Back N9ne

So, on the one hand... I gained that pound back. I'm right where I started, weight-wise. On the other hand, two people have asked me if I've lost weight, and I remember that muscle is denser than fat, so there's a good chance the weight means nothing at this point. On the third hand, here's my exercise progression, reps per session, without changing the weights: Fruit smoothie with protein and creatine after every workout. Burning myself out on the last set. I've also started biking again. 10.4km in 39 minutes on Thursday. hopefully I can get in biking on days I don't work out, or days I am not at track with my youngest daughter (I just walk laps there, and do the stadium seating steps, up and down, over and over). And lastly... my joints feel so much better this week. Knee and elbow. My shoulder isn't giving me much trouble at all, and my lower back is SORE but not PAINFUL in the mornings. It's kind of amazing how fast I turned around in three weeks. Thank you all!

So there's plenty of soreness during the recovery period, especially first thing in the morning where rolling over in bed is REALLY hard on the ol' shoulder. IBs, stretching, tennis ball... feels great. So this might just be my 'thing' now. I'm old and sore. Doesn't mean I can't get stronger. Also, I lost a grand total of one pound over the last week, but looking back, there WERE some cheat moments. Mostly involving a bag of sour gummies and a bag of Takis. And possibly more pesto than I really needed. Stricter fooding this week.

Double allrighty so... Tennis ball work and ibuprophen almost completely knocks down whatever's up in my shoulder. I think it's just muscles knotting up from... possibly never being used. I did some light bagwork yesterday, tennis ball, IB's, good sleep, felt great today. Got a little sore as I got into my day, more light bagwork, felt good, so I worked out again. I've increased the reps on everything, and my shoulder feels fine right now. SO... I'm not gonna go nuts. I'm not gonna increase the weight. I'm happy increasing the reps for a little while, going back down a bit and adding a set. I've still got the same issue with my left elbow and left knee, but I feel better than I have in weeks. Work out, protein shake and creatine after, hot shower, stretching. I will keep you posted!

Allrighty, so... looks like I might need to modify things a little bit. Even with reduced weight, I think I really pulled something bad in my right shoulderblade (rhomboid muscles, according to The Google). Even pulling my phone out of my pocket or looking behind me, or SNEEZING, hurts that spot a lot. This might take the pull-downs and OHP off the table for a little while. Which sucks, because those are the areas I need to work on the MOST... which is probably why they were so weak, and so easily damaged. SO... does anyone have any suggestions for anything I can do with my back and shoulders that won't exacerbate this, and will let them heal? Should I just go down to, like, ten pounds, and just work the area with super-light weight and repetitive motions? Will boxing and bagwork make this worse, or be a good workout? I've found it suggested that I should just focus on weight loss for now, and get all of the 'bad weight' out of the way. This will hopefully make it easier to do all of these things without risk of injury.

Whoops, forgot to update. So far my workouts are: Bench Press x10 x10 x12 OHP x10 x10 x12 Bicep Curl (Bar) x10 x10 x10 Single-leg squat (incline bench) x10 x10 x15 (each side) Pull-ups (incline bench) x10 x10 x12 Squats (low weight) x10 x10 x12 I go higher on the last set, just to try and burn myself out. My weights are pretty low right now, way lower than I was at just a couple years ago, but my left knee and elbow are pretty messed up, so... just doing what I can! The parts I find most enjoyable are having a proper bench press bench again (one that doesn't wiggle when I put the weight back) and the Total Gym for pull-ups, working muscles that are otherwise very hard to work. Also, the heavy bag for warmups.

Me: *stays a while, and listens* I might end up in the Warriors. My joints are not making running or combat sports any easier as I age.

Granted. I should clarify that it's 10 lbs by the time I go to the metal festival at the end of July, so 10 lbs in... ~8 weeks. Which I think is more doable. Thanks!

I have been batch-cooking! I am totally fine with eating the same thing every day, even if it drives my family insane. This week it's "lean ground beef, brown rice, frozen mirepoix mix, Carribbean Roasted Garlic Pepper spice, and hot sauce". I'm lovin' it. The black coffee at the office SUUUUUUUUUCKS. I have black coffee at home. Regarding the weighing every week.... maybe weekly is good. Daily has too much variance.

Introduction: Greetings and salutations! This is a bit of a respawn account for me, since my old one was more of a laundry list of failures. Also, I feel the name is more of a constant reminder for me that I am on the "back nine of life", as it were. Passed the midpoint of my demographic's average lifespan where I live, although taking many things into account I realistically passed it quite a long time ago. I'm not in BAD shape, but over the last year things have really started breaking down and falling apart. A minor knee injury has turned into a chronic condition. An unexplained case of tennis elbow has lasted for close to eight months. My doctor's response to both of these is "They'll get better on their own. Also, you should lose weight." My lower back and neck pain is starting to return, making my mornings much more of a chore than they used to be. All of this, combined with a lot of health problems experienced by my immediate friends and family, are REALLY driving home the point that I get one body, one life, and one chance at this big crazy world. Main Quest: I used to have major GOALS for things I wanted to DO, but as time goes on I'm less and less invested in 'doing amazing things' and more interested in 'looking good, feeling good, and being ABLE to enjoy things without regret, remorse, or guilt'. And so my main quest for this challenge can at its highest level just be summed up as "I want to look good for my age". Changes I make to that end will naturally come with genuine health benefits, but I can't measure the benefits very easily. I CAN measure "looking good". So, for the time being... I want to look good. More specifically: 1.) I want to lose some weight before going to a two-day metal festival in July. 2.) I want to lose a lot of weight before going to the Wacken Open Air Metal Festival in 2020, which is the world's largest metal music festival. Google it. I will be turning 40 shortly after this. 3.) I want to, eventually, open the first Ninja Warrior Gym in this part of the world. I think it would be a major boost if I could do, like, HALF THE THINGS in the gym. Especially if I'm trying to attract customers and the like. That's my semi-retirement plan: By the time I'm 45, so 7-ish years, I want to get out of my desk job, and run my own gym. And with all that in mind, that's why I'm starting here. Thank you all for having me. Side Quest #1: You Feel Refreshed (But You're Still Hungry) Food is a HUGE problem for me. 25+ years of stress eating. Eaten when I'm not hungry. Eating when I am full. Eating when bored. Eating 'just to use up the last of this particular food, then I won't buy any more of it', and then buying more of it. Lot of bad habits. It doesn't help I'm generally in charge of all the grocery shopping, and cooking for three kids with differing tastes, and a vegetarian wife. HUGE CHANGES HERE haven't worked in the past, so I am going to be starting with something smaller: work. no more eating out at fast food places at work make food at home / bring healthy leftovers from home no more free coffee at work (I also load up on the cream and sugar) no more snacks from the snack shelf (also free) Side Quest #2: You Have A Home Gym Use it. I have a heavybag, 2 barbells, simple weight bench, and a Total Gym XLS I got for super cheap from a co-worker. I need to dig out some time to use it all, 3x a week. 45 minutes, 3x a week Bench press, pull-downs, deadlifts, single-leg incline squats. Gotta get my knees and elbows working smoothly again. Heavybag for fun home cardio Side Quest #3: The Weighting Is The Hardest Part I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow morning. That will be my starting number. I am NOT GOING TO WEIGH MYSELF AT ALL until the challenge is up... and I WANT to be down 10 lbs from there. Weighing myself every day always gives me false positives with the daily fluctuations (Woo, three pounds down! I can celebrate with Subway. Awww, now I'm five pounds up...) I'll post updates and progress here as I find it!

Not sure if this has been covered anywhere in this thread, but: Question The First: Beard grooming. For the first time ever, I have a beard that could legally be called a beard. It's still scraggly, though. Does anyone have tips for taking care of it? Question The Second: Shaving the dome. I told myself that when the thinning on top got to a certain point, I'd just bic it all and try to figure out my new aesthetic. But now I have a beard. I don't wanna go full shiny goatee, like my avatar, but I don't know where to STOP shaving, once I start shaving the top of my head. Where should the beard end? Does anyone have any good tips for that? Thanks!

Well, right off the bat a few of those things are out the window. 6 hours a sleep is a TRIUMPHANT night of sleep for me. Eight would be some sort of hilarious fantasy. I stop having coffee at 9am, just because I've found it to be making my afternoon energy crashes so much worse. I consume a lot of legumes (my house runs on beans, chickpeas, lentils, and the like), and I consume a lot of protein, but I am probably not consuming THAT much. I'm probably 210lbs LBW, so 210g of protein is like 1200g of protein-containing foods. My last fasting blood test was negative for pre-metabolic or pre-diabetic conditions (again, much to my doctor's confusion). I am reasonably sure that it's a psychosomatic response to not eating. I've always stress-eaten and boredom-eaten, and the stress-eating got kicked into high gear since last August for... many reasons. Managing my stress is never easy at the best of times, but I try to be mindful and meditative when I can. I have one beer on the weekends (like, one on Friday, one on Saturday). I always try to drink a lot of water after meals to 'fill in the gaps' and keep me full, but I still get cravings for cheap carbs and salt. I have a high protein breakfast every morning right before walking the dog. But yeah, long story short: when I feel physically full, I generally also still feel hungry and have the urge to eat. I am trying to be mindful of the emotional / habit eating, but I'm almost 40. If there's one thing on this WHOLE PLANET I've had the most practice with, it's eating. Thank you both, and folks, keep the answers coming! This is good reinforcement!

I would say I'm fairly 'fit', underneath all my excess weight. The weight is making it really hard for me to do much in the way of exercise, though, because of the impact on my joints. I know I really need to work on my diet, but there's a huge problem there, too: even when I'm eating healthy (lean meats and veggies), I am hungry all the time and I generally eat more than I need to. A lot more. Especially in the evenings, when I know I SHOULDN'T. I am hungry when I'm full. I eat when I'm full. If I'm hungry for very long, I feel hot and cold and shaky and weak. I KNOW I don't need to eat THAT much, but I do. My doctor just shrugs and says I should eat less, which is about par for the course. Does anyone have any recommendations for appetite suppressants that aren't just laundry lists of inconclusive testing and side effects? Ways to get around this? Tips and tricks? Anything would be welcome!

Thing's I've done that make me feel old: "Read various threads on Nerd Fitness." Yessir, I'm old now.