells. Don't think that translates to my goal weight bench press lol. Anyways, thanks to everyone for the support, I may be moving on to the Warriors after this, but who knows. I've found, for me, that not getting too involved in side quests and what not is what's worked for me. I just want to get in the gym, pick up heavy shit, put it back down, repeat lol.

I JUST realized this is week 6. I'm going to have to do some bench presses at 3x5 to see if I met my goal or not for bench either tonight or tomorrow!

Baby carrots. ALL DAY!

Nothing better than a Monday night workout and realizing "holy shit, I've made this a real life habit for over a month!" I lost 4 pounds over the weekend after not losing a single pound since I've started lifting (but I'm seeing more definition so it didn't bother me) and I finally decided it's time to start watching my diet so hopefully more dramatic results are coming! Whether they do or not isn't a huge deal (who am I kidding?), I feel great lifting, playing basketball, and running 3 times a week now so that's awesome to me! I'm realizing motivation is still a problem before workouts, but once I get in the gym I'm ready to go balls to the wall.

Credentials?

Just checking in to say I'm still going strong! Lifting has become a bit of an addiction for me to be honest. I started off dreading oifting days, now I thoroughly enjoy them and want to go even on my recovery days. I used to go in, lift for about an hour then play basketball for about an hour. Today I just stayed in the gym and kept lifting while my 2 lifting partners went and played basketball. If the gym didn't close on me I would've kept going till I physically couldn't lol.

He's a gymnast doing gymnast things. Skill, athleticism, balance, and strength is what he's using. You trying to lump all these things together and just call it "strength" is a bit ridiculous. Size DOES have a direct correlation to strength, and strength has nothing to do with bodyweight (at least not the way you're trying to relate the 2.) If someone can pick up, push, pull, or lift heavier stuff than someone else then the person who can pick up the most is the strongest. It's pretty simple in all actuality, and has nothing to do with bodyweight exercises because: 1) bodyweight exercises use just that, your own bodyweight. 2) bodyweight exercises often have more to do with balance than anything else. It's also a bit ridiculous that you're trying to call someone out who says that since this guy is/was a professional athlete that he obviously knows what he's doing jn the kitchen as well as the gym. Do you HONESTLY think this guy just works out and completely disregards his diet and nutrition and became an elite gymnast? Then to tell that person that they're "talking out of their hat" in the middle of a thread where all you're doing is defending your views against a bunch of people who are trying to tell you that YOU are the one who is narrowing your definition of strength so that it correlates to size the way you want it to. You're trying to redefine strength... and it's not working. If your goals involve being able to do things like this that's great, (and they're not too far from goals I've had for myself in the past) but don't fool yourself into thinking this is simply strength, you'll have to work on balance, strength, nutrition, then hope you have the natural athletic ability to accomplish feats like this. The same way that someone trying to be a bodybuilder has to work on strength, hypertrophy, nutrition, then hope they have the genetics to allow them to get that big.

Northwest Ohio. Small town about an hour South of Toledo, half hour north of Lima, and half hour east of Findlay.... best way I can describe it lol.

A common enemy. That's something I can relate to lol.

I absolutely love my C4. I'm not a professional on the matter so all I can tell you is my experience with it. I started with 1 scoop with little/no effect. I bumped up to 2 scoops and now when I feel "the tingle" I'm ready to do. I lift for an hour then play basketball for an hour with no problems. I've never experienced a crash from it either as I generally start my workout around 5, play basketball for an hour afterwards, then come home and work on my PC till 2 or later. (I wish I would crash from it though, would be nice to get to bed early and get a good night's sleep lol) What I can tell you is that I would hate to take my C4 then have no outlet for the energy.

"F**!$ it" Pretty much essentially what I tell myself when I'm questioning whether or not I should do something. It's simple, but it works, and that's all that really matters. I guess another one of mine would be: "I want to change the world, and be remembered." That's my answer when someone asks me what I want to do with my life or in my future. If they think it's crazy or irrational, my first motto comes into play with "it" changed to "'em." I have no time for negativity.

I stated my lifting playlist in the theme song thread, it's full of Slipknot, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Bring Me the Horizon, Amity Affliction, System of a Down etc. etc. (You get the picture) As far as running goes, there's something about this song that just works for me. It gives me a good Rhythm to run to and is overall great music. When I opened the thread and saw Muse as the first reply I was pretty surprised lol. (I'm going to get the hang of posting Youtube videos eventually.... had to edit this 5-6 times...)

I've started doing this. I have to ease into it though. I actually started doing it because I take such hot showers I'm sweating when I get out of the shower and it's impossible to get dry, then I read about the health benefits so I kept doing it. The first time I tried it I tried easing into cold but underestimated how a little movement on the hot side had a HUGE effect on temperature and it got ice cold FAST. I started struggling to take full breaths and hyperventilating : / Not sure if that's normal..... Now I ease into it and it feels great after getting out of the shower.

Since it's theme song, right now this is my favorite one in my playlist. When the hook comes on there's nothing that pushes me more. Other than that the artists on my playlist consist of Rage Against the Machine, Amity Affliction, Bring Me The Horizon, more Slipknot, The Mars Volta, The Dillinger Escape Plan and System of a Down.

1. Travel (Too many places I want to go to list them all) 2. Get back into MMA and compete in at least one amateur match 3. Try REAL mountain biking, not just ride my bike around the town country, but something that will get my adrenaline pumping.

Or "samurai warrior chai"

Chai-the Samurai warrior. I think my GF drinks a tea called smurai chai or something like that lol.

Not sure TBH lol. I was doing Ripptoe's starting strength, but honestly it got boring, so my brother found a 3 day split for us. Instead of 3x5 sets we're now doing 3×8-12 and it's allowing me to work to failure because I can lift what I hope to get up in 8 but if I can do more I can go on up to 12 reps. If that makes sense lol

Started a new program today that my brother wanted to try. AMAZING. I got a "pump" that I haven't felt in a very long time. My muscles felt like they were going to pop out of my skin lol. It has subsided now, but I can promise it's something I'll be chasing from here on out! Hard to believe I was weary about working out again and figured it would be 2 weeks until I just stopped due to laziness, I'm more motivated to get into the gym and get back into shape than I've ever been!