Search the Community

Just a place - content to follow Time to add some content here. Made a pretty table in my journal for tracking all the things. I think I actually overdid it by going for 3 weeks in one table... it will probably not be clean and pretty at the end of week 2... but it is what it is. Not sure how much more mileage I'll get out of this journal, it's pretty close to full. This next challenge will be about taking better care. Of myself, mostly. As so very often before. I have a multitude of bad food choices headed my way, or at least there's bumpy terrain ahead: * My sister-in-law's bday on Oct 28th * My own bday on Nov 2nd * I will maybe start working properly, teaching fitness schtuff in an elderly care facility close-by. Negotiating information labyrinth at the moment, getting all co-operation-partners onto the same page, things are scary-eciting-scary at times. * and additionally the bdays for both kids (Dec 3rd, and Dec 14th), my mum (Dec 20th), and at least two (Dec 13th and Dec 19th), and maybe a third work(=fitness group)-christmas parties/dinners looming for the Dec challenge. One of them is laser tag with greek restaurant afterwards, one is Kegeln, which is kinda like bowling, but the balls are smaller and have no holes, and you roll for 9 pins not 10 (or the other way around, what do I know?), so that's fun... The focus for this challenge, in order of priority are as follows: Bedtime --> 8h sleep starting Oct 28th Habitat --> do something every day Work --> read fitness programm manuals, plan classes, get familiar with the materials Drink water - ffs Track caloric budget of 1350, plus eat what you sweat for. Practice Superpower every day Track class attendance, try to get to Tuesday morning class too Vent introspection urges into journaling Vent artistic urges into pretty doodles, or crafts or something, pics here. And decelerate, sit down, drink tea, knit or journal or snooze, do nothing, let the mind rest for a bit, this last one... I am aiming for daily, but I'm okay with every other day or so... just getting back into it at all is a good thing at this point. This is my list. I am not tracking my forum activity/participation, mostly because I forgot to add the line in the table for it. If I start being all floozy and flaking, I'll add a line and start tracking it again. The metal slag I was talking about in the headline of this thread is mostly about me playing Mechwarrior:Online. I had stopped playing MW:O 2 years ago just before I started putting my then-excess energy into fitness and getting healthier. It's good I stopped, because back then I played often 8-10h a day, ran 2h training nights 2-3 times a week, dissected the maps and play modes, organised gathering and sharing of in game info far beyond what anyone would call sane. I basically treated the game and the unit I ran with like other people treat a job, because I had no job, I had the time, and I loved my men, the normal human guys, family men almost all, and I felt this deep need to take care of the people and make sure the guys had fun. Winning matches is fun, losing if you communicated well and have it a good shot is fun too, so I gave the unit a LOT of my time and energy. The game was good, but not awesome then. The maps have been improved upon, there's way more game modes and variety and it looks fun. Since Saturday (6 days now) I've played 28h. I am going to get shit done BEFORE I log onto a game. Do laundry, then play a round. Read a chapter/work on a class programme THEN drop a round. Read stuff anytime I am meching, so the time I game is always(!) also low-key work time. That's the metal slag. Because boy I am hooked again.

Morning all! I've had a recurring thought over the past couple months. I eat relatively cleanly (a lot of homecooking) and rarely feel "hangry" (its for the safety of the children/staff I work with). There have been times in the past where I've eaten well during the day, tracked all my calories and completed my food diary and fitnesspal gets all "uh...uh (Z-snap) you ain't eaten enough." This has happened on days when I'd still be 700-900 calories in the green still at the end of the day and NOT hungry...so I'd eat half a pint of ice-cream to make fitnesspal happy. My goals for the past 4 years have been primarily straight up weight loss. I've gone from around 260-280 down to 203-204 (as of this morning). I've been doing a modified beginner's bodyweight circuit (modified in that I've added weight and reps) since late September last year (3x/week with walks/"active recovery" on my off days). I'm not at my "goal" weight yet, goal is 195 and then I'll re-assess if I need to drop more or focus more on building muscle. For the question, lets look at today for an example: Accounting for breakfast and lunch (pre-loaded into fitnesspal)-I'm eating about 1,191 calories. According to fitbit, I've burned 878 from my morning workout (which I do 3x/week). As of the writing of this post, fitnesspal says I've got 1,967 calories left for dinner/snack. Do I really need to eat a ~2kcal dinner to keep my progress? That's a lot of food (and my stomach has shrunk)...like go eat 10 tacos from taco bell? or Edit: I know all the calorie counters (fitnesspal and fitbit) give at best estimates of calories consumed/burned

TL;DR - I'm starting to suspect that my inability to sleep for more than 3 hours per night is directly related to my food intake, particularly by caloric deficit. Anyone have any experience with this? Backstory: Ok, so I've been an on and off vegan/vegetarian for years. Recently I graduated from grad school, got a solid job, and moved to a solid residence, so I decided to fully commit to veganism once and for all. I have a multitude of reasons, and don't intend to ever go back to meat or dairy or processed food (or leather or animal-tested or...). That being said, over the last several weeks I've noticed a disturbing trend: I cannot sleep more than 3-4 hours at a time. It doesn't matter what time I go to bed. It doesn't matter what I do before bed (I've been shunning all screens at least 45 minutes before, deep breathing, reading the most boring stuff I can find, etc). It doesn't matter if I use a sleep mask and earplugs, or if I don't touch caffeine all day or after 6 hours before bed. Now, I have NO trouble falling asleep. Takes about 30 minutes. HOWEVER... I cannot stay asleep for longer than a MAX of four hours. If I go to bed at 2, I wake up at 6 (latest). If I go to bed at 11:45, it's a miracle if I'm not awake by 4am. Last night I went to bed at 4am (I work nights and have been pulling a lot of overtime), and woke up at 6am. I've talked to my doctor about it; she has given me different sleep aids (two pharma, one natural) to try. None worked. Again, I have no issues falling asleep. Just staying asleep. And it's MADDENING. So I was running out of options, and decided to look into insomnia and veganism -- even though I've never had any issues with a plant-based diet before. Turns out it's not the plant-based diet, but the caloric deficit that comes with it that affects a lot of people's sleep! PRAISE THE UNIVERSE, A POSSIBLE ANSWER. I just discovered this this morning, and have been trying to up my calories today. I'm going to try eating some healthy fats or protein before bed, and bump my caloric intake up about 400-500 cal -- then gradually drop down from there. I'm hoping that if I can start sleeping regularly again, I'll be able to up my workouts a bit too, so I'm not too worried about weight gain; I'll probably gain at first but even out pretty quickly if I do it right. My question is, has anyone out there experienced this before? And what would be the best foods to eat closer to the end of the day to bump up calories without feeling like a giant rock is in my belly? Another problem is I don't have effective hunger signals, not until I get lightheaded and my blood sugar is severely tumbling. I rarely feel HuNgRy MuNgRy. So I'm trying to figure out a way to remember to eat more throughout the day, without resorting to the stupid vending machines that haunt me at work. TIA all! Obligatory creepy insomnia graphic:

sup y'all! well i was planning on kicking into high gear on the 1st of November and have decided to be undeterred by the next challenge's far-away start date of November 10th. my goal is to do this challenge from 1st November - 1st January. so here we go! let's get physical - 5 days/week working out i've got a punching bag. i've got running shoes. i've got a weighted vest. i've got HIIT and bodyweight routines. in short, i've got a lot of options and i shouldn't get bored doing the same thing over and over again. i am going to hold myself accountable for doing one workout for five days of every week. don't eat that shit! - eating at a caloric deficit pretty self-explanatory. i'm allowing myself to moderately over-indulge on Thanksgiving, the one or two days following Thanksgiving, and pretty much the entire last week of December. this one is gonna be hard, and it's my main goal. we'll see if i can do it! write now - 700 words/day, 5 days/week again, it's exactly like it sounds. i'm currently working on my first novel and would really like to make a living from my books. but i have to actually finish the damn things before i can sell them! so there ya have it. my challenge. it's been a long time since i've done one of these, but i've got a good feeling about the next two months. let's crush it, nerds!

Hi everyone, I made a post in the New to Fitness section asking some general questions about my diet and exercise in relation to losing body fat and got some great advice, but I have some specific questions that are best suited here. First off, I am 22, male, 6', and weight 155 lbs. My BMI is 21, and my BMR is 1741 (according to My Fitness Pal). I do HIIT 3 times a week, and lift 2 days a week (full body, no splits yet). My HIIT session is difficult for me, and takes about 15 minutes. The lifting session takes me about 1.5 hours, sometimes less if I go harder. I have started tracking calories, and am aiming for about 1800. When taking into consideration my burn rate ontop of the BMR (like average walking, HIIT, Strength Training), is this too low? I've gotten a few different numbers for how much I burn when I exercise, so I'm just confused about if I'm going to burn out. Especially because I'm having a hard time meeting my protein goals (160-180) Thanks very much. _______ I've outlined my routine and diet below if it matters to anyone lol and yes, of course I'm open to any suggestions for improvement: Plan: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays= HIIT 10 Squats 10 Burpees Mountain Climbers (20 Seconds) Plank (15 seconds) 10 Pushups * No break between exercises *Rest 30 seconds once complete all exercises, and then repeat 3 times (I can only do 2 and a half times right now) Strength Training: Free-Weights (30 lbs unless specified), Body Weight, Resistance Band Tuesdays, Thursdays Dumbell Curls- 6x3 Weighted Squats- 7x3 (60lbs) Hammer Curls-7x3 Batwing Row- 12x3 Dumbell Row-12x2 Overhead Shoulder Press- 3x3 Weighted Calf Raises- 20x2 (60 lbs) Bicycle- 40 seconds Scissors-12 seconds x 2 Arm Raises (straight up)- 20x2 (resistance band) Arm Raises (straight out, like a T/)- 20x2 (resistance band) Ass Maximizers- 20x2 (resistance band, reverse leg extensions) Lunges- 15x2 (body weight) Diet: Beverages: I drink only water, coffee (one a day: one shot of milk, one exactly measured teaspoon of sugar), and tea (one every couple days). That's it, with rare exceptions.Meat: Beef (steak and lean ground), chicken, pork, eggs, the occassional sausage.Dairy: Yogurt, small amounts of cheese when I can afford it.Grains: oatmeal, some whole-wheat breads, granolaFruit: Apples, Bananas, mixed berries (the frozen kind, in a yogurt and protein powder smoothie)Vegetables: all kinds, including potatoNuts and Seeds: AlmondsMiscellaneous: small amounts of margarine for cooking, small amounts vegetable oil, occassionally ketchup, bbq sauce, hummus, salsaControlled Guilty Pleasures to Keep me Sane: Pizza, ice cream, chocolate, peanut butter, jam, honey, cereal, crackers, pasta