Search the Community

Hey guys, I am new to this forum. I am fitness freak and going gym from 9 months and lose around 26 Kgs in those months. Now I am looking for some tips to increase my muscle size

Hi guys First off: Happy new year! I randomly found this site and the forums while i could not sleep and got stuck on my cellphone. So I decided to sign in here on the next day and get started, just to try if it helps me to stay on track. (It is actually a coincidence that I join in the new years eve, it is not a new year's resolution, so it has actually a chance to work and I have a good possibility to retrospect next year) Some words about me: I am a nearly 29 years old dude living in Germany (Bremen to be precise) who needs a change in life. Right now I am unemployed, try to get along with ADHD and struggle to have some goals to achieve besides some undefined ones I will mention later. Also I am a quite creative and intelligent guy, much is happening in my head and i am a "thinker", i do think much an way too often before I do something. I would define it more as "Grübeln", I don't know the English word, google says it is "brood". Maybe this is the right one, maybe it is not. Generally I would consider myself to be kind of sporty: I dance Lindy Hop(Swing-Dance) regulary, go jogging and do some bodyweight-workouts about twice a week, I also did Martial Arts, played football (the soccer one) and tried lots of stuff like parkour, different dance-styles, yoga etc. Unfortunatly I am way too much injured from sports and need to change that. I shortly recovered from an ignited supraspinatus tendon, my bottom back is kind of hurting too. So I need to learn to train correctly and listen to my body. (Oh, and as everyone is mentioning wheight and height: about 80kg and 1,81m, also I am a vegetarian also denying eggs and most of milk (exept yoghurt and cheese... CHEEEESE) So the "Do sports!" stuff is not so much a problem, it's more like: You started to do sports regulary, you keep on going for one year now, you are persistant and endurant... why don't you use those skills for the other important party in your life? Why am I here then? I want to learn from myself, I want to learn from others, I may help others. I hope to find some help here, how and why I will point out now: Initially i looked for some stuff to help me, like apps or routines to get some order into my life, which is quite a chaos right now. Don't get me wrong: I do love and i do appreciate chaos, there is just no balance, no counterpart. So I found this page and was quite interested, I liked the concept and thought it would be a good idea to try it out, especially as it is not all about sports and fitness here, it seems to be about the whole concept of . So now as I am here there needs to be some goals, something to achieve in short-term and long-term and this is a great start to think about those goals, here is my "concept": Long-Term Goals: - Find the right vocational training (right word again? ) - Have a dog - get back my individual responsibility (right word again? ^^) - feel obliged to me, I say I do and I do! - be happy with myself and my life - live healthy and stay fit, become even more fit! - care for myself, there is just one me - be self-aware, know my skills, abilities and traits and be able to communicate and use them - handle my finances in a better way - live and work in France Short-Term Goals: - do some internships - get a side job - go back to my Muay Thai Gym, also doing yoga there - join the tough mudder in summer (Hamburg) - keep on running, dancing and doing sports - keep going to the social dance parties - learn how to train healthy - get some regeneration and relaxation habits - become defined - special running goals until february: 15 km in one run (i do 12 right now), 5 km run in under 5 minutes per kilometer (i do about 5:20 right now) - improve my eating habits - travel and camp in the Carpatians and on the Irish coast - be more kind and fair to myself - sleep healthy - look into the mirror and smile (every day) - generally more caring for my mental health - find a way to structure the week - get some new input from others - improve my French And especially for this forum: Plan and do my first 4 Week Challenge, also log it for myself and maybe others! So this is a lot, I sometimes think it is too much, I have to add another short-term goal then: Prioritize and focus! Well, thank you if you read this, it is hell of a lot and more than I first thought it woud be. As I really need to change something and I am the only one who is able to do it for me there needs to be a start, and this start shall be today If you have any questions or remarks feel free to ask or message me. I am always happy if I get tips, help or hints, may it be lifehacks or tools, or even some small things which change little. I know i have to take small steps to improve and get better, too often I was greedy, took the big step and fell. I would also be glad to find a wingman (or sidekick as it is called here). I know it helps if feel kind of obliged to someone else with my tasks. Best Greetings, Sir Pinguin P.S.: Oh, and I nearly forgot a short story which always drives a tear into my eye and is basically all I wrote extensivly in a comprimised, but nearly perfect form: There is a story about a pengiun told by the German doctor Eckart von Hirschhausen. Well, I am not that penguin and I will never be, but this story is still inspiring my and teaches me what I want to achieve: I will always be myself, a penguin. I wont fly to the moon and reach for the stars, i will never win a rally in a desert and I will never reach the highest tree. But when I finally reach my element, I will swim like noone else, I will dance in the sea and keep those warm who are close to me... and most important I will be happy with what I got.

Hi, I'm Katura, or Katya, or Kat. Any of those work. I'm looking forward to improving my fitness with you all.

Heya I'm new to Nerd Fitness and am looking to get involved in the community... I'm a boxer (just starting out again--and struggling to do so--after a very long absence), so I'd love to meet some other NF folks who are into that, but if you're not, that's Okay, too. I have a lot of great friends IRL, but not a lot of friends who are interested in fitness, unfortunately, so I'm reaching out here to see who I can find. Excited to meet you!

Hey! I've found NF two days ago after looking at myself in the mirror and thinkin "I need to finally take care of myself". But maybe let's start with an introduction (I hope this forum is alive and well btw ;)) I'm (almost) 26 years old. I work as a web developer in Poland. My first encounter with a gym was when I was around 16-17 years old. I've always been a very skinny kid, and in a couple of months in the gym I've managed to gain a little bit of muscle and look somewhat healthy. Unfortunately I've abandoned that habit and never managed to get back on track consistently. I'm struggling to build a healthy habit of exercising and eating well. Some of my unhealthy and destructive habits are getting in the way also, so there are two fronts to manage for me. I think my biggest problem was always trying to do a thousand things at once (that's why NF philosophy brought me here - it's sound like a perfect solution for my situation and an awesome community as a bonus to that :)). Right now I'm trying to get into calisthenics, I feel too nervous to get back to gym and workout with other people. I just don't feel comfortable enough with myself to make that kind of wourkouts sustainable. I feel anxious even writing about it. Before I started to work as a programmer, I was working night shifts at a club as a bartender. This kind of work requires a lot of movement, so I haven't got any problems with maintaining my weight. Unfortunately, now it's a lot more of sitting and trying to figure out why is something not working and I'm starting to see negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle. I would describe myself as a skinny-fat person with more and more "fat" than "skinny". Recently my blood tests showed a TSH thyroid hormone above the norm (I looked up some info and it seems that people my age should have this near the lower limit), so I'm pretty scared that's a beginning of something bad. I've been thinking about my "big why", and there are multiple reasons for why I would like to get rid of my bad habits, build new ones, shake off my mental and emotional baggage and start living as a 26 year old man is supposed to live (right now I think I feel older than a typical 26-er). First of all - I would like to feel manly and attractive to women again. I live in a long-term relationship with a woman I love, but I just feel that there's a pattern that after some time together, most people just stop working on themselves. I've seen this pattern in my previous relationship and in my friends' relationships. I just feel invisible for other women. Don't get me wrong - I don't want to cheat on my girlfriend, I just want to feel attractive to her and more manly. I think that feeling attractive to other women is a part of this. Right now me and my girlfriend are both falling in and out with different workouts and "diets". I just don't feel that's right, because we're not getting any results. In fact, I feel like I'm spiraling down when it comes to my health, fitness, attractiveness, you name it. Second big thing is health problems in my family. My mom died of cancer three years ago. Her mother also died of cancer. My grandfather from my dad's side died from leukemia (it's basically a blood cancer). It's become something of a phobia for me, especially after my mom passed away. They died pretty young (my grandma was 66, my mom 51). My living grandma has diabetes and is basically unable to walk cause of her obesity. All she's able to do is sit in front of TV and watch brainwash-stupid shows. My parents were smokers (my mom smoked even when she was in the middle of her chemo), my dad is smoking a pack a day to this day. I was a smoker myself. I think I was an addict by age 15-16 till my early 20's. I was a miserable construction student, chain-smoking two packs a day. Destructive relationship also threw me into more and more booze to manage my anger and resentment. On top of that, I found out that my mom is sick at the time, so that only deepened my problems. I think it was the first time I thought about suicide. There were days that I had no money for food because I bough booze and cigarettes earlier. I haven't finish college and after my return back home I decided that I have to do something about my smoking and drinking. That's when I found some pushups, pullups and running routines and that period lasted for something about 8-9 months. I was in the best shape I was ever in my entire life - that's what I would like to strive for and even further ;). OK, im floating away from the topic - I don't want to be miserable and sick when I'm older, I want to be an active and happy senior, and live long and well. I wan't to live to see my grandchildren and to be a role model for my kids. I wan't to be a good father with an energy to pay attention to his kids and be able to guide and aid them with their struggles in life. I don't want to be dependend on medication and spend my senior years sitting in hospitals' waiting rooms. Third "why" is discipline and ability to stick to my goals. I have a problem with concentration, being productive at work and stick to my fitness goals. I feel overwhelmed with things that I want to accomplish and I need to work towards a maintainable system to manage all of it. I think that working out can benefit with sense of discipline mentioned earlier and help to create a ripple effect on other aspects of my life. In some sense, I want to become a good-habit-machine After all - i just want to have a happy and fullfilling life and I'm ready to fight for it. I just feel that I've tried so many times to do this on my own and I've learned that I'm not as strong as I thought I was. I need help and I hope that I will find like-minded people and we will finally strive to get each other out of our personal mess. Wow...that sound very pessimistic when I look at it after writing it all I hope you didn't get the wrong picture of me - overall I think I'm OK, I have my struggles and flaws that I need and want to work on, and I would love to be a part of this community and help anyone in need as good as I can Hope I didn't scare you off P.S. Feel more than welcome to correct me if you find anything wrong with my english! ! !

Hey Everyone! I decided to join the community to try to have some support during my journey of trying to tone up and lose fat. Also, I joined so I can learn more about what my goals mean and how to more effectively reach them. Even though I do have a good amount of knowledge on health, food, exercise, mental health and wellness and things of the like, I just thought that joining a community reaching different health goals could help!

Hullo all! I'm James Penhallurick, a games design graduate, and currently self employed illustrator! I'm not entirely new to fitness and health, just over 3 years ago I was quite active, going to the gym at least 3 times a week, generally being more active than I am now! I've been on and off routines for the last 2 years, and now that I'm less busy in life, I've decided enough is enough! I want to get back to doing it all properly as I really enjoyed it! I do have a gym membership but I'm totally open to trying out new things, I'm relatively average size, bulked up a bit, currently looking to lose a little bit of pudge to get some definition, but ultimately I would like to be bigger, muscle wise. I've taken a look at the main site and there's so many awesome resources to see but I have no idea where to start, so I figured I'd post here! I'm looking to ease myself back into it all, but keep it interesting so I don't lose that initial motivation burst! Would love some suggestions! Also I'll add a photo of my derpy self if it gives you an idea of my current size. Many thanks, James

Hello fellow Rebels! I'm very excited to find a group of people who share my affinity for nerd culture! A friend of mine told me about Nerd Fitness last Wednesday and I've been reading articles and Steve's book and working through the angry bird challenge and doing my best at paleo. I'm super excited about being the best me I can be and it's been rough because I've got no accountability, so in the past everything I've started I just gruadually stopped doing and I didn't have anyone to be like "hey, did you get this done?" I'm 22 with a beautiful 6 month old daughter and beautiful wife who is carrying baby number two. Three years ago I went through open heart surgery to replace a bad pulmonary valve and I've done little to no work to keep my body healthy. I've decided this time will be different. I've been reading about bodyweight excersises I can do at home(something I knew literally nothing about prior to this week) and buying my groceries to fit the paleo mindset. I'm really excited about this fitness journey and can't wait to see where it goes, to push myself to health so I can watch my children get old and grow old with my beautiful wife. so that's me, a 22 year old father and husband who wants to survive to be present for my family! Excited to Assemble, Captain Fantastic

Hi all. This is Dorcha. I usually go by Druid on the net but as that is an actual thing with your nifty organization, I changed it up. I'm 29 (almost 30...holy cow) and non-binary. I currently have a fairly sedentary job at a law firm but used to work in the theme park business where things were more active. I'm currently semi-active but the 20s metabolism crash definitely got to me. I would like to lose about 25-30ish pounds. Slow metabolism is a pain. Haven't been a part of a forum in about fifteen years or so, but thought I'd give this forum a try anyway. Last forum I was a part of was a Zelda one. Man, I'm getting old. I also recently jointed Rising Heroes and was recruited by Tyrus. I fence occasionally, ride bikes, do Yoga occasionally, read a bunch, play video games, and love long walks. Currently have a home gym (of sorts) where I do at least a portion of my active life. Pleasure to meet all your acquaintances.

Hi NF community, new here and just saying hello... Friendly geek of mine suggested I join as would be a nice way to meet some new people with my similar interests.... gym, health, comics, games and general geek stuff..

Hi there! My name is Kristen and I'm new to Nerd Fitness forums! I've actually been following Nerd Fitness Academy and I've been on the Rebel Women FB page, but this is my first time checking out the forums. Forums, in general, are completely new to me, but I think being connected with you all here will be a super valuable resource! I've already lost 20lbs following the program and eating paleo (yay!) but I want to reach my doctor's "recommended" weight which is 175lbs. I'm currently 225. 50lbs... YEESH. I don't think it's impossible, but it will be difficult, which is why I would love to have a "Jedi council" of friends to help guide me in this journey. I never thought I could lose the first 20lbs, so who's to stop me from losing the other 50lbs? My game plan is simple... Level up by taking small steps. Eating paleo 80/20, working out 5 days a week (NF bodyweight plan & Wii exercises). Things I could use some help/advice with: Epic Quest List: I have no idea how to structure quests. I know what I want to do, but I'm not sure how to create steps for the quest. Bullet Journaling: I think this is a huge thing for Rebels to help them track progress, and I want to get on board! Not sure where to start though... Jedi Council: Looking for people to level up with! Either that I can mentor or that would be willing to mentor me. Guilds: Still deciding what guild to join, but I'm leaning towards Adventurers... Thanks for reading Rebels!!

Hey y'all, I'm Indy and I'm new here. I've been an email subscriber to nerd fitness articles for forever now and decided to finally take a step into your world. While I love Tabletop games I've never been much of a RPG player so I'm not sure how all this guild/levels/race stuff works, bear with me as I figure it out lol. I'm a 28 year old female who enjoys reading and writing. I'm overweight and want to get my health back, while losing weight would be a plus my main goal is to just be healthy. Baby steps are the way for me, I'm in this for the long haul not some quick fix. No my real name is not Indyannie but wouldn't that be sweet if it was. I've just always been a fan of Indiana Jones and I figured if I take on the name then I have big shoes to fill so I better not let him down. I keep trying to upload a picture but it doesn't seem to want to work, any thoughts would be appreciated. Guess that's it for now -Indy

So I've been on the email list for a while with nerd fitness and never really looked into the forums and what this really was. I love that its a community that supports each other! Figured I'd give it a try. About me: I grew up in a small town in Florida, spent years working on a neighbors farm as a kid and became a competitive figure skate which is quite the dichotomy. I have always been pretty nerdy, sci fi, computer programming, and into tech. After many years of training for figure skating and working on the farm I had to quit doing the skating because of knee surgeries and moved away from the country to start a career after college. for the last 15 years I have slowly gained weight till I hit 250lbs over the holidays. I freaked out and started to get depressed only to step back and realize its all been about my decision on what food to put in my body and that I have the choice to exercise and not lay around on my couch watching Syfy network. I made very positive changes and have slowly been switching to a paleo diet and walking at least 6 days a week. I really believe the Paleo diet is whats changing my weight more than the walking. I no longer feel tired all the time I get up with energy and just really feel so much better even my moods are better. I have lost 18lbs so I am down to 232lbs and still working on it. I was being tested for diabetes constantly, and i had high cholesterol now my cholesterol is normal and the blood sugar issues are slowly going away. I hope to meet others on here going through the same struggles that I can cheer on and can cheer me on. Shaka1268

Hello! I'm idealist. I'm a newcomer to this board and a college student. I discovered this board through googling 'parkour' (I've wanted to do parkour since freshman year), read a bunch of the links, and thought it was a breath of fresh air from the usual television-doctor type of garbage that took advantage of women's anxiety about their appearance and made money off of it. This cynicism stopped me from making any plans to improve my health even after my mom called me fat. Would I be giving in to their game? Don't get me wrong, part of my motivation for working out is getting rid of my gut and losing weight, but I'd also wanted to be able to DO more things. Like running. Part of what inspired me was the section about creating a superhero alter-ego and asking what they would do instead of giving up during a workout. I wanted to feel like I could live up to that and be more awesome. I've just finished my first challenge today and I would like to post about how that went. Don't get me wrong, I'm feel pretty good about how I did. I'm more comfortable with eating vegetables now. I've gone from having difficulty running even 5 minutes to running 20 minutes almost in a row for the first time today. As a lifelong hater of egg-dishes, I've made my first omelet. I've discovered that I can do a lot more things if I just try harder. Maybe I could even do a 5k in the not-so-distant future, and I've never really thought of myself as a marathon runner. Before: After: However, I'm still not exactly on the ball yet. I'm overweight. I haven't met my goal of doing strength training every few days (I've probably done it 7 times over 6 weeks!) I haven't met my life challenge of socializing more at all. I'm starting to slip diet-wise, buying sugary coffee drinks during the school day in order to get a quick burst of energy and eating sugary cereal for breakfast because it's easier than making my own meal. I'm worried about running during the winter because I prefer the outdoors to running on an indoor track or on a treadmill, plus the days are getting a lot shorter so I might as well kiss my standard after-dinner running goodbye . So I'll keep posting on this board so that people can get me to snap out of unhealthy habits. Not really looking for anyone to tell me I'm making too many excuses (I know that already), just some constructive criticism and encouragement would be nice. I enjoy literature (especially anything more modern/russian and poetry, Gibran and Whiman among my favorites), music (classical and rock in general), and some film/t.v. every once in a while. Although I like Kirk more, Picard was by far the better captain. I apologize if I come off as haughty, I'm just tired right now and tend to get rather too talkative when I'm like this. Goodnight!

Hi everyone, My name is Aaron Kantrowitz and I'm a new member of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion! This site really caught my eye since I discovered it today. This seems more like a movement and not simply just another blog or community. I'm 28, an IT professional, web developer/designer and expectant father! While I love tech, I know how it comes with some unhealthy habits such as snacking and being sedentary. I've learned over the past 2 years that you must get up and be active throughout the day. Finding my passion for fitness and health over the past year has been such a wonderful experience. I truly look forward to connecting with everyone here! Cheers.

Hello I am new to the Rebellion and I was born an elf and I want to eventually be a monk/assassin/warrior hybrid (I want the speak and power of a monk the strength of a warrior and the body, flexibility, and agility of an assassin) I know it sounds crazy (or the perfect fighter). Well anyways I have a question for anyone out there who can answer it. My GF wants to lose some fat around her belly but due to something that happened when she was little she has ABSOLUTELY no control over her core muscles (the closest thing she can do to flexing her stomach is sucking in her gut). So she can't do push ups or crunches or stuff like that because when she dose instead of using her core muscles she uses her back instead which if you are doing crunches or push ups or something like that she might evently hurt herself doing that. So my question is what can she do to work out and lose the fat right there when she can't use her core muscles (she seems to be able to use the muscles on the side of your belly just not the core muscles). If ANYONE can give any suggestions we would be extremely grateful. Please and thank you Billy Stanley

How are you doin' I don't have IDEA how did i get here, but it's been a while since i started reading some articles, and i have to say, I liked the blog A LOT, so i told my self... why not join the forum? i mean, it's been years since i joined and actively participated in a forum, so, why not? . I'm from south america, 23 y/o, college student (public management) and well... i like a lot of things, nerdy stuff included, so i think i can fit in here, i mean, i'm pretty sure someone has to like Zelda, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, A Song of Ice and Fire, memes, Charlie the Unicorn, Chrono Trigger, Star Wars amongst other things Lookin' forward to contribute to the community, to learn, and to be, sometime soon, an "assassin" Take Care!

Oh hey Rebellion, I have been reading NerdFitness for a little bit of time now, and I have loved it! I actually have loved it so much that I have decided to just join the community and see what happens. Just as a quick intro, I'm a nerd who is graduating from my master's program like, in three weeks. I have a pretty decent workout routine and I am starting P90X for the third time, hopefully the second time I actually finish it I am looking into getting into trail running and I have a feeling the rebellion will have some tips for me. I would like to be able to continue to do strength training as I prep for trail running. Any tips on trail running prep? I figure this is a good starting place to get such advice Thanks guys, cannot wait to get more involved with the community. Eric Pete!

Hi, I've been reading the blog for a month or so but have just joined and got the fitness guide. I'm a web developer, desk job, but (when in great shape) I'm definitely a Ranger type, athletic build and a little of everything workout-wise. I lost 50 lbs about 8 years ago and started working on re-losing 28 of it a couple of months ago, rather half-heartedly. But now I've made good progress at making running a habit again and am down 20 lbs to go. I need some help with strength training, I'm doing the Angry Birds workout along with short runs now but want to do more (without getting injured). I've done a couple of half-marathons years ago and have signed up for a 10K in May. That's my next big goal running-wise. I'm also playing racquetball weekly again which is awesome cross-training, and tracking my food with My Fitness Pal. I'm looking forward to joining the next Challenge too. Happy to be here, looking for connections for mutual support/encouragement. Are there groups I should join?

Hello! I'm a wife and a first time mom. I have a beautiful daughter who brings me so much joy .... and drives me kinda crazy... on a daily basis. Honestly I'm blessed to be able to stay home with her most of the time, but I work also. I work 2 or 3 12-hour overnight shifts a week as a nurse. I've never been teeny tiny, but my weight started bothering me enough for me to actually do something consistantly after my daughter was born. 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 months after her birth, and I had not lost any of the pregnancy weight keeping me at an unhealthy 210lbs. Just to be clear... I still weighed the same that I weighed fully pregnant at 40 weeks!!! So in January I decided it was really time for a change. I started working out and counting my calories. I've lost 12 lbs eating 1530-2100 calories a day and doing Turbo Jam (40 minutes) or Zumba (50 minutes) 4-6 times a week. Last week I had to stop my work-outs because my knee had begun to hurt. I felt kind of disgruntled with the whole thing and though I'd start something different to keep my momentum up. Part of my idea for this journey is not to spend a bunch of money (no gym membership, new bike, lots of new equipment etc) SO I had decided to try body weight circuits. I stumbled across Nerd Fitness and I was hooked!! I read the Basic Body Weight Circuit and really liked Steve's support of people working out at home. I decided to read some other articles, and I literally had to stop myself and go to bed!!! haha. After reading Staci's story I decided to jump in with both feet. She is what I've always wanted to look like!!! My Goals: -Basic Body Weight Routine MWF -Start eating Paleo by Monday 3/18 -Weigh weekly on Friday Morning. I'm hoping for a weight loss of 1 lb a week, but I anticipate a little delay as I figure out what works with my work-outs and Paleo -Measurements once monthly on the first Friday of every month starting in April - Figure out how cardio factors into my workouts in the next two weeks - Buy some calipers in the next two weeks to start measuring body fat Seems like a lot maybe, but if I'm gonna do this... I'm gonna do it.