Mr_P

Hmm, how much advil do you take, and how often? I've heard painkillers mentioned as a solution before but I'm a little wary of trying it.

Hello fellow fitness fanatics! Let's post some updates. I just had a nice long rant in my thread. In summary: I've had difficulties, but haven't given up. How about you guys? What's been happening? What can you do now that you couldn't do three weeks ago?

I’m overdue for an epic rant. But first! Gem: hmm, can’t say I have any recipes really. I just make stuff up. Looking through my food tracking it seems the largest part of my protein intake comes from chicken, cheese, milk, rye bread, peanut butter and yoghurt. Chicken is the biggest contributor. The three recipes I have on rotation at this point are: chicken paprikash, sauté chicken and chicken in mushroom sauce. I read various online recipes, bought a bunch of spices and learned how to make the sauces. I find it pretty hard to mess up. I’ll give you one tip I got from my mother: when using corn starch as a thickener for sauces, mix in cold water instead of hot water – that way it won’t clump up and you’ll get a good texture. If you really want recipes let me know and I’ll try and come up with some. :-) On to the rant! My progress has been frakin' glacial. I’ve been feeling frustrated, demotivated and demoralized. Until today. I’ll get to why today changed at the end – first some stats: Basic Training 12/4 pushups: 20 / 11 / 5 squats: 26 / 23 / 15 planks: 27s / 19s 17/4 rows: 20 / 10 / 9 lunges: 50 / 26 / 24 planks: 42s / 19s 20/4 pushups: 27 / 7 / 14 squats: 36 / 30 / 23 planks: 56s / 39s 27/4 rows: 20 / 10 / 10 lunges: 61 / 40 / 16 planks: 1m20s / 45s 2/5 pushups: 30 / 18 / 7 squats: 48 / 30 / 30 planks: 1m15s / 34s Ok, so according to the numbers I’m making gains. I can do more reps of each exercise. My problem is muscle soreness. For example, with my workout today (I also did a 2k run before the workout to warm up) I know I’ll have a hard time walking tomorrow. It sucks! Originally I thought I’d get past that and be able to have a one day break between workouts. But it hasn’t turned out that way. With 3-4+ days between sessions my progress feels really slow. It sucks damnit! And I don’t know what to do about it, or if there’s anything I can do about it. I would appreciate any pointers from anyone - or even a "that happens to me too!" Here is my problem in picture form (via reddit). On to other things that sucked. Easter weekend was a disaster. I stayed with my folks for 3 days. I decided to go a bit food crazy, but took it too far. I had a ridiculous amount of sweets and deserts. I made myself sick with sugar. Seriously. I had to spend all of the 25th recovering and decided against exercising on the 26th, just to make sure my system was back to normal. I really regret it now. I can’t eat sugar like I did when I was a kid. I’m going to have to ask my mother to make less pies/cakes/desserts when I’m around (she made 5). I realize it’s a "high quality" problem, as far as problems go. The real problem is my lack of self-control. Oddly when I’m on my own I have no such problems. My diet has otherwise been very clean since the 11th. The next thing that sucked has to do with my feet (you can safely skip this paragraph). The second (I think it’s called the second – the one after my big toe) metatarsal bone on my left foot is too short, so my toe sort of comes up from the top of my foot instead of the front. This causes me pain when running. I did a 12km run once and the front part of my left foot was numb for 2 weeks. Thankfully feeling came back. I now limit myself to 5-7km normally. I can handle that without too much pain. I do a 10k once a year, but that’s my upper limit. But that’s not what sucks. What sucks was, I was thinking of getting into barefoot running to see if I could find a way to run without foot pain. I wanted to buy a pair of Vibram FiveFingers . This has been on my mind for some time. I finally went to a place in the city that had them. I tried on over a dozen pairs in all sorts of sizes and styles. None of them were remotely comfortable or wearable. If one pair of toes felt right, the pair on the opposite side of my foot were in pain. Every pair I tried on was a fail. Eventually the sales person and I admitted defeat. Damnit. If they just didn’t have the “toes” at the front they’d be perfect! All I really need is a sock with a heavy sole and a strap like a sandal. I was hoping those shoes would be able to help me find a way of reaching my goal of doing a half-marathon. Nope. My dreams feel like they’re in ashes. And it sucks. Ok, so that officially ends the negative/ranty part of this post. On to the positive/funny part. I’ve noticed some improvements. I did a 3k run yesterday, and finished it with a sprint. Something changed. I got to the stopping point of my sprint and I wasn’t out of breath. That’s a big win for me. I’ve always thought my limiting factor was my lungs. I guess my leg muscles have something to do with it too. The other improvement is my waistline. I’m starting to gain weight, but oddly enough my shorts are starting to feel a bit more loose at the same time. I’m going to take this as a good sign. So today. The last few days I’ve felt like crap, but today was awesome. Why? Subliminal advertising. Yesterday I watched this: Do you know what was on my lips when I woke up this morning? "Screw yesterday and all those other days. Today is going to be great." I had no idea, but it must have come from that video. I’d forgotten about it until a friend of mine randomly emailed me a link to it a few hours ago. All of a sudden I knew why today was great – that damn video! I guess advertising really does work. Either that or I'm particularly manipulatable. Well, if you made it this far congratulations – I hope the punchline was worth it. I’m not much of a “forum person”, more of a lurker, but I’m going to try and post more frequently. I hope everyone else out there is doing well. TL;DR – Any tips on dealing with overly long post-workout muscle soreness? I'm sore for 3-4+ days each time. Also watch the Youtube link above for some comedy/inspiration.

I'm looking forward to this week - I think it'll be better than the last. But today I'm focusing on resting and eating - two of my favourite things! :-)

Today I managed 2892 calories with 242g of protein. Zero exercise unless you count walking from the shops with two big bags of groceries. I'm still sore, but I would really like to do a workout tomorrow if I can manage it.

Today my walking is almost back to normal, so I think I've made some improvement over last week. pinupgeek: I'll have to look into those foam rolls. For now I'm going to start using cushions so I don't wreck my knees doing lunges. ormaybemidgets: I'm having more chicken, milk and almonds. Seems to be working well so far. Gem: Yeah, soreness does get a bit demoralizing - but I think I'm past the biggest hurdle. Thanks for the encouragement everyone. :-)

Hi. I've been doing well, I think. I was hoping to do updates more frequently this past week but haven't had a chance. I'll do a recap of the past week and where I'm at. Monday: I finished reading the Rebel Strength Guide. I took notes and decided on my plan. I played with a few different calorie counting sites and settled on SparkPeople, in part because they have a native Android app. I also found a handy kilojoule to calorie converter. After experimenting a bit I realized the most likely source of my fitness problems in the past - I don't eat enough. I estimated I was taking in 900-1200 calories/day on most days. I decided to up myself to 3000/day over the week. I ate what I normally would eat, just to get a baseline. My calorie total was 1223 with 39g of protein. Tuesday: I did my first workout. Basic Training Session A. I didn't read carefully and ended up doing the full set of exercises in the warm up video, which left me a bit exhausted from the get-go. For push-ups my reps were 20/11/5. For squats it was 26/23/15. For planks I managed 27 seconds and 19 seconds. My wrists hurt from doing the push ups, but hopefully that'll go away as I do them in the future. The squats were ok - I decided to stop when I lost my balance while doing one. The planks were difficult! More so than I imagined. Also I hurt my right shoulder during the cool-down exercises. I'll be doing those more carefully in the future. I took my pre-training photos this day. My calorie total was 2772 with 116g of protein. Wednesday: I couldn't walk! I had extreme muscle soreness in my legs, arms and abs. It was expected, but a bit worse than I thought it would be. A few weeks prior I ran 5k/day for almost two weeks in a row. I thought my legs were fit - apparently not. My calorie total was 2942 with 265g of protein. Thursday: I still had a lot of muscle pain and trouble walking. I decided to refrain from working out again until it went away. I ate like a PIG. My calorie total was 3705 with 207g of protein. Friday: I took a trip up north to visit friends and do a bit of off-hours work at a festival I volunteer at. I still had trouble walking, but my arms were getting better. I did some physical labour that day. Then I spent the evening drinking and chatting with friends. My calorie total was 3247 with 66g of protein. Saturday: I spent most of the day recovering from the night before. I felt a lot better - I could finally walk normally again. I still decided to wait one more day before doing a workout. Being a bit worse for wear I didn't watch what I was eating and ended up not eating enough. My calorie total was 1506 with 60g of protein. Sunday: Yesterday I did my next workout, Basic Training Session B. The warm up was easier, as I didn't do the full one from the video. After trying rows on my bench press I found my kitchen table was a better place to work on them. Amazingly my abs were still store from the previous set of planks on Tuesday. For body rows my reps were 20/10/9. For lunges my reps were 50/26/24. For planks my times were 42 seconds and 19 seconds. My calorie total was 1766 with 96g of protein. Monday: Once again I'm walking like some kind of zombie dinosaur. I appear to have worked out an entirely different set of leg muscles. Considering my level of soreness I might not be able to work out my legs again until Friday or Saturday. My arms are a little sore - not as much as last time. Same with my abs. My calorie total was 2916 with 100g of protein. Other thoughts: I'm not working out as often as I would like just yet, but I sort of expected that. Hopefully this latest round of extreme muscle soreness will be the last. The first run after not running for a long time is the hardest, after that it gets easier. I assume the same will apply here. I really want to get my sessions up to 3/week instead of two. I contemplated going for a run after my workout yesterday but I'm glad I didn't - I would have been in even worse shape today. I'm trying to increase my food intake, but it's not easy - I'm just not that hungry. As long as I focus on it I seem to manage. And I'm not putting on any weight, oddly enough. Even with all the extra calories I'm stable at 74.7kg. I was expecting to put on some weight. I might have to stick with basic training for four weeks instead of two. I haven't touched "the boxes", but will attack them this week (I'll explain that situation in detail in a future post). So far, so good. I think I'm where I expected to be at this point. Also, I thought the first episode of A Game of Thrones was great. :-)

Name: Mr P. Brief overview of goals: 1. Fitness: follow the basic training workouts 3 days/week for 2 weeks, then evaluate switching to body weight 2. Fitness: work in at least one 5k run every week 3. Diet: ramp up my calorie intake - it's currently WAY too low 4. Life: finish cleaning out the boxes in "The Room" If you follow a specific way of eating: I've been eating paleo (without calling it that/knowing about it) for some time - I may have to make additions to increase my calories/day. If you want to be part of a team or if you want to work alone: To be honest I'm a bit of a lone wolf, but I'd like to give a team a try - maybe even a localized one? I'm in Brisbane, AU.

Name: Mr P. Brief overview of goals: 1. Fitness: follow the basic training workouts 3 days/week for 2 weeks, then evaluate switching to body weight 2. Fitness: work at least one 5k run in every week 3. Diet: ramp up my calorie intake - it's currently WAY too low 4. Life: finish cleaning out the boxes in "The Room" If you follow a specific way of eating: I've been eating paleo (without calling it that/knowing about it) for some time - I may have to make additions to increase my calories/day. If you want to be part of a team or if you want to work alone: To be honest I'm a bit of a lone wolf, but I'd like to give a team a try - maybe even a localized one? I'm in Brisbane, AU.

I've got a bench press, but I don't really know what I'm doing with it. I'm slowly building up weight on the bench, doing 6 reps at a time then taking a break. Between two sets of reps I do leg lifts and under/over arm curls on the... thing at the end of the bench. I've been meaning to read up and figure out what I should be doing, but the few times I've tried to I've been overwhelmed with information.

It's been a while since I made this post. I've been avoiding doing an update because, well, I've already failed on my November challenge. I managed to run 25km in my first week. It was awesome! I really enjoyed all but one of the runs (I had poor sleep the night before that particular one). And oddly enough instead of getting slower and more worn out each run I was actually getting FASTER. I couldn't believe it. The last run I did was the fastest I've ever run a 5k. It felt amazing! Until... I got sick. Mega sick. I'm actually surprised I managed to last as long as I did. You see, my girlfriend was staying over that week. She was sick as hell with the flu, coughing up a storm in my bed every night. Everything went fine until the Friday. On that day I decided not to hold anything back on my run. I figured since I didn't have to run again the next day it didn't matter how sore I made myself. Unfortunately, even though the run was great, afterward my body just gave out. I got horribly sick that night. It lasted for more than a week - right into my exam week. I didn't exercise at all that week and I didn't at all during the exam week. I wasn't feeling 100% and I didn't want to make myself worse. So in terms of the exercise component I've already failed my challenge. I feel disappointed. But there's nothing to be done about it. All I can do is make the most of what's left. Today I went for a 5k run to break the non-exercise spell. I didn't have much energy - I only managed 4km. But it's a (re)start. I'm going to get into the weights again this week too. I haven't started on my re-branding - that begins tomorrow. Same with the junk cleanup - that's stalled, but will restart tomorrow. Today was about cleaning the decks in the aftermath of my exams, which I've almost completely managed to do. The exams went well, at least. Will try to post and interact more later. Have to run out the door. I feel frustrated! But I don't want to give up on what little time there is left in this challenge.

I've been reading Steve's blog posts for a while, but this is my first post on the forum. I'm already in the middle of a challenge of my own this week so I'll add it into the mix. Race: Human - 5'10" 75kg Ideal Profession: Scout Fitness Goals: 1. Complete 25km total running this week (5km/day), and at least 10km per week for the next 3 weeks. So far, so good. Going for another 5km with a friend of mine in a couple hours. 2. After this week do 20-30 minutes of weight training twice each week for the next 3 weeks. Life Goals: 1. Re-brand my business. I registered a new business name but haven't moved on setting anything up. There's lots to do and I want to get there before I hit invoice #1000 in my old one. 2. Finish phase one of my junk cleanup. I've got so much stuff that needs to go! The first phase is just figuring out what stays and what doesn't. Then I divide it up into eBay / charity / throw out piles. Then I get rid of it all. At least, that's the plan. I think that's it! I'm also going to uni and have 2 exams coming up - I'd like to go into both of them feeling confident. If I can manage all that in the next 28 days I'll be very happy. Mr. P