Happytin

Learning healthier ways of coping with stress once you've accepted that it will always be there sounds like a great path. I did something similar in college - I ended up 28lb heavier by eating a large bar of whole hazelnut chocolate each day to deal with the stress. Sad times. I look forward to seeing you hitting those goals. Good luck!

Hi Joshua Thanks for taking the time to write about yourself. I love finding out how people got here and how your journey is starting out. I also love NF for its emphasis on small continuous changes at your own pace and that holistic mind-body approach. I always found those scary 1 hour every day and eat egg whites programmes terrifying! There's a forum for finding people in your region, I think the North West is pretty active so hopefully you'll find some new buddies to meet up with.

You're doing so well! I feel inspired by what you've achieved so far. I had a similar mindset a while ago, that things were set in stone and I was cast in a mould and that was that. It took me ages, so so long, to realise that a decision isn't a stone tablet and doesn't make me committed to the end of time, and that we are constantly changing things full of contradictions and development. Since then, much as you are, I've pushed out of my comfort zone and am slowly changing who I am. Good luck. I look forward to seeing you around and hearing about your journey.

Wow that's amazing! Look at you! I have just started to see my muscles and I'm not going to lie, it's pretty wonderful. You're going to do great at this adventure.

I've been learning to swim, and I'm pretty much at the start of my NF journey. I'm currently doing the Level 2 workouts in the academy. This week I finally managed to focus my legs doing freestyle enough that there were no bendy knees, but after only 50m my hip flexors were in agony. I hadn't realised before just how much work paddling with a straight leg would be! So, my question is, does anyone have some exercises I can do at home to improve my hip flexor strength? Either one or a series of exercises, or some that I can level my way up through? Cheers

Hello, I'm so sorry I haven't been around @alexis88 when you've been struggling. I'm really glad to hear you've been able to pick yourself up after the bump rather than rolling backwards. That's a great achievement and perhaps there's a time in the past where you wouldn't have been able to do that. It's great that you are getting some counselling. I think that's very important in discovering healthier coping mechanism to replace the drinking. @Evicious seems to have come up with some good distracting things to help push past the initial impulse. Something I have found helpful, and many nerds here do it when they're feeling down about fitness, is reminding myself why I'm putting myself through this. So for me not drinking was part of looking after myself better. Looking after myself included eating, sleeping, exercising, caring for my appearance etc, which meant I could have a job, friends and so forth. All these things meant I could look after my cat, be less of a worry to my family, eventually contribute positively to society by helping others, get strong so I could save people, and so forth. I found that reminding myself of the long chain of little actions that would build up to something pretty great helped to keep me from making that first step. Another thing I found helped when things were really rough was the "after this" rule. I could have a drink "after this". After this might be doing the laundry, walking the dog, ironing a shirt, whatever. After the thing was done, I'd reassess things and say "well I did that thing and didn't die so I'll have a drink after this..." until the feeling wasn't so massive. When things are hard it's important to have people who support you or just people you can talk to, shoot the breeze. It's great to see you're getting involved on here, and you have other forums too. Perhaps you might like our chat room too.

Great start. Have you got any ideas for what you're going to do in situations you might normally use alcohol for? Have you been for a walk and broken into a trot yet?

I'm dragging this up because I've been on the search for workout music to get me over the 1 month plateau point, so I've been playing music that reminds me why I'm here. I started because I want to be able to save people, whatever the situation. I want to be able to pick up as many kids as possible and run away fast, jump into water and rescue a drowning person, or climb up a cliff if I need to. So I've been playing the soundtrack to Kick-Ass! Because it's a film about an average guy who decides to become a super-hero - how fitting!

Grrr grrrr!!!!! Yeah let's do this! I have battled with alcoholism too, and I am with you 100% of the way. I think a key thing to remember is that alcohol is how you try to cope with negative events and feelings. So when you quit, you need to replace it with other coping methods, otherwise you have this massive void and it is SO HARD. As a society we do this regularly with alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. People use them to cope with our lives and then we think we can whip away their security blanket and are surprised when they relapse. So, a really big thing is to make sure you have a support network around you to help you cope in the situations and with the feelings that you currently use drink for. This might be friends, family, exercise, video games, cooking, therapy, anything that helps you take a step away from alcohol towards healthier ways of coping with life. Something I find helpful is using a habit tracking app, such as Habitbull or Habitica. When you can see the progress you're making it helps you stop and check before you break the streak. I get a sense of satisfaction from ticking stuff off and telling myself that every time I tick something off, it's a bit of XP towards levelling up my life. We'll be with you every step of the way, and if you encounter a bump that's totally okay because a bump doesn't ruin everything...it's just a bump in the path and we're still here.

Now the drama llama has been led back to its pen (thank you everyone for your participation in the llama wrangling, sorry for letting it loose), let's talk CROCKPOTS! Crockpots are a beautiful invention. You bung a load of ingredients in the pot, with no skilll involved, you go to work, and when you get back there's a meal waiting for you! It's like having a housespouse, without any bickering. Most crockpot recipes are quick, don't use a lot of ingredients, and can be prepared the night before and then put on to cook in the day so that it's ready when you return home. Then all you need to do is steam/boil some vegetables and you're ready! Here are three recipes that I like, which are simple, that you might like to try. If you can, try one of them. That's one meal made for possibly four days. You've started your healthy cooking journey. As Evicious says, you can start making small healthier choices when eating out too. Swap out your pasta or bread for rice, potatoes, and as you miss them less go for full veggie power. So your food journey is well on its way! Crockpot Pulled Pork by 100 Days of Real Food Crockpot Roast Chicken in Gravy by Nomnompaleo Slow Cooked Pork and Kale by The Gracious Pantry The NerdFitness forums also have a whole recipe section, including this thread, which you might like: Easiest Paleo Slowcooker Recipes In terms of strength training and other exercise, see if you can work some movement and lifting heavy things into your routine to start with. I'm quite close to the beginning of my journey still, and here's the process I've started with. You may find something similar works for you, but you may want to fiddle around and see how it goes. If you find yourself getting set back, that's okay, rein things back and start smaller. I use Habitica to help me build habits and give myself tasks to do every day, every x days etc. I find this REALLY helps me in levelling up. I included the following: A 5-10 minute warm up routine every single day, regardless of whether I was busy or tired or upset or what. Doing at least 1 minute of hand stand practice every day Doing at least x seconds of a plank every day (this has slowly increased) Take the stairs at work (positive)/ Take the elevator (negative) Bodyweight workout twice a week (including warm-up this takes less than 30 minutes) Swimming once a week (this is my equivalent of your basketball) I also included some non-fitness things about training my cat, playing piano for 10 minutes a day, stretching my neck and shoulders, and meditating. I found this a good starting place because I could fit everything in at odd moments throughout the day, I didn't have to spend money joining a gym that I would feel guilty about if I didn't go, and I was building much more movement into my day as part of my activity rather than setting aside specific "exercise time". Does this idea appeal at all?

Hi Chris, Thanks for sharing your story so far. It's great to hear how far you've come and I'm excited to hear about where you develop now. Depression and testicular cancer are still two key things I just think we don't talk about enough, nor openly enough, so I love to read accounts like yours. I also really like the way you made some firm concrete changes that were a push but right for you at the right time. It's so easy to go for everything or nothing when you're depressed, it sounds like you hit the sweet spot for you!

Welcome. I'd like to add my support to what the others have already said. I've struggled with food myself and something I found helpful, which is a real focus here at NF, is the idea of how your eating and moving all go together to contribute to your ability to function positively in the world. There's also no idea of failure here, just bumps in your journey, and it's your journey, not anyone else's, so nobody else's achievements matter. If you'd like some food specific support, or an accountability buddy for anything you don't feel comfortable with discussing with the world at large, please feel free to message me. As the others have said, people are very compassionate here and have a wide range of experiences and expertise, so make the most of them when you can. Best of luck

Welcome to the forums. We're glad to have you with us and hope that you'll find everything you need. There's people here who have been in your position, are in your position, are super heroes, are just starting out, and everything in between. We'll all be on your team to help you get everything you need, whether it's help with the right food, cooking, exercise, therapists, music, or it's just been a tough day. Definitely don't feel embarrassed about your situation or any questions etc you have. If you do and you want someone friendly to chum you along rather than blurt it out to everyone initially then there's lots of lovely people on here. I'm very close to the beginning of my Nerdfitness journey, suffer from OCD, depression, and chronic migraines, and I have 100% managed to learn to handle that difficulty setting. So I'm right here if you want to talk about those things. Good luck, we're cheering for you!

By this point I'll be interested in a weight lifting intro workshop. If the weather is okay, we could do a geocache outing if anyone fancies. There's a good few in Edinburgh, combining some sightseeing. I've filledin the survey but feel flexible since I live in Edinburgh and am also socially very flaky. I don't drink and fall asleep very early so probably won't play much in the evening. But I'm excited!

This is a great reason to get started. I work on a project in my government on improving care for people with diabetes and nobody wants that disease! It's becoming more and more common - diet and exercise are THE reasons for this. Good luck on your journey. I hope to see you around the forums and look forward to hearing from you as you progress.